“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.
“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.
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. | Matthew 6:19–21, 24, 33-34
This is the time of year when people create lists of changes and commit themselves to new habits and rhythms. Every year, people start out of the gate with great intentions and zeal. Sadly, the next step is often to fall behind and give up on these ‘resolutions.’
Part of the reason for this is because we attach the wrong expectations to the goals we set. What I mean is: we believe that making specific adjustments will bring a balance and fulfillment to our lives. We trust that we can find peace through will power and by maximizing our efficiency. We work really hard to make it happen, but when we find the outcomes lacking, we give up. It isn’t worth the hard work of change if we aren’t going to get the results we desire.
The solution is not to simply to make better commitments, but to make resolutions that are entirely different. As I mentioned in the sermon on Joy this Sunday: if we simplify the concept of joy down to happiness, life will become about managing your situation. The promises you make to yourself and the goals that you set will be about adjusting your outcomes: getting more exercise, eating healthier, or developing a habit that will benefit your life emotionally/spiritually. These are all good things, but they are also merely addressing the symptoms of our discontentment, rather than getting to the source. The source of our struggle, the reason why we keep striving for more and better, is because we sense that there is more to life than what we are currently experiencing. We feel a vacancy and so we keep striving for something to fill the void. Each time something falls short, we move on to the next thing, assuming that the issue is that we just haven’t found IT yet. The difference that I am encouraging is to stop ‘rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic’ and to embrace the limits of this life.
I believe that this is the same shift that Jesus is making in the Sermon on the Mount. The verses at the beginning of this blog come from the middle of this sermon, where Jesus confronts a number of wrong beliefs that the people are holding to (‘you have heard it said…but I say to you’). Jesus does not simply point them to a better way to live this life; He encourages them to change what they are living for. We see this very clearly in these verses:
- Do not lay up treasures on earth, but invest in heaven.
- You cannot serve God and money.
- Do not be anxious about tomorrow (for tomorrow will be anxious for itself).
In all of this, Jesus is encouraging His people to give up on the promises of this earthly system, in order to make their lives about something else. The next job won’t solve your issues. The next relationship won’t heal your hurt. The next goal and accomplishment will not make you feel like you’ve made it. In a way, if you trust in this world to give you meaning, it will be a death by one thousand cuts.
The alternative is to invest your life in God’s kingdom, to live toward eternity, measuring your success in terms of God’s glory. Living toward His kingdom means drastically changing both your expectations of this life, but also the means to find joy. It looks like sacrifice to those invested in this world, but it is seeking something that promises a much deeper fulfillment. We see this promise here, when Jesus says:
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
The resolution that Jesus calls us to is the long process of taking our eyes off of the immediate in order to seek His eternal good. To replace our selfish, self-serving goals with steps toward redemption and reconciliation. While it feels like you are giving something up in this process, the truth is: the formation that happens as we get in line with God’s order and rhythm makes us more content with the limitations of this life. We become more fulfilled, not by having more stuff or getting our life to match our expectations, but by being transformed by the renewal of our mind.
What do these sorts of resolutions look like? A good place to start would be Jonathan Edwards resolutions (a brief history of them can be found here: https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/resolutions-jonathan-edwards). Here is the first of his 72:
Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriad’s of ages hence.
The power of these resolutions are not in the promises made, but in the priorities they set. We should be striving to place God in the seat of authority in our lives, over and over again. Only from there the rest of life find its right balance. Only then will we be at peace.