Spiritual Capitalism (part 3) - [Matthew 6:20-23]

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Beyond The Basics: Evangelism (part 4)

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Martyn Lloyd -Jones was a great preacher. He preached in England and he had the typical
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English style, not a lot of humor. One day he told a story about a farmer.
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The farmer went rushing to his wife, reporting with great joy that one of his best cows gave birth to twin calves, one red, one white.
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He said to his wife, you know I have been led of the Lord to dedicate one of the calves to him.
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We will raise them together, then when the time comes to sell them, we will keep the proceeds that come from one calf and we will give the proceeds that come from the other to the
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Lord's work. Wife said, well honey, which calf are you going to dedicate?
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There's no need to decide now. We'll treat them both in the same way and when that time comes, we will sell them as I have said.
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Months went by, he went into the kitchen looking downcast and sad and miserable.
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Honey, what is wrong? I have bad news for you, honey. The Lord's calf is dead.
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But I thought you had not yet decided which was to be the Lord's calf. Oh yes, I have always determined it was going to be the white one and now the white calf is dead.
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Why don't we turn our Bibles to Matthew chapter 6 and see again what Jesus has to say about how possessions can possess us short of the grace of God through the
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Holy Spirit. Kingdom living. How do we live in this King's kingdom? Well Jesus has been hammering the disciples and anyone else who would listen that there's not room for two idols in the universe.
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There's not room for two things to worship, lest I call God an idol. There isn't enough room to worship
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God and something else. Jesus said in Mark, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?
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I could flip that around and say, what does it profit a man to lose the whole world and gain his soul?
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And we want to come back to Matthew chapter 6 and actually today we're going to get through three verses. How about that?
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It's been one verse, one verse, one verse, three verses today. Matthew chapter 6 in the Sermon on the
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Mount as Jesus addresses the topic of righteousness. How do we live in a kingdom where righteousness is commanded and demanded and certainly we know given by God?
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The key to unlock this puzzle as we've seen many, many times is to understand that God is a father.
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Unlike the pagans who have no God for a father, unlike the hypocrites who have no
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God for a father, you act differently when you know you have a father that cares for you, that loves you, that provides for you, and that takes care of everything you need.
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And so Jesus wants his disciples and Jesus wants you to live like you have a father in heaven, to depend on the goodness and grace of God.
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And not just to depend on him, but to give him full allegiance, unswerving loyalty to say
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I live for you. I'm a creature, you are the creator, and I will live for you all out.
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If you are God's child, then you'll say to yourself, I want to live in such a way that would show my sonship or my daughtership.
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I would like Luke and my three girls, Maddie, Gracie, and Haley, to live like Abendroths, to live in a way that would be un -Abendroth -like, at least in my mind, would be in a way to act inappropriate.
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And here we have this great God who brooks no rivals, who is jealous, who will not give his glory to another.
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And Jesus wants to make sure that we don't somehow give glory to money, that we don't give some kind of obedience to possessions, that somehow we don't get caught up in worshiping
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God and money. And we'll learn today you can't worship both. I could ask you the question as we begin, what do you daydream about?
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What do you think about? What really moves you as you think about life and plan in the future?
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What are your goals and aspirations? Certainly, there's nothing wrong with vacations and vacation houses and houses and other things, but what is at the top of your list of daydreamable topics?
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You will see today that Jesus has made you unidirectional in your love and your worship.
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When you get something locked on target, in the target of your mind, you will worship that with full steam ahead mentality.
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God has made you that way that when you see something before you, you will say, I will worship that completely.
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You can't say half over here and half over here. We are all or nothing people. And so for us, we want to make sure the object of our all or nothingness is no one less than our triune
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God. Let's read these verses, verses 19 through 24 to frame again our passage on what
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I call spiritual capitalism, not necessarily about money, although it applies, but how
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God wants your full allegiance. And if he has your full allegiance, the money will easily come. Jesus talked a lot about money.
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I don't think the focus here is money. The focus is sincerely worshiping God the Father and giving him full allegiance.
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Total claim on our hearts. We respond with loyalty to him.
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Matthew chapter six, verse 19, do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in or steal for where your treasure is, there your heart will also be.
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Verse 22, the eye is the lamp of the body. So then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.
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But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness?
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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.
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You cannot serve God and wealth, our mammon.
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So here we have a passage basically on the lordship of Christ Jesus. If God is Lord, follow him fully.
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There's all this controversy and evangelicalism the last 20 years about lordship. Is there lordship theology?
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You can't get a greater lordship theology than this. And so if you want a purpose statement this morning, here's my purpose.
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That as you look at these verses this morning in Matthew chapter six, you will say God deserves and commands my full allegiance.
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Anything less, God the spirit help me to overcome.
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Let me give you five exhortations from Jesus that will keep your mind thinking properly about the kingdom and God as father.
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Five exhortations. The first two we've learned already and so we'll look at five just too quickly in review because of Steve Lawson and the resurrection
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Sunday service last week. Five exhortations from Matthew 6, 19 through 24 that are from the words of Jesus that will help you think properly about God, the father's kingdom.
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Number one, don't treasure up treasures on earth. Verse 19, we looked at that in some detail.
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Do not store up for yourselves or do not treasure up for yourselves treasures on earth. Don't thesaurus up thesauruses on earth.
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As a thesaurus, as a treasury of words, don't make for yourselves treasures on earth your goal in life.
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Why? Because those things can be destroyed or stolen. Moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal.
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No real protection in NASDAQ, no real protection in savings and loan companies, no real protection in 401ks, in IRAs and we all have experienced some of that even recently.
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You say, well, do I have to give away all my money? Can I save for the future?
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Can I have an inheritance for my kids? Of course you can save. Of course you can have a portfolio. Of course you can save up for an inheritance.
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That's not the point. Money is never the point, but the problem is our hearts can take money and there can be a big problem.
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And one of the biggest problems is when you set your heart on money, you're grasping after wind.
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You try to grab hold of money and it can quickly leave your hands. Listen to Proverbs 23. When you set your eyes on it, it's gone.
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For wealth certainly makes itself wings like an eagle that flies toward the heaven.
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And you can just watch your money sometimes go bye -bye, just like a weagle would fly away. There's nothing you can do to get that money back.
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Calvin said, this deadly plague reigns everywhere throughout the world. Men are grown mad with an insatiable desire of gain.
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They're crazy. Men and women in this world are foaming at the mouth to get money. Now God comes along and rescues us and we ought not to act that way anymore.
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And that's exactly what Jesus is saying. Jesus is saying built in, in a God -ordained way, built into money and possessions is some kind of obsolescence.
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You ever buy a car? I think car manufacturers build in obsolescence into those cars, don't they?
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It's just built in. That's what they do. And God, I think in a divine way, builds in obsolescence to these possessions so that we don't run around worshiping them.
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One day there'll be a reckoning. Proverbs 11 says, riches do not profit in the day of wrath.
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God, I don't need your judgment because I can kind of buy you off like a judge. No. So don't treasure up things that count for nothing.
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Number two, instead of treasuring up things on earth, how about treasuring up things in heaven? And that's exactly what
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Jesus commands in verse 20, using almost the exact same words except now positively, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and thieves don't break in.
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If you're going to have a little treasure chest, if you're going to be kind of like a magi coming with some myrrh in a little box, a treasure box, make sure you put that box in a place that's moth -proof and rust -proof and thief -proof.
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Wilmington calls this section the only bank that's fully insured, the bank of heaven.
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God knows we would be apt to love money. And so he says, your desire to get things and to hoard things and to grab things and to accumulate things isn't necessarily bad.
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But when it's bad for money and the love of money, then just transfer that desire to gain and to be aggressive and to accumulate, but have it for eternal things.
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That's all. John Wesley said, the real value of a thing is the price it will bring in eternity.
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One of my favorite stories of all times is when this man would say out loud when the offering plate would come by.
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I don't know what you say when the offering plate comes by. You should probably say to yourself, this is worship to God.
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I give this to God. It probably is not the best to say, I'm paying the light bill, I'm paying for the snow plowing,
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I'm paying for some salary. You should probably say, I'm giving this to God. But you know, a man said this when the money came, the plate came across and he put the money in and he said it out loud.
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People next to him thought he was crazy. Here's what he said, I'll see you in heaven.
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Money came by, plate came by, he put the money in, he said, I'll see you again in heaven. That's exactly what it is.
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I'll see you again. I'm heaping up treasures in heaven. I will see you again. It's not gone. I'm heaping up treasures in heaven.
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I'll see you later. John Jowett said the real measure of our wealth is how much we'd be worth if we lost all our money.
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By the way, someday you will. Someday the stock market will be zero. Someday all your portfolio will be counted for nothing.
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The real value of a thing is the price it will bring in eternity. So Jesus says, take that desire that you've got to gain and just gain for yourselves rewards in heaven.
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Number three, the third exhortation from Christ, thinking about money, thinking about the kingdom, thinking about how to live if God your
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Father, number one, don't treasure up. Number two, treasure up. And number three, this is a big one. Remember what you treasure the most will rule your life.
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Remember what you treasure the most will guide or control all the actions of your life. And here's what
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Jesus says with this little statement, this little aphorism. He says, for in verse 21, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
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Now, before I explain this a little bit, don't ever forget when you think Hebrew -like and when you think
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Greek -like, don't just say heart is somehow emotions. Heart means the center of your personality.
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It means mission control center. You think with your heart, I can prove it. Luke 2, 19,
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Mary treasured these things and pondered them in her heart. Romans chapter 10, verse 10, it is with your heart that you believe.
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The heart contains the emotions, but it's also having the mind. It's like a mission control center.
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Heart is a metaphor for who you are on the inside, emotions and mind put together.
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It's not just emotion. So here he says, for where your treasure is, there your entire being, your innermost being will be also.
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What you love the most and desire the most will soon begin to run your life.
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It will inevitably occupy the center of your life, your goals, your will.
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D .A. Carson said, the point is that the things most highly treasured occupy the heart, and thus the most treasured treasure subtly, infallibly controls the whole person's direction and values.
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Our own creator just said that if you have something at the center of your life, it will begin to control you.
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It will drive you. It will lead you. It is like a bit in your mouth if you were a horse, and it will guide you.
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If love of money and possessions is at the center of your life, that love will influence you and it will infect you.
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This is amazing. Luther said, what a man loves, that is his God. For he carries it in his heart.
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He goes about with it night and day. He sleeps and wakes with it. Be it what it may, wealth or self, pleasure or renown.
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If you value something highly, it will control you. And so instead of placing money and possessions at the top of your list and that influencing you, you say,
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I put God at the top of my list, and that way it will have an influence on me. He will have an influence on me.
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I don't know if you know David Livingston, or you don't personally know him and know of him. Where did
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David Livingston minister? David Livingston, he ministered in Africa, right?
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And when he died, they took his body and they buried it in England. But they took his heart and they buried his heart where?
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In Africa, the place he loved, the foot of a tall tree in a small village.
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The natives took his heart, they dug a little hole and buried his heart in Africa. An anonymous man said, if your heart were to be buried in the place you loved most during life, where would it be?
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Would your heart be buried in your checkbook? Would your heart be buried in your summer house? Would your heart be buried at your job, golf course, dream car?
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Fill in the blank, the office? Where our heart lies infallibly controls us.
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And Jesus says, don't make it money. Don't get out of bed in the morning for that.
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Don't think about that all the time. Because if you do where your treasure is, you can soon find your heart. You don't need to walk around going,
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I wonder where my heart might be. Oh, heart, oh, heart. Where is my heart? No one's good at poetry.
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Mark it. It's a spiritual equation. If you love money, your heart will follow that money.
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It will bend toward it. If you follow God, your heart will do the same thing. I walked in here the day, a couple days after Easter service, and I thought, some kid, some kind of bratty kid, certainly not my kid, but some other kid.
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When I got here on Sunday, the Easter lilies were like this outside. I walked in on Tuesday, they were like this.
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I go, which kid did that? Who's breaking the Easter lilies? It was like this on Sunday.
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It was like this on Tuesday. What happened? It was bending down towards the sun.
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Bending down. The sun was attracting it. It was bending down right like that. And basically what
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Jesus is saying, if you worship money, you will bend down with heart, soul, mind, and strength, and it will become what drives you and motivates you.
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And then you'll say, as said in a movie 20 years ago, greed is good. That's not how we live.
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We believe there's an eternity. A rich man's wealth is his strong city.
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Solomon said in Proverbs 18, the name of the Lord is a strong tower, and the righteous run in it and are safe.
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You can say it this way, money is not a backseat driver if you love it.
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If you love money, it doesn't just go, oh, by the way, up here in a couple of miles, do you want to turn left?
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I was with Steve Lawson, and we were driving through Manhattan and George Washington Bridge. It was pouring rain. We're trying to get to Princeton.
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He was doing his very best not to be a backseat driver. And then we had the little GPS and some lady's voice telling us to turn and make you turn.
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Turn around when possible. Wrong turn. Drive faster. And I thought, now I have two backseat drivers, but they're both sitting in the front seat.
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Tom -Tom, electrical woman, and then Steve, if you worship money, it will drive you.
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You go, no, it won't. Well, Jesus made us, and he's made us in such a way that it's good to have goals.
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It's good to be aggressive. It's good to accumulate. But when tainted by the fall, we accumulate the wrong things.
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It's like another example. People used to say, well, I've got a strong -willed child. And there's these books.
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Strong -willed child or bad. Woe to the strong -willed child. Strong -willed child.
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You don't want strong -willed child. I was going to say, I don't know who wrote the book. I do know who wrote the book, but I don't agree.
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God, if he's made your son or a daughter strong -willed, rejoice. Because then when that strong will has been broken by God, it will resist peers.
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It will resist money. It will resist other things. Strong will is good. It just has to be checked by God, and we have to recognize what the fall does to it.
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The desire to accumulate and to grab and to have isn't bad, as long as we're wanting to grab the glory of God and to say,
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I'm going to die one day and then stand before God and I want to live for him. After what he's done for me, he sent his son, his only son, the son he loves, to die in my place.
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If you haven't watched it and you're a parent, you ought to go to the website and watch the Jewish sacrifice where they actually slit the lamb's throat.
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It's online. I think if you go to Between Two Worlds, and you can watch this lamb have its throat slit, and you just want to turn it off thinking, this is
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Isaiah 53 before my very eyes, killing this lamb for a sacrifice.
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If you don't think of Jesus, I don't know how you can think you're a Christian because you begin to think what he did for me, what he did in my place.
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Why would I want to run after money? Number four, this one
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I'll tell you ahead of time, it's wild. You've never heard anything like this, not because it's from me, but I mean from the scriptures.
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This one will rock your world. This one you'll say to yourself, how could I have missed this? Who except God, the
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God -man, could write something like this? It is absolutely amazing, but sadly so overlooked.
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The fourth exhortation from Jesus' own words about how to live in the kingdom, recognizing
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God as your Father, is that you need to realize that preoccupation with material things blurs the way you see
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God's truth. Let me repeat that. Realize that preoccupation with material possessions, money, things, etc.,
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blurs the way you see spiritual truths, verses 22 and 23.
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This is a spiritual axiom that you ought to write down in your brain, and that's this.
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If you see money wrongly, you cannot see God's truth rightly. You just can't do it.
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You may be saying to yourself, you know, I'd really like to study, I'd really like to go to the Bible Institute, I'd really like to read these other books,
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I'd like to be more serious about God, and I try to read these things and they just don't make much sense to me. Well, there could be a very real possibility that the reason why you can't grasp spiritual truths, although you can grasp insurance charts, you can grasp sales issues, you can grasp how to build a building, you say,
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I can understand, I have the IQ, but I can't grasp spiritual things, and I know I'm a Christian, God has saved me.
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The reason why, a very real reason why you might not be able to understand spiritual truths is because you see money wrongly.
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Let's find out what Jesus says and see what he says about this blurring of vision.
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If you see money wrongly, you will see spiritual truth in a haze and you'll be a spiritual kindergartner.
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So for us, we want to be the opposite, don't we? Let's see what Jesus says. There's a context. These aren't just Proverbs thrown in.
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This isn't Proverbs 32, just disconnected from everything else. He says in verses 22 and 23, the eye is the lamp of the body.
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So then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.
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If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness? Here's what
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Jesus is saying with this wonderful little proverb. If you love money, you will have a spiritual cataract on your eyes.
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You will have something that comes between you and just the open assessment and evaluation and understanding of spiritual truth.
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I've seen cataract surgery before where they take cataracts off of the eye. By the way,
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I have a question for you as we're developing this a little bit. What does cataract mean? What does cataract, the word cataract mean?
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It means to strike down. Cata, down. The rest of the part of cataract, to strike, to strike down.
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Let me ask you this. How many people have seen Niagara Falls? If you haven't, you ought to go sometime.
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When you look at the water that's coming down, what color do you see? What color do you see?
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Clear blue. What do you see? You see white. That's exactly where we get the word cataract from.
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This rapidly running water that's going all over and rocks and everything else, it ends up being white.
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You can't see through it because it's functioning as a cataract. It's taking away the opacity of something.
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So Jesus says, if you don't see something right with your eye, it affects everything you see.
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If you love things, you're going to have reduced spiritual vision. Early Persian physicians called this term cataract the descent of water.
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I can't really see very well. I've kind of got blurred vision. Everything's kind of white and fuzzy. Oh, you've got like a waterfall in your eye.
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Proverbs 4 says, doesn't this sound familiar? Let your eyes look directly ahead and let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you.
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Watch the path of your feet and all the ways will be established. Do not turn to the right or to the left.
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Turn your foot from evil. And as you look at something properly physically, if your eye sees it clearly, you can understand all the ins and outs of that.
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Same thing spiritually. If there's a problem with your eyesight spiritually, everything's messed up.
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And Jesus is basically saying, money can make you blurry in the way you see things.
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It's fascinating. Fuzzy vision, blurry vision, double vision, nearsightedness, farsightedness.
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Listen to what William Barclay says. The color or state of window decides what light gets into the room.
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If the window is clear, clean, undistorted, the light will come flooding into the room and will illuminate every corner of it.
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If the glass of the window is colored, frosted, distorted, dirty, or obscured, the light will be hindered. So then, says
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Jesus, the light which gets into any man's heart and soul and being depends on the spiritual state of the eye, which through it has to pass.
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For the eye is the window of the body. If you come to our house, you will begin to see a slow, negative transformation of our windows.
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The windows looked pretty good when we bought the house six years ago, but they were not sealed properly. And guess what happens to about six of those windows now that aren't sealed properly?
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There's one little pain here and one little pain here. And what's happening on the inside of this pain here of that thing that's not sealed properly?
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I'll tell you what's happening. That pain's giving me a pain because it's all white. It's all frosted.
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It's all this kind of, I looked out through the window the other day and I thought, there's frost on my yard. The frost isn't on my yard.
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I'm looking at the frost because the frost is on the pain. And if spiritually you see money as somehow worthy of worship, it's going to give you blurry vision when it comes to spiritual things.
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So I could ask the question this way. Do you see spiritual issues, biblical issues, plainly and clearly?
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Because if you're a Christian and you do see them plainly and clearly, it could be a good indication you've got money where it's supposed to be.
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As a means to pay bills and a means to use to encourage other people and as a means to do many other things, but not a means to be worshiped.
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Likewise, if you say to yourself, I just can't seem to, I know Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so, but doctrines of grace, systematic theology, hypostatic unions,
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I mean, you don't have to know the big words, but you just go, I just don't really get it. And I'm not really that concerned to get it.
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Frankly, I don't even really want to get it, except it kind of would be nice to know what Mike's talking about on Sunday morning. But other than that,
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I don't really get it. Could it be that the reason why you can't get it is because you have not let loose of the
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God of money? And Jesus says that could be a very real possibility.
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Your spiritual IQ is directly tied into how you see money.
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And if you're greedy, you're not going to be understanding the five solas, the doctrines of grace or anything else in a way that's even more than intellectual, but a way that transforms your life.
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James Boyce said, Do you see spiritual things clearly? Or is your vision of God and His will for your life clouded by spiritual cataracts, brought on by an unhealthy preoccupation with things?
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And now listen to what he says. I am convinced this is true for many Christians, particularly those living in the midst of Western affluence.
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Now and then people like this complain to me they cannot understand the Bible, that God seems far away.
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Sometimes they are confused about Christian life or about God's will for them. Well, how would you write if you were a seasoned pastor?
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James Boyce. I'm sorry about that, he says. No, what does he say?
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Shockingly, he says, Well, it's not surprising. And what is more, it always will be this way for one who knows his way around a supermarket or a brokerage house more than he knows his way around the
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New Testament. He says,
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Although Jesus did not direct us away from possessions themselves, He did warn us against losing our spiritual vision because of them.
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Well, what do you do if you have spiritual cataracts? What do you do if you have a regular cataract?
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By the way, just for interest, since we're talking about cataracts, I did find out that those exposed to ultraviolet light or radiation get lots of cataracts.
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Those that have diabetes can get cataracts, hypertension. One study found that Iceland air pilots had lots of more cataracts than other people because of strange radiation from outer space.
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How do Christians get spiritual cataracts? They've got everything else wired in their life.
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They know their jobs back and forward. They're experts in their jobs. And if you ask them to explain a simple
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Bible doctrine or to go teach at the rest home or to teach a Sunday school class, they don't have any idea.
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Ask them to describe the difference, a mature Christian, somebody who should be mature, about justification, redemption, propitiation, reconciliation, and imputation.
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And if the answer is, uh, could it be that that person needs to be shepherded and loved enough to say, could be money.
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That's the problem. Jesus doesn't say this to just say, stay where you are.
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That's what Satan does. You're already backwards. You already see money the wrong way, and you're going to die this kind of baby
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Christian. No, Jesus tells us now so we can say, today's the day. Today's the day to repent.
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Today's the day to say, goodbye, vain world, and all the money. Just let it go. I'd like to understand the deep things of God.
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Earliest cataract surgery developed by an Indian surgeon. Sixth century B .C.
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Shushruta was his name. And as Indians had a tradition to get rid of cataracts, they had a special tool they used, and I won't pronounce it in Hindi, but it was a curved needle to loosen the lens and push the cataract out of the field of vision.
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And then to give them healing afterwards, they just rubbed in a bunch of warm butter.
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Oh, now I see things clearly. If you love money, today's a day that might even be more painful than physical surgery, but it will be good for your soul.
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Money's not a very good God to serve. And Jesus says here, verse 23, but if your eye is bad, ever heard of an evil eye?
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Those old movies like Sinbad the Sailor, he's got an evil eye. That was...
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I bet you Steve Lawson doesn't do that. If somebody's got an evil eye, you just don't go, well, they've got a problem with their actual eye.
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What are you trying to say if someone has an evil eye? Everything about them on the inside's evil, and it just seems to somehow condense into this way they look at you with that evil eye.
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It's a metaphor. Jesus is using this bad eye as a metaphor for a miserly, selfish, possessive eye.
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Like Proverbs 28, 22, a man with an evil eye hastens after wealth and does not know what will come.
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Got a good eye? Light comes in. Good spiritual eye? Good light comes in. It illumines the scriptures.
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You understand it. But you've got a bad eye, you've got an eye focused on avarice, focused on greed.
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Doesn't let the light in. You can't see it. Everything's dark. Divided interest gives you a low understanding of scripture.
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You can't focus on both God and possessions. You get blurry vision. It's cross -eyed.
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The evil eye of the Near Eastern culture saw something that didn't belong to them and had to have it.
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What we do is we see money, and it's supposed to be God's money, we're stewards of God's money, but we want it more.
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We've got to have it. We want to see things properly.
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So maybe a good self -diagnosis is you say to yourself, how well can I understand scripture?
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How well can I find myself around the New Testament? How well do I know this book? Well, one of the reasons maybe I don't know it is because I'm not a
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Christian. Fair. Maybe one reason is I'm just a brand new Christian. Fair.
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I've been saved for 25 years, and I should be teaching by now, but I don't understand the elementary principles of the
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Bible, Hebrews chapter 5. Then today's the day. Today's the day to say, you know what,
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Lord? I'm tired of living for other gods, whether those gods are money, possessions, things, sports, whatever they might be,
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I'm ready to live for You. Number five.
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The fifth exhortation from the words of Jesus, thinking about God as Father. Number one, don't treasure up things on earth.
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Number two, don't treasure up things in heaven. Number three, what we treasure controls our actions. Number four, if you're preoccupied with greed, it affects the way you see spiritual truths.
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And then now, number five. Remember, you cannot serve God and wealth. Don't forget that axiom.
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You cannot serve both God and wealth. Total allegiance from God is required.
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Not 50 -50. I could ask you the question, some of you moonlight and have an extra job. Well, that's fine, because it's just regular employment.
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But do you think if you were a slave back in the Bible day, you could moonlight? Excuse me,
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I know I work from 8 to 5 today, and it's time for me to go to my other job. I have to go to Starbucks. I want to be a barista for a while.
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I like part -time barista jobs. That's not the point. But here now, don't forget slavery.
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Don't forget now we're going to think about the New Testament idea of slavery. Verse 24.
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No one can serve two masters. Why? Because slavery is a 24 -hour -a -day job.
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For he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot.
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You cannot. You cannot serve God and wealth. Money and idolatry just go together like a ball with some kind of tether hooked onto it.
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They just go together. Jesus said, well, there's a couple different ways to treasure up things.
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Treasure them up in heaven, not on earth. There's a couple different ways to see with a clear view and with a bad view.
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And now there's a couple different ways to think about this. Two masters can happen.
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And Jesus says you cannot serve God and amen. That's where we get the word amen is from mammon with the
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M -N in Aramaic. You cannot serve God in something that you truly, verily trust in.
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You just can't do it. It's impossible. Do slaves clock out?
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They clock in at 8 o 'clock, and they clock out at 5 .02. By definition, slavery means total control.
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We were enslaved to sin before we were saved. Now we're enslaved to God. And so now God says to God the
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Son, live out who You are. No divided loyalty. No partial commitments. It's all or nothing.
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It's like Caleb in Joshua 14 .8. I followed the Lord my God fully.
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There's no Sunday Christian. There's no Easter Christian. There's someone who fully trusts into another safekeeping their entire lives.
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And He says if you want to love money, don't think you can leave God a little spot for Sunday because it's not going to happen.
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It's all or nothing. It is all or nothing. It is a trick of the mind.
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It is a trick of Satan to think that you can split your loyalty. Well, I'll love my first...
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I've got two wives. It's the polygamist in Utah kind of thing. I'll love this wife on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and this wife on Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
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Oh really? If there's one God, choose this day who you'll serve.
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If there's more than one God like in 1 Kings 18, then half and half will do. If I'm a slave and I have master
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God, what I do here will negatively influence how
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I treat this other quote unquote God. Same thing on the other side. If I'm serving money and possessions and the love of possessions and money, then it's going to interfere with my devotion for God.
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One's got to be given up. Did you know back in the Bible days that if you were a slave, you were considered a living tool?
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You could be killed. You could be used. You could be sent off. Anything they wanted to do with you, beat, throw up, throw out.
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In my notes, I have throw him out. They could throw up on you if they wanted. It didn't matter. And that master owned you if you were a slave like he owned a hammer.
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Oh, I just kind of own the hammer when it wants to be the hammer and sometimes over here it likes to go swimming. I mean, it's just so stupid.
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Piper said evidently there are two ways to live. You can live with a view to accumulating valuable things on earth or you can live with a view to accumulating valuable things in heaven.
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There is something about God and money that makes them tend to mastery. Did you get that?
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Either you'll be mastered by money and therefore ignore God or make him a bellhop for your business. Or you'll be mastered by God and make money a servant for the kingdom.
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Look at the text. Either you'll hate the one or love the other, devoted to the one and despise the other.
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You cannot serve God and mammon. You just can't do it. It's impossible.
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Pharisees tried. Their eyes were diseased, full of cataracts spiritually. They didn't have total undivided commitment.
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They wanted what was best for them. So I ask you, we kind of like things halfway, both and, but for God it's either or.
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Do you love money or do you love God? Last passage and we're going to do it quickly.
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Colossians 3. Please turn with me to Colossians 3 and I want you to see Paul's verses in an epistle that basically expand and confirm what we've learned from the words of Jesus.
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How it's tied into this topic of greed and wealth when it comes to God.
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And we just don't want to do that. We don't want to somehow shame ourselves and shame God by worshipping money.
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Money's fine. Money's not the problem. Our hearts are, so we need to just take ownership and make sure we don't do what we would tend to do short of the
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Spirit's power. And so Colossians 1 ties in these concepts of God and money.
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Excuse me. I meant Colossians 3, verse 1, not chapter 1. Colossians 3, verse 1.
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Colossians is Jesus' supreme. Chapters 1 and 2 are the doctrine. Chapter 3, it gives a little more doctrine and then it fleshes itself out in verse 5.
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Let me just quickly go over these verses with you and see if you can notice a parallel in Jesus' words on the
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Sermon on the Mount. Colossians 3 .1. If you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above.
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Where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. If, in fact, Paul says you've died to sin, died to self,
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Satan no longer has dominion over you, and when Jesus died, God saw you dying with Him. When Jesus was raised from the dead,
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God saw you raised with Him. You're no longer owing your old master anything. If you are now a
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Christian saved by grace alone, what should you do? Keep seeking the things you used to? No.
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Keep seeking the things above. Where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God the Father.
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To keep the important relationships in mind of wife and husband and all that, yes, but God is at the top.
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The right perspective. He is the object sought. So then what does
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He say in verse 2? Set your mind on things above, not on the things that are on earth.
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Keep thinking about these eternal things, these heavenly things. Don't set your mind on money and power and music and wine and pleasure and all these other things.
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Don't love the world. Don't do that. And then He says in verse 3,
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For you have died and your life is hidden with God and Christ. Why be motivated to seek
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God and to set my mind on things above? Answer, because you're united with Christ.
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Don't live that other way anymore. Reminds me of Warren Wiersbe's story of two sisters who loved dances and wild parties.
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Then they got saved. They were converted, and they got an invitation to one of these bad parties.
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And so they sent in their RSVP in these words, We regret we cannot attend because we recently died.
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The old us is dead, so live like it. He gives another motivation too.
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You're going to be united with Christ one day. Verse 4, When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you will also be revealed with Him in glory.
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What a day that's going to be. So because of all that, then what does He say? Here's the truth.
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Now how do I act? Verse 5, don't forget it. Therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to weird sexual sins, heinous sexual sins, immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire.
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And what do you think the next one's going to be? Who would ever put this at the list, even in an emphatic way?
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When it comes to saying, I'm dead with Christ, the old me is gone, I'm a new creation in Christ Jesus, therefore,
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I want to live for you, God. I'm not going to live in a way that's somehow sexually deviant, sexually defiling, and I'm going to live for you.
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And then right after that, He says, Watch out for something that's another idol, and that is what? Greed.
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That's weird that it's on that list. But when I think about it, it's not weird anymore. It's exactly right.
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Here's the illustration. I've been driving my bike around the neighborhoods, and I see all the trees on the side of the road.
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They've fallen, and it's just an ongoing thing, isn't it? They've fallen, and now these people come along, and they pick up a tree, and they throw it into this big maw, and there's a smaller thing there with this grinder, and it gets the little branch in, and then it's like, and then out on the other side, comes what?
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Basically, sawdust and chips. I just kept thinking about these guys. How would you like to do that?
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Ten hours a day, until September probably, until the next ice storm, there's so many trees. Throwing those things in, and then one gets stuck on your glove, and then what happens to you?
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Zzzz! Here's the illustration, and it's really a good one when it comes to putting to death.
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Paul's saying this. You're living your Christian life, and you're doing things in your ministry, and you're just living out your
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Christian experience, and all of a sudden, you throw this tree in, and your hand starts going in this feeder, and now your hand is in there going zzzz!
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And you're about right up to here, past your elbow, and it's just chewing you up and spitting you out. Then take the hatchet in the emergency bin, and cut off your arm before it's all gone.
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Put to death. Kill it. That's the word. Slay it. Get the hatchet and chop it off.
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Why? Because God hates us? No. First of all, it's just figurative language, but it's meant to say you're caught up in something that's not the you anymore, and you don't want to somehow make a little god to worship.
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You're going to get some kind of Indian god or some kind of fertility god and bow down and worship it? How could we? How could we be greedy anymore since we're dead with Christ, new with Christ?
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Then consider the members of your earthly body as what? Dead. Chop it off.
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Cut it off. Slay it. Kill it. Destroy it. Because if you don't, it will destroy you.
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If you don't cut off your arm, you're going to get sucked through that thing. I never really looked at it like that.
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It's exactly what Paul says. I started with the cow story.
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I'll end with the cow story. George Truitt went over to a real rich man's house in Texas.
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A rancher. After the meal, his host led him to a place where they could get a good view of all the property that he owned.
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He pointed to the oil fields. Twenty -five years ago, I had nothing. Now, as far as you can see, it's all mine.
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Looking over here. See all those sprawling fields of grain? That's all mine.
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Looking over to the cows and the cattle, thousands of cattle he bragging, they're all mine.
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Pointing over to the other direction to a big forest, that's all mine. I love
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Dr. Truitt. He just had his way about him. He paused, and the rancher, cattleman, braggart was expecting, expecting, good job.
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Pastor Truitt placed his hand on the man's shoulder, and he pointed to heaven and he said, how much do you have in that direction?
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The man hung his head down and confessed, I never thought of that. Today, we have thought of that.
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Let's pray. Lord God, we are thankful for the words of your
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Son, Christ Jesus. We're thankful that we don't have to do these things on our own.
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We have a Spirit, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit who will help us, and specifically this morning,
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Father, as a pastor, I hope that help comes in the form of conviction for those that need the conviction, and encouragement for those that have already put aside the
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God of loving money. Lord, we would love to have our hearts united with the songwriter, Miller, who says,
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I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold. I'd rather be His than have riches untold.
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I'd rather have Jesus than houses or lands. I'd rather be led by His nail -pierced hands.