Serving 2 Masters
You Cannot Serve Two Masters
Key Verses: Matt. 6:24–34
I. The Problem of Mastership
A. Everyone must choose a master.
1. It is going to be either God or materialism—mammon. It cannot be both or nothing.
2. The choice is man’s but the consequences are predetermined by our Creator.
a) The person whose Lord is Christ has the rewards of an abundant life (John 10:10) and peace of heart in spite of tribulation (John 14:27).
b) But the person whose god is Mammon will live in constant anxiety.
B. No one can serve two masters.
1. There cannot be two heads on one body—that would be a monstrosity.
2. We cannot divide our lives into spiritual and material components—soul, spirit and body combine to make one person; therefore we can only have one master.
3. Our modern Christianity has elevated concern about the body and material things so high that spiritual concerns have become secondary.
II. The Problem of Priority
A. The two verbs, love and hate, stand in contrast of degree, the one he will love more than the other (Luke 14:26; Matt. 10:37).
B. The reason these two entirely opposite words are used, love and hate, is to indicate how tremendously greater our love for God should be.
C. Love for God should come first. Nothing should take the place of God in any individual’s life.
1. Christ, when He is the sole Master of our lives, gives us a balanced view of all else: relatives, material things, work, sufferings, sickness, health, abundance, etc.
2. Human relatives must not have the same priority in our lives.
a) In Luke 14:26, our Lord told us that unless we hate our relatives we are not worthy of being Christ’s followers. What did He mean by this?
(1) The answer is in Matthew 10:37, where Jesus says that anyone who loves father or mother, son or daughter more than Him is not worthy of Him.
(2) Thus, our love for our relatives should not lessen; rather, our love for Christ should greatly exceed that of our family.
b) Among our relatives also there is a grading of priorities.
(1) A marital partner is the first human priority.
(2) Then come the children. One does not equate the kind of love meant for the children with the special love for a spouse.
(3) Next are parents.
(4) Then come other relatives.
D. The word translated “other” in Matthew 6:24 is héteron not állos. Héteros means another of a different quality whereas állos would have meant another of equal quality.
1. Christ declares that mammon cannot be given the same importance as God—the two are fundamentally different.
2. God deserves first place because He is the cause and sustainer of all things (1 Cor. 1:17).
3. When God is not first in our lives, we become so confused in our thinking that we lose perspective and live in constant anxiety.
III. The Problem of Anxiety
A. Striving to serve two masters causes anxiety in our lives.
B. When God is our master, He supplies our material needs.
1. The body has definite physical needs.
a) We must not neglect the body’s needs.
b) The phrase translated “take no thought” is mḗ merimnáte in the Greek text, meaning “do not continually be anxious.”
2. In Matthew 6:31, 32 the Lord says that there will not be a single thing we shall be anxious about (the verb is merimnḗsēte here in the subjunctive aorist referring to any particular instance).
a) But freedom from anxiety presupposes God being our Father.
b) If you become a child of God by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, then there should not be a thing to worry about (John 1:12).
c) Why should a child of God, whose Master made everything, provides everything and controls everything, worry about anything?
Spiros Zodhiates, Sermon Starters : Volumes 1-4 (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 1998, c1998, c1994, c1993).