You Cannot Serve Both
"No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." - Matthew 6:24
Jesus talked about money more than almost any other subject. More than heaven. More than prayer. If you built your teaching priorities off his, money would come up constantly, and in most churches it barely comes up at all except when the budget is short.
There is a reason he kept returning to it, and it is not the reason we usually assume.
Jesus was not anti-wealth in a simple way. He had friends with means. He accepted hospitality in comfortable homes. Women of resources funded his ministry. He was not running a campaign against prosperity.
What concerned him was the peculiar power money has to slide into the center of a life and sit down in a chair that belongs to God.
Look at the word he chooses. Master. Not tool. Not resource. Master. Money is a fine servant and a terrible lord, and Jesus is describing the moment the roles quietly reverse. When money becomes the thing you trust, the thing you build your security on, the thing that decides where you live and who you marry and what you are willing to stay silent about, it has stopped working for you.
And notice he says you cannot serve both. Not that it is difficult. Not that it takes discipline. Cannot. At some point every one of us discovers there is a decision we will not make because of what it would cost, and that discovery tells us exactly who we are actually serving.
Our economy is built on the assumption that accumulation is the point. Get more, secure more, protect more, pass more along. Jesus challenges that at the root and calls his followers into a different economy altogether. One where generosity is normal rather than remarkable. Where the needs of the community weigh as much as personal accumulation. Where poor people are neighbors, not problems, and not proof of anything about their character.
This is not a comfortable teaching. It was not comfortable when he said it, and the young man who heard it walked away sad. But it is the teaching of Jesus, and it deserves to be taken seriously by anyone who says they follow him.
You might be saying, "Pastor, I am not wealthy. This is not about me." Be careful. The pull of money is not proportional to how much of it you have. Scarcity can grip a heart just as tightly as abundance.
Examine your relationship with money this week, honestly. Is it a tool you use for good, or has it quietly become something you serve? Ask God to reorder your financial life around his values, and then change one thing.
Hold it loosely. Everything you have was a gift before it was ever yours!
Prayer:
Lord, free us from the grip of wealth and the fear that drives it. Help us hold money loosely and use it generously for the sake of your kingdom. Be the only master we serve. Amen.
Jesus talked about money more than almost any other subject. More than heaven. More than prayer. If you built your teaching priorities off his, money would come up constantly, and in most churches it barely comes up at all except when the budget is short.
There is a reason he kept returning to it, and it is not the reason we usually assume.
Jesus was not anti-wealth in a simple way. He had friends with means. He accepted hospitality in comfortable homes. Women of resources funded his ministry. He was not running a campaign against prosperity.
What concerned him was the peculiar power money has to slide into the center of a life and sit down in a chair that belongs to God.
Look at the word he chooses. Master. Not tool. Not resource. Master. Money is a fine servant and a terrible lord, and Jesus is describing the moment the roles quietly reverse. When money becomes the thing you trust, the thing you build your security on, the thing that decides where you live and who you marry and what you are willing to stay silent about, it has stopped working for you.
And notice he says you cannot serve both. Not that it is difficult. Not that it takes discipline. Cannot. At some point every one of us discovers there is a decision we will not make because of what it would cost, and that discovery tells us exactly who we are actually serving.
Our economy is built on the assumption that accumulation is the point. Get more, secure more, protect more, pass more along. Jesus challenges that at the root and calls his followers into a different economy altogether. One where generosity is normal rather than remarkable. Where the needs of the community weigh as much as personal accumulation. Where poor people are neighbors, not problems, and not proof of anything about their character.
This is not a comfortable teaching. It was not comfortable when he said it, and the young man who heard it walked away sad. But it is the teaching of Jesus, and it deserves to be taken seriously by anyone who says they follow him.
You might be saying, "Pastor, I am not wealthy. This is not about me." Be careful. The pull of money is not proportional to how much of it you have. Scarcity can grip a heart just as tightly as abundance.
Examine your relationship with money this week, honestly. Is it a tool you use for good, or has it quietly become something you serve? Ask God to reorder your financial life around his values, and then change one thing.
Hold it loosely. Everything you have was a gift before it was ever yours!
Prayer:
Lord, free us from the grip of wealth and the fear that drives it. Help us hold money loosely and use it generously for the sake of your kingdom. Be the only master we serve. Amen.
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