Who Are You Serving?

Introduction

Daniel Boerman once said, “The Christian lives in this world, but his sights are set on the world above.” We live in a time where many things are trying to catch our eye and gain our focus/attention. Many of these things aren’t inherently bad either! These are some of the top goals that Americans mention that they’d like to reach within the next 10 years: Financial stability, physical health, education, social relationships, advancing in one’s career, balance in life, several other goals are mentioned by many Americans - these aren’t bad things, in fact they can be used to do a whole lot of good! But they cannot be our primary goal as individuals if we seek to live a Christlike life and truly be satisfied. We read in God’s Word in places like Colossians 3 that we are to set our mind on the things above, not on things that are on the earth. Friend, where is your focus today?

Illustration from the Hobbit as Bilbo Baggins and his counterparts enter the Lonely Mountain and find a ferocious dragon, Smaug, laying on top of the largest pile of gold imaginable. Bilbo was afraid of the dragon leading up to the room but upon seeing the gold all of his fear went away… His heart has been captivated by the treasure in the room and his focus isn’t on the deadly dragon but on the billions of dollars standing in front of him. The lure of riches took his eyes off of the danger before him. This is how wealth can be in our lives today as we know that there is danger lurking but we can get tunnel vision by looking at the bottom line and storing up earthly wealth and thinking that those possessions/things will provide satisfaction/support/security. The truth of the matter, though, is that true security isn’t found in things - it’s found in a person. True satisfaction isn’t found in more and more - it’s found in belonging to Jesus.

As we continue studying the Sermon on the Mount we find ourselves in a transition section of Jesus’ message. Jesus has just given us instructions on what to do and what not to do - He shared with us that His disciples must give, pray, trust in Him, and forgive others. These things are not for the faint at heart and for those who seek to live out His commands He has more to say today. Jesus, again, is interested in our heart being changed and bent towards serving Him in all that we do: including how we think, act, and plan for the future. Jesus wants us to be all in for Him! As we prepare our hearts for His message, ask yourself this: Who am I serving today? We’re all tempted to serve ourselves and plan accordingly, but Jesus desires for us to serve Him and trust in Him to meet our every need. In the way that you think, act, and plan, are you serving Jesus Christ or are you serving yourself? Let’s read this morning from Matthew 6

Matthew 6:16–24 CSB

16 “Whenever you fast, don’t be gloomy like the hypocrites. For they make their faces unattractive so that their fasting is obvious to people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that your fasting isn’t obvious to others but to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 19 “Don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. So if the light within you is darkness, how deep is that darkness! 24 “No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Pursue God’s Face, not Man’s Approval (16-18)

Last week we discussed our motivation behind why we do what we do. As Christians our motivation behind our actions should be to glorify God, not to earn a pat on the back from other people or to make ourselves look really good in the sphere of public opinion. As humans we like to be liked and we will do lots of things in order to be liked. Whether it be acting like we enjoy something that we really don’t or pretending to know something in order to fit in, we’ve all been in a situation where we try to win the approval of other people. Maybe this works for a time, but eventually we get exposed or we fess up and tell the truth. Other times we go with the flow and we end up getting in trouble!

Michael Lopez, a statistician from New York, conducted a study of analyzing over 5 years of NFL games in order to see how peer pressure influenced NFL referees in their decision making. Specifically Lopez studied plays where a player was hit after he had gone out of bounds - a play that is supposed to result in a personal foul penalty against the defense. An official should call this foul whenever it happens because it breaks a rule of football… But what Lopez found in studying over 1400 individual plays is that the referees often have to make a judgment call in the moment and more often than not the referee makes a call that benefits the team he is closest to. Meaning this, if the referee is next to the Kansas City Chief sideline and there’s a 50/50 call that he has to make, chances are he will make the call in order to benefit the Chiefs simply because the referee is closest to that sideline. This is how situations often work in our world. Intimidation works! Peer pressure is a real thing - it doesn’t matter how old you are!

If you live to please people and be approved by them, you’re going to either make biased decisions or you’re going to end up getting in trouble because we’re going to come across as a hypocrite. Jesus doesn’t want this to be the case for His followers so He offers an alternative option. He says to do what is right, to do it in secret, and let God take care of the results. Specifically in Matthew 6:16-18 Jesus touches on the topic of fasting - this isn’t a fun subject for Southern Baptists because we like our food! Fasting is something that is found in Scripture as the Jewish leaders, Pharisees specifically, practiced fasting 2x a week. Jesus practiced fasting at times and we know other Christians have undertaken this practice from time to time as well. Fasting has traditionally been from food but that’s not the only type of fasting we “have” to do. The purpose of fasting is to set aside a period of time to rely on God. Jesus fasted in the wilderness in Matthew 4. The difference between the fasting of the Pharisees and the fasting of Jesus and His disciples is that it’s a voluntary fast. Pharisees would fast 2x a week and Jesus calls them hypocrites because it was a publicity stunt. Jesus encourages but doesn’t require fasting. He says to do it in secret.

We know some people focus exclusively on outside looks - how will people look at me if I do this or what will people think if I achieve this status? It’s a genuine temptation to focus on the outside and Jesus condemns the pharisees for this practice… Instead, as has been the case throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is focused on the heart - on our motivation behind what we do.

Think this morning about the word success. How do you measure success? In the world of business maybe success is achieving a certain monetary threshold. In the world of athletics maybe success is breaking a personal record or winning an important tournament. In the world of parenting success might just look like surviving through a difficult day. What does success look like in the church? To some people, success looks like it would in the world of a business. More money, more people, more memberships, more baptisms, more, more, more! The trut of the situation, though, is that the church might have business meetings but the church cannot operate like a business does. Our view of success in the church doesn’t hinge on more things - it hinges on us becoming more like Christ and being faithful to do what He commands us to do. Some of the most faithful churches I know are churches that have less than 50 people in them. Does that mean that they’re not successful because they’re small? Absolutely not! Church size isn’t the definition of church success. The definition of Christian success is faithfulness to Jesus Christ.

Jesus repeatedly condemns the practice of doing things to look good in the public eye. He calls us to fast - to pursue His face. To pray for His Kingdom to come and His will to be done. To give and to pray faithfully. As we do those things and as we proclaim the Gospel to others, absolutely we pray that the lost would be found and that the saved would be encouraged to serve. There’s nothing wrong with a great harvest and an increase, but those things cannot be our barometer for success - we’re not a business, we’re Jesus’ Church and He promised to build it. We take Him at His Word and we simply remain faithful to follow Him in secret and in public because doing things to win the approval of our fellow humans will inevitably lead to failure.

Pursue Rewards that Last (19-23)

Think of the things that last the longest in this life. It’s not looks, it’s not cars, it’s not even houses or buildings. The things that last are not those with an expiration date. Yet, for so many in our world they focus exclusively on the here and now that they accumulate earthly treasure that will one day be of no value to them and eventually be of no value to anyone! While there’s nothing wrong with having much, the call from Jesus is to make sure that our pursuit is not more temporary stuff but more eternal riches. I’ve heard it said before that “There’s no reason to be the richest man in the cemetery” and this is true for all of us - but especially true if you’re a Christian. You can’t take it with you and Jesus speaks of the danger that pursuing earthly riches can have on our lives in Matthew 6:19-21 as he shares that earthly treasures can experience harm from 3 sources: moth, rust, and thieves. What’s significant about these things?

In the Middle East a tiny moth could wreck havoc as it could destroy any and everything! Even the nicest of clothes could be devoured by a tiny insect. You could spend hundreds of dollars on designer clothes only to have it destroyed by something seemingly insignificant. Maybe high dollar clothing wasn’t a temptation for Jesus’ audience, look at what comes next: rust. What does rust do? It corrodes metal, including precious metals. It destroys the things that we view as being valuable. Even whenever we keep our possessions safe and clean there is always the risk of things being stolen by others in this world as earthly possessions are always at risk. Earthly possessions promise more than they can provide and they fail to deliver on their word. So what should we truly pursue with our life? Primarily heavenly riches - not earthly ones.

2 questions for us to examine at this point

What is heavenly treasure?

Why is this treasure important?

What is heavenly treasure?

Jesus says that we should store up heavenly treasure in part because it cannot be taken away. What is this treasure, then, if it cannot be taken away? Jesus talks about the treasure of the Kingdom later on in the Gospel of Matthew and shares this

Matthew 13:44 CSB

44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure, buried in a field, that a man found and reburied. Then in his joy he goes and sells everything he has and buys that field.

The treasure is not more things - it’s one thing, it’s Jesus Himself. For Christians, we have the greatest treasure imaginable, yet we fail to realize it as often as we should! John Stott shares that this heavenly treasure can be Christlike character, increase of faith in God, growth in knowledge of Christ, and the use of temporary resources for Kingdom causes. These things cannot be taken away! Tim Keller talks about how wealthy Christians are in Christ

“Imagine you're a billionaire, and you have three ten-dollar bills in your wallet. You get out of a cab, and you hand the driver one of the bills for an eight-dollar fare. Later in the day you look in and find out there's only one ten-dollar bill there, and you say, "Either I dropped a ten-dollar bill somewhere, or I gave the taxi driver two bills."

What are you going to do? Are you going to get all upset? Are you going to the police and demand they search the city for the cabdriver? No, you are going to shrug. You're a billionaire. You lost ten dollars. So what? You are too rich to be concerned about that kind of loss.

This week, somebody criticized you. Something you bought or invested in turned out to be less valuable than you thought. Something you wanted to happen didn't go the way you wanted it to—these are real losses. But what are you going to do, if you're a Christian? Will this setback disrupt your contentment with life? Will you shake your fist at God? Toss and turn at night? If so, I submit that it's because you don't know how truly rich you are. If you're that upset about your status with other people, if you're constantly lashing out at people for hurting your feelings, you might call it a lack of self-control or a lack of self-esteem, and it is. But more fundamentally, you have totally lost touch with your identity. As a Christian, you're a spiritual billionaire and you're wringing your hands over ten dollars.”

We are spiritual billionaires, yet we so often wring our hands over 10 dollars that don’t matter that much in the grand scheme of things!

Why is this treasure important?

This treasure is important because wherever our treasure is, that’s where our heart is as well! Our works can’t gain us entrance into heaven because we’re all sinners and that sin separates us from God, however, through Jesus’ work on the cross we are able to stand and enter in. As people who have been radically saved by Jesus’ sacrifice, he expects us to live a different way as Christians. Not only with the things that we do but the way that we live our lives. Last week we touched on our motivation behind why we do the things that we do - ultimately that’s what our heart does. Our heart drives our actions and motives. Here’s the problem with this situation, our heart is sick, it’s wicked - we can’t simply follow our heart and expect to please God because our heart is sinful. We have to have Jesus change our heart and as He creates in us a new heart we are able to value the things that He values. We are able to seek first His Kingdom and prioritize rewards that truly last.

Several years ago there was a young father who had started his own business and was working hard to provide for his family. Long days turned into long nights and much of his business work took place after the traditional office hours were completed because of meetings with other business people. As a result, this father began to miss time with his family on occasion. At first this wasn’t seen as a big deal because it was the exception, not the rule. To help things out, the dad bought a small piece of land overlooking a beautiful lake and the family would go there on the weekends to spend time with one another. As the years came and went, though, the business boomed. They expanded rapidly and the father who once struggled to provide financially for his family suddenly found himself on the cover of the Wall Street Journal with more assets than he knew what to do with. Over those same years, though, his children grew up and became uninvolved in their father’s life. While the man gained all that money could bring with it, it cost him his family. This man’s focus was on earthly things - his eye wasn’t on eternity. As a result, he paid dearly for his lack of focus as he would end up being separated from his family for the rest of his life.

Jesus says that our heart matters and where we look with our eye will be indicative of where we go. Where is your focus at today, friend? This world has much to offer and there are so many things here that are good! But they won’t last forever. Jesus is crystal clear here: If your eye is bad, you will walk in darkness. You’ll live, walk, and talk, but it’ll be in the shadow of darkness because your priorities, perspective, and pleasure will be misguided. You won’t see things the way that they truly are. Don’t fall victim to your best life now and the best that this world has to offer - store up for yourselves treasure in heaven because heavenly treasure is incorruptible. Even though we all start out our lives walking in darkness as Ephesians 2:1-3 shares with us, you don’t have to leave here today walking in darkness. You can leave here changed with a new heart and with restored vision. You can leave here with a renewed focus and reconciled priority list. You must seek first God - not what society says or what your heart says.

Pursue the Right Master (24)

Jesus concludes this section of his sermon with a single declarative sentence of truth. This is the climax of Matthew 6:1-24 and where He’s been building the entire time. Who do you serve today? There are several different answers to this question: Self, family, job, friends, God, possessions, others? There are lots of things out there that want our allegiance but we live in a world of limited resources. There’s only so much fresh water out there. There’s only so much gasoline out there. There’s only so much time in our lives. As a result, we have to make some hard choices in our lives. Think of a hard choice that you’ve had to make in your life in relation to a direction you were going to go.

Think of the story of Rahab in the book of Joshua. The Israelite spies enter Jericho in order to scout the place out and Rahab is in a situation where she could do one of two things: She could either hide the spies and trust in God or she could make the safe choice and hand them over to the authorities. You could trust in God and do something hard or do what’s safe and trust in yourself - what do we often do? We often make a hybrid of the two choices, don’t we? We like to say that we’re trusting in God but we make a choice that we are comfortable with and one that is convenient to us. We try our best to serve God and ourselves as often as we can - or we try to serve God and something else… But Jesus says that’s an impossibility!

Charles Spurgeon put it like this, “God and the world will never agree, and however much we may attempt it, we shall never be able to serve both. You can live for this world, or you can live for the next, but to live equally for both is impossible.” So many people, churchgoers and non-churchgoers, are tempted to try to live for this world and the next. We try to serve God and ourselves as equals. We try so hard to do this and it leads to so many problems for us because it’s impossible! We have to stop trying so hard to serve self and strive to serve God in all that we do! Because we aren’t our own master.

Every human wants to be the master of their own fate but the Bible teaches us that we don’t have that type of authority - only God does. Sinclair Ferguson put it like this, “We were made to have a master.” This might rub us the wrong way but it’s a truth seen throughout Scripture. Paul commonly refers to himself not just as a follower of Jesus but as a slave of Jesus Christ! This is the same idea that Jesus is getting at in Matthew 6:24, not merely following 2 people or working for 2 people, but serving 2 people. You can work for 2 employers at the same time and make it work. You can follow 2 people as long as they aren’t polar opposites and make it work. You cannot serve 2 people at the same time equally whenever they demand different things.

Jesus demands our complete loyalty. He’s not interested in more half-hearted followers or people who are half in and half out, if that’s good enough for Jesus in our mind then we illustrate that we aren’t truly following Him in the first place!

We have to determine today who we will serve and we have to pursue the right master with the right mentality - not to be praised by our fellow man but to praise our heavenly Father for who He is and all that He has done!

Conclusion

Later on in Matthew 19, Jesus will tell the rich young ruler that He following Him will carry with it a cost. Following Jesus today is expensive: He demands your all. He says that if you want to follow Him here’s what you have to do: Deny yourself and take up your cross. What does that mean? it means that we have to get over ourselves and serve Jesus. We have to put to death our sinful desires and prioritize what God wants from us each and every day. We have to serve Jesus, not ourselves.

This is a hard step to take and it’s impossible to do on our own strength… If you’re a Christian this morning, remember to press into the Holy Spirit in your life and allow Him to guide you as you follow Jesus day by day. If you’re not a Christian this morning I encourage you to examine your motivation and level of satisfaction today. Are you chasing thing after thing to satisfy the need in your heart? To an extent we all do this, but if you continue to chase things to satisfy you have to be weary at times because those things fail to fulfill their promises. Stop looking for things to satisfy - Look alone to God today and trust in Him. Repent of your sins and allow Him to provide the satisfaction that your heart so desperately craves!

As we seek to apply God’s Word to our lives this week, ask yourself this question: What can I take with me? Cars, shoes, clothes, golf clubs, boats, and animals are great - but we can’t take them with us. We can use them here and now to provide for our family and to serve as a witnessing tool, sure, but at the end of the day we are storing up treasure. Are you devoted to store up treasure here or in heaven? Is your treasure insured with a 100% safety guarantee? That’s impossible here - but it’s the promise afforded to Christians in heaven. Seek God’s Kingdom and work to glorify and serve God, not to gain things here and now.