A Practical Method on How to Lay Up Treasures in Heaven

Today, this is a part two of my message. It's called "A Practical Method of How to Lay Up Treasures in Heaven." About three years ago, the summer of 2021, about the time when Lynn and Grace got married, I spoke about covetousness and had a detailed discussion on that. This is a kind of a follow-up on that.

I'm going to look at this message, and it's going to be divided into two main parts. It's a brief review of covetousness, and the main message will be focusing on this top, this idea, how a practical method on how to lay up treasures in heaven.

So, to begin with, we're just going to look at a contrast of how people around the world live and compare it to how we live here in the United States. These are some pictures of authentic slums around the world. This first one is Manila, which is in the Philippines. If you look at it, tar paper, scrap wood, tin roofs. Here's a second one. This is in Jakarta, which is Indonesia. It even looks worse. Look at all the trash in their backyard up there. Again, very decrepit. If you've been to Honduras or other countries like that, you've seen things like that before. And the last one, this is considering old Cairo, which would be old Cairo, Egypt, which obviously they don't live in the tar paper shacks, but you look how squished everything is where the poor people there in Cairo, Egypt, would be living.

Compare this to what we would compare to consider ourselves here in the United States of America. A typical, probably four-bedroom, single-family dwelling home that some of us I know live in or something very similar to that. Here's another one. A nice row of homes, probably somewhere in a nice neighborhood. Brick home with nice manicured yards and everything. And the last one, a very—it looks like in the West United States, if you see how dry it is in the back, but they have obviously sprinkler with nice green grass and everything. You compare, like I said, the two, what a lot of people, a large—most people around the world live in, or compared to what the vast bulk of us here in the United States live in.

And it goes with my message, just thinking about, are we pursuing the American dream, which is in complete contrast to what Jesus teaches. Here's some some some sums I found. And this is not to pick on anybody. Some of these things I definitely think are not right, but some of them I'm not going to say. Like it says in the United States, they spent last summer, 2023, $2.3 billion on fireworks. That's gone like that. $2.3 million would help a lot of people around the world. We buy bottled water in the United States, $46 billion. I like bottled water. So I was going to say this is condemning me too. I like bottled water. Then it says makeup, which is absolutely not good.

In the United States, $31.7 billion. It says approximately $244 to $313 a month on cosmetics. Then you look at the bottom two, purchase of beer in the US, $117 billion. And this movie tickets, that's not movies on your computer or movies on your whatever, that's going to the movie theater alone, $12 billion.

Just think about that kind of money and what it would do for people around the world. And like I said, I'm not going to judge anybody on any of this stuff, on fireworks or that type of stuff. That's not the point of my message. Just something to think about as we look at our own lives and the teachings of Jesus in our own lives.

I always like to begin most of my messages with what Jesus said are the two greatest commandments. And he repeats this in several of his gospels. This is Matthew chapter 22, verse 36 through 40. It says, "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" Jesus said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." On these two commandments, saying all the law and the prophets.

Because that is the beginning of this idea of being able to bless the poor. Now, as I said, I'm going to do a brief review of covetousness. We're just going to define it again in our minds as we think about this. My dictionary defines covetousness as marked by an inordinate, which means unsatiable or excessive desire for wealth or possessions, or even coveting someone else's possessions. A covetous person is always wanting more riches or material possessions. He or she is never satisfied. If you think about the society we live in, people always want more and more. They're never happy with what they have. They have a nice house, a nice job, a nice car, and they always want a second nice car, a bigger house or more.

But this, so as I said, we look into these verses. One of the key teachings that I really like in this is what Jesus says here in Matthew chapter 26, verse 24. Sorry, chapter 6, verse 24. "No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon." Mammon being material wealth, that idea. And I think it's very interesting about this teaching of Jesus here that the world we live in can see this. Our government can see this, particularly in wartime. If you remember from my World War I messages, this was a direct quote. "We are done with the days of a divided allegiance in this broad land of liberty.

With our sacred honor and our liberty at stake, there can be two classes of American citizens, patriots and traitors. Choose your banner beneath which you will stand in this hour of trial." Like I said, our government can see this. The people around us can see this. But in some reason, our Christians, followers of Jesus, have a hard time accepting that you can't serve two masters. Even employers can demand loyalty. I don't remember it, but my dad says when he worked at one of the places, he worked at when I was a little person, about seven years old.

It was called Henderson Clay Products. They asked him that they could only work for them. He couldn't do a part-time job, whatever that part-time job. There was exclusive loyalty to him only.

So I'm going to look at two quotes about this idea of the covetousness and what it does to us. This is the first one is from Cyprian. It says, "You are the captive and slave of your money. You are fettered with chains and ropes of covetousness. Christ freed you, but you are once more back in chains. You keep your money, but your money will be unable to keep you, you fool. This night, your soul is required of you, and who will own what you have prepared?" From Luke chapter 20, verse 12, verse 20. "Why do you watch in lowliness over your riches? Why do you store up the burden of your estate for your own punishment?

That is in proportion to your riches in this world, you may become poor to God." And a very similar to one, this is from William Law. All my quotes from William Law this morning are from his book, "A Serious Cult of the Holy Life." I don't always give credit to that, but that's where it came from.

His quote is almost the same idea.

This is from his book. "So that money thus spent is not merely wasted or lost, but it is spent to bad purposes and miserable effects, to the corruption and disorder of our hearts, and to the making us less able to live up to the sublime, which means best possible doctrines of the gospel. It is but like keeping money from the poor to buy poison for ourselves." Isn't that so true?

When we're covetous and we spend money on things that we don't need, the ultimate person who suffers is ourself. Like I said, buying poison for ourselves.

Because these statements are radical. Like Jesus teaching that you can't serve Mammon and God at the same time are radical. But you might think, well, I don't really live. I'm not wealthy. Most of us, I think, are average middle-class citizens.

We live like the people around us. I think all of us live in a nice home. We don't live like the people in Honduras. I've seen some. So has Kevin. If you've been to Honduras, you live more or less in cardboard boxes with little tarps over. We don't live like that. So we don't consider ourselves wealthy, but in comparison to the rest of the world, we are. Let's look at a few quotes here. We're going to look at what's called gross domestic product per person. Gross domestic product being how much money a country makes in a one-time year. I mean, in one year type thing. So this is just a statistic. These are the top 10 countries in the world on their gross domestic product.

Obviously, it makes sense if you think of Luxembourg, if you ever know where that is. It's a small country on the edge of France, very small. So it has a very small population. Why it has such a high gross domestic product per person, 143,740. But if you look down here, number nine is the United States of America, which is actually pretty amazing in not saying a good way. The United States has the largest gross domestic product in the world, approximately $25.5 trillion.

That's a lot of money in one year. That's what the gross domestic product of the United States. And that's why we have such a high gross domestic product per person, where it's approximately $335 million for the United States. So if you take $25 trillion divided by $335 million, you get approximately $85,000 per person. I know we don't all have that idea, but if you just think about that, there's a lot of money that the United States makes per person.

Compare that to these countries. These are the countries, except for the bottom two, that are found in Africa. And if you see South Sudan, which I'm not surprised, Sudan having civil war for decades, $455 a person is the gross domestic product. That's hardly anything.

I mean, type thing. I know I can understand Yemen. Yemen's had civil war for at least a decade and stuff. But if you think about that, just comparing that, how low and then go back and say, look at US, $85,000. So in reality, we are rich, and we do live in one of the wealthiest nations that's ever existed in human history. As we look at these verses, I'm going to start looking at what the Bible says about helping the poor.

We're familiar with some of the verses in the New Testament, like Jesus, Matthew 25, where he talks about an example of Judgment Day, how he's going to separate the sheep from the goats. And what he says is the criteria. He says, "How you treated your people. You fed the hungry, you clothed the naked, you visited me in prison, you visited me when I was sick." And he says, "Inasmuch as much as you do it to the least of these brethren, you have done it to me." So like I said, we're all familiar with that verse. But some other verses, this one that I was not familiar with, but somebody a couple of weeks ago told me, and I agreed with him, that this theme of helping the poor is found both in the New Testament and the Old Testament.

You remember what Jesus says is the greatest commandment? Love God, love your neighbor as yourself. So let's read this. This is Isaiah chapter 58, verses 1 through 12. I highlighted just a few of the words about when he specifically talks about helping the poor here.

This is not the full chapter, but it's not that much. It says, "Cry aloud with strength and spare not. Lift up your voice like a trumpet and declare to my people their sins to the house of Jacob, their lawlessness. They seek me day by day and desire to know my ways.

As a people who did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God, they now ask me about righteous judgment and this desire to draw near to God, saying, 'Why have we fasted? But you did not see it. Why have we humbled our souls, but you did not know it?'

Because in the days of your fast, you seek your own wills and mistreat those under your authority. If you fast for condemnations and quarrels and strike a humble man with your fist, why do you fast to me as you do today, so your voice may be heard in crying? I did not choose this fast in such a day for a man to humble his soul. Nor if you should bow your neck like a ring and spread sackcloth and ashes under yourself, could you thus call such a fast acceptable?

I do not choose such a fast as the Lord. Rather, loose every bond of wrongdoing. Untie the knots of violent dealings. Cancel the debts of the oppressed. Tear apart every unjust contract." And I highlighted there in the red where we can see where he talks about the poor. "Break your bread for the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house. If you see a naked man, clothe him. Nor shall you disregard your offspring and your own household. Then your light shall break forth as the morning, and your healing shall spring forth quickly. Your righteousness shall go before you, and the glory of God shall cover you.

Then you shall cry out, and God will hear you. While you're all speaking, he will say, 'Behold, I am here.' If you take away your fetter and the pointing of your finger and the word of grumbling, and if you give bread to the hungry from your soul and satisfy the humble soul, then your light shall rise up in the darkness, and your darkness shall be as midday. God shall be with you continually, and you shall be satisfied as your soul desires.

Your bones shall be enriched, and you shall be like a well-watered garden and like a spring of water that does not fail. Your bones will arise and be enriched like a green plant. They shall inherit generations of generations. Your ancient desert shall be built, and your ancient foundations shall be from generation to generation. You shall be called builder of walls and will rest on the path within them."

I thought about that. You just think about that, where he says, "Break your bread for the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house. If you see a naked man, clothe him." Identical words of what Jesus said in Matthew 25. So I can say this is a theme that God had in both the old weeks. Know that this is something not new, but it's a theme that we see that God had in the Old Testament and the New Testament. That's why when the brother shared this with me a couple of weeks ago, it really blessed me.

As I said, this message is not to point fingers at anybody, condemn anybody in this church. It's for us to hear what Jesus said to us. These are the teachings of Jesus himself for us to apply it as an individual and as a family and as where we can as a church. But I'm not condemning because I live in a nice house, nicer than those slums. So this is my own words. I like to drink from bottled water too, just like most of you do. So this is like I'm talking to myself. I'm not necessarily pointing fingers at anybody here.

But the point of this is that we can in our mind look at Jesus' teachings and see what they really mean in eternity, that we can do a radical paradigm shift in our mind. I know we do that as our church, which I really like about our church. We look at the teachings of Jesus and try to take them seriously. We look at how the early Christians applied those type thing. And this is a very serious teaching. A paradigm is our point of reference, how we see something. You're probably all familiar with the story my dad shared in the kingdom that turned the world upside down about the battleship. That was with another battleship, and they were communicating and saying, "We're going to crash into each other."

And finally, one battleship said, "Well, I'm not a battleship. I'm a lighthouse." And the other battleship changed course. It may or may not be a true story, but it's the whole point of what a paradigm shift means. When we actually change our reference point or how we view things, and we realize this is not how we're viewing things is not correct. So like I said, we all view stuff, and I think with this, the idea of in eternity.

Now we're going to look at a few teachings of Jesus himself. There's many of them in the Gospels. We're just going to look at a few here this morning, starting with Matthew chapter 6, verse 2 through 4. "Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, you're not telling a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have the reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing." That what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will himself reward you openly.

There's a couple of thoughts in this charitable deed thing. Jesus is saying, "When, not if," type thing, which obviously is implying that it's going to be part of our life. It's going to be an intentional thing that we are doing. It's how we live. And something I think is also very important is that when we do charitable deeds, to the best of our ability, we do it in secret. I know sometimes that's not the case, but I think just the idea, because we live in a society, I'm assuming the time of Jesus, the way it says, people like to pray when they do charitable deeds. I know the society we live in today, you just look at the newspapers, always a picture of Orson Bank giving a "giant check" to the Chippensburg Library.

Not wrong that Orson Banks give a giant check to Orson Chippensburg Library, but I don't think they're getting the reward in heaven for doing that, as Jesus said.

Now we're going to look at another verse that's just a couple down, Matthew 6:19 through 21. "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, for 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."

Something interesting that I think all of us have probably, as if you've read the Matthew commentary and done a little work, study on this, that the Greek word for the very top looks like thesaurus. That's actually where we get the word thesaurus.

But it originally meant granary or storehouse, which then translated over to the original definition of English word treasure, meaning treasury or storehouse as well. In the English word, treasure now came to mean a quantity of precious metals, gems, or other valuable objects.

But you might ask, "Well, isn't that similar? Treasure or storehouse?" And yes, you are correct. It is similar. But if you think about that, when I think of the word treasure, when Jesus says back here, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also," I think about treasure being a pile of something. That's what at least in my mind, that's the connotation. What's in my bank account? Stocks, bonds. In the past, you had your treasure chest. But if you think of the idea of storehouse, that where your storehouse is, is where your heart will be. And storehouse can be anything. It's where we keep our earthly possessions. So I like the word, I think, expands that idea where you, okay, instead of having my pile of stuff, my treasure, now it's my storehouse that is where everything is.

It could be my house, my car, my land, my toys, my books, whatever. And it expands actually that whole definition of what is where we do what is valuable to us.

Another teaching that Jesus said about this idea of laying up treasures on earth, laying up treasures in heaven. If we remember the parable of the unjust steward in Luke chapter 16, I'm going to give a summary and read a couple of verses. You remember what it said? There was a master who had a steward. The master found that the steward was being crooked. The steward goes around to all the master's debtors and changes the bills, saying, "You owe 100, he changes the 70. You owe 100, he changes the 50." The very end, the master calls the steward in front of him and says, "I heard what you did." Instead of throwing him in prison and having him hung, he says, "You did a good job.

You were commendable. You were doing something right." And it's like that's, but then Jesus goes here exactly at the very end, right when the master does that, is where the words of Jesus himself. "And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home. He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much. And he who is unjust in what is least is also unjust also in much. Therefore, if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in what is another man's, who will give you what is your own?"

It's a pretty amazing, like there's a story. We would say that's whatever, but it's like Jesus himself gave us the story, and then he said that the unjust steward did right. Here's what Clement of Alexandria says about this idea.

This is a quote, "The word maxim is a motto or saying, so that this best of maxims then ought to be perpetually repeated. That the good man, being temperate and just, treasures up his wealth in heaven. He has sold his worldly goods and given them to the poor, finds the imperishable storehouse where is neither moth nor robber."

William Law has a quote very similar to it. I like a lot.

Beginning, "Secondly, another great reason for devoting all our estate to right uses is this, because it is capable of being used to the most excellent purposes and is so great a means of doing good. If we waste it, if we do not, if we waste it, we do not waste a trifle that signifies little, but we waste that which might be made as eyes to the blind, as a husband to the widow, as a father to the orphan. We waste that which not only enables us to administer worldly comforts to those that are in distress, but that which might purchase for ourselves everlasting treasures in heaven, so that if we part with our money in foolish ways, we part with the great power of comforting our fellow creatures and making ourselves forever blessed."

Isn't that so true, both of what they said? We can share, and if we waste it, then it becomes poison to ourselves, and we can't bless those who we should be blessing if we truly love our neighbor as ourselves.

I've thought of a few things here as I was studying on this idea of helping the poor. I can say this is a brief overview, but someone might say, "Well, should I help someone who asks for money for, let's say, cigarettes or drugs or whatever that is?" And of course, my answer would be say no, but I like what William Law says here on this idea, and I'll explain a little bit about what he said because I was very intrigued by it.

So William Law in his book, A Serious Call to Develop an Holy Life, has many characters that he writes through, speaks through. And one of them is a woman named Miranda, so that's why it starts with she. So we'll read what William Law says through her. "She thinks it is the same folly to indulge herself in needless vain expenses as to give other people to spend in the same way.

Therefore, as she will not give a poor man money to go see a puppet show, neither will she allow herself any to spend in the same manner, thinking very proper that to be as wise herself as she expects poor men should be." This serious call in the book was written about 1730. I could never figure out what is this talking about puppet show. That always intrigued me. Why was it wrong to give someone money for a puppet show? And this is, I'll give you a little explanation.

So I found this quote. This is from the Colonial Williamsburg website. It says, "Tickets to be held at the theater, which are three shillings, nine pence for the box. The pit, two shillings, six pence. In gallery, one shilling, three pence. The performance to begin at six o'clock." You probably can't see, but those little weird Fs are the Old English way that they wrote an S. There was a type of S that they wrote as F in the 1700s that we don't use. Most great Britain in the United States doesn't use. Well, I said to themselves in my mind, "What does three shillings, nine pence mean?" That still doesn't mean anything in my mind. So here's what I looked up.

Three shillings, nine pence in the day's money is about 22 US dollars. Not very much money. So why would that be wrong to give some person money to go get someone 22 dollars? But in the time of, when this thing was 1770, a day laborer made, that was his whole wage for one day. So you're actually, if you give someone three shillings, nine pence, you actually gave him his whole way, you gave him what he would earn in one day. So that's, you think about the proportion. If you worked one day, you made, I think a little bit more than that, but that you think about that. So I think in my mind is given for proportion why you wouldn't give money to someone to go to a puppet show.

That's the same in the other ones. Two shillings, six pence is approximately 15 bucks. And again, it was a day laborer's wage. And then one shilling, three pence was about seven dollars, which obviously that's not a day laborer. But the other reason why you wouldn't give someone to go to a puppet show is this. You might remember who these two people are, Punch and Judy. Have you ever heard of them?

It was a puppet show that started sometime in the late 1700s, sorry, late 1800s, very common in Great Britain. They actually came to the United States during the colonies, and you can still go see them. But if you know anything about Punch and Judy, this is why. Punch is the husband and the wife is Judy.

Both of them are very nasty characters. Punch throws the baby out the window. Baby dies. Judy comes hit Punch. Punch hits Judy. This is the puppet show Judy paying money to go watch. So they're hitting each other. Eventually, Punch will kill Judy.

They send a policeman. Punch will kill the policeman. They'll send a hangman. Punch will kill the hangman. And some of the times Punch gets in confrontation with the devil himself. Sometimes the devil kills Punch, and sometimes Punch kills the devil. Doesn't sound like a very edifying, wholesome thing to be giving someone money to, especially if you're a follower of Jesus. And I can see why William Law said, "No, I wouldn't give money just for someone to go to a puppet show," between the cost and something very unwholesome.

Another thing you might think about in helping the poor is this. How do I know the person is telling me the truth? What if he's lying? Should I be giving something to somebody that I don't really know what's going on in their own life? This is how William Law answered this. Again, it's through his character Miranda. "It may be," says Miranda, "that I might often give to those that do not deserve it, or that will make an alias of my alms. But what then? Is not this the very method of divine goodness? Does not God make his son rise on the evil and on the good? Is not this the very goodness that is recommended to us in scripture that by imitating of it, we may be children of our Father, which is in heaven, who sendeth rain on the just and the unjust?"

I'd like that comment. Well, that's how God treats us. God doesn't have to give us rain. He doesn't have to give us sunshine. He gives it to everybody. So why am I judging other people necessarily? He goes on a little further. "Shall I withhold a little money or food for my fellow creature for fear he should not be good enough to receive of me? Do I beg of God to deal with me not according to my merit, but according to his own great goodness? And shall I be so absurd as to withhold my charity from a poor brother because he may perhaps not deserve it? Shall I use a measure towards him, which I pray God never use towards me?"

Sounds like the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. How we judge others is how we're going to be judged on Judgment Day. If we show mercy, God will show mercy. But if we don't, God will not. And William Law ends it this way. "Besides, where is the scripture made merit, the rule of measure of charity? On the contrary, the scripture sayeth, if thine enemy hunger, feed him. If he thirst, give him drink." As we know, Jesus says, "Love your enemies." And the obvious thing of loving your enemies is not just a mental ascent on our heads, but it's actually showing true kindness and charity towards him or her.

So now I'm going to just, as we looked at this, just change a little bit and just give a few ideas of, in my mind, I think this is not a comprehensive list, how we can make this practical in helping the poor. Like there's not a comprehensive list. These aren't all original with me. We can do an interest-free micro loan like we do in Honduras.

And I think that's helping somebody who has a small business already, and we give him or her, usually it's not very much money, a couple hundred dollars, sometimes a little bit more, to help them grow their business. I know in the very poor countries, where there's not very much in the economy, the people do food boxes, clothing boxes.

I know in some places you can send children to Christian day schools so they can get a wholesome education. I wouldn't want to send my children to public schools, not just in this country, but anywhere else if I could help it. You can give money to help people for medicine. We think of how easy it is to go to CVS or anywhere and get medicine, but most countries don't have that. You can just run in your car a block or two away, a mile or two away, there's a pharmacy.

You can give support for a medical clinic. I know different people have been in Haiti and other countries where they have medical clinics. The building's there, but they need funds and/or doctors or nurses. We can sponsor a native pastor to spread the gospel, using much more efficient money, monetary, to have someone who's native to that country share the gospel versus sending someone to the United States, doesn't know the culture, doesn't know the language, and will want to live a little bit more like a North American than someone who's from the own country.

We can purchase Bibles and other Christian literature. A lot of places you can't get a Bible, both from being restricted countries or they just don't exist. You can support building projects such as we've done in Honduras again. We've done residential for poor people. We've also helped with medical clinics.

You can support a local disaster response. We've seen that before with the earthquakes around the world, hurricanes, floods, landslides, etc. You can also do a one-time cash gift. I've read that CAM and other places will find a poor family, the idea, the same idea as micro loan, but use a little bit more money and it's a gift. They have a business going like in Eastern Europe. They have one cow. If they had two, they could have raised cows. They have land. They need a tractor. Things like that. They have a greenhouse. They could possibly use two. And you give them a gift, they can purchase it, and they can support not only their family, but others as well.

You can provide seeds. We think it's easy to go get seeds during the summertime here, but that's not the case in most places. You just go to the store and buy seeds. Same with trees, both fruit trees or other types of trees. You can provide livestock. We have auctions in the United States where you can get livestock, and you can get livestock at stores like Tractor Supply, like when they had the little chickens and stuff in the spring. But you can't necessarily do that in other places, or if you could, you don't have the money for it. There's things such as a widow fund, both for widows who have died because they're older, but also places where their husband has been killed because of persecution.

The same idea is churches where places they burn churches down because of persecution, again, to help the poor, not necessarily make a church building, but that idea. We can help people learn how to budget and be able to do their little business if they have a little business, so they can learn about helping it grow.

I've read this too. They give funds for water well drilling and water purification. We think about bottled water or we turn our tap on, how easy that is, but most places don't have that. If you've been to Honduras, it's like, yeah, you want to drink out of the water? Maybe not. And the last one I thought of, in a lot of places during the winter, not everywhere because a lot of winter is not that bad, but if you were like a winter in Russia or in some of those countries where it's very cold, you don't have money, you don't get any heat. People provide funds to help buy stuff for winter, fuel, coal, firewood.

Two examples that I thought this in my own life, they're not very good because I'm not, yeah, what I'll just share with them. One of they both definitely changed how I look at things. Back in summer of 2007, this is I think August, Shippensburg Christian Fellowship with St. Thomas and some of the, I think, local river brethren and other churches sent a crew down to Talibay, Honduras, which is about half an hour from Suwatu Peki, and we ended up making an addition to the maternity ward.

We were there approximately two weeks. I had never, I hadn't been to Honduras before that, and I didn't know very little about the construction, so I was definitely in over my head. I quickly learned that I didn't know very much about this at all. In Honduras, they usually lay blocks, as some of you have been there before. They lay blocks with concrete, concrete blocks and mortar. So I didn't get, I should have wished I had learned how to lay blocks, but I did not. I did help mix the mortar, and that was something I thought too. They had those big sacks of concrete and throwing the sand in the mixture that I guess is like diesel or gasoline motor, and you had the gravel as well.

I did, like I said, I helped do that. I helped carry drinks until I got sick. I did learn you don't drink the water in Honduras, otherwise you will get sick, and I got sick and stupidly went to the worksite being sick in the hot sun and more or less about feeling I'm going to die. So I put my head on the tile and concrete in the hot sun and more or less fell asleep. Thankfully, the brothers around saw my needs and helped prop me up and get me some shade and get me something to drink. So I did, because it was a good experience for doing that. I didn't, like I said, I didn't, it didn't spend as much money, but it was a sacrifice of my time, which is also helping the poor sacrificing your time.

And it did also show me that we do truly live in a wealthy country, even if we don't think we're wealthy, compared to, like I said, the vast bulk of the world. And a similar story about this happened when I was in Texas.

I think early summer of 2001, we had a church building near downtown Dallas, of Dallas being a town of approximately a million people. We were about a mile and a half, two miles from downtown. And our church building was near the public housing projects. Obviously, there's many in Dallas, but near one. And I happened to, there were two brothers, myself and another who worked about a mile from the church building. I was at the church building that day for something, I don't remember what, around lunchtime. And somebody came up and asked me for money for food. Our church had made a policy, and I think it's kind of what we have here at our church as well, that we wouldn't give money for food, but if someone was really hungry, you could say, "I will take you to a Ross restaurant and treat you."

So this man, he said, "I would like some money for food." And I said, "Well, I can't do that, but I can take you and get you some food if you'd like that." And he looked at me incredulously at first, like, "You've got to be kidding me." But then he realized I was an earnest. I said, "Where would you like to go?" And he said he would like a fried chicken dinner at Popeyes. So I actually drove him to the Popeyes restaurant about a mile away and got him a nice fried chicken dinner, which he did thank me for. And I felt, I think he felt blessed, and I definitely felt blessed for being able to help him like that.

And as I conclude my thing, I'm going to just give a brief summary of what William Law did in the last part of his life here. So as I said, about 1730, he wrote the book, a series called It About Holy Life. In 1743, he retired to this home in the little village of King's Cliff, Great Britain. My parents actually visited this and saw actually where he lived. He and two other elderly ladies pooled their combined resources together.

There is no way I looked and looked and I found some, could never find primary stuff, so it's hard to exactly get what they said, but it's somewhere approximately maybe 3,000 British pounds. This would be 1743. That doesn't sound very much, 3,000 pounds or whatever, but in today's money, that's over $450,000 that they pooled together.

And they lived, again, they didn't stay because William Law didn't write about this. This was biography after him, but they lived on approximately 10 to 15 percent of that. They lived on. The rest, over 80 plus percent, they gave away because he was trying to implement what he had, see if it was practical, what he had said in his book and series called It About Holy Life. Some of the things that they did was they made schools for poor children, both boys and girls, which was unusual because if you've been in the public school movement with free education started in the late 1800s, so if you went to school, you had to pay for it.

So most children did not go to school, particularly if you were poor. And like he did for boys and girls, he also made alms houses. This is a picture of an alms house. Alms house being an idea where you could, a house where you could live usually rent-free, like when you're either elderly or handicapped. Because unfortunately, if you've been to Honduras and other places, if you can't pay the bills, you don't have a place to live, and you just get put on the street, and that is the end of it. Nobody cares. The government doesn't, and the people don't. So definitely the 1700s gave people a place to live who couldn't do it. In addition, they spent large sums of money in just general charity.

They gave food, clothing, medicine, I think medicine and things like that. It actually got so big that the local rector of the local Anglican church, this is a picture of it, actually gave a message over the pulpit complaining about William Law, what William Law and those two ladies were doing. This is what he said.

He gave a paper that he denounced this indiscriminate charity, and the paper was presented by many inconsiderable inhabitants of the town, the justice of the peace, complaining that Law and his family were one occasion of the miserable poverty of this parish. So like I said, the rector himself denounced them for giving so much money in the small community because everybody in the community and the surrounding areas came to King's Cliff to receive charity.

And so I could say, yeah, it obviously the news traveled. In addition, I could say William Law, besides his works of charity, that he and the other, the two sisters, spent a large part of their time in prayer, devotion, and Bible study.

So as I just want to just do a quick review, we looked briefly today on the teachings of Jesus, on what he said in confidence is a very small, that we can't serve God and Mammon. Your allegiance has to be one or the other. We looked at in both the Old and New Testament, God has always had a heart for the poor, and I just gave a brief idea of how to lay up treasures in heavenly storehouses, not in storehouses here on earth.