Treasures That Shape the Heart
This sermon was first given at Sherwood Community Friends Church on Sunday, January 4th during our Generosity Practice series. Watch it here.
_______
We all want to be happy.
Every single person you know—whether they’d say it out loud or not—is chasing their own version of the good life.
As Americans, we’re shaped by this idea. Our nation was founded on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And yet, here’s the strange irony: we are one of the unhappiest nations in the world.
Which tells us something important.
A lot of the things we assume will make us happy… don’t.
And the good life we’re searching for often shows up in places we least expect.
That’s why Jesus so often makes statements that feel upside down. He consistently reframes what we think leads to joy, fulfillment, and freedom. He says things like, “The last will be first and the first will be last” (Matthew 20:16). Or, “Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted” (Matthew 23:12). Or even, “Bless those who curse you” (Luke 6:28).
And then there’s this one—maybe one of the most counterintuitive things Jesus ever said. Something that goes against our culture, our instincts, and even our own hearts.
In Acts 20:35, Paul quoting Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive”.
That word “blessed” is the Greek word makarios. It means happy, fortunate, or well-off.
In other words, Jesus is saying, “There is more happiness in giving than in receiving.”
Or, as another translation puts it, “You’re far happier giving than getting.”
And I know what some of you are thinking right now.
“Really?”
That might sound right… but not realistic. Not practical. Maybe even a little naïve.
It’s easy to think Jesus’ teachings on money are morally right—but certainly not the path to true happiness.
The truth is… that thinking could not be more wrong.
All sorts of research from social sciences has shown that—are you ready for this?! —Jesus was exactly right.
Generous people are happier. Healthier.
They have lower levels of depression and anxiety.
They’re more interested in personal growth.
They have better relationships.
They have a higher life expectancy.
And according to one study, they literally laugh more.
And this is true across every demographic—no matter someone’s socioeconomic status, age, gender, ethnicity, personality, or background.
Researchers studying generosity across cultures concluded it is a universal feature of human psychology.
—Aknin et al., Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2013)
Sociologists Hilary Davidson and Christian Smith conclude in The Paradox of Generosity:
“People rightly say that money cannot buy happiness. But money and happiness are still related in a curious way. Happiness can be the result, not of spending more money on oneself, but rather of giving money away to others … the data examined here show this to be not simply a nice idea, but a social-scientific fact.”
If you take an honest look at the empirical evidence, it’s clear that the Western formula—“more money equals more happiness”—simply isn’t true.
Rather, it’s the Jesus formula—“more generosity equals more happiness”—that leads to a truly joyful life.
The beloved Quaker author, Richard Foster, puts it this way:
“The unreasoned boast about that the good life is found in accumulation, that ‘more is better.’ Indeed, we often accept this notion without question, with the result that the lust for affluence in contemporary society has become psychotic: it has completely lost touch with reality.”
So it’s no surprise that Jesus said so much about both the danger of money and the possibility of generosity.
A key task of our apprenticeship to Jesus is discovering the joy of living a generous life.
Now, before we go any further, a quick word of clarity.
There are many expressions of generosity—generosity of money, time, relationship, gifting, power, wisdom, and influence. And in this season of your life, the primary thing you have to give may not be money at all.
That said, our Generosity Practice, over the next four weeks, will focus mainly on generosity with money—not because generosity is only about money (it most certainly isn’t), but because it’s one of the clearest windows into our heart, and because Jesus spoke so about it so often. In fact, roughly 20% of Jesus’ teachings deal directly with money and possessions.
This is not about pressure.
It’s about freedom.
And it’s about joy.
Seeing Clearly: Abundance or Scarcity
We’re going to sit with some of Jesus’ most direct and formative teachings on money. Not to be shamed. Not to be pressured. But to be freed.
So to begin, let’s pray and then turn with me to Matthew chapter 6.
Listen to Jesus’ words:
Matthew 6:19–21 CSB
“Don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
There was a season when I invested heavily in technology—devices, upgrades, gear I thought would last. It felt solid. Cutting edge. Worth the cost.
Truth be told, I probably haven’t completely moved out of that season.
But fast forward a few years, and that shiny new piece of tech is now obsolete. Unsupported. Sitting in a drawer somewhere.
It still exists—but it no longer holds the value I once assigned to it.
And it reminds me how much of what we invest in feels permanent… until time quietly proves otherwise.
Jesus speaks directly into this—not to be dramatic, but to be honest.
Jesus is ever so wisely naming something deeply human here—this impulse we all have to store up treasure. And what’s fascinating is he doesn’t rebuke that impulse. He doesn’t shame us for having it.
For Jesus, the problem isn’t that we want to store up treasure. It’s that we store it up in the wrong place.
…On earth, rather than in heaven.
And just to be clear—when Jesus says “in heaven,” he’s not talking about the place you go when you die. That phrase was a first-century Jewish way of saying, in God and what God is doing in the world here.
Then Jesus presses deeper:
Matthew 6:21 CSB
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
This is one of Jesus’ most important insights about money.
Money is ultimately about our heart.
Jesus tells us something we don’t often realize: our heart follows our money.
We usually think it works the other way around. I spend money on what I already love. And that’s true—but it mostly works in reverse. We come to love, worry about, and obsess over whatever we invest our money in.
So when we store up treasure on earth, our hearts are shaped by fear—because we know we could lose it all in a moment. Or by greed—because no matter how much we have, it never feels like enough.
But Jesus offers another way of seeing.
He continues:
Matthew 6:22–23 CSB
“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. So if the light within you is darkness, how deep is that darkness!”
To modern ears, that sounds cryptic. But to Jesus’ original audience, it wasn’t.
In Jesus’ day, a “healthy eye” was a figure of speech. If you’re reading in a Study Bible, there’s a footnote that says the Greek word translated healthy implies generous. And the word translated unhealthy implies stingy.
Abundance and Scarcity
Jesus is describing two fundamentally different ways of seeing the world—what we might call an abundance mindset and a scarcity mindset.
If you have an abundance mindset, you look out at the world and you see abundance. You see God as your Father and provider. You see yourself as his child. And you receive life itself as a gift.
This is our Father’s world. And it’s teeming with more than enough.
You look around and say with Jesus, “Look at the birds and how God provides for them.” (Matthew 6:26).
And as a result, you live with gratitude toward God and generosity toward your neighbor. You receive with joy. And you give with joy.
If you live this way, a first-century Jew would say, “You have a healthy eye.”
You see clearly.
But if you have a scarcity mindset, you look out at the world and see lack; therefore you hoard or you cling to your possessions and your money.
With a scarcity mindset, there’s no Father-provider. You’re on your own. You think the world is dangerous. Resources are scarce. Wealth is a zero-sum game. If you don’t look out for yourself, no one else will.
Your vision is fixed on what you have and are afraid to lose—or what you don’t have and desperately want.
And your heart is slowly shaped by fear and greed.
If that’s how you see the world, Jesus would say, “You have an unhealthy eye.”
Not morally bad—but distorted.
How we see determines how we live.
What Jesus is really getting at here is that there are two fundamentally different ways of seeing life—and money in particular.
So let me ask you plainly:
How do you see the world?
Once we begin to trust Jesus’ vision of abundance, and God as our Father-Provider, suddenly Jesus’ teachings start to make sense.
“Don’t worry” (Matthew 6:25–34).
“Seek first the kingdom” (Matthew 6:33).
“Give, and it will be given to you” (Luke 6:38).
From that place, generosity isn’t reckless—it’s rational. And we’re free to be generous with what we have.
But if we don’t believe God’s truth here—if we don’t trust God as Father and provider—then Jesus sounds unhinged. Generosity doesn’t sound holy; it sounds dangerous. Even irresponsible.
And instead of freedom, we find ourselves enslaved by fear and greed.
Which is why Jesus doesn’t stop there. He goes on to say:
Matthew 6:24 CSB
“No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
Some translations render that last word as mammon. Mammon is an Aramaic word.
The four New Testament Gospels were written in Greek—the common language of the ancient world. Jesus spoke Greek, but he also spoke Aramaic, which the Jews learned to speak when they were exiled in Babylon. And Matthew intentionally leaves this word untranslated into Greek.
Most scholars believe that’s because Mammon was the name of the ancient Syrian god of wealth.
In other words, Jesus isn’t just talking about money as a neutral tool. He’s saying money behaves like a rival god.
We desperately want to believe money is neutral—not good or bad, just about how you use it. But for Jesus, wealth, and one’s view about money, is powerful. The sway it has over our hearts is often a dark, animating force at work in our souls and in our society.
Entire sectors of our economy are built on the worship of mammon. Much of the evil and injustice in our world—war, racism, ecological devastation—flows downstream from disordered love of and desire for money.
So when Jesus says, “You cannot serve both God and mammon,” he’s not offering advice.
Not you should not.
Not you might want to rethink this.
But you cannot.
It’s not about being bad.
It’s that being impossible.
Mammon will take over your heart unless you resist its gravitational pull.
So how do we resist it?
According to Jesus: through generosity.
Now, Jesus is a brilliant teacher. And I want you to notice that he’s teaching on at least three levels here.
This is how humans learn about a progression—from the head, to the heart, to the hands and from ideas, to feelings, to behavior.
Jesus is teaching on all three levels.
How Jesus Forms Generous People
First:
Jesus is teaching his apprentices how to see God—and how to see our lives in God’s world.
This is about the kind of universe we find ourselves in.
- Where the good life is actually found.
- And ultimately, who God himself is.
A Biblical theology of generosity does not start with tithing. It doesn’t even begin with Jesus’ command to “be generous to the poor.”
It starts way earlier than that—before time and space. It begins with who God is.
God is our Father.
When we raise our kids, they don’t worry about rent, groceries, or medical expenses—not because they understand our finances, but because they trust they have a father and/or mother who provides for them.
Jesus said we don’t have to worry about what we will eat or drink or wear, because God is our Father (Matthew 6:25–32).
And God is not only Father—he is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
God is, in his very being, a family of self-giving, others-centered, joyful, sacrificial, generous love. Amen?!
Generosity is grounded in the triune nature of God.
Second:
Generosity is woven through the entire library of Scripture.
From page one, God reveals himself as a giver. In Genesis, God says:
Genesis 1:29 CSB
“Look, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the surface of the entire earth and every tree whose fruit contains seed. This will be food for you.”
From the very beginning, God is giving, blessing, and sustaining—right up to Jesus.
Which leads us to this truth: generosity is at the heart of the gospel itself.
The Father gave the Son:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son…” (John 3:16)
The Son gave his life:
“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9)
And the Father and the Son gave the Holy Spirit:
“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” (Luke 11:13)
Even forgiving is an expression of giving.
So let me ask you:
Is this how you see the gospel?
Is this how you see God himself—as the most generous being in all reality?
And is this how you see your life in God’s world?
Jesus is teaching his apprentices about the architecture of the heart.
Billy Graham once said:
“If a person gets his attitude toward money straight, it will help straighten out almost every other area in his life.”
That’s exactly in line with Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 6. Get your relationship with money right, and it will set your heart free.
If we truly apprentice under Jesus, it should change our relationship with money—because it changes our hearts.
That’s why generosity is far more than just tithing. It’s even more than what we sometimes call “radical generosity,” where we give away large portions of our resources. Generosity shows up in ordinary, everyday faithfulness—buying your friend coffee, welcoming people to your dinner table, being quick to forgive when you’re hurt, giving the benefit of the doubt by extending grace to not get offended in the first place.
Because generosity isn’t just about what we do.
It’s about who we are becoming.
It’s about our heart.
And that leads us to the third thing Jesus is teaching his apprentices.
Third:
Jesus is teaching us about the practice of generosity.
All the research on generosity points to the same conclusion: for generosity to actually make us happier and healthier, it can’t be a one-time moment or a random act of kindness. It has to become a practice— a way of life.
In the same way that practicing gratitude forms us into thankful, content people, practicing generosity forms us into generous, free people.
I can’t flip a switch and instantly remove all fear and greed from my heart. But I can sponsor a child. I can buy someone lunch this week. I can give a portion of my income away every month to the church and trust God with it—with particular attention to the ministries we do here by helping people receive the good news of Jesus and helping the poor.
As we practice generosity—and make space for God to work—God begins to change our heart from the inside out.
Here’s the sticky line:
Generosity is a practice by which we index our hearts from a scarcity mentality to the abundance mentality of Jesus.
From fear of lack to trust in our Father-provider.
From worry about the future to peace with whatever comes.
From the endless desire for more to the enjoyment of what we already have.
From grasping to gratitude.
And from misery to joy.
The practice of generosity can do all of this—and more—in our hearts.
I want you to do something with me.
Think for a moment about the most generous person you know.
They may not be wealthy—but they are generous.
Bring their face to mind.
Are they joyful?
I’m guessing you’re smiling right now, because the answer is probably yes— they are.
I have yet to meet an unhappy, generous person.
And for that same reason, I’ve also never met a former giver.
I’m sure they exist somewhere—but everyone I know who has discovered the joy of generosity never turned back. Instead, they became more deeply formed by the Way of Jesus—and more genuinely happy.
My prayer for us is simple: that we would begin to tap into the joy at the heart of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Now, let’s be honest—
It will cost you. Literally.
Putting Jesus’ teachings into practice always does.
But you will receive far more than you give away.
Because, as Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).
Remember the word Jesus specifically used for “blessed”—makarios—means happy, fortunate, deeply well-off. It was no accident that he used that word.
It’s because there really is more joy in giving than receiving.
Closing Prayer
Father- we come to you as children who need you.
You know what we need before we ask.
You are our provider, and we trust you.
Forgive us for the ways fear has shaped how we see.
Heal our eyes.
Teach us to store our treasure with you,
and shape our hearts to follow.
Jesus, form us from the inside out.
As we practice generosity,
move us from scarcity to abundance,
from worry to peace,
from grasping to gratitude,
and from fear to joy.
We receive your generosity toward us,
and we choose to follow your way.
We trust you.
In Jesus Name Amen.
[The framework for this sermon was provided and inspired by John Mark Comer’s work in his Practicing The Way ministry.]
FOOTNOTES
makarios. Strong’s greek: 3107. μακάριος (Makarios) -- blessed, happy. (n.d.). https://biblehub.com/greek/3107.htm
Araki, S. (2023). The societal determinates of happiness and unhappiness: Evidence from 152 countries over 15 years. Social Psychology and Personality Science, 1-13.
Aknin, L. B., Barrington-Leigh, C. P., Dunn, E. W., Helliwell, J. F., Burns, J., Biswas-Diener, R., Kemeza, I., Nyende, P., Ashton-James, C. E., & Norton, M. I. (2013). Prosocial spending and well-being: Cross-cultural evidence for a psychological universal. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104(4), 635
Foster, R. J. (2005). Freedom of Simplicity: Finding Harmony in a Complex World. HarperCollins.
—
Please share this with someone who you think will benefit from reading it too.
If you found value in this, here are some additional articles for you.
