The Freedom of Serving Only One Master

Image by Thomas Breher ​

My hope this morning is will you be encouraged to love the LORD your God and the things He loves.  In doing so, you will find relief any anxiety you are experiencing.   

Jesus says in 6:25 “Do not be anxious for your life…”   He then gives us many reason not to be anxious here at the end of chapter 6:  He reminds us that life is more than food and clothing. These things are necessary, but they cannot provide the great things of life — knowing God and being known by Him, enjoying His presence in a way that you even find some joy in the midst of your suffering, the hope of eternity in his presence.  He states in v. 26 that all creation relies on Him  verse 26: “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”  He goes on to say that  anxiety is useless verse 27: “And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life?” He says Our Father delights to adorn. He does it for the flowers.  He will do it for you. “Fear not little flock. It is the Father’s pleasure to give you the Kingdom.” It is the unbelievers who should be anxious. But not His Children.  Their father is evil and mammon is all they’ve got. But not you. Your Heavenly Father knows your needs, even before you ask Him.  And He says He will carry the burdens of His children.  Moreover, our Father spreads the burdens out over time.  verse 34 says, “Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day.”   Jesus is saying that if you will put your trust in Him He will anxious on your behalf for that stuff up ahead that piles up and tries to bite you today. 


But in verse 25 Jesus did not merely say “do not be anxious for your life.”  He said THEREFORE, do not be anxious - or“For this reason” you can win over anxiety.   For what reason?  This means there is something Jesus has already said that sheds light on the rest of what He has to say.   


He has revealed to us at least two universal principles about people.  Being a missionary, universal truths come in handy.  This means, no matter the culture, somehow this principle applies to them too.  I just have to patiently observe and listen to figure out how it is to be applied.   The world is quite anxious these days.  Some are saying 2024 is the year for the next attempt at the great reset.  There are wars and rumors of wars.  WWIII is within the realm of possibility.  So knowing and acting on Jesus teaching we can find relief from the sleepless nights, the sense of isolation and loneliness we have felt due to worry. The one who spoke us into creation is offering a universal solution to fear and anxiety.   They are these:

1. 6:21  Wherever your treasure is, there will be your heart also.
   
2. 6:24 No man can serve two masters. You cannot serve God and mammon     Then he says in v25 THEREFORE, do not be anxious…     Let’s  read 19-25 again to be certain what the THEREFORE is there for:  
   

19 “Do not 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 do not break in or steal; 21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, 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. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! 24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life… 


There are three main imperatives, or command in the rest of chapter 6- Everything else is meant to help you see the commands as wise and right and joyfully possible. The three commands of the rest of chapter 6 are:

1. “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” found in verse 20 (I am lumping the negative command, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth,” together with this one as a negative way of saying the same thing).
   
2. “Do not be anxious,” found three times. v 25: “Do not be anxious about your life.” v 31: “Do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat? drink?’ wear?’” v34: “Do not be anxious about tomorrow.”
   
3. “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” found in verse 33.
   

“Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” is the large, overarching command.  It is the punchline of any mission conference.   It is your directive for 2024.  Be passionate about experiencing the saving, purifying, empowering, love-producing, reign of God in your life and over all the world. “Thy kingdom come!” — in my life, and over the nations.   In giving your life for this cause, you will save your life for all eternity. 


 “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (v19) is a specific instance of what seeking God’s kingdom involves. Seeking the kingdom of God and his righteousness involves not trying to be rich on earth but trying to be rich in heaven, that is, rich in God. Seeking the kingdom means treasuring God and freeing yourself from the drag of earth’s gravitational pull. And as you focus up there, He will take care of everything you need down here. Guaranteed.  No risk investment.  


Then “Do not be anxious” is the condition of the heart by which we break free from our addiction to earth-treasure. Transactional relationships, and give ourselves with passion to heaven-treasure. By faith in his promises, God frees us from anxiety, and in this freedom, we don’t crave treasures on earth anymore.  Those are the three main imperatives in the text. 


Jesus is asking you to ask yourself: “What is my treasure?”  He makes clear where your treasure is, there will be your heart also.   If you look at your investments and realize you need surgery to repair the longings of your heart, Jesus performs an operation deep into your soul with v. 22:


Matthew 6:22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, 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. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! 


The idea behind this passage is one of childlike simplicity.  However, these verses contain one of the most shocking warnings against self-deception possible.  This paradoxical phrase haunts me at times: “If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”


In the Lord’s prayer we pray for protection from the evil one - an external force coming at us like a roaring lion.   But here in v. 23 - Jesus was not warning against some external enemy: "If... the light that is in us [within, inside] us be darkness, it is no light at all.  It is great darkness" This is about the strongest warning against self-deception imaginable.  Elder David last night prayed last night according to 7:21:
7:21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22 Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 
23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’


That can seem to be an absolutely terrifying statement:  after all my devotion will I be shocked to find out I had my ladder leaning on the wrong wall?”  Paul does challenge the Corinthian church to test theirselves to see if they are of the faith. (2 Cor. 13)  But Our Father is not out to trick us or leave us guessing.  This SoM is about setting us free:  ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven!  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness: they shall be satisfied.’
To understand the most striking meaning verses 22-23 we must see it in its placement:  


Before:  6:19-21  “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.   Then look at the verse after:  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 the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”   


So I see a money issue before and a money issue after.   The healthy, single, generous eye would see heaven as more valuable and would lay up treasure there.  The bad eye would see this life as more valuable.   God over money or money over God.  Cannot treasure both.  The “evil eye” was a Hebrew expression referring to jealousy and envy.  The greek word ‘poneros’ here means grudging and ungenerous.  You see the ‘evil eye’ in  Proverbs 28:22   A man with an evil eye hastens after riches, And does not consider that poverty will come upon him.  You see the use of the healthy, single, clear eye in Proverbs 22:9 “Whoever has a bountiful [generous] eye will be blessed, for he shares his bread with the poor.”


The person who is materialistic and greedy is spiritually blind. Because he has no way of recognizing true light, he thinks he has light when he does not. What is thought to be the light good works is therefore really darkness,  because the motives were not for God but to please men and enjoy their compliments - it was transactional.  And because of the self-deception, how great is the darkness!   A great theme of the SoM Mt 5-7 has to do with your private life, by yourself with God. You can fool people.  Men look at the outward appearances, but God looks at the heart.


The principle is simple and sobering: the way we look at and use our stuff is a sure barometer of our spiritual condition. There is nothing like generosity for giving you a clear and undistorted view of life and of people; there is nothing like a grudging and ungenerous spirit for distorting your view of life and of people. 


The Master Mammon:  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 the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”  


Jesus says "You cannot serve God and mammon." The word mammon comes from a root which means to entrust; and mammon was that which a man entrusted to a banker or to a safe deposit of some kind. Mammon was the wealth which a man entrusted to someone to keep safe for him. But as the years went on mammon came to mean, not that which is entrusted, but that in which a man puts his trust.   Material possessions can usurp a place in life which they were never meant to have. Originally a man's material possessions were the things which he entrusted to someone else for safe-keeping; in the end they came to be the things in which a man puts his trust. Surely there is no better description of a man's god, than to say that his god is the power in whom he trusts; and when a man puts his trust in material things, then material things have become, not his support, but his god.   The most literal translation of v. 24 is this: 6:24 “No man can be a slave to two owners; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will cleave to the one and despise the other. You cannot be a slave to God and to material things.”


Here, then, is our relationship to our treasures.  They own us.  Many have been deceived into thinking our treasures were in submission to us.  Mankind lives the life of an illusion of freedom and control of his life and destiny.  Jesus says it is not true.   People are slaves to a master.  And in the words of the theologian-poet Brother Bob Dylan:  “You gonna have serve somebody.  It might be the devil.  It might be the lord, but you gonna have to serve somebody.”






Joshua 24:14 “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. 15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”  


In regard to the master we serve - we have no rights of our own.  The god we serve must be the undisputed master of our lives, our time, our hearts.  There is nothing worse than a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.  If it is the Lord God, serve him wholeheartedly or get out of the business of religion.  If it is mammon, the things of this life, then by all means, go for the gusto.  Get rich, build bigger barns, eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die and go to hell forever! 


Jesus is saying that since you are a slave who cannot serve two masters, be certain to invest your treasure in eternal markets.     Here Jesus is warning that earthly mammon will ensnare you and eventually cause you to shun God, even hate this entire concept of GOD as master and determiner of your life. You will grow cold toward one or the other.  But He is also hinting that if you return to God, who is your Father and relinquish your heart to Him, the things of this world will grow strangely dim.  Your eye will be clear and you will discern that the fleeting pleasures of this world.  You will shun the deception of the world and hate the things that challenge God’s irrefutable reign and rule.  That is where your tithe and faith promise to missions come into play. You give to the poor, who can never repay you, because that is exactly what your Father has already done for you.   Your heart will be where you place your treasures, and He has invested in you.  He gave his treasure, His only Son for you to have Him. 


Knowing that you were born to serve is clarifying, isn’t it?   But one of the greatest things about Jesus is that, though He is an absolute master and you are his bondservant, and though He does bid you die with Him,  He does not want his people to be anxious. God does not secure his kingship by cultivating anxiety.  He has made himself king over us for the very opposite purpose, namely, to take away our anxiety.    In my own life, the sheer statement from the Lord that he does not want me to be anxious has a great tendency to give me peace. But when you add to it the reasons he gives why we don’t need to be anxious, his word becomes tremendously powerful. Global mission is about setting people free!


Verse 25: “Do not be anxious about your life.” Verse 31: “Do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’” Verse 34: “Do not be anxious about tomorrow.” So one thing should ring in your ears when you leave this morning, namely, “ My master King Jesus does not want me to be anxious.”   But that is just the negative way of stating the main point of this passage. There is a positive way found in verse 33, namely, instead of being anxious, “Seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness”  Ah, that is mission!  The only true solution to anxiety -  serving God and seeking His Kingdom reign.


Knowing that you were born to serve is clarifying.  And to seek the kingship of God first in every affair of life is a thrilling way to live. It’s full of freedom and peace and joy and adventure and hardship, and it’s worth it all. If you believe in the kingship of your heavenly Father, you do not need to be anxious about anything.  For your master has promised, “All these things shall be added unto you.”

Rom7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! …Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.     Isaiah 41:8  “... I said, ‘You are my servant’; I have chosen you and have not rejected you. 10 So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. (Luke 12:32–34)  “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”