Time, Treasure and Heart

Good afternoon, everyone! Good to see everyone here today on a beautiful Sabbath day and start to think that spring could arrive. That usually means there's another snowstorm on the way, though, right?

Hopefully that's not the case. Time will tell. If you'll turn with me, we'll start the sermon with a scripture. We'll turn to Proverbs 4, verse 23.

Proverbs 4, verse 23. Proverbs 4, verse 23. We read the proverb that might be familiar to some. Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.

Now, chances are a number of us have heard sermons of some sort that center around this scripture in the past, and certainly as we approach Passover and start to consider our lives more carefully, this is a central topic and I think one that's important for us to think about. Things that are going on within our hearts. Today, I want to approach this topic, though, in a slightly different way than perhaps it's typically approached. So I'll start by talking about a couple of things I'm not going to talk about.

The first thing I'm not going to talk about is Philippians 4, verse 8.

Philippians 4, verse 8 says, finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there's any virtue and if there's anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. Very important words, but not something I'm going to focus on today. Another area that I'm not going to talk about is in 2 Corinthians 10, verse 5.

2 Corinthians 10, verse 5, as some of us might be familiar, says in part, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. The reason I'm not going to talk about those things is because those are things we should be familiar with as Christians overall. We know that the things that we take into our hearts, the things we take into our minds need to be things that are praiseworthy, things that are virtuous, things that reflect God's way, and we need to actively reject the things that come into our minds that are not related to that. Today, though, I want to focus on something different, and that is a couple of unique ways that we need to guard our minds in today's world. We live in a very unique world today. I'm not among the people who's going to say this world is the worst that has ever been. For those of you who have studied history, you know what the Roman Empire was like. The world has lived through different varieties of depraved times over the ages, and it will continue to live in different varieties of human ways of doing things until God returns, each one of them that has its own unique flavors of bad and wrong that go with it. And this is not intended to be an old man talking about the ways that the modern age is bad. It will be an old man talking. That part I'll own up to. As in every age of human development, we as human beings develop tools and technologies that can be used for good, but that can also damage us if they're not used for good. The things themselves are not always inherently bad, but as human beings we seem to excel at finding a bad use for pretty much everything that comes along if we're given enough time. But think about some of the great things that have happened using modern technology. We've got people out there listening to us right now on Zoom because they can't be with us at services. Not only are they listening, they're watching, and there's an ability to be here in a virtual way that we probably wouldn't even have dreamed of a dozen years ago. It's a great opportunity, a great ability to do that. My mom benefits greatly from this type of technology. Every now and then we'll do Skype calls with her, my sister and I. She's in a memory care facility out in Oregon, and we'll get her brother in Germany on the line through Skype. And she's got an ability at an advanced age where she can't travel to still interface in a way face to face with family. And it's a tremendous opportunity enabled by the technology that we have today. Social media, not necessarily a bad thing.

Social media has given us a level of connectivity with one another as people that we haven't had in the past. It's given a level of transparency as well. Despite all of the tough things and bad things and nasty things that can be out there, it has given a level of transparency to understand things that are going on in the world and for people to communicate mostly without barriers.

And if you think beyond where technology and things are going, one of the biggest things that some of us have lived through personally ourselves or perhaps with family members is, for example, loss of mobility. And by that, I don't mean just not the ability to walk, but loss of the car keys. Think of autonomous vehicles. Think of life will be different here a few years in the future. For people who can't drive anymore, once autonomous vehicles come fully into play, the ability to get around, to still have the ability to get out into society and do things and not be tied down just because a person cannot individually drive. Now, those are all good things, but if we're honest, we all know the flip side is there as well.

And that's where I'd like to spend a few minutes in setting this up further. There's probably no greater threat to our culture, to global society as a whole, and to Christianity, than the growing drought of careful and considered critical thought. Can you say that one more time? There's probably no greater threat to our culture, global society as a whole, and Christianity, than the growing drought of careful, considered critical thought. Our society itself is built on occupying, entertaining, and distracting the mind, and to free our mind for thought and reflection is an increasingly challenging thing to do. If you think about it, any time you sit down, I know I'm guilty of this, I've got all the tools that we've got out there these days. I use a tablet right here to give my sermons. I've got an iPhone that's usually sitting right next to me. I've got at least one, if not a couple, of computer screens in front of me pretty much all day long. And any time I sit back and try to think for a minute, I might hear the ding of email coming in. I might see out of the corner of my eye my phone light up. Got a notification. Hey, I've got to go look at what this is. And any time that we try to think or do something or just reflect, if we're not careful, those things come in and invade. The title for today's message, for those who like to write those down, is Time, Treasure, and Heart. Time, Treasure, and Heart. These three elements are tied together in a very important way that's brought out in the Bible and also supported by modern scientific research. And so I'd like to think about three dimensions of this and talk through three dimensions of this today and reflect a little bit on the Bible, how these three elements of time, treasure, and heart are brought out in the Bible and what they can mean for us, especially as we think forward to the Passover.

So, part one is going to be the example of Mary. The example of Mary. Now, we're all familiar, of course, with Mary. She's probably one of the human beings shown in the Bible that was used most powerfully of anyone in the Bible. And the beginning of Luke talks about the entire range of events that happened. A couple of the Gospels, Luke included, spend the most time on it. And if we can recall back, Luke 1 talks about the original conception of Jesus Christ. We have the angel appearing to Mary. Mary, of course, incredibly concerned at this point in time. She's not married. She's become pregnant. And in a way that we probably can't even understand the way society is today, what that meant for her life as a young girl growing up, as a young lady.

A complete change in life, probably rejection from her society, perhaps from her family, all of the things that would go along with it. I think sometimes we can underestimate just what an event this was for her as she tried to process what was going on. We hear about her faith. We then read about the support of Zacharias and Elizabeth as they were relatives and John the Baptist a few months older than Jesus. Elizabeth was pregnant at the same time. Mary lived with them for a while. Luke 1 tells us then of the birth of John the Baptist. And then as we go on into Luke 2, it brings out a unique characteristic of Mary that I'd like to spend a little bit of time focusing on that's relevant to our topic today. So let's start in Luke 2, verse 15.

Luke 2 and verse 15. This is after the birth of Jesus Christ.

The angels had come and appeared. And in verse 15, so it was when the angels had gone away from them, them being the shepherds, into heaven. The shepherd said to one another, Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us. And they came with haste, and they found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger. Now when they had seen him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this child.

And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told by them, told them by the shepherds. But in verse 19, Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. And then in verse 20, the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen as it was told to them. So we've got all these incredible events happening, right?

In Luke 1, we've got shepherds, we've got angels, we've got miracles, we've got gifts, we have prophecies, and for accountants like me, we even have taxes. The whole reason they were where they were was because of taxation and rolling for the census. All of these things going on, all this excitement, it kind of reaches its crescendo here in verse 17, when everyone had seen the child, made known all these sayings that came about concerning the child. And in verse 18, not surprisingly, all of those who heard it marveled, and they were told, they marveled at the things they were told by the shepherd.

But, but in verse 19, Mary reacted very differently. It says, she kept these things and pondered them in her heart. And so this passage, this story, is really drawing a heavy contrast between what happened. All these people saw these things and marveled, and were probably talking about them, and going on and on, and trying to figure out what's going on. Mary's reaction was a bit different. She kept it inside her heart, and she pondered it.

Now, the new international verse translates this passage to say that Mary treasured these things. She treasured these things in her heart and pondered them. And this same word in other places in the Bible, it's only used, I think, two or three more times in the Bible.

It's talked about, and it's translated through the word preserve, rather than treasured or rather than kept. And it talks in that case about wine, old wineskins, new wineskins, to preserve the wine. And so it's talking about holding something in a way that is to retain it, to make sure that it keeps, to make sure that it's held, when you think about it, pondering in her heart, held very close to her.

It's something that she was thinking and applying safekeeping to, for example, or storing in a special place. And mentioning the heart implies a high amount of care and emotion that goes with it. We read a little bit farther down in Luke 2, verse 40, and the child grew, became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. Now, I don't know if you remember, but it's been a few years ago now. Frank Dunkel came through here.

He's one of the lecturers. He actually runs the Ambassador Bible College. He gave a really interesting sermon, I thought, about something, a literary device called the velocity of narrative. I don't know if anyone remembers it. Kind of a geeky topic, maybe. But that's what we see happening here. Look at everything that's going on in Luke 1 and Luke 2. We're going through a chapter and a half of the Bible.

And what's it talking about? Arguably less than a year's period of time. The time from when Jesus Christ was conceived through to his birth. And then we talk about the fact that Mary treasured it up in his heart, or her heart. And then verse 40 just speeds by about 12 years, simply saying Jesus grew and became strong and filled with wisdom and the grace of God was upon him.

How do we know that? Because as soon as we come to the next part of the narrative, he's 12 years old and he's left in Jerusalem. 12 years of pondering, 12 years of holding it in her heart with nothing really significant enough going on that it caused to be mentioned in any of the Gospels.

Let's read on. Luke 2, we'll start in verse 41. Now this focus, if you look at the speed of the narrative, is now focused on probably just a week, maybe two weeks of time.

Luke 21 verse 41 through 50, which interestingly I forgot to copy into my sermon notes, so we'll do it the old-fashioned way.

Luke 2 starting verse 41. His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover, and when he was 12 years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast, and when they had finished the days as they returned, the boy Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem, and Joseph and his mother did not know it. But supposing to him to have been in the company, they went to today's journey and sought him among their relatives and acquaintances. So when they didn't find him, they returned to Jerusalem, seeking him, and so it was after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking the questions, and all who heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. And when they saw him, they were amazed, and his mother said to him, Son, why have you done this to us? Look, your father and I have sought you anxiously. And he said to them, Why did you seek me? Did you not know I must be about my father's business? But they did not understand the statement that he spoke to them. And then when we read on just a little bit farther beyond this, you can imagine how distraught they might have been. I mean, the world was different at that time. You wouldn't have worried necessarily about the same things you worried about today. But to say they were without a care because they couldn't find them would be absolutely wrong. And when we look down in verses 51 and 52, we see a similar thing happen again with Mary. He went down with them. He came to Nazareth, and he was subject to them. But his mother kept all these things in her heart. You had to wonder, you know, they're looking for him, they find him. She already knows she's gone through everything that happened at Jesus Christ's conception. She saw what happened when the shepherds came, had a 12-year pause. Now there he is in the temple, and he's arguing with the greatest religious minds of his time, and they're amazed at what he knows. And again, she kept these things in her heart. And verse 52, fast forwards us again, in this case, arguably another 18 years. Verse 52, Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men. The next thing that we see happening in Luke is the baptism of Jesus Christ. We hear about his temptation, and we know that Jesus Christ was 30 years old at the time that he began his ministry. So most commentaries believe that age 30 would have been when he was baptized as well. So we've got another gap here, a gap of 18 years, and we're told that Mary kept all of these things in her heart, careingly retaining these things, reflecting on them, trying to understand perhaps what they meant, what the implications were, what this was going to mean for her life, for the life of her son.

Let's move on to John 2. We'll read verses 1 through 5 of John 2. This is the first miracle that Jesus Christ performed, and it was the turning of the water into wine. John 2 verses 1 through 5.

And here we read, on the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there, not surprisingly. Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding. So this was at a point where He had just begun His ministry. The disciples were there with them, so He'd called them. And in verse 3, when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, they have no wine. That's an interesting statement when you think about it. After 30 years of hiding things in her heart, why do you think she went to Jesus and told Him that they have no wine?

She knew something. She thought things through. And at this point in time, through whatever combination of events, she knew exactly who He was and what He could do. Jesus said to her in verse 4, What does your concern have to do with me? My hour is not yet come. But as mother said to the servants, whatever He says, you do it. She knew He had the power to do something about the lack of wine. It wasn't to head down to the corner store and buy a couple more bottles. She thought these things through. She'd hidden them in her heart. And 30 years later, it all came to fruition. It all kind of came together. Time. Time. Things that she had treasured in her heart. The others didn't know. We think one of the other very defining moments early in Jesus Christ's ministry, you might remember, was when He went back to Nazareth. And if you recall, He stood up in the temple, or in the synagogue there in Nazareth. And what did He do? He asked for the scrolls.

He read Isaiah 61, a prophecy of the Messiah. And what did the people do at that point? He said, I knew it all along. I knew you were the Messiah. Jesus, you did it! You're going to make Nazareth great. Of course, they didn't do that. They said He was a blasphemer because He claimed to be God, and they tried to kill Him. So this wasn't common knowledge that what Mary knew about Jesus Christ. The things that she had thought about Him, the time that she had spent pondering these things. She was in a very different place in terms of what she understood about Him than anyone else in that place. But at the same time, she also clearly kept those things within herself. There's no record that people went around and said, Mary, you'd been telling us all the time that He was the Son of God. Now we finally know. No evidence that she'd done any of that. So wrapping up the example of Mary, and perhaps reflecting on it for a few minutes. Time, treasure, and heart, again, is our topic today. Mary set an example, in this case pondering things for 12 and 18 years, respectively. She was putting all the dots together, watching life, considering what it was that was happening. And from all the evidence that we see, keeping it within herself, thinking about it carefully, drawing her own conclusions, I'm sure praying about it. I'm sure giving a lot of careful thought along the way. She had patience as she gained understanding over time of who her son was, the very Son of God. And she displayed a depth of understanding when the time came at the wedding to understand exactly what it was that was happening. So as we think about this in our own lives, what's our reaction as we encounter events in our lives or important questions that require time, treasure, and heart? You know, today's version of Luke 2.19, after the coming of the shepherds, might read. And she watched a TikTok video and shared it with her friends. Or as she began to consider these things, she saw her friend got the new Wordle and three tries and had to give it a shot. So she moved on. Our society takes us in that direction, the tools and the things that we have around us. If we don't cause that time for reflection, if we don't take the time to treasure things, to put them in a special place within us where we can think about them and reflect on them further. If I'm honest, I have to work myself to create time to unhook, to think. As I've been reminded before by people at work and others, the phone has an off button.

We don't really think about that very often, do we? It does have an off button. Phone rings, the text comes in, the screen of the phone flashes, and the brain is very quickly somewhere else. So as we think about this portion of it, and the example of Mary, I would just ask the question, what is it in our lives, individually, that causes us distraction, that can remove that treasure from our hearts? Or just as we start to think about it, it distracts us, and it's gone, instead of taken within us for more thought. All right, let's move on to part two.

Part two, I call a viewpoint from psychology. A viewpoint from psychology. Now, I'll make the disclaimer first. We don't base our spiritual lives on psychology. However, it's a science that can provide useful understanding about how our minds work and things that we struggle with. I was introduced at work to a concept called the Dunning-Kruger effect when I took a training a couple years ago. If I'm honest, I guess I kind of treasure it away and just decide to think about it and mull it over for a while and observe it at work around me to see if I found supporting evidence. And now's the time I've decided to bring it out and share it with everyone for better or worse. So the Dunning-Kruger effect. Has anyone heard of this before? No? Good. That increases the possibility of people staying awake for another 10 minutes. The Dunning-Kruger effect. This is from the website of psychology today. The concept of the Dunning-Kruger effect is based on a 1999 paper by Cornell University psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger. The pair tested participants on their logic, grammar, and sense of humor and found that those who performed in the bottom quartile, that's the ones who performed the worst, rated their skills far above average. For example, those in the 12th percentile self-rated their expertise to be on average in the 62nd percentile. So those who brank basically in the bottom 10 percent of the study thought they were in the top third. The researchers attributed the trend to a problem they called metacognition, the ability to analyze one's own thoughts or performance. And this quote from their study, those with limited knowledge of a domain suffer a dual burden. Not only do they reach mistaken conclusions and make regrettable errors, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Okay, let me read that again. Those with limited knowledge in a domain suffer a dual burden. Not only do they reach mistaken conclusions and make regrettable errors, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. So there's this inability to understand what it is that we don't know. That's what they're talking about. And if we pause for a moment, think about it. Where do we see this? If we want to see the Dunning-Kruger effect at work, what I would recommend is wait until football season starts again and turn on sports radio on a Monday morning and you will witness the Dunning-Kruger effect in place as all kinds of middle-aged men call into the sports radio show and know better than everybody who spent their lives to develop their knowledge of football, to build a game plan, to put a team together. And all of us, if we're honest about it, will call in and we know exactly what's wrong with the Cleveland Browns. And if they would only listen to me, they could go to the Super Bowl this year.

Isn't that how it works? That's the Dunning-Kruger effect in place right there. We know the piece that we know. We know so little that we can't grasp how much we don't understand, and so we overestimate how much we think we know or how much we know. We can think about, I'm sure we've all dealt with somebody, whether it's a young person working in a store or a customer service representative, that we just know does not have the depth to understand what it is that we're talking about and tries to give us an answer and assure us that it's 100% correct. We've all dealt with this before, and it's not just tied to age. Older people can do it, younger people can do it, and in fact, as we'll read a little further, people who are really intelligent can suffer from the exact same thing. I'll read a little bit more from the Psychology Today article. Confidence is so highly prized that many people think people would rather pretend to be smart or skilled than risk looking inadequate and losing face. Even smart people can be affected by the Dunning-Kruger effect because having intelligence is not the same thing as learning and developing a specific skill. Many individuals mistakenly believe that their experience and skills in one particular area are transferrable to another. This tendency may occur because gaining a small amount of knowledge in an area about which one was previously ignorant can make people feel as though they're suddenly virtual experts. Only after continuing to explore a topic do they realize how extensive it is and how much they still have to master. We're talking about time, treasure, and heart. That time factor. The fact that it's only as we get deeper into a topic that we can really fully and truly understand it. And I'm not going to give specifics related to this example because I don't want to drag people down a rabbit hole of political and social differences, but we have seen this play itself out in the media, haven't we? How many media stories have we seen, regardless of what side of a political or social spectrum you're on, that totally misrepresent something? Because they grab facts quickly and as it turns out later as people explore it out of context and they build a story around it. And that story or narrative, as we love to call it these days, continues to go on and on and on, sometimes for months or even years, before people have the time and the energy to look more deeply into the facts and fully understand them. We should also reflect on how well this describes the process of Christian maturity. You know, one of the comments we're likely to hear as we're wandering around, fellowshiping with one another, and I've heard it thousands of times, I'm sure, in my life growing up in the church, is that common phrase, you know, every time I open up the Bible and read it, I learn something new.

It's true, and it's good, and it's right, it's supposed to be that way, isn't it? You know, we reflect on this Dunning-Kruger effect. What it's saying is, look, you can't just look at something one time and based on a quick impression of it, I saw a picture with seven words on it, it's called a meme, now I understand this topic completely. That's the way we think these days, right? But as we learn as Christians, we go back to the Bible, we read passages we've read before, it's informed by different things that have happened in our lives, new experiences, different ways that God is working with us in our minds, and we learn more from that passage or that section of the Bible where we see something in a story that we haven't seen or understood before. And what's the one thing that any of us who have been at the job of Christianity for a while have learned? As every year goes by, if you're like me, you realize you understand less. And you thought before you understood a whole lot, and you realize there's even more complexity to it, more challenges to it. And that's part of what God wants us to understand. There's a lot there in life, and God made it that way. It's a challenge for our minds, it's a challenge for our spirits, it keeps us going. There's complexity there and things for us to learn and to find out. Let's move on and read a little bit further in this Psychology Today article to avoid falling prey to the Dunning-Kruger effect. Very helpful. People can honestly and routinely question their knowledge base and the conclusions they draw rather than blindly accepting them. As David Dunning proposes, people can be their own devil's advocates by challenging themselves to probe how they might possibly be wrong. Individuals could also escape the trap by seeking others whose expertise can help cover their own blind spots, such as turning to a colleague or friend for advice or for constructive criticism. Continuing to study a specific subject will also bring one's capacity into clearer focus. How much does that sound like some Christian principles we know? Multitude of counselors? What's the other proverb? Faithful or the wounds of a friend? Looking to others to give you advice, to give you input, to give you another perspective on things, and continue to think and understand and seek input, and not think, I've got it, I understand it all, I'm going to set that aside, I'm never going to think about it again because I know it, nobody can possibly challenge me on it.

So as we wrap up this section, going back to the concept of time, treasure, and heart, I found this study, this Dunning-Kruger effect, really interesting because I think it supports exactly what we look at in Christianity. The fact we need to spend time, we need to think about things and ponder them deeply because the important answers in life aren't always ones that we're going to understand in five or ten seconds as we get a quick impression of them, and the research that Dunning-Kruger did support this concept very well. There's something deceptive in our minds, and it makes us believe that we've mastered something on a very limited amount of knowledge, and I think at this time of year as well, as we consider our own Christian walk, as we consider our depth of conversion, it's a good thing for us to reflect on what parts of our lives that we simply accepted things or believed things. It's just this way. Move on, I'm not going to think about it any further. I'd like to read a psalm as we wrap up this section, as well as one other passage that I think laid us out from a scriptural perspective. Psalm 139 verses 23 and 24. Remember the idea of avoiding this Dunning-Kruger effect. Be challenged. Consider what else is going on. Get other inputs. Psalm 139 verse 23 and 24. Here we read, search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxieties, and see if there's any wicked way in me. Lead me in the way everlasting. The psalmist here is really laying out the fact we need to turn to God and be honest about the fact that as human beings, it's so difficult for us to really completely understand ourselves, our motivations, why we do the things we do. We can bring those things before God, and we should, and we should ask Him through the situations that we go through, through His Spirit, through our interactions with other people, to be able to come to a greater knowledge and understanding of ourselves. And that's one of the things that's inherent in a good Christian walk, is understanding the fact that we need that. We need to continue to develop that stronger understanding of ourselves. 2 Corinthians 13, also a scripture we often read at this time of year that reinforces the same concept. 2 Corinthians 13, verses 5 and 6, correlates directly to what these psychologists wrote in terms of avoiding the bad impacts of this effect on our lives. 2 Corinthians 13, verses 5 and 6. Here Paul writes, the Corinthians, examine yourselves as to whether you're in the faith. Test yourselves. Don't you know yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you unless you're disqualified? But I trust you will know that we are not disqualified. Paul is encouraging examination, thought, carefully pondering things, thinking them through, testing yourselves, is the word that he uses, as we consider our lives and things going on in our lives, how we live them. Let's move on to part three, which I've titled tracing this concept through the Bible. Part three, tracing this concept through the Bible.

The idea of time, treasure, and heart is not exclusive to Mary and her story. There's a lot more important support for it as well than just a 1999 psychological study. So in this last part, let's look at a few other examples across the Bible. And hopefully, as you think about it, you can find other examples as well, because there are many more than the ones that I've got in this short section. First of all, the Bible clearly points out a correlation between time, patience, experience, and wisdom. And I think we probably only have to think about that briefly to think perhaps of some passages that do that. But time, patience, and experience are correlated with wisdom throughout the Bible. Just read through the Proverbs. You'll see it come out over and over again. A couple of other places, not within the Proverbs, that I focused on. Job 12 verse 12. Job 12 verse 12.

Here, Job records, wisdom is with aged men and with length of days understanding. Now, we know that age by itself doesn't guarantee wisdom, but there's an important correlation if we're doing things right in our lives and reflecting properly that time brings about greater wisdom. If we're living a life that has this proper level of thought, reflection, treasuring things in our heart, pondering them, it recognizes the fact that gaining real solid wisdom is not something that happens in a short period of time. God doesn't wave the magic wand and make us wise. We learn through the experiences and the time that we have on earth. We go to James 1. We see a similar concept that's brought out as James writes, in this case talking about patience, which also has very much to do with time. James 1, starting in verse 2, James writes, My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete lacking nothing. Again, we've talked before about this concept of perfection within the Bible, and it's not talking about being 100% without flaw, which is not a human possibility. It's talking about maturity. We know that we're supposed to grow up to that model of Jesus Christ and grow in spiritual maturity and hear patience, which comes from trials and difficulties, but patience is correlated directly with us becoming mature and complete Christians.

Another thing as we go through this section is the impact that treasures in our hearts have on the output of our lives. So not only the element of time, but the impact that the treasures that we have in our hearts have on the output of our lives. I always think quickly in this context of Psalm 119 verse 11. Psalm 119 verse 11. If you're into memorizing scriptures, this is a great one to have memorized. Your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you.

So here, the psalmist points out the fact that if we have God's word hidden in our hearts, that helps us to resist sin. It helps us to fight sin as we have God's word in his way at the forefront of our hearts. An entire sermon, in fact, a series of sermons could be given on David and this entire topic. We see so much about how David turned to God and asked God to create a new heart in him, talked about the ways that he pondered God's ways, his law, his thoughts, to try to be like him. The Psalms are literally filled with words and songs and poetry about this. Let's turn to one other passage in Luke 6, which is talking about treasure, what we have, that treasure that we have buried within us in our hearts, and how it comes out. Luke 6 verses 43 through 45.

Luke 6, 43 through 45. Here Jesus Christ says, A good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men don't gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. A good man, out of the good treasure of his heart, brings forth good. And an evil man, out of the evil treasure of his heart, brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks. Now, when I read this scripture, I always think back to a restaurant we used to go to as kids. There was a restaurant in Minnesota, a nice place that we'd go to maybe once or twice a year. It was called the Hopkins House, very creative name. It was in the town of Hopkins, Minnesota. So it was called the Hopkins House. But as a kid, what I loved about this place was they had a treasure chest. And when you finished your meal, all the kids could go to this treasure chest, and you got to put a single hand into the treasure chest, and they gave you a bag, and however much candy you could get in one handful, you could put into the bag and take home with you. And the good thing was, this wasn't like these little red and white pinwheel mints, right? They're the cheap candy, right? Because as kids, we know how to spot the good candy from the cheap stuff. They had good candy in this place and variety. It wasn't just Tootsie Rolls, little things with sweet tarts. They had these little long plastic tubes that had these, about twice the size of a BB, these little chocolate things that you'd eat. And I love that place because I could always go, I could reach in, and I would take my time to really make sure I got a good grab, and I'd get as much of that really good candy as I could and drop it in the bag. You know, I think about that when I read this scripture, right? If God came into our hearts and kind of put his hand in there and grabbed something out, what's he going to get? He can get a bunch of cheap pinwheel mints? Or is he going to get the good stuff? You know, what is it that we've hidden down within our hearts? What have we treasured up within there? Because what Jesus Christ is pointing out when he speaks here is a simple law of cause and effect, saying if you have an evil heart, it's going to come out in what you do. It's not that evil people necessarily try to do evil. It's in them, and it's going to come out of them. Good people, converted people, who have God's Spirit working within them, are going to bear good fruit, because that's what God's Spirit does. It's God's nature. Again, it might take time. People can put on a good front. People can pretend a lot of things over a short period of time. But over the course of time, as you see the record that a person's life bears, you can begin to understand what it is that's in their heart, because time makes those things evident. It evidences that treasure that's hidden deep inside, or the lack of it. So wrapping up this concept of time, treasure, and the heart across the Bible, as we stand back even a little bit and think about it, this script, this concept is just laced throughout the Scriptures. A professor I respected very highly in school told me once on the topic of seeking additional education. He said, you know, the time's going to go by anyways. You might as well do something useful with it.

And as simple as that is, as advice, it always stuck with me. You know, the time's going to go by, and you've got a choice of how you use the time. You can use it to do something that's going to be profitable and produce further good in your life, or you can use it to do other stuff that's kind of going to be fleeting and go by. And as I think about this topic, as I think about our Christian walk, as I think about the Passover that we near, I think about that as well. You know, I'm at an age now where I can see a fair amount of life in the rearview mirror. The amount that's in the rearview mirror is probably starting to get to be more than what's in the windshield. And you start to realize that life is short. And we've got a choice of what we do with that time. That time's going to go by anyways. We've got a choice of we're going to use it well, if we're going to treasure up good and right things within, ponder them, hide them deep within us, or not. And the good thing is, as long as there's life, there's still a chance to do it.

There's always another day until God decides that that time is done. And there's always a chance to do it. So as we wrap up this message, I hope this time spent considering time, treasure, and heart is valuable to everyone as we near the Passover. Through the example of Mary, some scientific research, and other concepts in the Bible, we see that these are important concepts to the output of our lives. So I'd like to rewind for a moment to where I started. There's probably no greater threat to our culture, global society as a whole, and Christianity than the growing drought of careful, considered, critical thought. Society itself is built on occupying, entertaining, and distracting the mind. And to free our minds for thought and reflection is increasingly challenging. And that's exactly what I'd like to encourage everyone to find a way to do, especially between now and the Passover. Just a few practical thoughts around that. Commit yourself to setting aside a time, focus time, for Christian disciplines. I think it's very useful to do that, maybe in a place where you don't normally work, in a place where you don't normally sit and scroll through your device. Find a unique place. Find a place for thought, just as you might find a place for prayer. It's going to be different for everyone. I think I've mentioned before, I value the walk that I take every Sabbath morning for 45 minutes or so. It's an opportunity to think, to be in a very different environment than I'm usually in, and just to let my thoughts move between things that have been on my mind. But find that place and time. Consistency is something, as human beings for most of us, that's incredibly valuable in this as well. There are disciplines to Christianity. It's not that we earn our salvation by having those disciplines, but we exercise disciplines that can really bring profit to our lives. Reading our Bibles, our next interactive study next week will be about that. Taking in God's Word, that's part of it as well. We can't think about nothing. We've got to have something in there to think about, so we've got to feed that. Prayer, of course, and thoughtful reflection on our life. But the most practical thing that I would say is find a time, find a place, and have the discipline of setting it aside to think, to ponder, to treasure things up, and to put them into your heart. Think about it.