Download Theme: Serve the Lord with gladness – A call to exclusive devotion

Theme: Serve the Lord with gladness – A call to exclusive devotion.
Text: Matthew 6:24
Introduction
A young Muslim man attended an evangelistic outreach. As the preacher got on the stage,
this young Muslim was convicted by the message or the preaching of the gospel and
decided to speak to the preacher to find out more about the Jesus he heard about. That
evening, when the preacher had finished with his work, the young man approached him,
asked his questions, got his answers and decided to receive Jesus. But while going away
from the preacher, he turned around, looked at him and uttered these words: “Isn’t it
wonderful; now I am fully covered, I have got both Jesus and Mohammed in my life”!
The preacher called him back to say, no young man – you cannot have both. God demands
exclusive allegiance; you cannot follow both Christ and Mohammed.
This is the truth about the God of Scripture – He requires and demands exclusive devotion.
He is not a pinch of spiritual salt on your diet of human activity. God is not an addition to
your multitude of activities. When you come to Him, it is total commitment and exclusive
devotion to Him and Him alone!
Having heard these words, you may be saying in your hearts ‘I am all for Jesus’; ‘He is my all
in all’; ‘I do not share him with anyone else, the throne of my heart is occupied by Him only’;
‘He has sole ownership of my life and heart’; ‘He reigns and rules over me’. Praise God if this
is true of you.
Not that I do not trust you or what you say, but I would like today’s passage to be the true
judge of that. Therefore, let’s read Matthew chapter 6 and verse 24 together.
This passage is found in Jesus’ first sermon, called the Sermon on the Mount. Our own AJ
calls it, “the best sermon ever”!
The overarching theme of this great sermon is the gospel of the Kingdom. Jesus speaks
about the citizens of the Kingdom, where he clearly describes their character and
blessedness, in what we know as the beatitudes in chapter (5:2-12). After this, He goes on
to talk about their relation to the world (5:13-16): the citizens of the Kingdom are the light
of the word and the salt of the earth.
But Jesus does not end there; He tackles another important aspect which deals with the
high standard of life demanded by the King for His citizens. These citizens need to love God
above all, they need to be devoted to Him. And this devotion to God must be sincere and of
the heart, not an outward deed to attract people’s attention and win their admiration by
the way one prays, gives or even fast (6:1-18). The Pharisees were champions of selfrighteousness, in that they delighted in being seen by men when doing charitable deeds;
they enjoyed praying in synagogues and on street corners to be noticed by men. They used
to disfigure their faces and appear very sad while fasting and would not hesitate to tell you
that they were indeed fasting (are you fasting? Yeah, for the past 3 days) – all these and
even more, they did to be noticed by men. Note the emphasis … to be noticed by men! But
Jesus was not impressed with them.
Then still addressing how devoted to God the citizens of the Kingdom should be, Jesus now
introduces the topic of wealth in chapter 6:19-23, urging the same citizens of the Kingdom
not to gather earthly riches or treasures for selves only, but He insists on the use of
possessions or financial assets for purposes which are heavenly and eternal.
And in today’s passage, the Lord wants us to clearly understand that devotion to the King,
namely God is a matter of the heart. A heart that is transformed and changed is devoted to
God and that devotion to God is incompatible with devotion to wealth, possessions, riches,
holdings, money and anything else that takes the place of God in that same heart!
1. Devotion to God is not a 50 – 50 affair
“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else
he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.” You cannot serve God and Mammon.
It is important when looking at the words of Jesus in this section, to note that He is not
uncertain about His saying. He does not speak as someone who is begging his audience,
imploring them to consider His words. He is also not addressing them in a state of fear or
hesitation like a young and new preacher would do, especially in their first sermon! Young
preachers are called to tread carefully, not knowing what the response of the audience
would be towards them, but not Jesus. He is not mincing His words. He is very direct and in
today South Africa, He would be called a radical preacher, because of his straight forward
approach. In fact, Jesus knows it well that being a citizen of the Kingdom demands radical
commitment to the things of the kingdom!
Hence he said: no one can serve two masters.
Let’s first answer the question: Who are those two masters?
Look at the last part of the verse. “You cannot serve God and Mammon.”
1.1.
God is the one master
He is the heavenly Father, as representing the Trinity. He is the God revealed to us by
Jesus Christ. The Eternal, Immortal, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient, Immutable
God. Only-wise, Glorious, Perfect, Holy, Just, Righteous, Good, Great, Gracious, Faithful,
Merciful, Compassionate and Jealous God. There is none beside Him, none before Him
and none like Him. He fills the heaven and earth. He is the God of the Bible. He is the
God you have come to worship here today!
1.2.
Mammon is the other master
Mammon is a Syriac word, a name given to an idol worshipped as the god of riches. We
can simply understand it as meaning wealth, money, possessions, holdings.
Now that we know who the two masters are, let’s go back to Jesus’s words: no one can
serve two masters. No one means no one! There is no discussion, no probability; do not
even consider that thought.
Well, one can say: I can work two jobs, therefore have two masters; so, what’s the big deal
with that? Sure, you can do that! But that’s not the meaning of the word serve here. It does
not mean being an employee or a worker. The word serve comes from the Greek word
douleuo from which we get doulos which is the word for bond slave. You can't be a
slave to two masters, can you? No, you can’t, because slavery by definition means
single ownership and full time service. A slave was not considered a person; a slave was
considered a thing, an object; a slave had no rights, a master could beat a slave, starve
a slave, kill a slave or even sell him. A slave was simply regarded as tool, a living one for
that matter, no different than a cow, a plow or anything else. To be a slave meant to be
the property of a master and as such a slave was to be constantly, completely, wholly,
100% devoted to obedience to their master. Therefore, it would be absolutely
impossible to express this type of devotion to two different masters.
And that’s exactly what Jesus is saying here. Do you know that believers are slaves of God?
When we speak of redemption – being redeemed by the blood of the lamb, do you know
what we mean by that? Every person in this sanctuary before Christ (if now in Christ) was a
slave to sin. The word redemption means to purchase out of the marketplace. You and I,
if in Christ were sold as slaves in the marketplace of sin. Jesus came and purchased us
out of that slave marketplace of sin and set us free from sin’s bondage. The purchase
price for the believer’s freedom and release from sin was His blood, the death of Jesus
on the cross. Now listen to this: because the believer has been bought by Christ, with
His blood - because you have been bought by Christ, you now belong to Him and listen
to this – you are now His bond slave! You have been bought by God at terrible cost, you
have become His servants to do His will. We have become slaves to righteousness!
Therefore, we cannot serve any other God or we cannot give our allegiance to anyone
or anything, except to Him who purchased our souls. We have become his bond slaves
for life and we are called to serve Him only and with everything we have!
Church, please listen - God can only be served with entire and exclusive devotion, He
can only be served with single mindedness. Matthew 4:8-10 says this: “Again, the devil
took Him up (speaking of Jesus) on an exceedingly high mountain and showed him all
the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these things I will
give You if You will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Away with
you, Satan! For it is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only, you
shall serve.”
Jesus knew this very well that even the offer many of us would have found difficult to
resist (to be given the kingdoms of the world and their glory) did not move Him, for He
was devoted to serving God, His father and Him only! By Jesus refusing this offer, he is
here teaching us that it would be wrong of us to forsake God the fountain of living
waters and hewn for ourselves cisterns – broken cisterns that can hold no water. It is
like trading the most sumptuous, exquisite and delicious meal for a bowl of sand! How
can one even think of doing that?
Money, wealth, riches, the glory of this world should not be the pursuit of our hearts.
God alone should be! Jesus knows we need money, he is aware of what money can do
for us and what it can do to us! Quickly, let’s go to the book of Mark, chapter 10:1727(read). What stood in this young man’s way of salvation and exclusive devotion to
God? Money, wealth, riches. Jesus did not say to him give everything to the poor and be
saved – no. He said to the young man: “do that and then come and follow me”. Jesus
read his heart and He knew what that young man loved the most - and that was money.
How do we know that? Well, we know that because the Bible says the young man
turned around and went home. In other words, he said, “Forget it, I want my money.”
People let me tell you this: It's not until you want Jesus Christ more than you want
anything else, that He will call you His servant (Let me repeat this).
2. Total devotion to God demands we serve Him with our possessions
Let me ask this question – what is it that the Bible teaches about the ownership of this
world, who owns everything? Answer: God does! He owns everything. Psalm 24:1 says,
the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it; the world and all who live in it. Anything
in the world is His. 1 Chronicles 29:11-12 says, "Yours o Lord, is the greatness and the
power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and
in the earth, is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord and you are exalted as head above
all. Both riches and honour come from you, and you rule over all." It all belongs to
Him. He is the owner – we are simply stewards.
The reason why we should serve God with our possessions is primarily because of what
He has done for us.
God has secured our salvation! He has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the
world; He has redeemed us from the marketplace of sin; transferred us from the
kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light of His son Jesus Christ (Colossians
1:13); Once His enemies and strangers to the promise, now His friends and His people;
we have been washed, we have been sanctified, we have been justified in the name
of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God (1 Corinthians 6:11). We are now
citizens of heaven, with our names written in the book of life; we are seated with
Christ in glory in the heavenly realm. The father has averted His wrath that was
supposed to descend on us; there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ
Jesus and no one would separate us from the love of this glorious God. This and more
God has done for those who have trusted in Christ!
Therefore, people if this is true of you and I as Christians, children of God – how can we
not serve Him with all we have! Nothing we have would ever amount to the price he
paid to have his Son crucified on the cross for all that we just mentioned, to be a
reality! How much do you think could get you into heaven? Your R30.000; 50.000
maybe; 200.000; 5000.000? Your money, my money will never be enough nor good
enough to secure your salvation or mine!
Peter knew this truth very well that he said in 1 Peter 1:18-19 “knowing that you were
not ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with
perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that
of a lamb without blemish or spot.” Not money, not gold or silver is good enough to
secure anyone’s salvation, redemption or entrance into the kingdom of God.
Christians should delight in serving God as they understand what He has done for them.
Serve Him with everything they are and have, including their possessions. We do not
serve God and our possessions, but we serve Him with our possessions, whether we
have plenty or little. Remember we are only stewards and need to invest in the
kingdom, God’s kingdom.
Saying to God, well what I have is not enough to invest it in the kingdom, by supporting
missionaries, helping fellow believers in need or the poor; it is enough for my family
and I only – is not what God expects from His servants!
Have you ever heard of the church of Macedonia in 2 Corinthians 8? Let’s turn there
quickly and read verse 1-2.
Verse 1, “Brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been
given in the churches of Macedonia.” Verse 2 “That in a great ordeal of affliction their
abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality.”
They were persecuted and very poor as people or as churches. But, they heard of the
suffering and famine experienced by their fellow brothers and sisters in Jerusalem
whom they never knew nor met, they understood what had to be done should
transcend difficult circumstances. It wasn’t like, “Well, you know, we’re in very difficult
times. We don’t know what our economic future is. And Macedonia is crumbling
economically and we are suffering terrible persecution. We don’t know if we’re going
to have enough for tomorrow. We do not know what the future holds; therefore, we
cannot think of others. On the contrary, they did the opposite!
The question when we think this way is where is our trust? Do we trust God?
But why did they do that? They did so, because they were aware of the grace of God at
work in their hearts.
They were saved by grace through faith in Christ alone. The reality of being recipients of
God’s goodness, of seeing how he had changed their lives, blessed them with every spiritual
blessings in Christ Jesus, seated them with him in heavenly realms, knowing they were
citizens of heaven, God’s treasured possessions, God’s people not his enemies anymore,
they were washed, justified, sanctified, one with Christ … the knowledge of all these
blessings obtained free of charge in Christ, the realization of what they were and have
become by grace and not the result of their doing, the realization of having around the
world people who are just like them, also by grace is what motivated them to give the way
they did.
Macedonians were poor and they serve God, by providing for fellow believers in Christ
whom they never even knew and saw – and they did it with great joy! By doing that,
they sowed in the kingdom.
Can we do the same? Can we invest in the kingdom by serving God with our
possessions? Just think of the return you will get when in heaven you are surrounded
by the saints who appear from all corners saying: we are the recipients of the money,
time and sacrifices you made for you invested in the Kingdom. The gospel came to us
because of these things!
Conclusion
Lok at verse 19-21 Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and
rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures
in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in
and steal. For where your treasure is there your heart will be also.
Devotion to God is not a 50-50 affair
Total devotion to God demands we serve Him with our possessions.