Matthew 6: Your Savings Account in Heaven

Introduction

"Don't lay up for yourselves treasures on the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consume, and where thieves don't break through and steal." (Matthew 6:19-20). Shigemasa Shigaki, senior pastor of Full Gospel Tokyo Church, gave this message a very down-to-earth title: "the savings account in heaven."

A former businessman, he knows the world of money. He doesn't say wealth is evil. He simply reminds us that we take nothing with us, that the riches of this world can vanish in a single day, and that there is an account nothing can touch, because its owner is God.

Following Matthew 6:19-24, he moves step by step: where your treasure is, your heart turns; where your heart turns, your eyes look; and what you look at shows you who your master really is.

Outline of the message

1. Fortunes you can't take with you

• Once, people talked about millionaires. Then came the age of billionaires, in dollars: one billion dollars is about 160 billion yen at today's rate. Now people are starting to talk about "trillionaires": Elon Musk is said to have reached a thousand billion dollars in assets, about 160,000 billion yen.
• The pastor confesses that back when he ran a company, he fought hard to become a billionaire. He was very close to the goal when God stopped him, and he became a pastor.
• To make that figure concrete, he compares it with the price of a grave in Japan: about 1.5 million yen on average for a plot of 3.3 m². With 160,000 billion yen, you could buy a hundred million of them. Even at Aoyama Cemetery, one of the most expensive in the country, at around 15 million yen a plot, you could buy ten million.
• "But when we leave this tent of flesh, we can't take anything with us." A small square of earth is enough, and today we don't even need that, with columbariums or scattered ashes.
• The pastor makes it clear: "I'm not saying material things are bad." They were created by God, they are precious, and we should prosper. But however we keep them, protect them, or believe we own them, they end up rusting, being eaten away, or being stolen.

2. Earthly treasures are never safe

• For our old age, we pay into pensions, we save, we buy property. But "if there is just one war, everything drops to zero." A bank deposit you thought was safe can disappear in a day.
• The pastor brings up the Lehman Brothers crisis: one of the three biggest banks in the world collapsed, and it could happen again.
• He also speaks about the age of artificial intelligence. A newspaper article he read the day before reported that AI systems are already slipping beyond what their programmers predicted and hacking companies. What we keep in the bank, or even on our phones, can be swept away in an instant.
• "That is exactly why Jesus said to lay up treasures in heaven instead."

3. How do you make a deposit in heaven?

• With humor, the pastor asks: do we have to go all the way to heaven to make a deposit, and then come back? "First of all, I don't think you can come back."
• What Jesus means is this: everything we have, we received from God. Using it here on earth according to his will is making a deposit in heaven. It isn't only about money: talents, service, dedication, worship, prayer, praise, all of it is a deposit in heaven.
• Interest rates are finally rising, he says: bad news for people with debts, a small joy for people with savings. But don't forget: with no deposit, interest has nothing to do with you. "Whatever a man sows, that will he also reap" (Galatians 6:7). No sowing, no harvest; no deposit, no withdrawal.
• The riches of this world can disappear at any moment. But the savings account in heaven has God as its owner: up there, no rust, no moth, no thief. We have held this account since the day we received Jesus Christ.
• God never forgets what we have offered before him. Helping a weak person may seem like a small thing, but even a cup of water given to a little one (Matthew 10:42) is entered in this account. "Not only in his memory: it's recorded." The worship we offer, and above all our love for God, are entered there too.

4. Withdrawals on earth as in heaven

• This account has a special feature: it works in heaven, but on earth too. If there is a balance, sometimes you can withdraw healing, sometimes salvation, sometimes joy when your heart is sad. And eternal life, we can already withdraw at any time.
• Dorcas. She wasn't rich, but she sewed very well. She worked hard for the widows, who at that time couldn't afford clothes, and made garments for them. When she died, Peter arrived; the widows were weeping and showing the clothes she had made. Dorcas was her Greek name, Tabitha her Jewish name. Peter said, "Tabitha, get up," and she came back to life (Acts 9:36-41). All her life she had been making deposits in the account in heaven, and Peter "withdrew" that deposit through the power of the resurrection.
• Cornelius. A centurion of the Italian cohort, he was not Jewish. He gave generously to the poor, feared God, and prayed without knowing the gospel. In prayer, he was told to send for Peter, and his whole household received the baptism of the Holy Spirit (Acts 10). The first non-Jews to receive the Spirit: that was the withdrawal from his good works.
• "These withdrawals take all kinds of forms. Not only money." This account cannot go bankrupt, because its owner is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end (Revelation 22:13).
• The five loaves and two fish. A young boy "deposited" his small meal in the bank of heaven (John 6:9). Jesus withdrew it immediately, had it distributed to an enormous crowd (the preacher speaks of 30,000 people), and twelve baskets were left over.
• Peter's catch of fish. Peter had thrown his nets all night without catching anything. He had simply lent his boat to Jesus so that he could teach the crowd. Then Jesus told him to go out into deep water and let down the nets. In broad daylight, where people don't fish, the nets began to break, and the two boats, filled to the brim, began to sink (Luke 5:1-7).
• The widow of Zarephath. About 900 years before Jesus, Elijah announces three and a half years without rain because of Israel's idolatry. He himself has nothing left to eat. God sends him to Zarephath, not to a rich person, but to a very poor widow who has only a handful of flour and a little oil, and who is about to eat one last loaf with her son before dying. Elijah asks her for that loaf. "Hearing that, you think: what a man!" But he promises her that the flour will not run out and the oil will not diminish until the end of the famine. She believed, she "deposited" her last loaf, and so it was (1 Kings 17:8-16).
• "The way God blesses is not always to withdraw everything at once." Sometimes you withdraw every day: flour every day, oil every day, and the family never went hungry.

5. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also

• Many people say in all sincerity: "I'll give when my situation improves." The pastor doesn't condemn that thought, but he speaks from experience: "It's when it's hard that we must act." When it's hard, pray; when it's hard, come to worship, seek the Word, offer a prayer of thanksgiving. Even if what you can do is tiny, doing it before God is laying up treasure in heaven.
• Verse 21: "for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." You can't tell someone "I love you" without ever giving them anything.
• The pastor recalls that in his day, salary was handed over in cash in an envelope. He never opened his: he brought it home intact to his wife. Some husbands took their share first, others spent everything. Why hand over the whole envelope? "Because I love her." He wanted to see his wife happy. It wasn't an obligation, it was love.
• Saying you honor your parents while never looking after their needs is hypocrisy. "When you love, you want to give." Not by forcing yourself, but by going without yourself if need be. Parents buy things for their children because they love them. With God it's the same: shouting "I love you" while doing nothing for him isn't really loving.
• The pastor suggests a simple test: look at what you spend your free time on, outside of work. Look at where your money goes. Look at what you would be afraid to lose. That is where your heart is.
• Jesus watched a widow put two small coins into the temple treasury (Mark 12:41-44), and said she had given more than all the others. For the preacher, she was the woman who loved God the most. He does the math: two sparrows sell for a penny (Matthew 10:29), a penny is worth eight small coins, so one sparrow is worth four. With her two coins, this widow couldn't even buy one sparrow.
• "Because he has set his love on me, therefore I will deliver him. I will set him on high, because he has known my name" (Psalm 91:14). He doesn't leave me, he leans on me, he looks in the Word for what I desire: everything depends on a loving relationship with God.
• The tithe is the foundation of faith between God and us. "It's not: nine tenths are mine and one tenth is God's." Everything belongs to God: our life and everything we think we own. God tells us to manage our life with the nine tenths and to bring one tenth to support his house. By the tithe, we confess: "My whole life belongs to God."
• "God is the richest in the universe. Elon Musk can't hold a candle to him." He doesn't want our small change: he wants to see our heart, how much we love him.

6. The eye, the lamp of the body

• Verses 22 and 23: "The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness."
• Without sight, you can move, but you can't see the obstacle or the cliff: you get hurt or killed. You need light.
• Since we received Jesus Christ, we have his light. It shows us where we come from, why we are here, and where we are going: back to God. It shows us the seriousness of the sin of Adam and Eve, but also that Jesus atoned for everything on the cross 2,000 years ago, and that we now live as children of God.
• Without that light, "you only see the riches of this world, glory, power and pleasure." When those are the only values you see, you can only head toward destruction. Receiving Jesus Christ means having your spiritual eyes opened.
• That is why we must evangelize. "Our families are still spiritually blind. Our friends too." The gospel is bringing them this light.
• At the Christian music festival held a few days earlier in Tokyo, more than fifty people stood up to receive Jesus. "In Japan, fifty people standing up is significant." But without the light of Christ, people go back to darkness: so we must evangelize, and then keep caring for those who have believed.
• The treasure raised the question of the heart; the eye raises the question of what you look at. The heart goes toward the treasure, and when you look at that treasure with the eyes of the spirit, you discover God behind it. "When you know what you're looking at, you know what you're looking for. When you know what you're looking for, you understand how to live."

7. No one can serve two masters

• Verse 24: "No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to one and despise the other. You can't serve God and Mammon."
• "We only have one heart." It may be big or small, but God gave us only one. We can't love two things at once: we need an order of priority. That is why we seek first God's kingdom and his righteousness (Matthew 6:33): turning our love toward God, because our treasure is there.
• The same goes for church life. Some people drift from one church to another. With a heart divided like that, you can't love a church for the long term.
• In marriage too, God made the man and the woman one body (Matthew 19:6): each has only one heart, and those two hearts must become one.
• "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength" (Mark 12:30). Loving with all your heart is laying up treasures in heaven. And the one who loves God like that understands what God expects of him, without imagining it all by himself.
• The pastor repeats it: he isn't saying we shouldn't love wealth or have power, all of that is necessary. But they are only means for life on earth. "The purpose of my life is to live loving God. There is no other."
• He concludes with a blessing: may you, day after day, withdraw from this savings account in heaven and see God lead you in his blessings, with gratitude and praise.

Key takeaways

• We take nothing with us when we leave this earth, and the riches of this world can vanish in a day: war, bank failure, hacking.
• Laying up treasures in heaven means using everything God has entrusted to us according to his will: money, talents, service, worship, prayer, praise.
• God forgets nothing: even a cup of water is entered in the account in heaven, and this account allows withdrawals right now, sometimes all at once, sometimes day after day.
• Where your treasure is, your heart is: your free time and your money show what you truly love. The tithe confesses that everything belongs to God.
• We have only one heart: we can't serve God and Mammon. The purpose of life is to love God.

Personal application

1. What are you devoting your free time and your money to this week? What does that reveal about where your heart is?
2. Are you waiting for your situation to improve before you give, pray, or serve? What small step can you take right now, even if it's hard?
3. What "cup of water" can you offer this week to a weak person around you?
4. Do you see your money as "nine tenths mine, one tenth God's," or do you recognize that it all belongs to him?
5. Who in your family or among your friends needs you to bring them the light of Christ?

Verses cited

• Matthew 6:19-24
• Matthew 6:33
• Galatians 6:7
• Matthew 10:42
• Acts 9:36-41
• Acts 10
• Revelation 22:13
• John 6:5-13
• Luke 5:1-7
• 1 Kings 17:8-16
• Mark 12:41-44
• Matthew 10:29
• Psalm 91:14
• Matthew 19:6
• Mark 12:30

Frequently asked questions

What does "lay up treasures in heaven" mean in Matthew 6:19-20?

For Shigemasa Shigaki, it isn't about going to heaven to deposit money. Everything we have comes from God: using it according to his will is making a deposit in heaven. This covers money, but also talents, service, dedication, worship, prayer and praise.

Can you "withdraw" something from your savings account in heaven right now?

Yes, according to the preacher: this account works in heaven and on earth too. Withdrawals take many forms: healing, salvation, joy when the heart is sad. He cites Dorcas, Cornelius, the young boy with the five loaves, Peter's catch of fish, and the widow of Zarephath, whose jar of flour never ran empty, day after day.

Why does Jesus say that where your treasure is, there your heart will be also?

Because our heart always goes toward what matters to us. The preacher invites us to examine what we devote our free time and our money to, and what we would be afraid to lose: that is where our heart is. Whoever loves gives, and whoever loves God shows it through concrete actions.