Matthew 5:17-6:34
Chapter Study
Chs. 5-7 are
called the Sermon on the Mount because of what we read in 5:1.
1And seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and
when He was seated His disciples came to Him.
In ch. 4 we’re
told that as Jesus had been working His way through the Galilean towns and
villages, He’d taught in their synagogues and houses and any place people would
gather to hear Him.
His message was about the
Then, He demonstrated His authority to teach by performing
many
Here in chs. 5-7,
Matthew gives us a sampling of what Jesus taught.
Now that a huge
group of people were following Him as He made His way through the area, He took
the op
Jesus did this
because the Jews of that day had been led to believe some really unfortunate
stuff about the Kingdom.
They believed that when the Messiah came, He would come in flaming
judgment from the skies.
They expected Him to defeat all their enemies and establish them as
the preeminent rulers of the Earth.
In this kingdom, it would be those who had lived lives of exacting
obedience in the fine
They would be the greatest and fill elevated
So a sect of the ultra-righteous had developed known
as the Pharisees who were devoted to keeping the law in its most
minute details.
The problem is, their whole emphasis was on the external.
They had completely neglected the spirit and heart
of the law in favor of the letter of the Law and had reduced
the law from being a reflection of the holiness and justice of God into a dead
set of rules and rituals.
The Pharisees saw the Law and their keeping of it as a ladder of
self-promotion by which they could climb by their own efforts into
In the Sermon on
the Mount, Jesus pulls the rug out from under those who thought and taught
this.
The Sermon on the Mount shows that God intends the Law to be a
mirror by which men & women would realize their moral and spiritual
bankruptcy and would look to Him for mercy and grace.
And then, having received them, would show them to others.
We ended with vs.
17-20 last week, but I want to begin there tonight because these verses are the
real heart and theme of the entire sermon.
17“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the
Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18For assuredly,
I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no
means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. 19Whoever therefore
breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be
called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them,
he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I say to
you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of
the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus contrasts
false and true righteousness, the sham and the genuine.
He’s setting the self-righteousness of the Pharisees alongside the
true righteousness that marks those who are living in the
First of all –
because He s
So He nips that
idea in the bud; He did not come to do away with the Law, but to fulfill it and
to reveal the Law’s true objective; which was not to be a standard by which
self-righteous men & women could work their way to heaven, but to reveal
their desperate need of salvation and a righteousness not based in works, but given
by a gracious God and received by humble faith.
There are two
kinds of righteousness:
1) Self-righteousness & 2) Gift-righteousness.
Self-righteousness is based on self, on what I do.
It’s the good works I perform.
It’s my keeping of the Law of God.
And it’s my inner motivations for all of that.
Gift-righteousness is something attributed to me by God.
It’s His perfect righteousness, credited to
me.
Self-righteousness is created by my effort and work.
Gift-righteousness is received by faith.
Let me use an
example:
Let’s say that geologists discover a way to forecast earthquakes
and they realize that SoCal is going to be destroyed by a 9.5 shaker sometime
next week.
The nearest place of safety will be
Now, are you going to build a car from spare parts in your garage?
Or are you going to take the gift of a Hummer H2 being made
available to any SoCal resident who wants one?
What are you going to trust to get you to Dallas – your hand-made
vehicle, or one engineered and built to go the distance?
A day of judgment
is coming – a spiritual 9.5 shaker that is going to destroy this fallen world
system.
Safety lies in heaven – but how do you think you’re going to get
there?
In your own hand-made vehicle of goodness?
Let me tell you – if that’s what you’re trusting in, you’re a
fool.
God has placed a brand new “JC” at your dis
The Pharisees
thought they would be greatest in the Kingdom because of their simplistic
re-interpretation of the law and claim to have kept it because of all the
little self-im
Jesus said that while they may be teaching the law by their words,
their example was teaching the people to break the spirit and heart of the law,
so instead of being the greatest, they would become the least in the kingdom.
Now, in vs. 21-30,
Jesus shows how God looks beyond the actions, past the externals, to the heart
and how the righteousness He gives takes root in one’s character.
21“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You
shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ 22But
I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in
danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger
of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire.
Since we looked
at this in depth just a few weeks ago when we were studying the 10
Commandments, we’ll be more summary with it tonight.
Jesus’
Nurturing hatred and cultivating an attitude of distain toward
another is sin.
23Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there
remember that your brother has something against you, 24leave your
gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your
brother, and then come and offer your gift.
This is simple,
straightforward direction from the Lord.
If there’s any broken relationship you’ve not
genuinely attempted to make right, then that interferes with your fellowship
with the Lord and you must make it right, or at least do your part, what you
can, to make it right.
Think of it this
way; just a moment ago we were contrasting self-righteousness with gift-righteousness.
Gift righteousness is
And what did He do? He went to the cross.
He endured horrendous torture; hours of the most intense suffering
& humiliation. Think of what Christ
endured, all for you & me.
Think about how far God went to be reconciled to us.
If we come to the altar to worship God, and realize our way there
was purchased by so great a love, then our hearts will be turned to desire
reconciliation with those with whom we find ourselves at odds – and we will do
all within our
Jesus has more to
say about resolving conflicts . . .
25Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on
the way with him, [meaning on the way to court] lest your adversary deliver you
to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into
prison. 26Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of
there till you have paid the last penny.
Jesus is saying pride
must never keep us from doing what’s right and from being reconciled to someone
with whom we are at odds.
How many times do we get into a tiff with someone, and later
realize we were wrong, but pride keeps us from admitting our error or asking
for forgiveness?
Pride lands some people in jail and prison!
Don’t be a proud loser!
Humble yourself and make things right with those before whom you’re
wrong.
Now Jesus turns
from hatred, conflict & murder to speak about lust & adultery.
27“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You
shall not commit adultery.’ 28But I say to you that whoever
looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his
heart.
Remember the
context, Jesus is re-educating them on what true righteousness is about; it’s not
just actions, it’s motives too.
In v. 8, Jesus said it was the pure in heart who will see God and
enjoy the Kingdom.
So here He teaches that staying free from the act of adultery
isn’t enough – because a person can be unfaithful to their s
As we said a few
weeks ago, when we were looking at the 10 Commandments – the first look at a
person of the op
And of course, this verse puts the ban on all forms of sexually-oriented
material whose whole aim in production and consumption is to stir up lust, the
very thing Jesus nails here.
Now Jesus is
going to show just how radical we need to be in our pursuit of this genuine
holiness of the heart . . .
29If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it
from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish,
than for your whole body to be cast into hell. 30And if your right
hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more
profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to
be cast into hell.
Jesus obviously
does not mean us to take this literally – no one sins with just one eye or
hand!
By using such exaggerated speech, He means us to understand that
we must
be radical in the way we guard our hearts and deal with the issue of
indwelling sin.
If the Pharisees were super-careful about such silly things as
tithing the seeds off their herb plants, then how much more careful and
diligent ought we be in dealing with the issues of true righteousness?
Listen, if
underwear commercials on TV cause me to lust and encourage disloyalty to my
wife, maybe it would be best to just unplug the tube!
Now, someone might say, “That’s getting a little fanatical
isn’t it?”
Listen to Jesus’ words – “. . . it is more profitable for you that
one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.”
I guess fanatical, radical, is what Jesus is calling for when it
comes to our devotion to Him and our pursuit of true holiness.
Maybe you ought
to put a filter on your internet, or use a good filtered service provider.
Maybe a tracking program that logs all visited sites that someone
else can check in on and hold you accountable is what you need.
Maybe you ought not go out with the gang after work.
Having brought up
the subject of marriage in v. 27, Jesus goes on to elaborate in vs. 31-32.
31“Furthermore it has been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife,
let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32But I say to you that
whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to
commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.
God intends
marriage to be for life. In marriage,
two become one, and a spiritual bond develops that cannot be dissolved without
great trouble and pain.
Jesus’
What a civil court decides and what God decrees may not be the
same thing.
In fact, from God’s perspective, the only event that severs the
bonds of marriage is sexual disloyalty, adultery.
In such a case, God permits the offended s
But apart from that – in God’s eyes, though they may go through a civil divorce, they are still
married, and remain thus until one or both have sex with someone else.
And that’s why Jesus said that if a man divorces a woman but
there’s been no adultery, and then she re-marries, her union with her new
husband would constitute adultery, because in God’s eyes the first couple was
still
married.
So the first husband would be virtually giving his wife to another
man and in a sense forcing her to commit adultery!
The end of v. 32
has been a bit confusing to some people and that confusion has created great
heart-ache.
It reads – “ . . . whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits
adultery.”
Some read this and think that marrying any divorced person, for any
reason, constitutes adultery. That is NOT what Jesus said!
This woman is the one referred to in the preceding clause – the
woman who’s been falsely divorced from her husband for some reason other
than adultery.
Not only does SHE
commit adultery if she remarries, but so does the guy she marries.
A woman who has
been divorced because of adultery is free of the ma
Before we move
on, in 1 Cor. 7, the A
If a man or woman just walks away from the s
And if it is dissolved in God’s eyes, then the abandoned s
Jesus made it a
Even those like the Pharisees who were concerned with personal
piety thought nothing of getting a
divorce.
Divorces were rather common place and easy, not unlike today, even
in the church.
Now, having s
33“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old,
‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.’ 34But
I say to you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35nor
by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of
the great King. 36Nor shall you swear by your head, because you
cannot make one hair white or black. 37But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’
and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.
Like marriage, by
Jesus’ day, the whole issue of integrity had fallen on hard times. Honesty was nearly lost as a virtue.
Words became wea
In such an environment, the gospel is going to have a hard time!
So Jesus s
His followers must be those who never resort to the use of oaths
because they are known as people whose ‘yes’ means YES!
Truth can only really be s
There’s a
Yes, all truth is God’s truth – but the truth in
the mouth of a deceiver is no longer truth, it’s just facts.
And the facts in the mouth of a liar become tools to deceive – as
we saw in the temptation of Jesus a couple weeks ago.
There’s
A famous actor
was once the guest of honor at a social gathering where he received many
requests to recite favorite excerpts from various literary works.
An old preacher who happened to be there asked the actor to recite
the 23rd Psalm.
The actor agreed on the condition that the preacher would also recite it.
The actor's recitation was beautifully intoned with great dramatic
emphasis for which he received lengthy applause.
Then the preacher began; his voice was rough and broken from many
years of preaching, and his diction was anything but
But when he finished there was not a dry eye in the room.
When someone asked the actor what made the difference, he replied
“I know the psalm, but he knows the Shepherd.”
38“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and
a tooth for a tooth.’ 39But I tell you not to resist an evil
person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. 40If
anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your
cloak also. 41And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him
two. 42Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow
from you do not turn away.
Those who keep
the letter of the law, miss its spirit.
When God commanded an eye for an eye in the Mosaic Law, he
meant to restrain the desire for revenge not to give people the right to get
even!
You know how it is, if you slap my on the cheek, I’m going to slap
you on both.
Then you’ll slap both mine and
An eye
for an eye was meant
to limit
damages to what was just.
The spirit behind
law was justice.
But Jesus has been speaking about the need for His followers to be
marked by mercy, not bare, brutal justice.
So, instead of the letter of the law – He calls His
followers to go all the way into the spirit of the law, which rises above
bare justice to what is best for others, even when they are
doing you harm and mean you ill.
In a nutshell, Jesus says, don’t react to
evil with evil – instead, do good, always &
only!
We mustn’t walk
through life being reactors; because we are God’s people and so new creatures, we
operate out of a different ethic and mode of living.
We don’t react, we don’t take our cue and lead from the world, we
take it from God, and He always and only does good!
43“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your
neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44But I say to you, love your
enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for
those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 45that you may be
sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the
good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46For if you
love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors
do the same? 47And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do
more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? 48Therefore
you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
Verse 48 isn’t a
command – it’s a summation.
If we draw our direction and initiative from God rather than
allowing our lives to be determined by what’s around us, reacting to perceived
threats, slights, hurts or offenses, then we’ll be perfect, completely
mature spiritual men and women – fully conformed to the moral image of our Heavenly
Father.
God loves His
enemies, and by so doing, turns many of them into children.
What an im
While the modern world moves ever closer to a victim mentality we can
claim victory through Christ.
While victims blame everyone else for their failures and need, saying
they can’t help themselves or the way they live because they’re doomed to such by
what’s been done to them –
We can embrace the grace and mercy of God which cleanses us and
makes us new creatures in Christ.
We are free!
Free of having to go through life broken, because God has made us
whole.
Free of sin and its evil consequences.
Free to do what’s right no matter how difficult the circumstance
because circumstances do not control us –
Rather, our God controls the circumstances.
Don’t let others
control you!
Don’t let their sin and nastiness draw sinful reactions and
attitudes from of you.
You are a Child of God! Be who you are and do what that means!
Jesus now speaks
directly to the very things the Pharisees were counting on to rack up spiritual
1“Take heed that you do not do your cha
There was a place
at one side of the temple courtyard where the
God had made it clear in the OT prophets and law that showing
kindness to the
But the Pharisees had turned such charity into a formal ritual of
self-promotion.
They weren’t concerned about meeting the needs of the
So they would hire a trumpeter to walk ahead of them and blow
their trumpet every so often to let people know they were on their way to the
temple to give some money away.
As they would walk the streets toward the temple mount, the
trumpet would blow, and people would look to see who it was, and they would
say, “Oh, look – Hillel is going to help the
Then when they arrived at the place of alms at the temple, the
trumpeter would stand next to the Pharisee and blow long and hard to announce
to all that the giving was now to commence.
And all would look and remark – “Oh how godly and generous Hillel
is!”
Jesus says –
“Since these guys are giving TO BE
HONORED BY MAN, they have what they want.
But God, well, He credits nothing to them.
But YOU – when you
give, don’t blow a trumpet. Don’t angle
to be honored by man but by God alone.
And God will reward you in the realm where rewards mean something,
in heaven.
I want to say
something here that’s im
It was this passage that prompted us to do things the way we are
regarding our building project.
Jesus said - 3But when you do a cha
It’s rather
perplexing how this teaching of Christ could have been so badly handled over
the years in the church.
People are promised a special plaque with their name on it on the Donor’s
Wall if they will give so much.
They can have a pew dedicated to them.
Some churches take “wave offerings;” if you’re giving $100 or
more, hold it up and wave it before the Lord and “our ushers will be right over
to pick it up.”
All of this is
very far from the ideal Jesus gives here.
5“And when you pray, you shall not be like the hy
Jesus refers to “hy
The word means “under a mask” and was the word used for actors
in that day.
You see, in that day when all drama was live and they couldn’t
project a face on a screen, actors wore masks that
These masks are the modern symbol of drama and acting to this day.
Because of this, actors were called ‘hy
Jesus calls the
religious fakers who use external piety as a means of self-promotion – actors!
Their piety, their giving, prayers, and even fasting were nothing
but religious masks that might fool other people but never fool God.
The Pharisees and
scribes of Jesus’ day prayed at set times every day, 9 AM, Noon, and 3 PM.
No matter where they were, when the horn blew announcing the time
for prayer, they would stop, spread out their hands, lift their eyes to heaven
and then begin . . .
Then they would offer up prayers calculated to do one thing; make
those around them say, “Oh how holy!”
Jesus said, they have what they want, the praise of men – but God
is not listening, because they aren’t really speaking to Him anyway.
In contrast to
the hy
Jesus is not prohibiting group or cor
There are numerous other passages where we are encouraged to pray
with others.
The
You know, you can
easily tell when someone is praying in such a way that it’s really aimed at the
other people around him/her rather than God.
When someone is telling a story in prayer rather than praying.
When the words are directed at “informing” people.
And that leads us to the next verse . . .
7And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the
heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.
8“Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things
you have need of before you ask Him.
When Jesus s
When He speaks of the “heathen” here in v, 7, He means
Gentile unbelievers; even they pray.
A good percentage of the Gentiles of Jesus’ day were deeply
religious people; they were pagan – meaning they worshiped the
idols that were common place throughout the Greek and Roman world.
And according to their beliefs, you the gods to do your bidding by
obligating them somehow.
You could obligate them by doing some really, really superior good
deed.
Or, you could literally bug them to the
By repeating the same prayer again and again, invoking the god’s
name, you would wear the deity down.
The Buddhist
carry on this tradition in the prayer wheel.
They write out a prayer, and attach it to a wheel which is
fastened at the end of a handle.
Then, every time they spin the wheel, it sup
And by sheer volume of prayer going up into the spiritual realm
it’s sup
Hundreds of years ago, when China first opened to Europe, Spanish
monks visited the Far East and were ex
They brought the concept back and adapted it to their own use in
the practice of the rosary.
Jesus’
And God is not a deity who has to be bugged, pressured, or
manipulated into listening to us.
He is a loving Father who delights to bless His own and He knows
our needs and what we’re going to pray for, before we do.
So why then, does God calls us to pray?
Because prayer is not so much about informing God and getting Him
to do something, as it is about us realizing our desperate need for Him.
Prayer keeps us rooted in Christ and dependent on Him.
When you pray, do
you ever find yourself informing God about a situation?
“Lord, right now my friend Jeremy is really struggling at
work. He’s got this boss who’s a real
pain and . . .”
Do you ever counsel
God on what He needs to do?
“Father, You need to come and get a hold of that boss and scare
the bejebbers
out of him.”
When we pray – it
would probably be a whole lot better if we just made simple requests of God –
listening more to the direction of the Holy Spirit on how to pray than
informing God and then telling Him what he needs to do.
This would probably shorten our prayers dramatically!
SHORTEN
prayer?!?!? That’s a nearly heretical
for a pastor to say isn’t it!
Look at what Jesus says here in vs. 7 & 8–
7And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the
heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.
8“Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you
have need of before you ask Him.
We do not impress God with the amount of words or the length of
time we spend in prayer.
What we need to do, is simply pray and to pray simply – ABOUT EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now, by way of
illustration, Jesus shows the disciples how to pray.
9In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.
10 Your kingdom come.
Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day
our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our
debts, As we forgive our debtors.
13 And do not lead us
into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the
Now, if you just
read that as is, it takes all of about 20 seconds.
But Jesus doesn’t intend us to offer this up as some kind of rote
formula for prayer.
He just said that we are not to offer up vain repetitions.
Rather, this is a model for prayer; a framework we can use
topically and then fill in the details.
Since we covered
these verses last Sunday, we’ll just refer those who weren’t here to be a tape
or CD.
But let me ask of those who were here – what’s the theme that ties
all of this prayer together? [Dependence on God]
Now, Jesus adds a
little
14“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly
Father will also forgive you. 15But if you do not forgive men their
trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
This amplifies
and explains something Jesus had said in the prayer in v. 12.
Forgiveness is a reciprocal relationship, and Jesus
shows in crystal clear terms that our being forgiven by God is intimately linked to our being forgiving of others.
Now frankly, this
is disturbing because we’ve been told that we’re saved by grace, apart from works; so how can our being
forgiven by God be contingent on our forgiving others?
This seems to get the cart before the proverbial horse.
Aren’t we saved by grace, apart from works?
SURE! But let me ask, how
is that grace that saves appropriated by us?
Through faith! Faith in
what? Just generic faith, or faith in Jesus Christ, that He died IN OUR PLACE – that He took our sins
and offenses and bore them on the cross?
God saves us on the basis of what He’s done, not what we do; and
we appropriate that gift by faith in what Him.
That
faith – the kind of faith that lays hold on God’s grace, frees us NOT ONLY FROM OUR SIN, but from the effects of the sins and offenses
done to
us by
others.
If I refuse to let go of the hurts and offenses that have been
inflicted on me, if I feel a right to hold on to them and treasure bitterness
toward others, then I fail to lay hold of the grace of God that would free and
forgive me.
16“Moreover, when you fast,
Stop right there
– notice that Jesus didn’t say, “If you fast.”
It’s “When you fast.”
He assumes that as His followers, they will fast.
Look at v. 3 – “When you do a cha
V. 5 – “When you pray.”
Now, here – “When you fast;” Jesus sees fasting as normative to
the life of faith as giving & praying.
16“Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hy
When the
Pharisees and scribes would fast, which was every Monday & Thursday, they
would wear special plain garments that were stained, soiled and ragged.
Then they would take some ashes and rub them on their face to make
them look gray and sallow.
As a finishing touch they’d rough up their hair & suck in
their cheeks to look a tad emaciated.
Then they’d go out in public and walk real slowly with their head
bowed as if weak from a lack of food.
Again, their sad
face was nothing but the actor’s mask and their audience was other people.
Jesus said once again, they have their reward – the comments of
the people about how pious they were.
But those who
genuinely fast must do so in a way that’s between them and God.
They should look and act as though everything’s normal and it’s a
normal day.
Now, why
fast? What’s the
As you look at the OT, fasting was done by God’s people for
several reasons.
It was done for seeking direction from God.
It was done to affect deliverance, and other reasons.
But the main theme that ties all fasting together is that it
sharpen one’s spiritual perception.
Some times the only way to do that is by denying the body for a
time.
When you fast,
you realize just how big a demand the body places on you.
And when you say “No” to it, spending that time instead on
focusing on the spirit and prayer, you begin to realize the depth and reality
of what it means to be a spiritual person as much as a physical being.
I encourage you
to try fasting if you’ve not done it before.
Right now, as we are in this 40 days of prayer, several of us are
fasting during the daylight hours on Tuesdays.
Now Jesus moves
to speak about mankind’s perennial battle with the sensual and with the age old
struggle of defining our lives by the world’s ideas of success.
19“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where
moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 20but
lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys
and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your
treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Jesus places the
challenge and choice of treasure before them and us.
What’s our bottom-line?
In the business
world, it’s all about the bottom-line; about whether or not
the final figure below the sum-line is black or red ink.
It’s no different
in the Kingdom of God – God’s interested in our bottom line too.
Not how much, but what? What’s our bottom line?
Is what we put our treasure in money, physical
Or is our treasure, righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy
Spirit?
Are we investing ourselves in the passing things of this world or
the eternal things of God?
I don’t own stock
– my foray into stocks was short-lived.
I got a hot tip from a friend and invested a whopping hundred
dollars in a penny stock, and promptly watched it go from my buy in rate of 17
cents to less than a penny.
But you know what, while I
NEVER paid any attention to the stock market prior to my investment, once I
had a hundred bucks in it, I read the stock re
Suddenly I was interested in not just my stock, but the whole
field I was invested in.
I had a small slice of my earthly treasure invested in the market,
so that’s where my heart was.
Jesus is not
saying here that we ought to sell everything we have and give it all to charity
or the church.
He’s saying that we ought not define our lives and put our real
value in the things of this world because this world is tem
So, we ought to use earthly wealth wisely, and with an aim
toward investing in those things that will bear lasting return.
For instance,
when it’s time to buy some clothes, is the label what’s im
If so, then you’ll probably fork out two to three times as much as
you need
to spend.
If the Kingdom of God is of greater im
There’s a real
practical way this is going to work out for some of us here at Calvary Chapel
of Oxnard over the next year or two.
Because of what the Lord will say to some about what He wants them
to do for the building project, it will mean putting off buying that new car
for another year.
For others it will mean delaying that special vacation for a
couple years or deferring that room addition.
Some will be moved to give up something as simple as eating out so
often, or yes, even changing labels.
They will choose
to invest in the building project, and provide a new facility for the work of
the Kingdom of God here in VC.
22“The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is
good, your whole body will be full of light. 23But if your eye is
bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is
in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
The key to
understanding this is to keep it in its context and to connect it to what
Proverbs say about the “bad” or “evil eye.”
The verses before
and after these two verses deal with earthly wealth & worldly
success.
In v. 23, the word “bad” is the Greek word ‘
As Jesus used
this word, His disciples would immediately think of the Proverb – 28:22
A man
with an evil eye hastens after riches, and does not consider that
Jesus is saying
that how we define our lives determines what morality we will live by.
If we look to this world as the end all and be all of our
existence, then we will live in moral and spiritual darkness.
But if we look to the Lord and His kingdom as the pur
Really, by “eye”
here, Jesus means the fleshly eye of lust vs. the spiritual eye of faith.
24“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.
“Mammon” was an
Aramaic word which may have been the name of an idol promising worldly wealth,
sensuality & success.
Jesus uses it
here as the personification of everything He’s calling His followers to shun.
And in this verse He’s telling them that the pursuit of God and
the pursuit of worldly wealth and success are mutually exclusive.
You can’t love and serve God at the same time that you love and
serve the world.
You have to make a decision on who you’re going to live for.
25“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what
you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on.
Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26Look
at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns;
yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27Which
of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
28“So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of
the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29and yet I
say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of
these. 30Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today
is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe
you, O you of little faith?
31“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or
‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32For after all
these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need
all these things. 33But seek first the kingdom of God and His
righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34Therefore
do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things.
Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Faith in God
frees us from worry about all the things the one who doesn’t believe in God is
consumed with: food, clothes, shelter.
Jesus spells it
out – following Him means making the rule of God over our lives our
bottom-line, our main priority.
If we do that, then God pledges Himself to take care of all those
things we could, but don’t worry about.
There once was a
man who lived in a small city where everyone knew each other.
This man was consumed with anxiety, he worried about everything;
the weather, the economy, his health, earthquakes, tornados, floods, foreign
invasion, alien invasions, you name it, he worried about it.
For years, his neighbors and friends tried to help him, but to no
avail.
Then one day he
was seen walking down the street smiling& whistling and saying a cheery
hello to everyone he passed.
Everyone was speechless.
When he passed by the barber’s window, he waved and smiled.
The barber ran out onto the sidewalk and said, “Jack, is that
you?”
Jack turned around and said, “Sure is William!”
The barber said, “What happened? You look so, so, well, happy.”
Jack said, “Well, I’m no longer all worked up with anxiety.”
The barber said, “I can see that, what’d you do?”
Jack said, “I hired a guy to worry for me – Now he does all my
worrying and I’m free.”
William, the barber replied, “Wow. That’s brilliant, I guess. How
much do you pay him?”
Jack said, “He wasn’t easy to find him, but I pay him $6 million a
year.”
William was stunned, “6 Million! – Jack, you don’t make more than
what, 14 or 15 thousand dollars a year yourself. How are you going to pay him?”
To which Jack replied, “That’s for him to worry about.”
Jesus asks a
great question in v. 27 – “Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his
stature?”
What does worry accomplish? Nothing!
It is completely worthless emotion energy.
How much better to turn all that emotion to something