Who do You Truly Serve?
Sermon on the Mount Part 7
Matthew 6: 16-24
16. Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.
17. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face,
18. So that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.
19. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal;
20. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.
21. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22. The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.
23. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
24. No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
The first section, verses 16 – 18, have to do with fasting and, more specifically, the motivation for fasting; similar to the motivation for prayer that we looked at last time, our reason for fasting should be to honor God, not ourselves.
The second section, verses 19 – 21, have to do with our relationship to money.
The third section, verses 22 – 23, relate the importance of being clean inwardly.
Finally, the fourth section, verse 24, tells us that we must decide who we will serve in our lives.
Do you serve yourself by letting others know you are fasting?
Do you store up treasures in Heaven or on Earth?
Is your eye filling you with light or darkness?
Where do your loyalties ultimately lie?
Who do you serve?
You stand, as it were, upon a precipice overlooking the rest of your life.
You have only two choices before you.
You can choose to serve God, or you can choose to not serve God.
The choice you make will determine, not only the rest of your life, but the course of your eternity.
To not choose to serve God will mean everlasting torment in a place called Hell.
To choose to serve God will mean eternal blessings in Heaven.
So, I put it before you, just as Joshua did to the tribes of Israel at Shechem.
Choose you this day whom you will serve.
As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.
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Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Music: Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing by Robert Robinson and John Wyeth (Public Domain.) Arranged and performed by Ginger Manning. Recorded and mastered by Gordon Manning.