Two Kinds of Masters

1 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.

Don’t flaunt your righteousness whether it’s in giving, prayer, or fasting.

You righteousness should have an attitude of humility and genuineness toward God

giving Him all the glory and not taking any for your own

The key word in the whole chapter is reward

Not they we should focus on earning rewards

because that’s not humility,

but Jesus is actually going to tell us that we should focus on rewards

but they may not be the rewards that we think about everyday

He then moves into a whole section on stress management.

Jesus is eventually leading up to the main verse about stress removal inverse 34

Matthew 6:34 (ESV)

34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

The first place to remove stress is all about our stuff

Jesus started about where to put your treasures so you don’t stress out about them.

Store them in eternity where they can’t be corrupted, stolen, broken, lost, or faded.

Matthew 6:19–20 (ESV)

19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,

20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.

Stress management is about not worrying about our stuff here

Those rewards that we get here

but the rewards that we should be placing in heaven

rewards like who we are bringing with us

what good things are we doing for the kingdom, etc.

Two Kinds of Treasures

The key verse to this section of His sermon is in verse 21

Matthew 6:21 (ESV)

21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

It’s all about where you worship.

Worship is defined as where you spend the most resources

Resources include time, money, effort, talents

where you spend the most resources show what you worship

Where your treasure is, your heart will be also

Again, all about rewards

the treasure we store up here is ultimately going to burn up

the treasure we store in heaven is stored for eternity

and it’s preserved until we get there

Two Kinds of Eyes

Jesus is going to take us on a path to show how this works .

Luke last time spoke about the first step in what you worship

It all begins with the eyes.

You have a choice when you see something

You can either admire it and move on, or you can desire it and let it consume you.

Jesus spends a lot of time talking about eyes in the Bible

Luke last time beautifully shared about the purpose of the eyes in this message Jesus gives

The eyes are the gateway to the heart

I was like Luke, in that I was a bit confused when I read this verse

Matthew 6:22 (ESV)

22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light,

And to be quite transparent, after Luke taught this last time, I was pretty convicted over things.

I was always picturing the eye as like a flashlight, or a light bulb.

Something that would light up the inside.

Of course they didn’t have lightbulbs or flashlights back in Biblical times, but they did have oil lamps

And that’s exactly what Jesus is talking about

Oil lamps that burn pure do not give off smoke.

but a lamp that is dirty or has impure oil in it burns impure

It’s sort of like my lawnmower on occasion

When I crank that thing up, because it’s been sitting outside for a time

and I haven’t ever cleaned it out or changed the oil

That thing smokes like a factory

my neighbor with the battery powered green lawn mover just gives me dirty looks

But my lawnmower both cuts my lawn and serves a mosquito repellent as I go

This is what Jesus was referring to.

When your eye is clouding any light from getting in, your whole body is dark

When you put anything in front of Jesus, the Light source, your body gets dark

Matthew 6:23 (ESV)

23 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!

A question we have to ask ourselves when we feel like we aren’t close to Jesus is, what’s blocking your vision?

Remember that Jesus said He would always be with us even unto the end of the age

Matthew 28:18–20 (ESV)

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

So whatever the problem is, it’s not on Jesus.

I, much like Luke, married way up

My wife is a lot like the Holy Spirit in my life in a good way.

She has the quiet voice and sometimes doesn’t need to say a word

to let me know what I am about to do isn’t right or helpful.

I tend to have a lot of hobbies. It keeps me busy and creative.

I’ve done everything from collecting guns, to quilting, to building movie props, role playing games, cosplay, you name it.

I’m also not one to go in half hearted.

When I start something, it’s going to be full bore and often pricey.

But I’ve also noticed that it can consume me.

It consumes my time and energy and resources.

I’m an admitted YouTube junkie.

I love to watch YouTube,

but when I do, it feeds my desire to buy things.

I see some reviewer talk about the latest whatever and I’ve got to have it.

My eyes get in the way of what I really should be doing

and that’s using resources for Kingdom work

more than I should be using them toward pleasing me

Shannon has learned to not have to say anything.

She shakes her head and lets me go off doing whatever.

Eventually when God gets a hold of me, she looks and smiles.

Without a word from here that’s enough conviction to last me until the next time I do something dumb.

Reminds me of a verse from Peter

1 Peter 3:1 (ESV)

1 Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives,

That’s a topic for a different time

Whatever was the object of my affection, if it wasn’t Jesus, it was blocking His light!

I was so focused on rewarding myself

I didn’t let the light of Jesus come into my body to light my brain

But wait, there’s more!

Whatever it is that is blocking the light source of Jesus from entering into your body

whatever you are rewarding yourself with

Jesus says becomes your master

Paul says it this way in Romans about sin

Romans 6:16 (ESV)

16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

Paul is explaining to the Roman Christians that even though we are saved from sin, we still have sin in our body.

Romans 6:12–14 (ESV)

12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.

13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

So sin has the potential to become a master of our body if we let it.

For those that are Christians, Christ has defeated sin for us

that means as a Christian we are no longer slaves to sin

However, just because you are a Christian, doesn’t mean you are a disciple or a follower of Christ

You can be freely saved and totally unsubmitted to the authority of Christ.

I would then question if you are really saved because Romans says in verse 10:9

Romans 10:9 (ESV)

9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

You have to both believe that Jesus died and rose for you and confess (agree) that Jesus is now your Master, Lord

That means you follow what He tells us to do.

But what sin is it that blocks the light of Jesus into our body?

It may be pride, that’s usually a good light blocker

It could be lust, also a good light blocker

And Luke talked about last time was covetousness, also sin

So if sin becomes our master and block the light source of Jesus from entering our body

what does Jesus have to say about that?

Two Kinds of Masters

Matthew 6:24 (ESV)

24 “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.

We’ll get to the money part in a minute

no one can serve two masters

just logistically, if your boss tells you to one thing,

and your spouse tells you to do another, you have to make a choice

If your mom tells you to do one thing and your friends tell you to do something different

you have to make a choice

If your body tells you to do one thing, but common sense tells you to do another

you have to make a choice

One of those things is going to own you based on what your choice is

If the Bible tells you not to have sex outside of marriage,

but your body tells you it’s going to be ok, you have to make a choice

Are we going to follow God and allow Him to have control?

or are we going to follow our body and let it have control?

and to be honest, that’s kind of low hanging fruit

because that’s a direct violation of the Word of God

we will reward ourselves with pleasure

without every taking into consideration the consequences of our actions

and violation of God’s Word

The problem is when whatever we let have control,

it becomes easier to let that part have control the next time,

and the next time, and the next time

If God tells us not to gossip, and He does, and we choose to turn around and gossip anyway,

we let our mouth and body have control

Here’s the thing, it feels good for the moment to tell somebody something.

but for a truly saved follower of Jesus, the Holy Spirit will convict you over what you’ve done

and there are consequences still to be paid

Have you ever known a person claiming to be Christian that you consider untrustworthy?

that’s a consequence of sharing gossip

Jesus is going to get in some people’s grill now

Matthew 6:24 (ESV)

You cannot serve God and money.

Why is it always about money?

I can hear the people now

Every time I show up to church the preacher is talking about money

To be fair and accurate, first, that’s not true, at least not here at Riley’s Creek

Second, Jesus talked about money more than anything else in His speaking

Third, remember the context of this verse

He’s been talking about rewards, treasures

Jesus began talking about where to place your treasures

Matthew 6:21 (ESV)

21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

So don’t think of it as an attack on money

or a plea to give money, or anything else about money

It’s really more about wealth and possessions

The word at the end of verse 24 is the word money in English

The King James uses the Greek word mammon.

Mammon means wealth

That includes property, wealth, money.

The main word would be possessions

Let me define possessions

possessions are things that you think you possess

Let’s just cut to the chase.

Jesus has been talking about how to worship

He’s been talking about how to be righteous

which really just means how to be in the right standing before God

He’s been telling us where to store up treasures, in heaven

and He tells us that our rewards should come from Him

rather than rewarding ourselves and going around Him

Now he’s comparing serving God or money

The bottom line here is

the worship of worldly wealth is called materialism

so in reality materialism is a false religion

it is the idolatry of your stuff

it’s taking possession of your possessions

those things that we think are ours

and the pursuit of more stuff over the pursuit of God is called greed

There is nothing wrong with money

I remember growing up hear some well meaning people tell me

you know money is the root of all evil

let me correct that

1 Timothy 6:10 (ESV)

10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

The problem isn’t money, wealth, things, stuff or possessions

the problem is when you are possessed by your possessions

when we are unable to will our way free of our possessions.

when we can, we can be freed of the stress of worrying about them all the time

Luke is going to talk about this next week

Matthew 6:33 (ESV)

33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

When we seek God first, and God gives it to us

we remove the stress of trying to achieve something

because it has been freely given

But when we try to achieve something on our own

without God’s help, permission, or even asking

we enslave ourselves to the very thing we acquire on our own

What does all this have to do with stress removal?

When we focus on OUR stuff

and make things OUR possessions

We have a tendency to do anything we possibly can to protect those things

and try to acquire more

that causes stress

Materialism can be focused on our stuff

but don’t miss the principle

materialism is anything that we take possession of

that could be physical things

it can also be a position we hold, a job we have

it could be a ministry we lead

it could be Sunday School classroom

It could be a piece of furniture, a building, a committee

We forget who gave us the talents and abilities to serve

and we take possession by making it something WE own

to the point, that anything that has to do with it

is all about us, and nothing about God

we want the credit, the accolades, the attaboys

we don’t want anyone messing around in OUR room

with OUR stuff, where I serve

and when we don’t get it

suddenly it becomes a personal attack

I remember being a part of a church

and their were children that would be in the hallways

and there were kids that played on the playground

occasionally there were spills in the halls from accidents

and there were a few church members that didn’t appreciate

that there were scuff marks on the wall

or that the playground had toys left around

or that there were kids from the neighborhood that would play all times during the day.

His comment to them, and I agree, is

would you rather reach children or have clean walls, floors, and playgrounds?

I understand a respect for what we have

I get we need to be good stewards of the things God has given

as long as we remember that these are tools God has given

and they are not ours

all of these things, this stuff, including the personal stuff

including wealth,money, titles, buildings,

is all about being a tool for reaching people for the gospel

So if we go through the entire verse of 24

Matthew 6:24 (ESV)

24 “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.

The principle here, the bottom line is

we are all enslaved to something and must give our all to God as our loving Master, not to worldly wealth.

We all have a choice to make

You can serve to fill yourself with all the things you want

and stress out about the stuff you think is yours

or you can choose to serve God

and allow Him to give you all the things you’ll need

and some of the things you want anyway

as long as they don’t possess you

IF material things are what you are talking about when you say, I’m blessed

You have no idea what blessing is

Henry David Thoreau once said

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

Or perhaps from the Old Testament book of Job

Job 1:21 (ESV)

21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Maybe a better verse of scripture comes from Matthew 16

Matthew 16:26 (ESV)

26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?