No one can serve two masters

[0:00] Thank you.

[0:30] Thank you.

[1:00] Thank you.

[1:30] Thank you. Thank you.

[2:02] Thank you. Thank you.

[3:02] Thank you. Thank you.

[4:02] Thank you. Thank you.

[5:02] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[5:14] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ...

[5:38] Come forth Come forth Come forth Come forth Come forth Come forth My Ayase Ye Goans Be And到 Bachelor In Dusk Felen In En Tom Ol Friends Los G V B Sh Se Steveû Bab God graas, Allah can ool, and minna magus iskaach, diast, amen.

[6:16] Thank you. We'll continue by singing again to God's praise, this time in Gaelic from Psalm 73. Psalm 73 verses 27 to 28.

[6:27] For lo, they that are far from thee forever perish shall, them that ahoring from thee go, thou hast destroyed all. But surely it is good for me that I draw near to God, and God I trust that all thy works I may declare abroad.

[6:41] Amen. God graal, н una specifiedind potions around the world, and the others may may cave inward, I'm the master of the world, the stories that I live in the world, and the others may have allowed it.

[7:25] Thank you. Thank you. CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS

[8:25] CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS CHOIR SINGS

[9:29] CHOIR SINGS day Lord and that we can commune with you in that way Lord so be with us this day Lord we ask that you'll give us hearing ears and as we listen to your word Lord and we pray that you would continue to bless us and go before us in all that we do so forgive us for all of our sins in Christ's name we pray amen so if we could just turn back to the chapter which we read Matthew chapter 6 and we're just going to focus really well this morning we're going to focus on the verses between 19 and 24 verses 19 to 24 so I'll just briefly read them just now so Matthew chapter 6 verse 19 do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal for where your treasure is there your heart will be also the eye is the lamp of the body so if your eye is healthy your whole body will be full of light but if your eye is bad your whole body will be full of darkness if then the light is in you if the light in you is darkness how great is the darkness 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 you cannot serve God and money now the word we first start off there we're looking into the word treasure and I suppose treasure the word itself well personally for me it capture it tends to capture your imagination and it does conjure up images of large chests filled with gold or with jewels and I know when I was a young boy I used to like the film Aladdin and there was a full cave filled with treasure and so that was that's where the eye automatically goes when we consider what treasure is and we imagine big piles of cash and and things of great wealth but treasure also means to deposit and or to accumulate to store up and again things of incredible value we all have things in our lives that are indeed of great value and we all seek to find treasure in our lives we're always on the hunt for treasure whatever it may be whether it's status or whatever it's in your careers but we're always on the hunt for some sort of treasure we tend to store up and stockpile that which we value and I want to ask us a question this morning what do you treasure more than anything else what are the things of value that you're storing away in your own lives and I ask myself what are the things that I'm storing away in my life now we did here in these verses that Jesus knows we are individuals that desire to have treasure it's in our nature to treasure that which we see as valuable but he's using that and he's calling us to accumulate long lasting treasure in life let's read verse 19 again do not lay up for yourself treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal the first point of caution we have here really is not to think that Jesus wants to to ruin our lives or to suppress any joy in our lives he absolutely wants us to seek and to store up treasure many people in our day and age will tell you that Jesus is asking you to give up everything in your life to give up anything of value to have no joy and to have no happiness in your life but that's the complete opposite that we have here now I don't want you to think that following Jesus carries no sacrifice because again that's not true Jesus wants us to indeed have a good life and his desire for you

[13:34] is to have good things and encourages us to seek and accumulate treasure that he wants us to treasure those stores to store them up in heaven rather than on earth so what we are seeing here are very different types of treasures that we're looking at here that which is stored up on earth and that which is stored up in heaven so why must we store up these treasures in heaven we've got to ask that question why why why must we do that and the simple reason is that earthly treasures don't last they don't keep very well and they are very fleeting we see there in verse 19 where moth and rust destroy now you're welcome to store up treasures on earth if that's your choice however Jesus is warning us here that these will one day be destroyed we only have to look at cars or clothes or other things of value in our lives they so often degrade and lose value everything on earth degrades and will lose its value and be destroyed and now Joyce and I are actually considering looking at maybe getting a new car and it's only once you really research and review into cars you realize how much of a bad investment they really are as soon as you drive off the forecourt you're you've lost thousands and it's a really poor investment you'll continually be repairing it and parts will then start to be destroyed they'll wear away and they ultimately rust at the end of the day so it's not a good investment going into cars and even houses which are well regarded as a far better and far safer investment you do eventually over a longer span see a cycle of repair and renovation and decoration because within that house things start to lose their appeal they're they're no longer they're no longer valuable to us within that house even decorations and kind of furniture that we have and looking ahead in the years to come the best car among us here somebody may have a brand new car that they've just purchased in the last week will one day be destroyed and have zero value our house that we live in will one day be destroyed maybe in the next 10 years maybe in the next 100 years it will be destroyed it will be demolished or it will become a ruin make no mistake our house houses and our property whatever it is will not last forever and jesus well jesus tells us this here that we need to make sure we do not focus our treasures on that which is on earth even just our phones and i mean i'm looking at my own phone i've had it for just under a year and already i think there have been two versions since they're always constantly asking you to upgrade and phones start to slow down within a year or two so within such a small space of time things tend to lose their value but jesus is telling us here that our earthly treasures will not last forever and even more importantly we can't take them with us these earthly treasures won't last they degrade and are altogether fleeting that's why jesus is teaching us here in these short verses he doesn't want us to waste our lives on things that don't last so he encourages us to store up heavenly treasures that will ultimately last for eternity they won't degrade they won't perish and they won't become obsolete just read in verse 20 there it's the follow on from verse 19 but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal jesus is asking us to set our heart on heavenly treasure that cannot be destroyed so this really leads us into a very important question and if we are being asked to seek treasure that lasts in heaven how how do we do that what do we need to do in order to achieve that well within the new testament there are a large number of areas where we see the promise of heavenly reward for acts of righteousness for god's glory and just look at verse four in our own if you've got your bibles there just look at verse four just in this chapter um we're still in the same chapter chapter six and verse four tells us well verse three into four

[17:38] really but when you give to the needy do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your giving may be in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you so we're seeing there the reward and then even in verse six but when you pray go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you and finally just the the verse before our own message here today is verse 18 17 into 18 but when you fast anoint your head and wash your face that your fasting may not be seen by others but your father who is in secret and the father your father who sees in secret will reward you now before i continue really i just want to be clear that these acts of storing up treasures in heaven will not see you rewarded with salvation itself as one of the commentators matthew pool says let your riches your treasure be that which is heavenly those habits of grace which will bring you to heaven the things which accompany salvation doing these things won't see you saved but as matthew pool says here they are there to accompany your salvation so heavenly treasure is stored up when we carry out acts of righteousness for god and it's also stored up for another variety of reasons when we do things that actually please god and you don't need to go in your bibles to it but in matthew chapter 10 verse 42 i'll just quickly move forward for you matthew chapter 10 in verse 42 tells us and whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple truly i say to you he will by no means lose his reward so caring for people there we're seeing that there's a reward attributed to that and then as i say i'll skip forward look chapter 12 verses 33 to 34 tells us fear not little flock for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom sell your possessions and give to the needy provide yourselves with money bags that do not grow old with a treasure in the heaven that does not fail where no thief approaches and no moth destroys so we're seeing there giving to the needy and caring for people um our ways of being able to see treasure stored up in heaven and you don't need to go in your bibles but just think of the story of the rich young man he was asked to sell all of his possessions and give to the poor but he couldn't do it and he was focusing on the riches rather than on the poor he wasn't able to see what jesus was asking of of his disciples and of us in verses 19 to 24 here for where your treasure is there your heart will also be his heart was on the possessions and not on the poor and the needy i suppose the question we should ask ourselves is do you want treasure in heaven and if so then we need to care for god's people we need to care for the poor and the needy jesus tells us at the end of matthew 19 that those who make sacrifices in his name will receive multiplied heavenly treasures what we are seeing here is that jesus promises rewards where there are acts done that please him when we give to the poor and the needy and when we make sacrifices for his sake and if you don't mind maybe going forward those of you that have your bibles with you to colossians chapter 3 just get two more um further readings um in our message today so colossians chapter 3 and we're going to read verses 22 to 24 colossians chapter 3 bond servants obey in everything those obey in everything those who are your earthly masters not by way of eye service as people pleasers but with sincerity of heart fearing the

[21:42] lord whatever you do work heartily as for the lord and not for men knowing that from the lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward you are serving the lord jesus christ so we're seeing here even slaves are promised an eternal reward for faithfully doing their duty for god's glory now i don't know each and every one of your hearts here today i don't even know where you've been in your own lives but these words should encourage us where a slave with few rights and few possessions if any was promised that he would also have treasures stored up in heaven when they seek to please the lord and the same is true for all of us if we seek to please the lord then we will see our treasures stored up in heaven now i'm just going to read this is the last reading just now from the new testament as i give us an example of various rewards it's from first timothy chapter 16 and verse 17 to 19 and it says as for the rich in this present age charge them not to be haughty nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches but on god who richly provides us with everything to enjoy they are to do good to be rich in good works to be generous and ready to share thus storing up treasure for themselves as good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is truly life so really just analyzing all of those scripture proofs that we've just gone through there we can see there that there is a reward it shows a reward that we can receive um when we use our earthly resources that god has given us so that could be your money as we heard of there from the rich young man you could be asked to use your money your time your energy your position your status wherever you are in society these are the earthly resources that we have been given by god and we should be using them for him the christians should be investing their earthly wealth in eternal things think about all that god has given you in this life be that material or financial or even your talents then these things should be converted to heavenly treasure when you see them used in his service so the question do you and i live solely for the pleasure of ourselves or are we using what god has given us to see his well done on earth as it is in heaven are we seeking to see him glorified it's a very difficult question and it's one i ask of myself am i continually seeking to see god glorified with the resources that he has given me whether that's in the workplace or whether that's in your bank accounts now as i mentioned earlier god is not against enjoyment as we read off in one timothy chapter six there he gives us what we need in order to have enjoyment in life he created what enjoyment actually is so remember that god does not want to see you miserable in life but rather to use what he has given you to to have joy in him and in eternity now that eternity is worth investing in as christians the new heaven and the new earth where god's righteousness and glory dwells is a place that we should be storing up our treasures whilst here on earth we have a heavenly reward to be investing in which is often difficult for us to see but we're told here quite explicitly by jesus that that's what we ought to be doing so in these verses of matthew chapter 26 jesus is encouraging us to use what god has given us to make lasting valuable and eternal investments now i know there's a couple of people in i think it was in glasgow that have given up a promotion for example in order to have more time with god i think that promotion meant they were maybe working weekends or they were working nights so they maybe don't get out to the prayer meeting but it was declined so there are people that give up further wealth in their lives because their focus is on the lord for example there's another example i know at the holiday club many people gave up their annual leave from their workplaces to be a holiday club and so the lord has given them a resource has given

[25:44] them jobs has given them terms and conditions within that job but they are being used to serve the lord where we saw upwards of 50 children every every day in here hearing more of who the lord is so this is how we can utilize the resources that the lord has indeed given to us now i understand it may be difficult for the the non-believer among us um to to hear this and it may seem like a maybe a new or even a fearful thing to hear um you might be sitting there thinking i've worked blooming hard for that money or i've i've earned that that that wage that's gone into my bank or these talents have been given to me i've nurtured these talents these are these are for me to use not for the lord to use but let me just point out verse 21 of the word of our of our chapter here for where your treasure is there your heart will be also interestingly when we read this jesus isn't telling us to follow your hearts no he's saying that your hearts will follow your treasure so first we must decide in our lives what our treasure will be and decide to invest in this where our hearts will then follow so i'll ask the question who in your own life are you following what are you following in your own life because you can be sure to know that your heart will indeed follow that your affections will follow that decision and your enjoyment in life will follow that decision and you will indeed delight in the treasures that you have set upon yourself so are you going to follow the encouragement of jesus here to not waste our earthly things to not waste our lives on earthly things that are very fleeting and temporary or are you going to live your life for lasting treasures in heaven i'll swiftly move on to verses 22 and 23 of our short passage here the eye is the lamp of the body so if your eye is healthy your whole body will be full of light but if your eye is bad your whole body will be full of darkness if then the light in you is darkness how great is the darkness we shift here from from dealing with our treasures to looking to the eye the light and darkness and here jesus when he's talking about the eye it's representing our desires if what you have your eye on is healthy then our whole body will have light and indeed our whole life will have light if however we have evil desires then our whole body and indeed our whole lives will be in darkness jesus is telling us to have a clean and healthy desire for god now it's easy to see how our desires and ambitions are related what you pursue is what you have your eye on and it will subsequently determine how you shape your course of life jesus is clear in the fact that we ought to pursue godly desires and godly desires alone perhaps a godly goal would be would be answering a call much like we heard last week from angus and kirsty heading off to the other side of the world in the name of the lord you may wish to please god by increasing your giving to the poor to the church here or to mission work maybe you want to please god by undertaking to read the whole bible as we see in our intimation sheet here starting at the beginning of the year to work the way through our bible and maybe that's how you wish to please god as you will ultimately grow in your faith and you will grow in your knowledge of who christ is there are an endless number of ways that we can please god and see our desires and ambitions center around him but ultimately as we just read that read there what we desire will govern our whole person so make sure that your desires are directed to that which pleases god finally just as we move on to verse 24 probably the more most important verse as we were speaking to the children there as well 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 you cannot serve god and money now if somehow

[29:49] you've maybe lost me in the verses so far or if you've if you've nodded off i would maybe urge you to focus on this verse in particular if you've not felt personally challenged up until this moment and then i'm hopeful that this verse will indeed challenge as i know in my own preparation and study for for today it was very much a chastisement and a challenge for me when i was reading these jesus is clear here and he's as clear as anything there's no there's little interpretation required in this verse um you don't really have to unpack it that much it's it's pretty explicit that no one can serve two masters there's no maybe there's no you can give it a go it's very explicit that no one can serve two masters so jesus is clear that we can only have one singular devotion this verse is not one that takes a whole lot of interpretation as i said um it's a clear image and it's one that we should be able to see just in first reading a choice must be made at this point we're asked to make a choice by the lord in this verse one of the commentators uh jameson fosset and brown say that this term this the term of serving here so no one can serve two masters the definition of that word serve means that you belong wholly and are entirely under command too and one of the other ones i think it was matthew henry said this person that serves one of the masters must give the master exclusive service so there is no there is no middle ground you cannot serve two masters the analogy here is that of the slave and the master which we which we read of earlier as well a slave can only serve one master the master receives total obedience and devotion from the slave the only possibility for the slave is to serve one master think back to the example that we had with with the young ones there where joyce and i were given two different commands to emily and she she couldn't make a choice she couldn't please both of us she couldn't satisfy both of those commands it wasn't possible she was either going to choose one choose the other and let down one and let down the other so there has to be a choice you cannot serve two masters he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to one and despise the other jesus then moves to apply that principle at the end of verse 24 when he says you cannot serve god and money as the children could see that we were torn where emily was torn between two options we also have these options to make it's important though to understand the translation of the word money at the very end there the authorized version many of you will have uses the word mammon which which means more than just money it's not just a financial it's it's like wealth personified it's it's all the things that we value so mammon covers money it covers our status our careers wherever wherever we place value is what's covered by that money by that term mammon sorry so these things are not evil in and of themselves now god has richly provided many of us with wealth with status with good jobs with with wonderful talents so they're not bad in and of themselves god has provided them for us he is however saying here that you cannot serve these things or live for them or prioritize these things over god we must choose an allegiance now i'm sure that in our own lives i know i speak to myself first here and that i will have attempted at some point to try and serve both i will have maybe had i think in glasgow particularly the job i would tend to kind of focus on that and sometimes i would maybe miss a prayer meeting and these are the sort of things where i've i've made that choice i may not have knowingly made that choice or willingly made it but in my subconscious i've made a choice to serve the master which is that my workplace before i have god many of us will have been in a situation where we've chosen something else over god jesus is clear here though that we cannot serve both there is no maybe no possibility we simply cannot and in my studies there was a story i'll just share it

[33:50] with you if i can remember it martin lloyd jones in his book he tells of this story where a farmer he was very much a blessed farmer he had a fantastic livestock and he came in and spoke to his wife and said the prized cow has just given birth to two fantastically healthy healthy calves one white and one brown and he felt a real desire to sacrifice one of these for the lord to give thanks so he said to his wife that they'll bring them up in a few months time once they're able to be sold he'll sell one keep the profit and sell the other and he'll put that money to the lord's work so his wife then asked him so which cow do you want to which calf do you want to use and he said it doesn't matter we'll bring them both up together in the same way and when the time comes we'll sell them sure enough three or four months later he comes in with a dejected look on his face and he says to his wife i'm afraid the lord's calf has died and his wife says to him i thought you hadn't chosen and he went oh no no no i i always knew it was going to be the white one so although it's a we kind of laugh at that story he has made a choice that farmer made a choice to choose his own desires his own wealth rather than choosing it for god and it's something that we could probably apply to our own lives i'm sure we've all had the the lord's calf in our own lives where we've said you know that'll that can that can wait i'll maybe go to the prayer meeting later or i'll do that later and we focus on on our own desires so we will all be able to attribute something in our own lives to that story but the reality is either you will choose the things of this world and choose to devote ourselves to them or we will live for god and god alone using all the things of this world as tools for his service so let me ask you what role does money or mam on things of wealth stuff play in your own life is your career your main focus is your wealth or possessions your chief priority in life or is your or the talents that you've been given your ability maybe on in music musical instruments your ability on a football pitch are these the things that that encapsulate your life and they are your priority do they govern every minute of your day so much so that god is unable to squeeze in these are the questions that we need to ask ourselves but the choice is simple it's either your master on on earth that you live for or it's god that you live for using the things that he has given you to serve him as tools if your career is your main focus are you applying yourself wholeheartedly to that workplace are you sharing the gospel are you using your position in society to to share the word all for god's glory or are your talents being used for god's glory whether it's music or whether it's on the football pitch whatever your talents are are they being used for god's glory because you cannot do both and let me also just say that if you choose not to make a choice if you feel in your own head you've not made a choice then i'm afraid you have made a choice in that instance and if you feel that you can't make that decision then the decision has already been made we must choose and that's not from me that's coming from christ in the in this passage and it's come clearly out of this chapter from jesus he demands all that we can give not part of what we can give or a little bit here and there he demands all of it and if we choose to serve god then the things of this life like our possessions our talents our money will be gripped a lot more lightly day to day these things become a gift from god and a tool to be used for his glory and if we use our money or mammon to serve god we will see treasure laid up in heaven that will last into eternity now kind of going back to the beginning of the service i was explaining that treasure is very much a joy to behold and if we have treasure in heaven then we will also have joy in heaven if however we live for the things of this world none of this will produce eternal joy it will be temporary earthly joy and will be fleeting and at the end you will be left with nothing but regret and misery if you choose money over god or mammon over god and think you have all you

[37:50] need here on earth remember in the end that you will have nothing it will all be it will all degrade and you can't take any of it with you on the other hand if you choose god over money or mammon we choose joy itself so in the next couple of weeks or two weeks today we'll be sitting at the lord's table here we'll be having our communion weekend here in the coming weeks and it's a perfect checkpoint here today for us to ask ourselves what are we living for to the christian among us i want to draw your attention to the words of martin lloyd jones in his book on the sermon on the mount he says the mere fact that we believe in god and call him lord lord is no proof in and of itself that we are serving him that we recognize his totalitarian demand and have yielded ourselves gladly and readily to him i'll read it again the mere fact that we believe in god and call him lord lord is no proof in and of itself that we are serving him that we recognize his totalitarian demand and have yielded ourselves gladly and readily to him let every man examine himself and to those who are maybe not christians yet among us i'll ask the question what is your driving desire where is your treasure being stored jesus asks us what no jesus invites us here actually to the good life he invites you to use the world and the life this life sorry to accumulate for yourself treasure in heaven will you choose to turn to him and ask that he enters into your life or will you leave this place will you leave the door here on another lord's day and say no thank you i want to serve my own desires in life and be apart from either way today this very morning you will be making a choice and would do well to remember the words that we see in verse 24 there that no one can serve two masters and it is indeed my prayer that you would you would cry out for mercy and that you would ask that the lord would enter into your life this very day at this very moment and that you would indeed begin to see treasures stored up in heaven rather than on earth so amen and may the lord bless these very short words just now and i'll just say a very short word of prayer before we before we close dear heavenly father lord we give you thanks again for the opportunities to open up your word lord and we pray that you would continually speak to us in that word lord as we see no one can serve two masters we are reminded lord that we have to make a choice whether we leave today and we choose to commit our lives to you and that we will call out to you and that we will call out for mercy and call that you would enter into our lives lord we will be making a choice either way today and we pray that it will be a choice that is pleasing to you lord and that you would reveal yourself to many in this room today lord and that you would speak to each and every one of them lord we know that you know exactly where we're at you know each situation that we're in you can speak to us in our in our lives and you can speak to the experiences that we've gone through lord and we pray that you would do that anew today lord and we pray that as we approach the lord's table in a couple of weeks that we would indeed examine ourselves those that are christians and those that are not lord we pray that we would all examine ourselves and ask where are we going and what are we doing in our lives and who is our chief desire lord and we pray that you would continually direct us direct us upwards as we look to the cross lord and that we would remember what's happened there for each and every one of us none of us are exempt in this room today from crying out and calling to you lord so go before us again lord be with us as we close and as we sing praises to you and all that we ask is in the name of christ our saviour amen

[41:29] And when we ask is in the name of christ said in my kyle