Calvary Chapel Staten Island

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Guest (Female): Hello and welcome to God in Our City, the Daily Edition. Your host and Bible teacher is Pastor Dave Watson. Pastor Dave has been the pastor of Calvary Chapel on Staten Island for 35 years. In addition, he is the co-founder and president of the New York Institute for Biblical Studies.

To receive a special downloadable gift from Pastor Dave, please go to calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. That's calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. Now here's Pastor Dave and our show.

Pastor Dave Watson: Hello everybody, welcome again to God in Our City, the Daily Edition. I am Pastor Dave Watson. I have the privilege of being the pastor of Calvary Chapel. I've had that privilege since January 1st, 1990, and believe me when I tell you the years have gone by just like that. I'm also one of the founders and the president of the New York Institute for Biblical Studies, a little school we started some 14 years ago. You can look at what we're offering in the upcoming terms; they should be all ready by August 1st. You can look at what we're offering at nyibs.net.

I have the incredible privilege of teaching the Bible to you every weeknight here, and also on Sundays live from the pulpit of Calvary Chapel on Staten Island for our God in Our City Sunday program. Thanks so much for joining us. If this is your first time, we thank you for coming. We've got lots of great resources for you, and we hope you'll take advantage of all of them. We try to make it easy to study the Bible. We're in this series on the Sermon on the Mount, and we've got these incredible free downloadable study guides. Just go to calvarychapelsi.org/gioc to get your free downloadable study guide.

In addition to that, we're offering, free of charge to you, the Matthew Journal. It's a little spot, a little set of blanks you have to fill in. Just go to the website, fill in the little blanks, and tell us you want it. It's the book of Matthew in the journal Bible series, so you have plenty of room to write your notes and your thoughts. We encourage you to get that. We pay postage and handling. Of course, while you're there, consider making a donation to God in Our City. God in Our City is the extension of the ministry of Calvary Chapel throughout our city.

It helps us to reach into every borough, as well as in New Jersey and Long Island. It’s an incredible privilege that we have. We can get up there to Westchester County, so please consider making a gift to God in Our City. Every gift is important and makes a difference. Also, every gift is tax-deductible, and you're sharing with us in kingdom work. We don't want you to take from your local church or a missionary you may be supporting, but this is a missions endeavor. Your help helps us to share the gospel in the New York City metro area and, of course, throughout the world.

These broadcasts are archived on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, as well as OnePlace.com and WMCA.com. There are podcasts of these shows everywhere, and we're very grateful for all that God has allowed us to do and be a part of. We are in the middle of this series on the Sermon on the Mount. We're actually on the other side of the middle. After this week, we don't have that many weeks left of shows—I believe four in total, maybe three. We want you to have those study guides and everything else, but that's where we are.

Right now, we're looking at Matthew 6:19-24. It is a passage that really challenges us, and we're going to read it again today for you just so we're challenged properly by it. Then we'll have a word of prayer. Let me just say that if it would be easier for you to request any of the things we've talked about by calling us, please call us at 718-720-5390. If you would like someone to pray with you, or if you have a Bible question, or if we can help you in any way, call 718-720-5390. Let's get into our scripture for today.

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys 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. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money."

Heavenly Father, thank You for Your word. It is powerful. Lord, we hear what You're saying to us. Please help us to take it to heart and apply it. Lord, help us to adopt kingdom values where we are seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, for then all these other things we need will be added to us. Lord, as we study Your word today, be our teacher and our guide. Work deeply in us. Lord, meet the needs that are out there among our listeners. Some are anxious about tomorrow, some are frustrated about today, some are discouraged, some are broke, and some need a miracle. Lord, please intervene on their behalf and help God in Our City to be the program You want it to be. In Jesus' name, amen.

We are in this section of Kingdom Quest, as we call it, talking about the Sermon on the Mount. We want to say again and again that the Sermon on the Mount is the value system of the kingdom of heaven on full display. If you want to see what's important to the Lord, if you want to understand what is of value to Jesus, or the perspective that you are to have, you need only to read the Sermon on the Mount. He's in the middle of this thing called Expectations for Kingdom Living.

He's told us that the righteousness that we are to possess must exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees. If it doesn't, it shows that we're really not part of God's kingdom. This section here is prohibitions. He's talked about the prohibition of hypocrisy. He's walked us through hypocrisy being seen in our fake piety, our fake praying, and our fake fasting, all being done to be seen. He wants us to do it for the real reason, the authentic reason of serving God. Then He tells us how to pray extensively in Matthew 6:9-14.

We're dealing now with greed and need. We sometimes store up because we don't believe we have enough, and we hoard things. We deal with our greed in a hoarding way. As we said yesterday, there's this investment strategy that is downloaded to us. It tells us where we shouldn't invest: "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal." He's telling them to stop doing this. Stop treasuring up treasures on the earth. Stop working for earthly riches. Stop investing in earthly riches.

That can't be the reason why you live. It can't be that "I owe, I owe, so off to work I go." I have all my money in all this junk. Why should we not do that? Number one, moth and rust corrupt; they destroy. They destroy the coins and the clothing; they obliterate them. Our investments are not safe from the fallen world. That second house, that third car, that big screen TV—it's not safe from the fallen world. After just a few years, its shine goes away. After just a few days, there's the potential for moths on your best suit.

It's a problem. So, we do not want to invest in the things that will not be safe from the fallen world that we live in. Thieves could come in and break through and steal. Your investment is not safe from the fallen people of the world, from the Bernie Madoffs of the world. Wicked people can do wicked things. People who seem to be noble can be ignoble and do bad things with what you have. So, the teaching of Jesus here is don't lay up for yourself treasures where they're not safe from a broken world or from fallen people.

We have a similar statement in James 5:2-3, spoken by the brother of the Lord, who no doubt heard the Sermon on the Mount: "Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days." This picture here is of what the rich were doing, and in doing so, they were investing in things that would not be safe from the fallen world and from fallen people.

It's just incredibly good, practical advice. Well, where should we invest our riches? Matthew 6:20 says, "But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal." Here's what we're to do: be treasuring up for yourselves, for your benefit, treasure in heaven. The three eternal things are God, His word, and the souls of people. Now, I know what I'm about to say may seem radical, but Christianity is a radical faith. The Sermon on the Mount is a radical perspective.

Living for Jesus is a radical proposition. If you have a check register, look at your check register. Look at where you've spent your money. Your check register, your savings register, your ATM account printout—it's a theological document. It tells you what's important to you. You say you've got to have food, raiment, a roof over your head, and you have to pay the utility bills. I understand. Maybe you don't have a lot left over after that, but if you look at what you have left over, where are you investing it? Where is it going?

Is it going to anything eternal? Are you investing in God's kingdom? Are you investing in the propagation of His word? Are you investing in the souls or the coming to faith in Christ of the souls of people? Where is your investment? It tells us very clearly here where our investment is to be. It is to be in heaven with the eternal. Why do we do this? Because there neither moth nor rust destroys. They hold their value there. Your investment is safe from the fallen planet. It doesn't diminish in value; it always appreciates.

Where thieves are not breaking through nor stealing, your investment is safe from the fallen people. If I will invest in the eternal things, if I will invest in heaven, as it were, it cannot be taken away from me, and it will always be bearing interest and fruit. Why should we invest this way? Why should we invest where we should invest? Because of this: "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." That explains the overall why here. The place of your treasuring up, what you invested in—the earthly or the heavenly—there will be your heart.

Our heart follows the pocketbook or wallet because it is a reflection of the pocketbook or wallet. It's an amazing thing; there's a string that goes from the heart of a man or woman to their pocketbook or wallet. Where our treasure is, that's where our heart is. Do you find yourself really tied to the things of this earth? Do you find yourself wanting more and more and more of the possessions of this earth? Do you find yourself wanting to be more flamboyant, dressed more awesomely with better possessions? If that's what you're going after, it tells you what's happened to you.

Your heart is not in heaven. Your heart isn't in the things of God. Your heart has been choked, as it tells us in Matthew 13 in the parable of the sower, by the cares and the riches of this life. It's amazing what the scriptures talk about in this regard. In the book of Colossians, the third chapter, Paul, in speaking to the Colossian believers, says something very poignant and very wise, something we do well to heed. You've heard the verses before, I'm sure, but it says, "If then you've been raised with Christ, seek those things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God."

"Set your mind on things that are above, not things that are on the earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory." Set your mind on things above; set your affection on things above where Christ is. He reminds us in Luke 12 of the danger of being earthly-minded. He talks about the rich fool. Someone in the crowd said in the text, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." But He said to him, "Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator?"

He said to them, "Take care and be on guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." He told them a parable, saying, "The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, 'What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?' And he said, 'I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and I will store up all my grain and goods, and I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry."' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?'"

For so is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. Where is your heart regarding these things? Is your heart in the kingdom serving the Lord, or is it tied up in the things of this world? We've talked a little bit about our investment here, and now we're going to move to our investment struggle. He moves to the importance of the eye here. He says the eye is the lamp of the body. He speaks of the eye and tells us that we don't want to allow our eyes to focus on something that we don't need.

We don't want to be drawn to something that's shiny but so draws us away from the kingdom. The lamp of the body, that which leads the body—ourselves—in a direction, is the eye. What's Driver's Ed 101? Driver's Ed 101 is that whatever you look at, whatever you stare at, the vehicle that you're driving goes toward. Whatever you stare at in this life, whatever is important to you and what you focus on in this life, your life will steer toward that. If it's money, possessions, power, prestige, or pleasure, that's where your life will be steered toward.

That's where you'll be going. 1 John 2:16 reminds us, "For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world." The inference of the eyes is important. It says, "So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness." Healthy eye, generous eye, whole body filled with light. But if the eye is evil or morally corrupt, the whole body is a mess.

Your body shall be going in the direction of darkness without light if the state of the eye is messed up. In Luke 11:36 it says, "If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright as when a lamp gives you light." My eye is healthy; I'm not staring at that which I should not stare at. I'm going to be okay with reference to the kingdom. We'll pick up tomorrow here where we left off about the eye. Let's pray. Lord, we've talked forcefully because Your word has talked forcefully about setting our hearts in the right place.

Help us to have our hearts in the right place so that we are kingdom-minded, so the kingdom is the most important thing. Lord, change our hearts if they be wrong. Fix us, Lord. And Lord, start it with our eyes. Help us to see this world as though we were looking through Your eyes. Help us to see with an eternal perspective so that we do not love the things of this world, but we love You first and foremost, so that we put Your kingdom and Your kingdom's work first. Change our value system, Lord.

In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Thank you for joining us today. Please take the time to go to calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. Get the study guide, order the book of Matthew, and consider making a donation to God in Our City. We trust, we hope, we pray that what we're sharing is a blessing to you and an encouragement to you. Please give us a call at 718-720-5390. Many of you have, but just call us and say, "The program's a blessing to me," or "I'd like the journal," or "Please pray for me." Hope to see you again tomorrow on another edition of God in Our City.

Guest (Female): Thanks for listening to God in Our City with your host Pastor Dave Watson. We hope the show was a blessing to you. Again, to receive a downloadable gift from Pastor Dave, go to calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. That's calvarychapelsi.org/gioc.

Please check out Pastor Dave's blog at nycshepherd.com. That's nycshepherd.com. Please invite a friend and join us every weekday for another edition of God in Our City.

Guest (Female): In a world that screams for your attention, there is a place that invites you to peace. You don’t need a building. You don’t need a choir. You just need to turn your heart to Air1.

Guest (Male): Air1. Songs that heal. Lyrics that pray for you when you don't have the words. From Lauren Daigle to Elevation Worship and more.

Guest (Male): This isn't just radio. It's worship for the everyday.

Guest (Female): Escape the noise and worship now.

Guest (Male): Download the Air1 app. Ask your smart speaker to play Air1 or visit air1.com. Air1, worship now.