Walking With God Demands A Choice   Matthew 6:24-34

 Sermon by Pastor Dennis Gleason -- December 3, 2006

²⁴“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

²⁵“So I tell you, don’t worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food, drink, and clothes. Doesn’t life consist of more than food and clothing? ²⁶Look at the birds. They don’t need to plant or harvest or put food in barns because your heavenly Father feeds them. And you are far more valuable to him than they are. ²⁷Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? Of course not.

²⁸“And why worry about your clothes? Look at the lilies and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, ²⁹yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. ³⁰And if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow, won’t he more surely care for you? You have so little faith!

³¹“So don’t worry about having enough food or drink or clothing. ³²Why be like the pagans who are so deeply concerned about these things? Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, ³³and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.

³⁴“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

On November 29, 2006 the Associated Press ran this story titled: “Former pastor arrested in alleged murder plot”

A former pastor has been accused of murdering an 85-year-old man in a scheme to inherit his trust fund.

Doug Porter was arrested earlier this week at the US-Mexican border as he tried to return to the United States from Mexico. Porter, 55, was the pastor of the Hickman Community Church in Stanislaus County when he met and befriended Frank Craig, who inherited up to $4 million in stocks and real estate after his brother died.

Family member said Craig asked {Pastor} Porter to help him build an agriculture-themed museum, and by 1999, the pastor had control of his finances.

The pastor and Craig survived an accident in 2002 when Porter’s pickup veered off the road and struck a tree. But the two crashed again in 2004, and Craig was killed. That raised suspicions among his relatives. Porter resigned his church last year.

Last week we considered Jesus teaching in Matthew 6 that we should not lay up for ourselves treasures upon earth and that we should lay them up in heaven.   What was Jesus talking about?

What he is addressing here is our attitude toward our possessions. It is not what a man may have, but what he thinks of what he has, that is his attitude toward it that is the issue here. Treasure is not just money. Our treasure could be anything that stops with this life and this world. Be careful that what you treasure does not end here with this life and this world.

As we come to this next section, we are considering the impossibility of serving two masters. Jesus makes it clear that when we try to do that we will either hate the one and love the other or we will hold to the one and despise the other. Jesus makes is quite clear; you cannot serve God and mammon.

The reason I shared the story of the Pastor accused of murder is to make this point clear. It is certainly improbable for the pastor to be so greedy for the man’s wealth that he would conspire to take the wealth and then kill the man. Real Pastors do not do that kind of thing. Real pastors who are walking with God don’t do that kind of thing. Without judging the man guilty, or presuming that he is not innocent until it is proven he is guilty, we can agree that this does not fit with what a man of God should be. You cannot serve God and mammon…you cannot serve God and then kill someone for their wealth. If you do kill someone for their wealth, you are not serving God.

Jesus, in giving us the commands that he does here and the teaching contained in these verses, is not required to give us reasons for what he does. He is God. He does not have to explain himself to us. But because he wants to help us walk with God, he gives us a number of reasons. And we would do well to remember that when he gives those reasons, he is speaking to believers…to what we now call Christians. We must not think that because we are Christians that these words have nothing to do with us. Because they do.

Why would that be true? It is simply because of the fact that worldliness is all pervasive. Worldliness is an attitude toward life that is centered in the here and now. It is so subtle that it can come into the most holy things of all. So it does not stretch our credibility too far to believe that the pastor was actually capable of murder. Unfortunately, it could have actually happened that way.

Go back to the treasures…and where we store them. Why shouldn’t we store up treasures here on earth?  Well, moths and rust will corrupt them and thieves will always try to break in and steal them.  Case in point if the pastor really did do the old guy in.  Store them in heaven. Why? There are no moths, rust or thieves in heaven. Praise God for that!

Jesus is telling us that worldly treasures do not last. They are transitory, passing. Change and decay is all around us. There is no real value in worldly treasure. Remember, there is no Uhaul truck following the hearse.

Worldly treasures do not last and they do not really satisfy. I have a wonderful TV that works just fine. It is only several years old and it was given to me because someone just had to have a large plasma high definition TV. Why did he have to have one? Because the one he had was no longer satisfying. It lacked something. And he wanted something else. And he had money burning a hole in his pocket. Now, there is nothing essentially wrong with having a big TV. We may enjoy them for a while, but eventually, we will lose interest in even the big TV. That is why we are always talking about new things and seeking them.

The point here is that there is nothing in this world that will ultimately satisfy us. Happiness cannot be purchased! And Jesus knows that. And eventually, all these things will perish. The flower you pick for the floral arrangement is beginning to die even as you pick it. That is true about everything in this life and in this world. It is all passing, fading away. The only reality, the only thing that will last is what we store up in heaven.

And of course, there are the thieves who seek to steal from us. They are always threatening us. We lock our houses and sometimes employ elaborate alarm systems. And still thieves break in and steal. And of course, there are such things as illness, a business loss, a recession with job losses, war and finally death itself. No matter what we try to hold onto in this world, we will discover some thief trying to take it from us. And we cannot prevent it.

On the positive side, Jesus speaks of storing treasure in heaven. Peter tells us of “an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you” 1 Peter 1:4

Heavenly things are imperishable and there is no way thieves can steal them. There is no one who can rob us of those things. Why? It is because God is reserving them for us. He is guaranteeing their safety.

We were reminded last week of the fact that where our treasure is our heart will be also.  What we treasure determines our heart attitude.

Jesus said, “²⁴“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money”.

The word for money is called “mammon” in our older translations. Mammon meant wealth or profit. But Jesus used the word as including egocentric covetousness which claims a man’s heart and thereby estranges him from God. Mammon ultimately “owns” those who possess it.

Things we treasure here on earth will grip our hearts and we will love them. They will grip and master our feelings, our affections and our sensibility. We love these things. We pretend that we only like them but really we love them. They move us deeply.

They grip not only the heart, but also the mind. Our view of life, our ethical outlook on life is controlled by these things. Our vision of life gets blurred by things and the love of them. We begin rationalizing why it is ok for us to have them and to love them.

The grip that things have on the heart and the mind are bad enough; but they also affect our will.

Jesus says, “No man can serve two masters.” And as soon as we speak about serving, we are talking about the will of man. This is the realm of action. What we do is the result of what we think. What we think determines how we live our lives and exercise our wills. And that is determined by what our treasure is…by our heart attitude.

We are beings made in the image of God. He has made us with three parts: body, soul (mind) and spirit. Worldliness is so powerful that it will affect our whole personality, body, soul and spirit.

We noted before that these things and what we think about these things will ultimately determine our relationship with God. The world and God both make totalitarian demands on us. The both demand our entire devotion. They both want us to live for them absolutely.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” It is “either – or”. Compromise here is completely impossible. You and I cannot serve God and mammon. And if a materialistic outlook is really controlling us, we are godless, regardless of what we say. And Jesus makes it clear that God considers something even worse than that. What is worse? It is a materialistic outlook that thinks it is godly.

If you go back into the Old Testament to 2 Kings 17:24-41 you find that the Assyrians settled their people in the land after they had conquered Israel. Some of their people were killed by lions. They deduced that the reason this happened was that they did not worship the God of this particular area. So they sought priestly instruction in the religion of Israel. They thought that this would work out well. But the scriptures say, “ they feared the Lord, and served their graven images.”

That reminds me of the story of the farmer with the twin calves. He dedicated one of them to the Lord and decided they could determine which one at a later time. One of the calves died. When he announced it to his family, he said: “The Lord’s calf is dead.” Is it not interesting that it is always the Lord’s calf that dies?

The greatest insult to God is for us to take his name upon us and then serve mammon in some way or another.

Love on the other hand is demanding. It is exclusive. It demands one’s entire allegiance. It always insists on the absolute. You and I will either love God or mammon, worldliness. There is no alternative.

Sin, by its very nature, makes man a slave of things that were meant by God to serve him. Worldly things tend to become our god. We serve them. We love them. Our heart is captivated by them. And these are the very things God has given us that we might have a happy and enjoyable life in this world. But because of sin, we have been mastered by them, we have become their slaves.

The tragedy is that after living our lives here on earth being mastered by sin and the things of this world, man leaves this world with nothing. When death comes, that man leaves this world with nothing, stripped with nothing at all but his own naked soul. And “what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Sin is the final ruination which leaves a man with nothing at the end.

Jesus offers us the answer to the problem of sin.  He offers us salvation, forgiveness, redemption through the blood he shed on the cross of Calvary. There is only one way to obtain that salvation, and redemption. That is to accept Jesus as our own personal Lord and Savior.

Once we have done that, we can live our lives in such a way that we are storing up treasure in heaven. And when we do, we have every possibility of living our lives without anxiety or worry. Jesus says “Don’t be anxious.” Stop being anxious if you are. Don’t be anxious if you aren’t. 

How can you live your life without anxiety? Well, Matthew 6:33 tells you how. ³³and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.” The new American Standard Version renders the verse like this:  “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness; and all these things will be added unto you.”

When we walk with God, with the right attitude about the things in this world, we will have treasure stored in heaven that will be ours for eternity. We have to choose here. We cannot have both the world and God. We continually have to choose. Both God and mammon make their appeal. Both make exclusive, absolute demands of us.

 Choose to walk with God and you will have everything you have always wanted and you will lose nothing.

--Dennis Gleason