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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. ~ Matthew 6:24
Today, we return to our study of the Sermon on the Mount wherein the Lord Jesus Christ taught the culture of God to a group overlooking the Sea of Galilee. In our last study, the Lord Jesus noted that when our eye is bad, our whole body will be filled with darkness. That is to say that if God is not defining us by inculcating His truth into our souls, we will remain trapped in the darkness that was introduced to mankind in the Garden of Eden. In context, the Lord Jesus was explaining the matter of storing up our treasures in heaven by advancing the kingdom of God on this earth.
Many of our Bibles include a footnote next to the word "mammon" found at the end of today's verse. That footnote gives, in most occasions, the meaning of the word as being "money." Moreover, throughout the centuries, mammon has been described as wealth. It was taken by medieval writers as the name of the devil of covetousness. In biblical culture mammon has been long described by words such as lust, gluttony, greed, and dishonest worldly gain. Ultimately, mammon was described as an idol of materialism, which some trusted as a foundation for their worldview and philosophy on life. In fact, it is safe to say today that most today trust in their wealth more than anything else.
The danger with this is that which we trust in the most defines us most. With wealth at the helm of our hearts we find ourselves loving things and hating people. The Lord Jesus warned that we cannot serve two masters, He specified "wealth" as a master in opposition to God. A slave, therefore, will adhere to one master and reject the other. It would cause a real conflict within, one that would come with insurmountable problems. Such is the case with storing up wealth for ourselves while on this earth. Money is immoral, what we do with it makes it moral or immoral.
The Lord Jesus further explained how impossible it is to serve two masters, we will love one and hate the other. The Lord Jesus Himself embraced doing His Father’s will, while despising the shame that was levied upon Him by sinful and short-sighted men. When we place our trust in wealth, our allegiance will be in our wealth. As such, when we live for wealth, we will not have much of a heart for God. Likewise, when we live for God, the riches of this life will be understood for what they truly are, gifts from God.
There is nothing wrong with having wealth. In fact, when one possesses wealth, it should be considered a blessing from God. However, the opposite is not to be considered true. When someone is not wealthy, it does not mean that God doesn’t favor them. This attitude is a trap from the evil one. Just because someone receives a blessing, it doesn’t mean God loves him more than the person who has not been blessed of God in the same way. No matter how little or much we are blessed in this life, we should give honor, thanks, and glory to God for what we do have. Faith in the God of the Bible is the key and our faith in Him will be demonstrated by our obedience to Him.
According to Exodus 34:14, the Lord God is a "jealous God." This means He guards what is rightfully His. He is righteously jealous for our affections because we are at our best when we are giving our hearts to Him. God is not jealous for His own sake because He needs nothing. He is jealous for us because without Him we are in real trouble. When we serve another master such as wealth, we rob ourselves of all we were created to be, and we rob God of His rightful adoration.
The word "serve" in today's verse comes from the noun meaning bondservant or slave. Slavery in the Roman world was different from American slavery. The primary differences being that slavery wasn’t based on skin color and wasn’t a permanent condition. Typically, people became bondservants due to debt and they could work themselves out from under that debt. When the Bible mentions slavery in the New Testament, it is usually used in the sense that we all are slaves to something. And, God knows that what we love the most will be our master. When the Lord Jesus taught on servanthood, He spoke about having rendered actual ownership of ourselves to the one we serve.
We cannot serve two masters because, as the Lord Jesus pointed out, we end up hating one and loving the other. It’s only natural. Opposing masters demand different things and lead down different paths. While the ways of the Lord lead us in one direction, this world and our flesh are headed in the other. A choice must be made. When we follow Christ, we must die to everything else. If we attempt to serve two masters, we will have divided loyalties, and, when the difficulties of discipleship clash with the lure of fleshly pleasure, the magnetic pull of wealth and worldly success will draw us away from the Lord. The call to godliness goes against our sinful nature. Only with the help of the Holy Spirit can we remain devoted to the Lord as our one true Master.
The fact the Lord Jesus spoke of possessions possessing us is rather interesting. In reference to our possessions, we think we own and control them, but actually they own and control us. This is one way to understand sin. A careful reading of the Bible reveals that slavery and bondage is a common metaphor for sin. Often we think we can manage our sin, control our behavior and desires, and only indulge when we choose to, but that’s a fiction we tell ourselves. I think that’s part of the reason the Lord Jesus treated this subject so seriously because we’re so prone to deluding ourselves. The Lord Jesus came to free us from this kind of bondage which is not the equivalent of a few bad habits.
