The Master(s) We Serve- Matthew 6:24

"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."

- Matthew 6:24

It's a very simple principle. There can only be one master.

To understand it, though, we have to recognize that being in service to a master doesn't look like a job we might have today where we can resign and leave the job, or leave work early if we aren't feeling good, or take 2 weeks paid vacation. The service that Jesus is referring to is that of a slave that has lost all control over his life. In a position of slavery, it is impossible to have more than one master because at some point, the two masters' orders are going to conflict. At that point, the slave would have to choose which to obey and which to disobey. "He will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other." There is no other way around it.

When it's viewed from the perspective of slavery, it is a very easy, indeed, to understand, when Jesus makes the transition to, "You cannot serve God and wealth."

But, thankfully, we don't live in a slave society any more. The masters we choose in the form of bosses are just that...the masters we choose. We demand certain rights in the work place, paid vacation, benefits, and flexible hours, or else we begin the search for a new master/ job opening. Maybe the blessing of our lack of first hand knowledge about slavery is also a curse when it comes to our Christianity because without that understanding of slavery, we seem to be able to gloss over this insight by Jesus and pretend that we can in fact serve not just two, but several masters, the greatest of which, of course, is God.

We serve the master of a good education.
We serve the masters called coaches.
We serve the master of financial peace of mind subtly called insurance and retirement plans.
We serve the master of selfishness and sloth in front of a T.V. thinly disguised as "me-time."
We serve the master of mammon (the KJV translation of "wealth" above) that is really just possessions, as we build bigger and bigger storage buildings and closets to hold all of our stuff that later gets sold in a yard sale or given to Goodwill.
We serve the master of popularity as we say what we think people want to hear.
We serve so many different masters every day.

But of course. We also serve our Master and Savior, God.

And we serve Him more than the others...or at least we try to.

That's what we tell ourselves. But Jesus knew a long time ago what that type of splintered devotion would do. It would force people claiming to be slaves to righteousness to choose at different times between God and whatever other master happens to be beckoning. Jesus knew that it is impossible to serve two masters. We have to choose.

Unfortunately, today we don't understand slavery. We pretend like we are not slaves to those things that are dividing our loyalties to God. But think back for a minute about the times you have said "no" to a prompting inside you to do something good because you feared for your physical, financial, or emotional safety. Think back in your life about the times you have said "no" to good works or to edifying the body of Christ because you had work or homework, or even your favorite show to watch. Think about the times you have given in to the temptation to gossip. Think about how much stuff you have in your closet that was used once if ever. If those things were not our masters, then we would have absolutely no problem saying no to them when their urgings differed from the urgings of the Spirit. The very fact that we were tempted by them, much less have given in to them so often, betrays the fact that our loyalties are still divided between "God and mammon."

People talk all of the time about why Christianity in America is on the decline. I think this issue is the reason. We (myself included) have too many masters when Jesus said there could only be one. It's not that those things listed above are bad things or even that they are not necessary things to think about. It's that they have become our masters. Because we have let them become our masters, we have not shown those outside the faith what it means to truly be a follower of Christ, and in many cases, we, ourselves have not learned to be followers of Christ. The result of this is a lack-luster faith that focuses on self instead of others, safety instead of faithful risky obedience, comfort instead of justice, and preference instead of deference. We have watered down the gospel call from "deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me" to "be a better person than the person next to you, punch your attendance card, and talk about going to heaven." And the call has been watered down so much that people don't like the taste of it any more. We have lost our saltiness.

I pray that I'm wrong...but I fear that I'm right as I look around the nation and as I inspect my own life. I pray that God will work a miracle and restore the saltiness to us even after we have lost our flavor because we are so watered down.

I've told you some of my masters. What are yours? If we are going to be followers of Christ, then we must all pick one and forsake all others. Will you?

Eternal Stock Options- Matthew 6:19-21

 

Let's be clear, Jesus was very clear about "denying self," and "taking up crosses," and "losing life for [his] sake." He talked about counting the cost often to his followers and sometimes it seemed like he did so for the purpose of driving some of the free loaders away.

But when you really look into what he was saying and you really understand what is going on in scripture, you start to realize that God has never scrimped on His offers of reward. The difference for the true follower of God is simply the nature of the reward.

C.S. Lewis gives the illustration of the boy making mud pies in a slum who passes up a vacation to the beach because he has no comprehension of the beach and is enjoying himself all too well with the mud pies to bother himself with the beach.

It makes perfect sense that Jesus moves from the motivation with which we practice righteousness, pray and fast (for the recognition from men, or the for the recognition of God), to a very similar statement in verses 19-21 about the differences in treasure. Once again, I am incredibly thankful that God "knows how we are formed; He knows we are but dust" (Psalm 103:13). He doesn't ask me to do something just because it is the right thing to do. He has every right to do that...He's the Almighty God. Unlike Bill Cosby, He actually does have the right to say, "I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it." Yes, He could force obedience if He wanted to. But instead, He simply tells me over and over and over again that what he has planned for me is sooo much better than anything I could ever imagine (1 Corinthians 2:9)! And when I finally trust that what He is promising is really going to happen and I start making those decisions (including the first decision to put faith in Christ), then He changes me from the inside out based on His motivations and His power instead of just my own, through His Spirit that lives in me.

It's really a simple game of "Would you rather?" 

• Would you rather have riches for 95 years or for all of eternity?
• Would you rather have friends who will laugh at your jokes for a week or even a few years, or a friend who will stick closer than a brother for all of eternity?
• Would you rather "become one" with someone in thought or in deed for a fleeting pleasure over the next few minutes or hours, or experience a oneness with God that is beyond your wildest dreams?
• Would you rather be your own master and have lots of freedom and comforts and live selfishly now, or hear the one true master say "well done, good and faithful servant...come and share your master's happiness"?

Those questions are incredibly easy to answer when they are asked like that. They are a lot harder to answer with action in the small moments and decisions that seem so benign and yet lead to the point that we choose the temporary over the eternal.

It becomes a "chicken and the egg" thing.

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

Is the location of our treasure just a symptom of what kind of heart we have, or does our heart actually follow the places that we have piled up treasures?

I think the answer is yes.

That is why it is so crucial to weigh even the most seemingly benign choices about time, money, words, emotions, and relationships in the scale of the eternal versus the temporary. Will this decision add to my heavenly bank account or only to my earthly account? If the answer is the latter, then even if it doesn't seem like a big deal, then I need to stop and think about how many deposits I've already made to that account for fear that if I pile up too much...my heart will follow right along and be trapped on the wrong side of "would you rather."

I'd rather have riches in heaven, wouldn't you? What would my life look like today if that were true? What would yours? I almost feel like God is daring us to find out.

Secret Service- Matthew 6:2-4

Photo by flickr user gammaman

So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Matthew 6:2-4

 Jesus has already addressed the overall principle of not doing good things for man's praise but for God's rewards and now he addresses three different areas that this specifically applies to, the first of which is giving to the needy. Before even addressing the principle of giving in secret, it is well worth pointing out that Jesus very clearly says, "when you give to the needy;" He never says, "if." It is a very safe assumption that if one is living a life that is pleasing to God there is going to be a heart and a willingness to help those who need help. That help can, and often does, come in many different forms and fashions, but you will not have to pray for opportunities to help someone very long before you have an opportunity to give in a financial way.

Coffman makes a great point about giving in his commentary on Matthew. "One's obligation to be mindful of human need and suffering is not totally discharged by the support, however generous, of any church budget." There is undoubtedly much good done through the local church office. However, I often wonder how much clearer the church's light would shine in this area if it were shining through individuals helping with needs as they see them in the community instead of the main source of benevolence being funneled through the "professional office." Either way, though, we are definitely called to a life of giving. Jesus takes for granted that the service of giving will be a vital part of any of his disciple's lives.

Now we can come back to the principle of being careful not to give with the purpose of human recognition and honor. I have heard of people in the past who have taken this teaching so literally that they hide their hands under a cloth while putting money in the collection plate in order to literally not allow the left hand to know what the right hand is doing. I hope we can agree that this is probably not what Jesus meant here. In fact, I think we would agree that it is not even necessary to be absolutely secretive about what we are doing. It is the heart and intent of the giver that Jesus is addressing and the inner motivations can be tainted even while following a very strict protocol of secrecy. After all, if people see me purposefully trying to hide my giving in obedience to this command, then they will think I am really a devout and good Christian! (Do you see how warped my mind is!?) However, if you are like me and do struggle with the recognition factor, then perhaps sometimes it is necessary and helpful to hide the giving that is done, if for no other reason than to train our hearts and minds to seek God's attention instead of others until we can give and do freely while only be conscious of His eyes.

Not long ago, my wife and I received an anonymous letter with a rather large sum of money included. I can't tell you the joy we felt that day. I would give anything to be able to thank whoever sent the letter to us, but the fact that they went to great lengths to conceal their identity actually made the gift that much sweeter because there was absolutely no way they had any motivation other than love. Coffman lists 5 reasons why giving in secret has much to commend it and that gift sealed these reasons in my heart and mind:

1. It assures purity of motive in the heart of the giver by removing the temptation to hypocrisy.
2. It protects and honors the privacy of the recipient, a privacy that is indispensable to his recovery and rehabilitation.
3. It protects the benefactor from a proliferation of calls upon his generosity.
4. It provides a noble basis for the development of true love and friendship between the helper and the person helped. 
5. It honors this specific commandment of Christ.  

I'd like to challenge each of us to attempt some "secret giving" over the next week or so. When you have had fun with it...get back on the blog and post a comment to tell us about what happened...Just be sure to post the comment anonymously of course:) That way, we can all be encouraged by your giving, and you can have the joy of knowing that the only person who knows that it was you who did whatever you will do is our Father in heaven. And then we can all praise Him together and be encouraged to look for more and more ways to give and love.

For the Love of Money...how stupid!- Ecclesiastes 5:10

I loved Kevin's cartoon in the bulletin last week. If you didn't see it, it was a picture of a little boy on Santa's lap. Santa looked a little confused as the boy was saying, "All I want for Christmas is more than my brother."

That's a cute cartoon and we can chuckle at the thought of the truth of that scenario on Christmas morning. It's also an incredibly sad reminder though, that unfortunately many of us never grow out of that line of thinking. We may not verbalize the words exactly like that, and most of us aren't still crawling into Santa's lap with our selfish requests, but deep down the desire to continually just have more keeps us constantly begging life for more...occasionally we even pretend to be sitting in God's lap as a faithful child when we make our self-centered pleas.

How blessed would we all be if we could let Solomon's advice really sink in!?  How tragic for Solomon that it took most of his life before he came back to the truth that he knew when we started out as a man of God.

I'd like to leave the conversation on this one open because it's an incredibly easy to understand principle...and yet so hard to live and to teach. Tie this statement to Jesus' teaching about a rich man getting into the kingdom of heaven and laying up treasures in heaven as opposed to earth because "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" and we realize that this is a BIG deal!

 "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." (1 Timothy 6:10)

Solomon puts it just as bluntly as it can be put. Chasing after riches is absolutely meaningless. We can make every excuse and come up with umpteen million justifications for why we need more money or more stuff, but deep down we know the truth. Those desire are meaningless.

Here's what I'd like to do. I want to open the comments below to suggestions and questions on how to teach ourselves and our children to trust in God instead of in riches. To end the meaningless pursuit of more that begins on Santa's lap and usually doesn't end until the death bed. How do you combat this in yourself? How are you training your children in this? What areas are especially hard that you would like advice about? I won't know many if any of those answers, but there are some incredibly Godly men and women who read this that will. Start that conversation below by clicking the comment button and let's VOW to pursue things that will never be described as "meaningless" !!!

Good News...I'm rich! Proverbs 19:17

"Whoever is kind to the poor, lends to the Lord, and He will reward them for what they have done."

Before we begin to look at the verse for this week, I think it is important for those of us who are reading this to realize just how rich we are. Yes, mentally we understand the fact that most of the world does not live with the luxury that we do...but we are nowhere near the top. In fact, it's easy for us to look at anyone above us with a slight bit of contempt. Even though we might not even vocalize it, some part of us smiles when the rich are brought down. I'm not saying that is right. In fact...it's absolutely wrong and sinful to have an envious spirit like that. However, fight it we must, because the tendency toward that attitude lurks just under the surface.

There's only one problem with that envious line of thinking even if it weren't sinful in and of itself...

I'M ONE OF THE SUPER RICH!

Did you know that I am the 242,608,696th richest person in the world!? That puts me in the top 4.04% of the richest people in the world! I'm not sure exactly how accurate that is, but judging by other statistics that I've seen and heard, I feel like it's pretty close. 

Wanna have some fun? Click here to find out where you rank in the world.

Ok, now that we've had a reality check let's deal with this other issue of who we are definitely not no matter how many times we've stated "I'm starving," or "I'm broke." What about those who actually are poor? Those who are struggling to get enough to eat. Look at this statistic from 2010:

Despite years of progress against hunger, in 2010, it is estimated that 925 million people suffer from hunger. This is due to a sudden spike in global food prices and the onset of a world-wide economic crisis. United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization

Do you know what my reaction to a number as big as 925 million is? I can't comprehend it, therefore I don't react to it. We hear about global poverty all of the time. But that's just the problem. It's global. Even if the Gateses and Buffetts and all of the other 1%ers of the US voluntarily shared their wealth with the poor, would it even make a dent in the lives of 925 million? Probably not. So what could I do with only a small fraction of what they have!? For the entire world? I couldn't even cause a ripple. But I could sure change the path of at least one life. I'm absolutely sure of that.

Now let's talk investments. How is your retirement fund? What does your bank account look like? Have you saved enough for a rainy day? This is not a knock on saving, investing, or being prepared. Other Proverbs give instructions to do just those things. However, when we are talking about the safest investment in the world...it's probably not in a 401k. It's by following Jesus' instructions to lend without expecting to receive anything in return and to give to those who ask (Matthew 5:42, Luke 6:35). The inspired writer of this Proverb (just as a refresher- if the writer is "inspired" it is equivalent to saying that God said it) says that whoever is kind to the poor is "lending to the Lord!" Not only that but "He will reward them for what they have done."  
Are we so foolhardy to think that an investment in the stock market which shows about as much consistency as the weather pattern will give a better return than the God of all creation!?

No, I think the actual problem is that we don't really believe it. 

Either we don't actually believe in God, in the power of God, or that the words he had written in the Bible are actually His words. If we did believe that God is real, that He is as powerful as we say He is, and that the Bible is His word to us then giving to the poor would not be such a burden for us. It wouldn't take a guilt trip of realizing how wealthy we actually are because we would willingly give it away in order to become even more wealthy! That's what this passage means. It's what Jesus' statement about laying up treasures in heaven means. Do we believe it?

I probably can't make much of a difference in the world. After all, I'm "just" in the middle class. But there is absolutely no doubt that you and I can both make a significant impact on the life of at least a handful of people. Let's VOW to keep our eyes open this week for an investment opportunity that God puts in front of us. Let's choose to become richer through Godly investments instead of choosing to protect the immense wealth that we already have. And let's look forward to the reward that God has in store for us.