Who or What is Your Master?--Matthew 6:19-24

Treasures in Heaven
19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

At first this may look simply like something about money and wealth, and is another passage that people like to misquote to say "money is evil" and "rich people are bad."  That is not what these verses say.  Jesus is continuing the same message as before--What is your focus and your motivation for doing what you do?  If we seek after rewards here on earth and our goal in life is to acquire wealth, we may achieve that goal, but none of that will have any lasting impact.  As my pastor likes to say, he's never seen a hearse towing a U-HAUL behind it because you can't take it with you.

Jesus again comes back to the heart of the matter.  Where your treasure is--this is what is valuable to you, which may be more than money and wealth, but is usually not less than that--that is what your heart is focused on.  Again, this is not to say that there aren't heavenly-minded people who God doesn't bless with wealth--see Abraham in the Book of Genesis and Job in the book of Job for instance.  But Jesus is going to come back later in this very book (Matthew) and tell a rich young ruler that He knows is ruled by His possessions to "Sell everything that he owns and give the money to the poor" so that He might gain eternal life.  This was not a prescription or requirement for everyone, but simply a litmus test for that one man to see what Jesus already saw.  The man went away sad because he was very wealthy and it is inferred that the money was ruler over Him.  Jesus even commented that it is easier for "a camel to pass through the eye of a needle" than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.  The disciples were astonished at this and asked who then could be saved.  You can read about this in Matthew 19.

Returning to today's text, verses 22 and 23 may be a little confusing to some, but let's see if I can help a bit.  You may have heard me talk in the past about a "worldview," and I believe that is what Jesus is talking about here.  Everyone filters everything in their lives through a worldview, just like all light that we see must first come through our eyes.  If this worldview is distorted, you can look at the same facts as someone else and come to a drastically different conclusion because you are starting off with a different set of presuppositions and fundamental beliefs--everyone has these.  Now, imagine that someone was born with a damaged eye...say that they've always had blurry vision. It would be very hard to explain to them that the way they perceived the world was not normal and that not everyone else saw things the way that they did.  They may not even know they have a problem and may not want any help because they have always been that way and its what they are used to and comfortable with.

We are in the same situation here.  we should not expect the "natural" man to have a "spiritual" worldview about money or anything else.  Only God can change the way a person perceives the world around them and truth in general.  If these teachings sound like nonsense right now, that's okay.  They do to many other people too, but I encourage you to keep reading and keep listening with an open heart and mind and let the Word of God do its work in you because God wants you to be able to see clearly the truths that are given here and elsewhere in His Word, and He promises to give insight to those who ask for the wisdom to understand.

Finally, Jesus sums up much of the previous teaching and much of where He's going in the Sermon on the Mount with the one sentence in verse 24, "24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money."  While we shouldn't try to make the whole Sermon on the Mount about money, the entire Sermon definitely is about the Lordship of Christ over every area of our lives and how that looks for us practically.  Here it's about money, other places it how we talk or act or worship, but all of it is about what brings glory to God.