(Audio and Text)
Title: God and Mammon
If I am a high school football coach and I have uniforms and equipment for 70 players, and 100 students show up to play football, what do I do?
(Hold tryouts)
And on what criteria might I make my decision on who makes the team?
(Who is helpful for the teams goals)
And let’s say I select my 70 and two weeks into the season, I discover a small group of players are constantly breaking the rules, what do I do?
(Cut them)
Why?
(Because they are no longer helpful for the teams goals)
Today we run into a teaching from Jesus that reminds me a lot of the type of teaching that we studied when we where going through the Johannine letters about two years ago. I say that because many of you remember that one of the ways I attempted to teach John’s writing style was to say John wrote in a way that was simultaneously simple and profound.
We have the same situation here today with this three verse arc and it relates perfectly with what we looked at last week with the idea of where we lay up our treasures.
And as was the case last week, this scripture will be exactly as challenging as we allow it to be. If we open ourselves up, and put our live, our daily routines, our habits on the table, and compare them to what Jesus says here, chances are good you will come away with some things that need to be “cut out” of your life.
(read/pray)
I. Follow the flow of Logic
In verses 22/23 we see Jesus explain that the eye is the gateway into the body. either the eye is good, filled with light, or it is bad, filled with darkness. (See how this sounds a lot like John’s writing?)
Now, logically, what I want us to get this morning, is why Jesus says this. What is he explaining in this teaching?
(Take ideas)
See if this line of thought works for you: It’s not revolutionary, by any means, but it was helpful for me to see the necessary conclusion of my own actions.
1. What you fill your eyes with, you also fill your heart with.
- What you fill your heart with becomes your desire.
- What you desire, you serve.
- What you serve, is your God.
Therefore: What you fill your eyes with WILL become your God.
Back in the days of early computer programming, there was a term called “GIGO”. Some of you probably know what this stands for, but if I had to guess, I’d bet Brian Ronk could help us out, Brian, what is “GIGO?”
Garbage In, Garbage Out.
Essentially, you cannot consume that which is, by definition, darkness, and then produce light. It is impossible. I would also argue that you cannot consume light, truly consume it, and then produce darkness.
We as believers, of course we still sin, but I think that’s my point: Even as believers we are taking in way too much darkness. We don’t sin in a vacuum. We sin because there is a desire to sin, however small, we still desire sin. It is these thoughts we must crucify and we can crucify sin in two ways:
- We can repent after we’ve sinned.
- We can avoid sinning in the first place.
Quick question here: Which one of those options is better? Why?
II. In other words…
Many translations, mine included, break up verse 24 from verses 22 and 23 as it’s own section and I think that’s a mistake. I think verse 24 flows perfectly from the preceding two verses with ease.
When Jesus gives us verse 24 what he’s saying is: In other words, you can’t serve two masters. We serve who and what we look at, what we consider, what we ingest. We serve whom we consume, because whom we consume, we imitate.
So let me take a pastoral pause here and explain something: What should we intake? What should we ingest? Anything and everything (provided it’s not sin), but only through the lens of Scripture.
I cannot stress this enough. We need to know what other religions are about, we need to know what other theologies that are not SBC say, we need to know how and why 2 1/2 men was the longest running sitcom on CBS until recently. But our evaluation tool for what is worth our time always must be scripture.
If we decided it’s sin: It’s out.
If we decide it’s not sin, but not beneficial: It’s out…Precisely because we don’t want it to become our God. (more on this one later…)
Mammon: Actually an Aramaic word, not Greek. “Mamonas” comes from the Aramaic root word which means “confidence” “wealth” or “personified”
It means: treasure, riches (only used in the NT as opposed to God)
And that makes sense: What ever our Mammon is, becomes our God, and we put our confidence, our trust, our sense of well-being, in that thing: whether that is material possession, a false world view or religion, or even other people.
Application:
- Make a decision: Who do you serve? (Jesus says clearly there are exactly two choices before you: God or Mammon)
- Ask a tough question: Does what I put into my life through my eyes reflect consistency with how I answered question number one?
- Remember Paul’s teaching in I Cor 10:23 “Everything is permissible”–but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible”–but not everything is constructive. (NIV)
In other words, don’t get caught up in legalism by asking: Can we do this? Rather, look inwardly and ask, “Should I do this? Is it light, or dark?”