Where Your Treasure Is.

Happy Sunday. If we haven't met, my name's Abbie and we're just so happy that on this random cloudy spring Sunday, that you all found your way here and decided to join us. We're excited to dive into the word together.

If you are new here or just picking up, we have been in the Sermon on the Mount for a long time. We did it leading up until Easter, and now we're in the second half of the Sermon on the Mount, walking through the book of Matthew. If you have your Bibles, you can turn to Matthew chapter six. If you don't have your Bibles, we should have the text on the screen as well.

We're going to be reading Matthew chapter six, starting in verse 19:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness? No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate one and love the other, or you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Matthew 6:19-24

Let's pray. God, we thank you so much for your word that is alive and active. God, we thank you for this space today that we get to come, that we get to encounter your presence through your word, through interacting and engaging in community with one another.

God, I pray for that for these next few moments. Would your Holy Spirit illuminate the text? God, would you speak to us in unique ways? Would you help us to walk out of this place knowing just how loved we are by you and being more committed to pour that love back, being more committed to your presence and closer to you, Jesus? We ask this in your name. Amen.

Where is your heart

Our so what for the day is this. If you get one thing out of this as we walk through the text, Jesus is not asking us to give up pleasure, everything that is good in life, but rather he's inviting us into this deeper joy. Jesus is using this moment with his disciples to invite us into a life that is rooted in the kingdom of God. This is what we really long for. This is what we were created for. This is what, until we finally receive the fullness of Jesus and his presence, we will continue to crave until we get it.

And so now what do we do with this? Step one is going to be take inventory and then practice intentionally. We're going to ask ourselves these questions and have this check-in moment today of saying, where is my heart? What am I looking at? What am I worshiping?

If you're taking notes today, that's our so what and our now what. We're picking up in the Sermon on the Mount. We walked through Matthew 5 and now we're in chapter 6. We have read what has happened so far. Jesus enters the scene. Jesus is baptized. In Matthew chapter four, he goes into the wilderness where he fasted for 40 days and was tempted and he overcame. Then we see the start of his public ministry where he calls his disciples to come close and follow him. He sits them down on the Mount of Beatitudes and starts with all of these things. We see a couple of different sections where he focuses on the law and this whole new way to live, this counter-cultural way to live. Then he talks about prayer and the practice of prayer. The Lord's prayer was a couple of weeks ago. He's talking about all of these religious practices.

Now Jesus is getting into what does it look like to live righteously? What does it look like to live in right relationship? When you read this entire section at first, it can be a little confusing where you're like, what is happening? If you're reading it in your Bible, often the Bible is broken up into different sections with different headers. But this is all one passage. We're talking about treasure and then things getting stolen. Now we're talking about the eye as the lamp of the body. Then we're talking about money and masters and all of these things. These are not three different sections, but rather three different ways that Jesus is illustrating.

I think one of the main things he wants us to get and check in about is worship and idolatry. Who or what are we seeking? Who or what are we gazing at? Who or what are we serving?

He starts with this first idea of storing up treasures in heaven. So our first inventory today that I want us to think about as we walk through this text is storing. Where is your heart? For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

I couldn't find any recent data, but when I'm preparing messages, I go on all sorts of rabbit trails. I was thinking about how when I drive home to my house tonight, I'm going to pass like five or six different storage units. Anybody else feel like all you see when driving around is storage units? Why do we have so many?

In 2018, the last study I could find said that the United States had over 23 million self-storage units. That's roughly one for every 14 people in the United States. Why is that?

Well, sometimes it's like an in-between thing. We know all the reasons. But in general, think about it. Why do we hold so tight? Why do we store things? A common practical one is, well, in case you might need it again. You never know when you're going to need it again, so you store it.

Another reason that we store things is it's a way to ensure that we can provide for ourselves later. This idea that we're like, well, we're going to keep it for later because if we let go of it now, there might not be more where that came from. That's what my attic is filled with, totes of clothing that I'm like, well, someday I might need that again. Maybe someday. But we store all of these things.

I want to talk about how this would have looked culturally in the language that's used here. So treasures and wealth in the Greco-Roman and Jewish cultural world that we're entering into when we're reading this text, first century Judaism and Greco-Roman world, wealth was often associated with possessions and things, but it was also associated with honor, divine favor, and social status. So it was more than just possessions.

However, just like today, a lot of your wealth then was displayed and a lot of the way that you felt that wealth was through your physical things and your possessions. The idea of moth and rust destroy. What is this idea of moths destroying things? Moth eating clothes were a thing back in the day. Essentially, these were your finest wool garments, and they had to be stored but not worn for a while. You would protect these linen woolen type of garments and put them away. What would happen at this time is tiny cloth moths would come in and lay their eggs in the creases and folds as you were storing it away. Then all of a sudden they would destroy and eat your clothing. Jesus when he's saying this, they would have understood that culturally.

The next thing is stealing and theft. This was super common then because a lot of the homes didn't have door locks. Doors were not common. Their homes were made of mud and brick and things that made it really easy for people to come in and steal.

Jesus is reminding us here that in a sense nothing is safe. He's kind of saying, you can try all that you want to store up, to save everything, to protect everything, but at some point it's like nothing's safe. Before you freak out, next week is kind of part two where he says, do not be anxious about anything. We're safe with Jesus. He's basically saying you're putting all this time and energy into trying to store up and save these things from being stolen or from being eaten or from being destroyed. But he's saying those are not eternal things. That is not worth the time and energy and investment to that.

I want us to keep coming back as we walk through this today through the illustrations Jesus is using about this heart orientation. Jesus is not so much concerned about what you physically own, but about what is owning you. And there is a huge difference. Because you can own a lot of things and they cannot own you. And you can own very few things and it can completely own and rule your world. It can completely dictate how you make decisions and who you're living for.

Jesus is not anti-wealth here, but he's anti a wasted life. He's anti us using the things that we have for anything but his glory. As we talk about this today, I want us to remember that it's not about what you own, but about what's owning you. It's not about how much wealth you have, but what are you doing with that? How are we not wasting everything that God is giving us, but instead surrendering it and stewarding it for the sake of his kingdom?

What I love about this passage so much, though, is where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. It's very rarely that we see something so plain and simple like this, where you're like, here's kind of your how-to. You want to grow your heart for the Lord and his kingdom? Give and invest in those things, right? You want to grow your heart for something else? Give and invest in those things. In a way, Jesus is saying, you can tell your heart where to go and here's how you do it.

A couple years ago, I was in San Francisco for one of the first times I had been there. I had one of those days where I didn't have to fly out until later in the evening. Everybody else that was on this work trip with me had left in the morning. I was like, okay, I'm going to explore a little bit. I texted somebody that I knew that used to live there. I was like, where do I go? What should I do?

They're like, oh, head to this neighborhood. So I put in an address and was like, okay, like she said, go to this neighborhood. I just looked at that neighborhood and kind of picked a corner and was like, sure, drop me off at the corner of this and this and I'll be in that neighborhood.

As we're getting closer, it was like one of the Ubers where it has the screen showing where we're going. All of a sudden I looked at the location it was actually sending me to. It was a place that I wouldn't want to publicly be dropped off at. I wouldn't want anyone to see me coming in or out of this place. I started, I was like, oh no, oh no. And I'm like, what does this driver think about me? We were just chatting. I told him I'm a pastor. I told him all this stuff and now he's taking me there.

Here's the thing. You don't just get in an Uber and hope it takes you somewhere good. What do you do? You tell it where to go and it takes you there. And here's a good thing. On that little iPad thing on the back of the seat, I can change directions in route. And that's the good news for us today, that even if we find ourselves, we find our hearts and our desires and our lives are growing and going in directions that do not lead us closer to the kingdom of heaven, it is not too late for us to pause and say, I'm going to change directions. Even in route, I am going to stop and say that's not where I want to go anymore.

We don't have to just hope that we're going to grow closer to Jesus. We can actually every single day make conscious decisions to say, where our treasure is, there our heart will be also. I'm going to invest into kingdom things. I'm going to invest into people. I'm going to invest into what Jesus would be doing and grow my heart in that way.

We don't just have to get in, sit down, and hope we show up somewhere good. We do have participation in the kingdom work.

Where are you looking

The next question is to see, where are you looking? The next illustration that Jesus uses is this. The eye is the lamp of the body. Look in the direction you want to go.

Anybody else remember riding a bike for the first time? All of a sudden it's like you try taking your hands off and you're like, yes, this is it, no-handed, and you feel so superior. But then you realize you start headed off the side of the road. It's because you're looking that way and you're going to follow the things that you're looking at. Your body, your life is going to follow that.

Anybody been around or maybe you are this friend where you're walking next to someone and you're like, we were walking straight, but why am I in the middle of the road now? Because they just keep getting closer and closer and closer. The things that we fixate on, we start to follow.

So we have choices to say, if we don't like where we're going, we can change where we're looking and our lives start to follow that way. Jesus is using this ancient Jewish metaphor. The eye as the lamp here, in Jewish thought, when saying the eye is the lamp of the body, they viewed the eye as the window to the soul. How grand is that? Window to the soul.

It was this idea that a good or single eye implied generosity, clarity, and focus. So when you have that single vision, it's like you're focused, you're in. A bad eye meant greed, envy. You're looking in all these different directions. You always want more. This is highlighting how our perspectives shape our inner life. The things that we look at, the things we fixate on, they form us internally.

So what does it look like for us to have healthy eyes? What does it look like for us to continue to look to Jesus and for that to be the lens that we put everything through?

And then the last one. To serve. Who do you worship? You cannot serve both God and money or some translations say mammon.

This is where we talk about how do we take inventory and how do we intentionally practice serving who we want to become? How do we not just wake up every day and say, I hope that I become more like Jesus? I hope that I start to love like him and live like him? I hope I get to encounter more of his goodness and his presence? But how do we take inventory and be really honest with ourselves to say, where are we at? Where is my heart? What am I looking at? What am I gazing at? Who am I serving? Who am I worshiping?

Mammon is derived from an Aramaic word for wealth or possessions. But over time, it came to personify this idea of greed and materialism, a false god, idolatry. Jesus is framing this again not as money versus no money, but worship versus idolatry. Money is not bad. How we use our money matters. It's not about do we have wealth, but are we going to use it and not waste our lives away?

It's not about what we own, but who owns us. This language of serving two masters was also very common for them as many people would have been under the oppression of slavery or their ancestors would have been. They would have known about this very personally. They would have close ties to this. This idea, you cannot serve more than one master. You only have one.

What's really hard, and I've talked about this, is that most religions globally have this idea where you serve one master, you serve one religion. If you are to go and start practicing another religion in many parts of the world, your life is at risk if you choose to follow or switch religions. But what's really dangerous about where we live in the United States is that it's really easy for us to just pretend that we can serve more than one master.

It's really easy for us to be here on a Sunday and then to never do anything else with it and to not actually practice or talk to Jesus every single day of the week. It's really easy for us to convince ourselves. But Jesus is using this extreme illustration of masters in saying, you can't, because they would have known that it is impossible. You can't. You have one person that you have allegiance to.

We need this reminder again and again in our lives that we cannot serve God and anything else. It is Jesus or it's not. There's really no in between.

Forming practices

What does this look like for us to lean into these practices? What does it look like for us to be people that are storing up our treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy, where thieves do not break in and steal? Because where our treasure is, there our heart will be also. We sang about it today that at the end of it all, Jesus is our reward. Jesus is the one that we long for. It's his presence.

I want to talk about some practices that can be counter-formative for this. Because one of the things that is really easy for us to talk about is, okay, we want God to come in and heal us of all these things. We want him to take away our sins and all of this. But then we have a responsibility to partner with God in training ourselves to live. That takes practice. That's why we talk about this so much of how do we create the culture of Christ? How do we practice being like Jesus every single day of our lives? It takes practice.

The first practice I want to talk about is generosity and simplicity. If we're finding ourselves being fed by greed, a practice to overcome that is generosity. And I want to start by talking about generosity and simplicity.

One of the ways that we often talk about generosity within the church is through our finances, through our giving. A lot of times if you've been in church, you kind of like, I don't really know why we do this, but we just do. Or maybe you do know why but you still don't really get it. What is this all about?

We see that there were laws in the Old Testament that talked about the tithe. Even today, when we say give our tithes and our offerings, we talk about this. The tithe was considered 10 percent, the first 10 percent of any produce that you had on the land. We see this in Leviticus 27:30:

A tenth of the produce of the land, whether grain or fruit, is the Lord's and is holy.

Leviticus 27:30

Proverbs 3:9 has a verse about this:

Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of your crops.

Proverbs 3:9

We see in the Old Testament that it was first. Abraham was the first one to practice this. It was in response to something that God had done. He laid down his first fruits and he laid down that offering. Then in the Old Testament, it became just who they were. Like they just practiced this. It was a part of who they were.

So why do we still talk about this in the church today? A lot of times people are like, well, does Jesus actually say this? But if we actually look at what the New Testament says, it goes from giving your first fruits, giving a tenth, into we see the church in Acts, where they shared everything that they had with each other. So it really went far from like, we're not just going to give a little bit, but we're actually going to be all in and give all that we have to Jesus.

We see in Acts chapter 2, verses 44 through 45 that they gathered together and they shared everything that they had with each other. It really went far from just giving a little bit. They were actually all in and gave all that they had to Jesus.

When we talk about generosity, I still think that today, even though tithing is not like some mark of salvation, it's not something that's required to follow Jesus, but it is a formative practice that helps us grow in our generosity over and over again. It breaks that grip of greed that is deep down in our hearts and in our lives. This is a formative practice.

What I think is so necessary for us as followers of Jesus and why practicing tithing and practicing generosity and being so intentional with it is crucial is because we know money matters in our lives. Money puts roofs over our heads. It keeps us fed. It keeps us alive. Having a practice where we are intentionally, week after week, saying, God, I am giving up control of this and I am trusting you with my money, one of the most powerful things that provides for my life, does something to you as we continue to surrender over and over again.

It's also a piece of this kingdom strategy when we get to see what we get to do together that we could never do on our own. One of my favorite things, even as a church, I love when I get to talk about the ways that we have been able to be generous to our community. Last year, last Christmas, just a few months ago, we took a missions offering for over 18,000 dollars. That was crazy looking around and saying, how does this happen? One of us could not do that on our own, but together we're able to go and call our missions partners in Honduras and be like, yes, we're giving to this home that's rescuing women from trafficking.

We're getting to call our missionaries in Thailand and be like, not only are we coming back to visit, but we're sending more. We get to do things like just yesterday, someone and I got to do one of our care portal deliveries, which is helping families that are in crisis and need things to help provide for their kids to keep them out of the foster care system. We're able to go and bless these families and be in their homes and bring them practical things. Be generous and show like God is a show and tell God. He didn't just say, I love you, but he showed it in the way Jesus gave his life. When we live as little Christs walking around this earth, we get to be people that don't only just say Jesus loves you, but we get to show in our generosity and the way that we provide for people.

When we give as a church and when we come together with our tithes and our offerings, we get to be a part of this kingdom strategy. I did something else a little crazy in my research this week. I wanted to know, because I've read some studies of not only how many people give, but what would happen if everybody that claims to be a Christian actually gave 10 percent of their income. According to a 2024 Pew Research study, 247 million people identify as Christian in the United States.

If this is based on the annual median income of 13.9 trillion dollars, that would be how much we could have. The average that Christians give total is 50 to 60 billion per year. Some of the basic needs for people around the world to just live and survive are things like clean water. It's estimated that if we had 25 billion dollars, we could get access to clean water.

Foster care costs in the United States are roughly 32 billion dollars a year. These really practical things that you look at and you're like, one person or one church or one denomination could not give trillions of dollars to foster care or to get access to clean water around the world. But every single day, when we give what we have, when we continue to invest in the kingdom, this is what we could be a part of.

When I look at where we're at as a church and here in the city in Madison, and I see that every single day we have opportunities to be radically generous, I want to say, how do we continue to form ourselves into people that live like that? How do we form ourselves into people that say, we're not storing up in case we need it later because we trust that if we need it, then God's going to provide again?

How do we become people that we're not just holding so tight because we're so scared of will we have enough for tomorrow? But instead we're giving freely because we trust God's going to provide time and time again like he always has. As I share this with you today, I feel a little vulnerable and insensitive because this is hard. I recognize this. For us to live into the kingdom reality that has come, that is here, that is not yet coming, it really takes the power of the Holy Spirit. Because I, on my own, I'm scared sometimes of like, two months from now, will I have enough to provide?

Right? Like me and my flesh, I get a little freaked out and panicky when I even read some of these things. I think there's no way. I can get overwhelmed by what's happening. But what I want us to see is that Jesus, he's telling us time and time again, like our investments are worth it. What he is doing in eternity is so much greater than the things that we're trying to hold so tight to here in this moment.

How do we land in the land? How do we practice things like generosity? How does that form us into people that we are no longer tied to greed? Or as I read this, I'm like, or scarcity. Because I think sometimes greed is a result of scarcity. When we don't truly understand or trust that God is going to continue to provide, we hold even tighter.

The next practice I want to talk about is Sabbath. This is a way that we continue to declare that our value is not in what we can do, but in who God is and who he created us to be. This might seem interesting of like how does this help us overcome materialism and idolatry? But think about it. The idea of taking a full day of rest, I mean, one, that takes a lot of work. I recognize as I say that, this is an insane privilege. Even for us as a church, my heart is being like, how do we continue to look around and say, okay, we need to practice rest? We need to practice Sabbath. We need to help each other do this as a community.

What does that look like for us to be people that we know how to live not for rest, but from a place of rest? Where we're not just working, producing, producing, and then taking a vacation once a year? But we have regular rhythms of rest. Whether that's following our Daily Rhythms of saying every single day we're going to start our mornings in prayer and Scripture. We're going to pause throughout our day, even if just five minutes, to delight in the Lord, to recognize where we've seen God in our midst.

What does that look like for us to be people that we know how to stop, that we know how to surrender, that we know how to delight in the Lord? Because I think those small moments of Sabbath rest and delighting in the Lord, that's what keeps us grounded in him truly being our reward. Us truly recognizing that his presence is what we're after when we slow down long enough to see it.

And then I want to talk about simplicity. How does this help us overcome the materialism and idolatry? John Mark Comer talks about this kind of list in The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. There's a film you can Google and it's available places online called The True Cost. It talks about the fashion industry. This is one example of why practice simplicity? Why practice living with less? Why practice not giving into greed and the idea of more?

Well, as we talk about as a church, we have given significant amounts to anti-trafficking organizations both locally and globally. One in six people in the world work in the fashion industry. Tens of millions of people work in the fashion industry and most of them make less than three dollars a day. Most of them are women. Fashion is the number two polluting industry in the world, second only to the oil industry.

As recently as the 1960s, we were making 95 percent of our clothes in the United States. Now it's less than 3 percent. Almost all of our clothes are made in Southeast Asia. Over the last 20 years due to globalization, the price of clothing in America has actually gone down. You might think that's a good thing, but the average American owns 400 percent more clothes than they did just a year ago. They throw away 82 pounds of textile waste a year.

This is challenging stuff to read. I share this out of this place of not like, hey, I'm mastering all of this, right? But more like, I'm in this with you. Where the way that I've continued to go is like, wow, God, will you continue to show me the privilege? Will you continue to show me the ways that I'm wasting my life and I'm not being intentional with what I have?

Simplicity, when we think of it, is like, okay, how do we overcome materialism and idolatry? You might be like, I'm kind of broke. I can barely pay my bills. I don't know how I can be more generous. What does that look like? Maybe it's starting with simplicity of saying, how can you live more with what you have?

In this culture that wants more and more and more, how can we continue to be content with what's in front of us and live simply in order to surrender more? Storing up treasures in heaven is more than just financial giving, but it's looking at how are we living righteously? How is what we're doing continuing to provide justice for those not only here in this city, but around the world?

I don't have the strategy of like, how do we get there? But I think all of us could pause and slow down and say, Holy Spirit, will you show me today? Where can I start? As we continue to get into this, I think examine is so crucial. The practice of examine is taking a moment to pause and reflect. It's taking a moment to repent. It's taking a moment to reboot and surrender back to God. Daily taking times to examine your heart is so important as we follow Jesus.

For us to take moments to say, God, will you convict me so that I can come closer to you and your ways? I want to talk about the difference between conviction and shame because shame keeps us stuck, but conviction leads us closer to Christ.

Even today, if you know you're hearing things and you're like, oh wow, should I be more mindful of what I'm spending? Should I be mindful of where I'm spending it? Don't get stuck in shame and don't get overwhelmed. Let the conviction lead you closer to Christ and living like Jesus.

Jesus overcame it first

I love looking at some of the things that Paul has to say. Philippians 3:7-8 is one of them:

Whatever were gains to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus as my Lord.

Philippians 3:7-8

Paul suffered greatly. He also was known as having really high status in the Roman community. He would have at one point tasted a lot of wealth and success as well. He's someone that at the end of it is saying like, man, it's all nothing. It's all a loss. Nothing is worth more than knowing Christ Jesus.

As this passage addresses our need to live into the kingdom reality that Jesus has come and he paid the price for our sins on the cross and he was raised to walk with us in new life and says, hey, you can be raised to live differently too. You don't have to live stuck. You don't have to live in this storing up treasures on earth where everything is going to be destroyed. But you can store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.

What I want to close with today is that Jesus is not asking us to overcome something that he himself did not already do. So much of this passage mirrors Jesus's temptation in the wilderness. A lot of this goes back to Matthew 4 where Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said:

If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.

Matthew 4:3

Jesus answered:

It is written, man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Matthew 4:4

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. If you are the son of God, he said, throw yourself down for it is written:

He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

Matthew 4:6

Jesus answered:

It is also written, do not put the Lord your God to the test.

Matthew 4:7

Again, the devil took him to a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. All this I will give you, he said, if you will bow down and worship me:

Away from me, Satan, for it is written, worship the Lord your God and serve him only.

Matthew 4:10

Then the devil left him and the angels came and attended him. Jesus speaks back to the enemy in power and authority. When people teach on this, they talk about the three temptations of Jesus. Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

Jesus is tempted by the lust of the flesh of saying, come on, feed yourself, provide for yourself. He's saying, no, man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. He's saying, no, it's God. It's about his kingdom. I'm not going to be tempted by this.

Then he's like, look at all this. You can have all of these things. Jesus is like, no, that's not it either. Then he's tempting his pride to come and be like, come on, use your power. Use who you are. If you're claiming to be the son of God. Even then, he says, worship the Lord your God and serve him only.

Jesus knew his mission. He knew what he was inviting us into. In this moment, we see him dying to his flesh and being formed more into who he was created to be and living into this kingdom reality that he had everything he needed and with the power of the Holy Spirit with him.

Today I want to invite you to stand as we get ready to close. As I was praying over this and asking, Holy Spirit, what do you want to do today? What do you want to happen in this place? I felt like this invitation of us to take inventory and then make decisions to say, how are we practicing intentionally?

The first step today is for us to just pause and take inventory of our hearts and ask, Holy Spirit, would you reveal? I work during the week as a therapist and one of our taglines is, you need to feel to heal. You got to let yourself feel it. You have to know what you're dealing with before you can be healed.

I sense that today of like for some of us, we just pause and be like, God, what is it? Maybe you're like, I don't relate to any of this today. Well, take a moment and pause and say, Holy Spirit, would you show me? Would you reveal to me where is my heart? Where am I storing things? Where am I investing things? What am I looking at?

Then invite him to come and heal that. Invite him to come and convict you to draw you closer. There's no shame in Christ Jesus, but to convict you to draw you closer to living the way he created us to live.

We need the Holy Spirit to not be scared of tomorrow. We need the Holy Spirit to live selfless. We need the Holy Spirit to overcome the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.

And then just say God, what practice do I need to start incorporating in my life? Is it Sabbath? Is it generosity? Is it simplicity? Is it really praying that examine? What does that look like?

I'm going to invite you to take a moment and just close your eyes. Often for me it's just sending my hands out in front of me in a posture of surrender. Just posture your body in a place to just receive from God. Would you just take a moment and would you just say, Holy Spirit, would you come? Would you reveal to me the status of my heart? Would you show me where I have been looking that I need to look away?

Holy Spirit, would you show me who am I really serving? Who am I centering my decisions around? Would you just give space for him to show you and invite him to challenge you? What do you want me to respond with today? How do you want me to respond?

We're going to just give some space for you to listen. We have a prayer team available in the back if today you want someone to partner with you and pray. We're just going to leave space for the Holy Spirit to come and show us the status of our heart today.

Holy Spirit, we welcome you in this place. We thank you for the ways that you have continued to reveal yourself to us. Would you speak now? Would you show us what we're storing up? Would you show us what we need to surrender to you in this moment? Come, Holy Spirit.