Read Matthew 6
Can you smell it? It’s almost here. I am not talking about Palm Sunday. I am talking baseball season. Spring training is underway. Horsehide spheres are flying in Florida and Arizona and in backyards across this country.
How is this relevant to the gospel?
First, baseball is a divine gift from God. It’s mentioned at the very beginning of the Bible. You know the words. In the Big Inning—beginning.
Actually, more than playing baseball, I want you to think about the umpire. For any pitch that does not make contact with the bat or the batter, he has two choices: Ball or Strike.
I remember in the 1970’s that sometimes when the umpire called a strike, it would take 4 or 5 seconds to call the pitch and scoot a few feet to exaggerate the call. Striiiiike!!!
Balls were called with less enthusiasm, but the call was either ball or strike. There was no, “Hmmm, that’s a close one.” It was a ball or it was a strike.
Other than when the bat makes contact with the ball or the ball makes contact with the batter, it’s either a ball or a strike. It is a simple dichotomy. It’s one or the other.
Jesus put together a series of teachings that we know as the Sermon on the Mount. This sixth chapter has many of those lessons. Many are very straightforward dichotomies.
Jesus said, when you do your acts of righteousness, don’t put on a show for people. This is not in conflict with let your light shine before men. If we are doing right, people can’t help but see, but we don’t put on a show.
When you are doing the good works that God prepared for you in advance, do them for him. If you do them to get attention for yourself, you have been paid in full by the undo attention of others. The immediate accolades and compliments are your bonus.
How is this a dichotomy? You can do the good that you are supposed to do to get personal attention or you can do the things that God has set before you because you love God.
When you pray, don’t do it so people give you accolades. Make a real connection with God. You might get extra points with some people if your words are always accompanied with alliterative acumen, but there is no divine dividend for didactic demonstrations. What?
Fancy prayers don’t score extra points with God. Genuine prayer is what God desires. It is important that we pray together. It is powerful and effective, and it is also meant to be genuine.
Are there things that we should include in our prayers? Sure.
Thanksgiving, adoration, confession, affirmation, petition, the anticipation of what God will do for his glory, and much more. But prayer is not a show. It is not for our recognition.
What’s the dichotomy? We pray to garner attention for ourselves and our fancy or numerous words or we pray to the living God with our own living words. Is it for show or for real?
It’s the same line of thinking when it comes to fasting. Fasting is not a big part of most of our lives. Fasting is not dieting. A fast is not to lose weight but to lose—at least for a time—this focus we have on everything being about us. We stop feeding our bodies and give our spirits a chance to take hold for a while. This is designed to be between your spirit and God’s Spirit and to set aside the physical cravings that often govern our days. This was big a couple millennia ago.
But, not everyone got into the spiritual component of fasting. In fact, many wanted some attention. It’s hard to get attention for something that’s going on between God’s Spirit and yours, well, unless you put on a show.
Oh my, Oooooooh! I have gone without food. I’m doing it all for the Lord. See my long face and know that I am doing this all for him.
Jesus counseled to get cleaned up like you would any other day and present yourself as energetic as if you had eaten the breakfast buffet at Shoneys.
Jesus also told a parable to make this point. The Pharisee was making a big show of how great his deeds were. He was trying to disguise his bragging as a prayer, but he was putting on a show for sure, even to the point of belittling the one person who seemed to understand praying to God—the tax collector. The tax collector’s prayer was genuine confession.
One was for show. One was for real.
Jesus moved on to talking about treasure. What’s treasure? It’s mostly our money and stuff and also our time and talents, but money and stuff is easier to keep up with. You can have metrics for those.
He said do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth. Why? They may be corrupted or stolen. Your account might get hacked.
Instead store up for yourselves treasure in heaven. The security is fantastic. You treasure will be ready for you when you arrive.
What’s the dichotomy? There are a couple here if you look closely. The first you might have missed. It is in the verb store or store up.
While we walk this earth, saving is good but putting our money and resources to work is better. Think Parable of the Talents. Putting our treasure to work for our Master, stores treasure in heaven for us. This parable tells us that most of the treasure we acquire on earth is meant to be kinetic, not potential energy.
This does not mean that we live with no savings or IRA or emergency fund. It means that we are not accumulating wealth so that we can just eat, drink, and be merry. Jesus had a parable to go with that as well.
I said that there were a couple dichotomies here. This second dichotomy is intertwined in the first. It is not the verb store or store up. It is the storage location. Is your treasury on earth or in heaven? Where do you keep most of your valuables?
Why does that matter?
Jesus said, where your treasure is, that’s where you heart is. They are collocated by your nature. Your treasure and your heart are connected.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Just what constitutes my treasure? What is it that you are looking for? What do you desire?
If you desire and you seek the things of God—his kingdom and his righteousness—that’s what defines your treasure. If you are set on being enriched by the things of the world, that’s what defines your treasure. What is it you are looking for?
When I see a group of people do I see competitors for the world’s resources? Do I see people who might get what I want before me? Do I think, there might not be enough to go around?
Or, do I see people who might need to hear about God’s love. Do I see people who need the fellowship of believers? Do I see people who need to see God’s light in me?
The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
Dichotomies to follow:
Am I full of light or full of darkness?
Do I seek light or do I seek darkness?
Our eyes are two-way windows not one-way mirrors. What’s inside comes out and we hope that it is light . The eyes also seek the desires of the heart to come in. They are looking for what the heart wants.
It seemed that Jesus was on an either-or track. So let’s look at how he wrapped up this pericope.
No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
We don’t like slavery in this modern era. It seems so inhumane, but we need to understand slavery a little bit to understand this verse. Jesus is not talking about having two bosses. He is not talking about taking a part time job after your main job is finished.
He is talking about having a master. A slave had one master. The master owned the slave. The slave could be sent to work for somebody else, but he had one owner. Having two owners was an impossibility, at least wholly impractical.
If you were the slave, you would be torn apart trying to serve two masters. You couldn’t do it. You would end up loving one and hating the other. Having one master is the only way this works.
Don’t get all worked up that I am talking about slavery. There is one form of slavery that is good. Being a slave to Christ is a good thing for us. Being wholly owned by our Savior is a good thing. We say he is our Master, but today we often equate that to being our boss at work.
Being our Master, we belong to him. He owns us. He purchased us with his blood. He is still our Friend, but his is fully, completely, totally our Master.
And, we don’t want another one. Understand, that this is a winning relationship for us. He is our Master! We win!
We do not want to be owned by another master. We do not want to serve another master. We don’t even want our independence. We do not want to be set free from our Master.
He has set us free from sin and death. We are liberated from those things having eternal power over us. Yes, these bodies will perish but we will live. Sin is still around to do its best to deprive us of abundant live, but the matter of eternal life is settled by the blood of Jesus.
We need to be able to talk openly with our Master and affirm, I am yours!
I think that we understand this, but sometimes we don’t live it. Sometimes, it seems that other masters lure us into their service. Am I talking about Satan? Maybe, but the masters that we might have had a fling with go by the names of money, pride, power, self-gratification, fame, or even our favorite football team.
In our modern time, there are masters that go by the names of apathy and ambivalence. Of all the masters that we might have had before, or have flirted with, or are doing their best to recruit us; Jesus named money.
You cannot serve both God and money.
Money is surely ranked number one among worldly masters. If you have heard me talk about money before, then this is not new. Money is not bad. Money is not evil. Money is to be our servant.
In the relationship between us and money, we are the master. If it’s the other way around, get out of the relationship. Get back to God being your Master and then go take care of your finances.
You can’t have it both ways. Paul would later write to his protégé Timothy and tell him that making money your god—desiring or loving money—produces all sorts of evil fruit.
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
If you serve money, you heart is turned against God. Both won’t fit into your life. God is a jealous God. He is not going to share his position with anything or anyone that you have made god in your life.
It’s a love-hate relationship. You can love all of your children and grandchildren, but you can only love one God.
You can love everyone in the body of Christ—in fact that’s exactly what we are commanded to do—but you can only love one God.
You can be master over your money. You can abstain from money—sort of a vow of poverty if you will. You can assign a trustee to take care of your money. But you can’t serve both God and money.
Of these choices, I suggest that you are the master of your money. Unless God has placed a life of poverty on your heart as the way he wants you to serve him, be the master in any relationship with money.
Unless you are helpless—like an alcoholic or addict—in dealing with money and need some guardianship there, be master of your money.
Be the master in your relationship with other things of this world: power and authority, fame, and even your relationship with football.
We must be very honest with ourselves and each other when it comes to our love and service. Whom do we serve? Fortunately for us, money has metrics.
We used to call it checkbook theology. You went through the register of your checkbook to see where all of your money went. I am sure that I have lost some younger folks at this point who have only read about checkbooks in history class and have no idea what a register is.
The register might look like this:
Rent
Car payment
Gas bill
Electric bill
Water bill
Satellite TV
Internet
We try to pay the important stuff first, then pay the rest, such as:
Groceries
Eating out
Church offering
And if you live in Burns Flat, it might also have things like:
Fundraiser
Fundraiser
Fundraiser
Gasoline
Fundraiser
Eating out
Fundraiser
Movie rental
Fundraiser
Gasoline
Fundraiser
Clothes for kids
Fundraiser
And don’t forget two dollars for the goat and two chickens.
At the end of the month, you keep asking, where did it all go? The problem is we seldom do this exercise. I’m not picking on fundraisers. Some registers might have 20 entries that say ballgames or movies or golf. If you want to make sure that you never get the answer to where your money goes, make all of your checks out to cash.
Today, the cards that I use to pay most of my bills and expenses will total my spending by category. That’s cool.
Does our register review tell us who our master is? No, but it might give us pause to investigate further. We never want to put our loyalty and service at risk.
We are saved by the blood of Jesus, but whom do we serve?
Before he died, Joshua, who led his people into the Promised Land and drove out those who were foolish enough to try and fight against God’s own people, put forth a challenge to all of the tribes.
He said, choose this day whom you will serve. There was no shortage of false gods. They could pick from those who were in the lands where they were slaves or who had been worshipped in the land that they now possessed. There was no shortage.
Joshua was compelled to challenge his own people to choose. He taunted his own people a bit telling them that serving the Lord was probably too much for them. They were not up for the job.
Joshua, as you recall, declared as for him and his household, they would serve the Lord.
The leaders of the tribes responded in like manner, but the false gods didn’t just pack up and go home. They hung around seized every opportunity to draw God’s people away.
We have false gods in our time as well. They just don’t seem to go away. They go by different names but they want to be our master.
We have only one Master. We are his. We don’t want it any other way. By his stripes we are healed. By his blood sin and death have no power over where we spend eternity. Death is defeated!
And false gods are still doing their best to pull us away from our Lord.
So as we look at the dichotomies that Jesus addressed, with God and money—or anything else that wants to be our god—we need to affirm whom we serve. I charge us to make an affirmation in the style of Joshua.
Let’s affirm that we serve the Lord.
As for me and my house, we serve the Lord!
Amen!
