The Treasure Of Your Heart
But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.
Luke 2:19
And He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subjected to them: but His mother kept all these sayings in her heart.
Luke 2:51
Is it Worth Keeping?
Storage has become a critical issue in our culture. The consumerism problem has created this byproduct called “excess” and people don’t really know what to do with it. People buy more based on gorilla advertisement and then when they get the stuff they bought on impulse, they don’t know where to store it. Thus, they are left with two crucial concerns. First, what is valuable and what is not? The second concern is even more important: where do you keep things that you now own? With that, we should first explore the first concern of assigning value to things. Do we really need what we think we want? What happens if I don’t get it? What difference will this thing make in my life? Let us apply this question to spiritual concerns as well as physical and tangible things.
It appears that the United States and other western nations have a problem with keeping stuff. Our basis for valuing things in a materialistic society is often determined by prestige and novelty. We love to have new stuff. The more something costs and the newer it is, supposedly, the more valuable it becomes. This has created a storage issue because many of the things that we pay for are not useful at first, or if ever. So, storage is a problem created by buying stuff things we don’t necessarily need or will ever use. This is the down side of consumerism.
The gotta-have-it even if I don’t need it attitude has given rise to the storage unit industry where people keep stuff they may not need. According to the online website neighbor.com, storage units rake in over $40 Billion in annual revenues. Nearly 10 percent of all Americans have storage units that they rent to keep their excess at an average cost of $90 per month. Yet, there is an upside to this dilemma. Some of the things we store may actually turn out to be quite valuable at some point in time. This introduces us to the storage issue relating to spiritual things. With that, the problem is reversed. We don’t value nor do we store spiritual things with the same fervor and gotta-have-it mentality of material things. I don’t see people flocking to the Church house or rushing to get online to hear God’s Word in the same way that they rush to the mall or logon to Amazon ©. People are not as quick to treasure the spiritual things as they are to treasure natural things and that is a problem.
The issue is much deeper than storage. The issue with properly storing spiritual things could make the difference between life and death. It could make the difference between being prepared to face a life crisis with confidence or giving up on life when troubles come. The bottom line is clear. All of us need to store spiritual things safely, securely, and easily accessible for the time of need. With that being said it is necessary to determine what to store and where to store these spiritual items for future access. Our text tells us that Mary stored these things in her heart. Let’s first look at the implications of the lack of storage of spiritual things.
They Did Not Keep It Where They Could Find It
The young nation of Israel was founded on faith in God that led them from the bondage of Egypt to the Promised Land of Canaan. God commanded the nation to keep His Commandments and love the Lord your God with all your heart … and these Words, which I command you this day, shall be in your heart. Deuteronomy 6:5-6. The nation started off in obedience but soon resorted to their own way of doing things. They departed from the faith because they lacked the storage capacity in their hearts. Other things began to take the place of God’s Word. They began to fill their hearts with the pagan practices and the idol worship of the surrounding nations. Soon, the practices of the wicked became the practices of God’s chosen people and along with that came the punishment. You would assume that the people would have remembered. You would assume that they would have recalled the Goodness of the Lord, but as it turned out, they did not “store the Word and the Blessings of God” in the right place where they could find it. This caused the downfall of Israel and ultimately led to their Captivity by Babylon.
To give you an indication of how bad the spiritual storage problem was in Israel, the Scriptures tell us that during the reign of Josiah (the 16th king of Judah) the people found the Book of the Law. 2 Chronicles 34:14, Hilkiah the priest found the Book of the Law of the Lord that had been given to Moses. Upon finding the Book, King Josiah tore his clothes and wept because he realized that his nation had failed to live according to the Commandments of the Lord. They were destined for destruction as a result of ignoring the spiritual storage problem.
So, what happened to Israel? Why is that important to us in the Twenty First Century Church? This message has great impact for our generation because many in the Church have almost ignored the spiritual riches of Heaven in pursuit of the treasures of this world. Many have even overvalued material things and under-valued the spiritual riches of God. Another issue is that people are depending on material things to get them out of spiritual trouble and that is a recipe for disaster. King Josiah recognized and was even told, that there was nothing he could do to reverse the curses that would fall on Israel as a result of their rebellion. From his time of reign, it would take less than thirty years for the nation to be taken captive by the Babylonians. That is the high cost of not storing up the spiritual things of God.
The Book of the Law was in the Temple all that time, but nobody searched for it with all their heart and soul. When they found the Law it was already to late to reverse the downward spiral of destruction. Even though Josiah turned to God with all his heart and soul, many in Israel continued to worship idols and practice the evil up until the day that Jerusalem was destroyed. How pathetic! If they had only stored up the Commandments in a place where they could have accessed them, the trouble could have been avoided. This is a warning for all who hear the Word. Get your storage priorities in order. What you store will determine what you really treasure.
Mary’s Miracle Storage System
We are all grateful for the blessing that God bestowed on Mary, the Mother of Jesus. We marvel at the fact that she was the person closest to Jesus when our Lord and Savior came to this planet. But there was something else she did that is worth noting.
Mary practiced as spiritual storage exercise that would serve us well. She made it a habit of storing spiritual things in her heart. She understood that the things of God would always have future value, so rather than allow the miracles and the movements of God to slip away with time, she stored them in her heart. On one occasion when Jesus was twelve years old, His family went up to Jerusalem for the Passover festival. On their way back home, His parents noticed that Jesus was not among their caravan. So they searched for Him for three days only to find Jesus in the Temple with the Teachers of the Law, asking them questions. See Luke 2:46. Joseph and Mary were quite upset and did not know why He did this. Jesus responded, “Didn’t you know I had to be in My Father’s House?” There is no mention of Joseph responding to Jesus, but the Bible says that Mary did not allow that moment to pass unnoticed. And He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subjected to them: but His mother kept all these sayings in her heart.
Evidently, Mary had a special way of recalling the Words and Actions of Jesus because she stored them in her heart. She remembered the things that Jesus said. She remembered His actions. She did this because she recognized that everything that Jesus said was precious. She recognized that those Words had value and they meant something to her soul. She also knew that at some point, everything that Jesus said would come to pass and would be needed in her life. Mary was not just Jesus’ mother; she was a believer in the Word of God.
There are three life lessons that we can use from Mary’s spiritual storage. First, we must acknowledge what God said with our heart. A lot of people agree with God’s Word with their mind. “I know that’s right,” they will say but never intend on valuing and following what’s right. Mary used her heart to treasure God’s Word. Wasn’t that the admonition from Deuteronomy 6:5? These Words, which I command you this day, shall be in your heart. Don’t just give God’s Word mind room or lip service. Put your heart into it and then you will value what God says.
The second life lesson from Mary’s spiritual storage is that we must keep God’s Word for future use. Mary did not fully understand all that Jesus was doing nor did she grasp all that He was saying. Rather than simply shrugging it off as a comment, she took every Word and pondered it, treasured it, and stored it up for the future. One thing is for sure, if you don’t need God’s Word today, you will definitely need it for the future. It is not a question of “if” the problem will come but “when.” Try hiding the Word in your heart, like David, and you will find that it will keep you from sinning in the future. You call that potential energy when something is capable of releasing power at some future point. God’s Word is good all the time, not just right now. I don’t just need God for today, I have sense enough to know that I will always need Him. I don’t just want to live for God today, I want to live for Him in the future. God’s Word has use in the Future as well as the present. So, store the Word in your heart because you will surely need it.
Lastly, Mary used the spiritual storage system of her heart for expected praise. There are many things that God tells us and promises us that we can’t quite grasp the full meaning. Then as we walk through the process of fulfillment, we discover that what God said has come to pass. It not only happened with Mary, it also happened with the Disciples. Many of the things Jesus told them, they did not grasp. It was not until later when the Holy Spirit brought those things back to their memory. “Then they remembered the Lord’s Word.” God is so good and does so much that we just can’t grasp it all. That’s okay, just store it in your heart. God brings so many good things in your life that you just can’t count them all. That’s okay, just store it in your heart. Then your heart will begin to overflow with the Mercy, the Kindness, the Grace, and the Love of God. When that happen, you need to release it from your heart and give it back to God in praise. All praise to God for His remarkable Gift. Store that in your heart. Amen.