THE PERSON AND TEACHINGS OF JESUS
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT The Superior Righteousness of the Kingdom of Heaven
As long as we are in this world, we cannot escape wealth, materialism. We live in a material world. Money is an integral part of the world system. What we have to make sure is that we control our money and that our money does not control us.
How do I know who is controlling whom, that is, how do I know if I am controlling my money or if my money is controlling me? Ask yourself the following questions to help you discover who's in charge of whom. First, do I tend to get in a panic over my money or lack of money? How tight-fisted am I with my money? Do I tend to get defensive every time the topic of giving to the Lord is brought up? Do I tend to count every penny, not because I have to, but because I obsess about money? Answers to these questions should help you discover who is controlling whom.
Many Christians find themselves in a quandary because they tend overall to do quite well financially, at least in the United States. Why? First because of their Christian work ethic. The Christian who takes seriously the claim of Jesus on his life is a hard worker because he works as for the Lord and not for men (Col. 3:23). Moreover, Christians tend to have better morals than non-Christians. Since they tend to be more honest than non-Christians, their employers tend to trust them more, even promoting them to higher positions of responsibility which pay quite well. Finally, Christians tend to feel guilty about overspending. The world is on a spending spree, acting as if every day is its last day. Christians though feel uncomfortable with wealth and therefore tend to save it instead of spending it. This leads to amassing large sums of money.
What then to do with wealth? Matt. 6:19-21 tells us to store up treasure in heaven instead of here on earth. This study showed you practical ways to store up treasure in heaven: let the Lord lead you in the way you spend your money--the tithe, giving over and above the tithe, etc. Somebody wisely said that whereas you can't take your money with you when you die, you CAN send it on ahead. You send your money on ahead by allowing the Lord to be in charge of your money here on earth.
Finally, before we go any further, we need to realize that money itself is NOT the problem. Paul does not say: "Money is the root of all sorts of evil"; he claims: "The LOVE of money is the root of all sorts of evil" (1 Tim. 6:10). You can be rich and yet not love money; you can be poor and yet be consumed with money. (It can also work vice versa.) The problem is NOT money; it is your ATTITUDE towards money or the lack thereof.
THE EYE IS THE LAMP OF THE BODY (6:22-23)
In this passage Jesus warns against the improper attitude towards money. First He speaks about light and darkness filling the soul of a man. As in other places Jesus here compares light to life and darkness to death. "I am the LIGHT of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in the DARKNESS but shall have the LIGHT of LIFE" (John 8:12). According to Jesus we can choose to have either light or darkness, that is, spiritual life or spiritual death.
How do we choose between life and death, light and darkness in this passage? By the way we use our money. If we choose to love money, we choose darkness and death; if we choose to use our money the way God wants us to use it, we choose light and life. (At this point our more sensitive Christians start feeling really guilty. That needs to stop. No one will ever use their money all the time the way God wants them to; we are still broken, that is, poor in spirit. HOWEVER, that truth should not be used as a blanket excuse to use our money any way we want to use it. JESUS IS SERIOUS ABOUT THE PROPER USE OF MONEY. Whereas forgiveness is always there, Jesus is nevertheless deadly earnest about this topic.)
In these verses Jesus uses a mixed metaphor. In the passage Jesus first says that the eye is the lamp of the soul and second says that the eye is the window to the soul. If we obey Jesus with our money, His light (lamp) will filter through the clean window and flood your soul with light, that is, life. If Jesus is not in control of your money, then His light (lamp) will NOT light your soul, nor will the window of your soul be clean to let in light, that is, life.
Here Jesus informs us of the way to have the right attitude towards money. Whereas the NASB translates this passage "if your eye is clear," it can also be translated, "if your eye is single," that is, single-focused. The right attitude towards money is to be single-focused, not double-focused.
For me the best illustration of the double-focused eye is Marty Feldman, a popular comedian of the 70's and early 80's. Feldman, the star of such movies as Young Frankenstein and Silent Movie, had the ability to focus one eye on one object and focus the other eye on a different object. You never really knew where he was looking. He used this ability to great comic effect. The only problem is that when you focus your eyes on different objects, you end up seeing nothing. It's almost as if darkness covers your eyes. In the same way, focusing on Jesus AND wealth brings about spiritual darkness. Focusing on Jesus AND on anything else for that matter produces spiritual darkness. Double-focus is funny in the movies but deadly in real life.
So what should we do? Keep it simple. When you keep it simple, you are able to spend your money on things that are truly rewarding--the things of God, other people's needs. You're able to support causes which really matter, missionaries, mission projects, youth and children events. Spending your money on superfluous things will devour your money and keep you from spending it on things that truly satisfy.
Moreover, if you keep on buying and buying and buying, you are going to have to spend precious time on maintenance. Harvey Fishero, former hospital administrator here in Corsicana, once said the 2 happiest days of his life were (1) the day he bought his new boat and (2) the day he sold that same boat. Maintenance of that boat took up precious time, energy and effort. He was glad to get rid of it finally. Before Karen Cook and her family were involved in a terrible car accident, she was sitting by the pool with her friend, wondering, "Is this all there is to life?" This was not said by someone with nothing to their name. She and her family were doing quite well. It's just that these things did not satisfy.
Probably one of the best illustrations of the proper use of money is John Wesley, founder of the Methodist church. When he started preaching, he needed only so much money to live on. Later as he received higher wages, he realized that his living expenses did not necessarily go up. As a result, instead of upgrading his lifestyle, he continued to spend the same amount of money on regular expenses and started giving the other money to the Lord. Since living expenses increased only slightly during his lifetime, he was able to give away more as his income increased.
Many times our response to increased wealth is the exact opposite. When we get a significant increase in wages, our response is to go out and buy bigger and better toys. We have to have a bigger and newer house, or a bigger and newer car. ("Won't a Ford Explorer do just as well as a Lincoln Navigator?" When I asked my dad to get a Mercedes and junk his Ford Galaxy, he told me that the Ford got him where he wanted to go just as well as the Mercedes.) We need the latest gadgets in our new cars. ("Do I really need a 5-CD changer player in my car since I can only listen to one CD at a time?")
Materialism can be so seductive and so deceiving. It seduces us into thinking that it can truly give us a wonderful life. Yet look at the people who really enjoyed life to the fullest. One of my favorites is St. Francis of Assisi. Whereas some of his followers misrepresented his teachings to make them almost promote poverty, he himself did not promote poverty. What he did promote was simplicity. I like the acronym KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid!
IT'S EITHER GOD OR MONEY--You can't have it both ways (6:24)
Jesus concludes this passage with another absolute statement: "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon."
It is so easy to feel guilty whenever you read and study the Sermon on the Mount because of all the absolute statements Jesus makes in it: "No one can serve 2 masters"; "whoever is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court"; "whoever looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart"; etc. If you don't come away from the Sermon on the Mount feeling convicted, you have probably not taken Jesus seriously. We just simply don't measure up.
How do we respond to this? By giving up? By feeling guilty all the time? No. First we respond to this by admitting we're broken and allowing Jesus to produce the life of the Sermon on the Mount within us. Second we respond to this by realizing it is inevitable that we are going to mess up. We don't have to mess up; however, we ARE going to mess up. John claims that we are both deluding ourselves and calling God a liar whenever we claim that we don't sin (1 John 1:6-10). Why? Because even though Jesus came to live in us whenever He saved us, we still have our old sin natures living within us. In fact they will stay with us until either we die or Jesus returns. They are there, and there is nothing we can do about it.
Over a month ago I was feeling really down about myself. Satan had pretty much convinced me that I was worthless and needed to get out of the ministry. One Sunday morning while I was walking in the park and praying for the church, I was feeling especially low. I felt that nothing but darkness was in me. At that moment I looked up and saw the Morning Star, the last star shining in the sky when day comes. I started smiling because I remembered that the Bible calls Jesus the Morning Star (Rev. 22:16). This star is most noticeable at dawn, that time of the day when both darkness and light coexist. (Although light and darkness coexist at dusk, there is a radical difference between dusk and dawn. At dusk darkness is overtaking light, while at dawn the light is overtaking darkness.)
Well, I remembered that John said that we live at the dawn of time (1 John 2:8) in which both spiritual light and spiritual darkness coexist. At that moment I began to smile because Jesus had just reminded me that I do live at the dawn of time in which both spiritual darkness and spiritual light live in me. Yes, darkness DOES live in me (to deny that is to make God a liar); however, light lives in me too (to deny that also makes God a liar). That was the comfort I was needing at that time.
What is even more wonderful is that the coming of dawn guarantees that noon is approaching. When the dawn arrives, it's just a matter of time before darkness is completely expelled and light reigns supreme. In the same way Jesus the Morning Star is about to become the noon-day Sun of Righteousness with healing in His wings (Malachi 4:2). At that time Christ will radically transform us spiritually as well as physically so that we will never experience darkness again. Until that time, we have to accept the fact that we are going to sin.
Having said this though, we still need to be very serious about Jesus' commands and instructions in the Sermon on the Mount. The fact that we ARE sinners should not embolden us to sin or give us license to sin. The instructions in the Sermon on the Mount are commands, not suggestions; HOWEVER, we need to extend to ourselves grace whenever we mess up and then we need to repent by starting to live out Jesus' teachings in the Sermon on the Mount.
Now back to the main topic at hand. Jesus says that we cannot serve 2 masters, especially whenever the 2 masters are totally in conflict with each other. I've seen my children at times having to deal with something their friends or teachers wanted them to do and with something Nancy and I wanted them to do. It was like they were frozen and didn't know what to do. They were trying to figure out how to do both things when it was impossible to do both things. In the same way money tells us to do one thing and Jesus tells us to do the exact opposite with our money. It is literally impossible to do both.
One difference between us and regular slaves is that we are voluntary slaves, that is, we choose either to serve money or to serve Jesus. We want BOTH in our lives; however, Jesus does not allow another master to live within us. In fact He will command us to do things just simply to make us choose between Him and other masters in our lives. When that time comes, either we will choose for Jesus and reject the demands of money, or we will choose money and reject the demands of Jesus. To put it bluntly as Jesus does, we will either hate Jesus and love money, or love Jesus and hate money. At those times we are revealing who is the true master of our lives, Jesus or money. Jesus is NOT being overly simplistic when He says that we cannot serve God and money (Mammon being the Semitic God of materialism).
There comes a point when Jesus wants to know if we are truly serious about Him being Lord of our lives. Money is one area in particular that we can find out whether or not He is truly lord over our lives.