Serve God or Mammon: Living in God's World Generously
Matthew: The King and His Kingdom • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 35:45
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· 11 viewsWho owns your possessions? A Christian realizes that possessions aren’t their own; yet they reveal their loves, their vision of them reveals their light, and their master reveals their devotion.
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“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.
“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light,
but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
“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.
Who owns your possessions?
Who owns your possessions?
A Christian realizes that possessions aren’t their own; yet they reveal their loves, their vision of them reveals their light, and their master reveals their devotion.
A Christian realizes that possessions aren’t their own; yet they reveal their loves, their vision of them reveals their light, and their master reveals their devotion.
Your treasure reveals what you love.
Your treasure reveals what you love.
“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.
Our storehouses reveal what we value most.
Our storehouses reveal our greatest loves and loyalties.
How you relate to your stuff reveals what you love.
Our storehouses reflect what we value and our values reflect our greatest loves.
A person can say that they love God, but the way they treat their things reveals more about them then they want to admit.
If we love things more than we love God, it will become clear.
It’s not about how much money you have.
It actually has little to do with what you have.
It has more to do if your things have you.
“The theme of treasure stays the same while the timbre changes from an appeal not to be foolish to a more direct warning against the soul darkness of greed.”
“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light,
Your vision of the world reveals your light.
Your vision of the world reveals your light.
“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light,
Your vision of the world reveals your light.
Your vision of the world reveals your light.
Jesus begins by making a parallel that a person’s eye is like a lamp for their body.
If their body is the vessel then, the eye reveals the light behind the vessel.
Now in some ways we look at this and we can see exactly what Jesus is talking about.
We often say phrases like,
“I looked them in the eye and we shook on it.”
When we greet people, we commend people who shake hands and look them others in the eye.
There is a genuineness that we associate with looking people in the eye.
In this way, we get closer to what this riddle from Jesus is teaching.
Oil Lamps
Picture an oil lamp in the center of a room.
It lights the room.
Jesus contends that the “eye” reveals what is inside of a person.
Some eyes like oil lamps allow light to pass through.
But sometimes oil lamps get soot on them.
It makes it impossible to see within the room.
“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light,
Much of the debate over exactly what Jesus is talking about comes down to the word for “healthy” (ESV).
That same word is also rendered
“single” (KJV)
“sound” (NET)
“clear” (NASB)
“good” (CSB)
1. When translations differ, there are good reasons.
When we see this, we shouldn’t set our hairs on fire.
We should pay attention.
There is NUANCE happening where translations differ.
2. Pay attention to is the context.
The context surrounding the word determines much of the meaning of a word.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 6:24 (ESV)
You cannot serve God and money.
On either side of this mention of “the eye is the lamp of the body” are statements about money.
It makes good sense to understand this statement about the eye with reference to money.
“Healthy Eyes” – Singular and Generous in God’s World.
“Healthy Eyes” – Singular and Generous in God’s World.
The healthy eye then is NOT so much about what comes into a person’s eyes.
There is more to do with what comes out of our eyes.
Jesus compares our eyes to a lamp.
A lamp gives off light.
Or if it is dark, then it does not give off light.
BUT a lamp doesn’t receive light.
A lamp gives off light.
Matthew 6:23 (ESV)
but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.
The concept of a “bad eye” is used in other places within the Bible.
We see it almost universally with respect to giving and generosity.
“Evil Eyes” – Evil and Stingy in God’s World.
“Evil Eyes” – Evil and Stingy in God’s World.
Sisler’s have always been known as “stingy people.”
We prize ourselves on our Goodwill finds.
We prize the frugalness and conservatism of money.
A stingy man hastens after wealth and does not know that poverty will come upon him.
The phrase “a stingy man” is actually the Hebraic expression, “a man with an evil eye.”
Now many cultures have different concepts for “the evil eye” and we won’t be able to discuss it here, but it’s important to notice the way the Hebrew Bible uses it.
The stingy “evil eye” man chases after wealth as a pursuit but does not realize that it will only lead to poverty.
Wealth becomes the goal of the stingy man and will soon lead him to poverty.
This is different from the man who desires to be wise with his wealth for the glory of God and be guarded from foolishness with finances.
Do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy; do not desire his delicacies,
for he is like one who is inwardly calculating. “Eat and drink!” he says to you, but his heart is not with you.
You will vomit up the morsels that you have eaten, and waste your pleasant words.
Just like a person’s warned from eating with one who is rich, to eat with one who is “poor” and “tight fisted” with their money is just as dangerous.
The word stingy is aptly translated because it represents one who does not have an abundance of wealth, but is greedy with the wealth that they have.
They are inwardly calculating by speaking in one and believing within themselves and other direction.
If you have an evil eye, you’ll literally be unable to see the world around you as it really is.
You’ll be hindered from seeing the gracious hand of our Heavenly Father behind everything.
You’ll be hindered from seeing the graciousness of our Heavenly Lord.
“If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother,
but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be.
Take care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart and you say, ‘The seventh year, the year of release is near,’ and your eye look grudgingly on your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the Lord against you, and you be guilty of sin.
You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake.
For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’
An Israelite was charged with caring for their fellow Israelite if they were struck with poverty.
Specifically with a fellow Israelite that was currently working to pay off a debt, the year of Jubilee or the year of release (7 years) all debts are meant to be pardoned and the slave returned to freedom.
This section of Scripture promises that the poor will always exist in the land, but their obligation was to care for the needs all around them in the land.
As some scholars have noticed, a person’s eye is “healthy” when their eye toward a neighbor is generosity.
Seeing the world with “healthy eyes.”
Seeing the world with “healthy eyes.”
Let me give you an example.
Have you ever had a really good meal with someone?
I recall several occasions where we would have food brought in for our Cru retreats.
The best smoked brisket you could imagine.
And we would have tons of it.
So much that we would all take home leftovers.
But as we were passing out leftovers on the way home, some people would take more than others.
And there begins to be something pass through our brains,
“There might not be enough left to take leftovers home.”
We talk about money at times with a “poverty mentality.”
But when we say that someone has a poverty mentality, what are we saying of them.
Ultimately, we are saying of them that they believe there is NEVER enough.
They never have enough land.
They never have enough money.
A poverty mentality views themselves as those who are underprivileged and “deserve” the benefits of others.
It’s this kind of scarcity mentality that spoils and ruins the view of God that Jesus is propounding here.
“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light,
but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
Jesus expresses that if your “eye is bad” then your whole body will be filled with darkness.
If “the light” from within us is darkness, then He expresses “HOW GREAT IS THE DARKNESS!”
Being Deceived with an Evil Eye —Unbelievers
How sad it is that there are those who believe themselves to be generous…
When in fact, they are not generous at all.
This kind of darkness is especially great.
That darkness is especially appalling if the person deceives himself. If he thinks his eye is good when it is bad, he talks himself into believing that his nominal loyalty to kingdom values is deep and genuine, when in fact it is shallow and contrived.
Matthew 6:23 (ESV)
If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
“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.
Jesus presents this in as clear of terms as possible. Everyone can only have ONE master.
Your master will reveal your devotion.
Your master will reveal your devotion.
“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.
Your master will reveal your devotion.
Your master will reveal your devotion.
There is something implicit Jesus is assuming here that is critical to grasp.
We are NEVER autonomous people.
We are always being ruled by something or someone.
Humans are unable to be ruled.
Whether they’re aware of it or not, they are ruled and mastered always.
This is a critical distinction to make because it rubs against an idea that humans can make themselves into whatever they desire.
The idea that we are our own master is a completely foreign idea to the Bible.
So even the person who believes they can be the master of their own life, they are actually ruled by something unaware to them.
‘Men can work for two employers, but no slave can be the property of two owners…single ownership and full-time service are of the essence of slavery’.
—Quoted in John Stott by Tasker pg 76
A slave has ultimate allegiance to one master.
They cannot have two masters.
They can only be devoted to one master.
Just like Jesus says elsewhere about family.
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
Jesus is not telling us to have family members.
He is telling us if we don’t love Him more than them then we are not fit for the kingdom.
This is especially true of mammon.
The Master of Mammon
The Master of Mammon
“Mammon” here is translated as money but it really embodies all our possessions.
It comes from an Aramaic word for possessions or property.
“Here Mammon is personified as an evil and superhuman power that stands in competition to God and by possessing people can even keep them from being devoted to God and make them hate Him.” —Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible
He also said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions.
And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’
And the manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.
I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’
So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’
He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’
Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’
The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.
Notice what Jesus is commending here.
The money was not his own and he realized it.
He was trying to make a return on money that wasn’t his.
The problem with this man was he was making a return on money that was selfish.
No servant 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.”
“That wealth can exercise an overwhelming power over People and enslave them is an insight well known also among Greeks and Romans as is evident from the much-quoted sentence that love of money is the root of all evil (1 Tim 6:10)” —Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible
Double-mindedness and the Christian Life
This is why James chided the people in James 4 as adulterous people.
You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
The adulterous person desires the trivial pleasures of this world as prostitute when our Heavenly Husband has given us all things.
Not only that, we ask our Heavenly Husband to provide for these adulterous pleasures when we delight in the gift more than the giver.
And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
Jesus’ logic is that if we serve Mammon, then we will eventually hate God. If we we love Mammon and serve it, we will be devoted to Mammon and despise God.
So is Jesus calling us to quit our jobs and become street dwellers?
Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.
Without having any chief, officer, or ruler,
she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest.
How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep?
A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest,
and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.
We can learn a work ethic from the ant, who is continually busy with the labor.
But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
So which is it?
There is not an either or here. We all have to deal with mammon. The difference is if the mammon begins to control us.
Jesus—Our Gracious Master
Jesus—Our Gracious Master
Jesus’ point here with respect to money is,
“Have money, yes, that is how we will provide for our families and communities. But don’t let your money have you.”
“Work hard and learn wisdom from the ant, of course, but don’t become enslaved to another master in the process.”
When we realize that we serve a Lord and master that graciously provides everything for us, we are not governed by money.
Choose your master wisely.
Choose your master wisely.
“You spend a good deal of your life gripping a baseball, and it turns out it was the other way around all the time.” (Former New York Yankees Major League Baseball pitcher Jim Bouton)