Treasures in Heaven: What the Bible Does (and Doesn’t) Say About Wealth

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Make money-bags for yourselves that won’t grow old, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Luke 12:32-34

I recently had a member inside my membership, The Voca Society, ask me to write on this verse. It’s a tricky one, because it seems to discourage wealth, and call us to only invest in the “spiritual”. So as entrepreneurs, should we be investing in our businesses? Or is that just laying up worldly treasures that will be destroyed?

Let’s dig into this text!

The context of Luke 12 contains several anecdotes and parables, one after another, where Jesus touches on wealth from different angles. I’m going to give you a super quick recap…

• First Someone from the crowd asks Jesus to tell his brother to divide their inheritance with him. Jesus ends that section with this verse: “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” Luke 12:15

• Second Jesus tells the parable of the man who feels secure in his riches, but dies, and God says to him “‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” Luke 12:20-21

• Third Luke recounts Jesus exhorting his disciples not to be anxious about what they will eat or wear, and to consider the birds and the lilies of the field. That section ends with “And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.” Luke 12:29-31
  

Then we come to our verses: “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Make money-bags for yourselves that won’t grow old, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Luke 12:32-34

• Lastly Jesus tells two parables about servants. The first parable is about servants being ready when their Master comes unexpectedly “and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes.” Luke 12:36-37
  

The second parable is like it, but different. It’s about a servant who is a manager over other servants. In this parable, the Master comes back unexpectedly, similarly to the first parable. But in this one, Jesus contrasts a faithful manager who is managing well when his master comes back with an unfaithful manager who beat the other servants and mooched off of his master’s wealth.

Should I Sell All I Have to Give to The Poor?

The first question likely in your mind after reading this is probably, “Is Jesus telling me I need to go sell all of my possessions and give the money to the poor?” The short answer is: no. Many would argue that this command was only intended for the disciples in that particular time, but regardless, the interpretation that all Christians should sell everything and give to the poor would contradict much of Scripture and the examples of many godly people we see in Scripture. (see the article in the footnotes for more on this if you’re interested).

Jesus is contrasting two hearts.

• The first heart worships wealth. It covets what others have and uses people to get ahead. It is the heart of the servant who starts to believe that what has been entrusted to him is actually his.

• The second heart worships God. It is generous and sacrifices to help the poor. The second heart has a stewardship mentality, knowing he is simply a manager.
  

So Luke 12 isn’t about whether you are wealthy or not, it’s about what your heart worships.

If it were wrong to be wealthy, we wouldn’t have verses like this:

“Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to set their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy.” 1 Timothy 6:17

Paul doesn’t tell Timothy to pastorally advise the rich in his congregation to sell all they have and give it to the poor. It would have been easy to say that, if that’s what he meant. But instead, he encourages them not to set their hope on their riches, but on God. It’s all about what our hearts worship.

Another parallel to Luke 12 is the story of the rich young ruler. Jesus’ command to sell all that he had and give it to the poor was specific to that man, because Jesus knew that his heart idolized his wealth. The young man was saying that he had kept the law, and Jesus’ command showed him where he was breaking the law through his idolatry. He probably thought Jesus would be flattered to have such a righteous and wealthy disciple join his ranks. Jesus was adjusting his skewed view of sin and calling him to repent of his idolatry.

So that leaves us with the question: how DO we lay up treasures in heaven?

For this, let’s go to 1 Corinthians chapter three…

“According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—  each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” 1 Cor 3:10-15

The treasures we lay up in heaven are anything we build on the foundation of Jesus Christ. The good works we have been called to do (Eph 2:10) include everything we do in our lives for Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit, and with a heart that worships Jesus over self. So whether you are creating an email sequence for your business, helping the poor, washing your dishes, creating a new product, giving a family member a back rub, or taking a meal to a sick friend at church, there are two ways to go about these works. One seeks glory for self and one seeks glory for God. One relies on our own strength, and one relies on God’s. One is done in the flesh and one is done in the spirit.

Friend, there are two ways to build your business. One is done in the flesh and one is done in the spirit. If you build your business, practicing what I call “worshipful entrepreneurship” then you are laying up for yourself treasures in heaven. All of our works done in this life will be tested by fire and will be revealed to either be built on Jesus or burned up as wood, hay, and stubble. What you build on the foundation of Jesus will last into eternity, and yes, that includes your business!

There are two takeaways I’d like to leave you with.

First, if you believe God has called you to business, than I hope you embrace it fully and passionately (yes, even the mundane or boring parts like writing Standard Operating Procedures and running payroll) as a way of laying up treasures in heaven. When you fully submit your business to God and do the daily work of relying on Jesus for wisdom, strength, and purpose, you glorify God so deeply. I hope you walk away with a renewed sense of joy, knowing Jesus is smiling on you.

Secondly, there is a very real warning in Luke 12 that we must take deeply to heart. There is a danger to wealth. Riches can gives us a false sense of security in our own abilities that leaves God out of the picture. We must take Jesus’ words seriously, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness.” (v. 15) We do not want to end up laying up fleeting treasures for ourselves and poor spiritually.

Perhaps, like me, your heart tightens a bit in holy fear. “If that’s the case”, you think, “maybe we should play it safe. It must be spiritually better to be poor.”

But here, I want us to remember the parable of the talents and the two parables Jesus brought up in this context regarding the servants. Burying our talents is NOT what we are called to. We aren’t supposed to say to ourselves, “well to guard myself from the dangers of riches, I will avoid them all together.” No, we are called to a steward’s heart instead. What guards our hearts from the deceitfulness of riches? What guards our hearts is not to avoid the battle, but to remind ourselves that whatever wealth we have been given to manage is not our own. And we are called to await eagerly for the return with our Master, knowing that our true reward is not found in wealth but in our Savior, Jesus.

The world is telling you the opposite, that wealth is for your own pleasure. Perhaps why God withholds wealth from so many of us is that our hearts are off.

“You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” James 4:3

We are called to embrace a holy tension. To seek to increase the talents entrusted to us (including building wealth) and to set our hopes on Jesus, not our wealth. Only Jesus can help us fight that battle and win. But with Him as our soul’s Captain, we know we will overcome.

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” Rom 8:37

Footnotes: More on why selling everything we have is not a command to all Christians: https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/does-jesus-teach-us-to-sell-all-our-possessions

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