The Sermon on the Mount XIV

Subtitle:  Revealing Areas that are Pitfalls for Hypocrisy

Matthew 6:22-24.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on March 17, 2024.

Our passage continues looking at how the things of this world can become a pitfall for hypocrisy.  Last week, we saw that wealth that is amassed can get ahold of our heart.  It can become the thing we love.

In this passage, Jesus moves to the eye and points out how it can be captured by things as well.

Let’s look at the passage.

The health of our eye (v. 22-23)

How do people who start out wanting to serve God become hypocrites?  How do popes, pastors, general superintendents, and the religious, become hypocrites?  One of those ways is through their love for things more than God.  It shouldn’t be lost on us that Jesus spends more time talking about how things pull our heart away from God, then he does talking about our bad relationships with people.

If wealth can take hold of our heart and become the love of our life, then it can also affect our eye.  What does that look like?

Jesus first starts out with the natural affect of having a good eye or a bad eye.  He pictures the eye as the “lamp of the body.”  The eye  channels light into our brain so that it can be turned into a mental picture of the reality around us.

Notice that the eye is not the source of that light, but only a conduit, or a sensor.  That is exactly how a lamp works.  It is designed to hold oil (the fuel) and generally has a wick, which is lit.  The burning of the oil around the wick is then able to send light throughout the room.

This is important because the man standing in front of them is the “Light of the world.”  He has come to give them the light, the truth, about God’s purpose of salvation and man’s true condition.  Jesus knows that they will need some good spiritual eyes to see him as the light and to receive his teachings, ultimately, to be saved from their sins.  When you have good spiritual eyes, you can make an informed decision and hopefully a wise choice.

Yet, just as wealth can have a grip on people’s hearts so too, it can affect people’s spiritual eyes.  We can be surrounded by the light of God and not see it because we are spiritually blind.  This is why the Scriptures warn us over and over to guard our hearts.  We could add that we need to guard our eyes.  This is the challenge that Jesus speaks to us here.

Yet, there is something more specific than just seeing the truth in Jesus.  An evil eye is always connected to a greedy, miserly, and even covetous person, in the Scriptures.  On the other hand, a good eye is generally connected to generosity and charitable giving.

It is seen as an evil, or bad, eye because you cannot see your brother’s true need.  You can only see that the money you love will be depleted if you use it to help others.  Your eye is good if you can see that the things in your life were most likely given to you so that you could help your brother.  We will come back to this, but it does beg the question.  Why does God allow some to amass wealth and not others?

Jesus uses this concept of an evil eye in Matthew 20 when he tells the parable of the workers in the vineyard.  In the story, the owner of a vineyard goes to the place where day-laborers gather in the morning and hires them to work for the day.  He will pay them a denarius, which was defined as a day’s wage.  He goes back to the hiring place several more times: at the third hour, the sixth hour, the ninth hour, and the eleventh.  For sake of the story, we will assume they were working a twelve hour day.

When evening came, they began to pay the workers starting with the men who started at the eleventh hour.  Interestingly enough, they were paid a denarius.  The story jumps to the men who worked all day long, but imagine if you had worked all day and were in line to get paid when you saw the men who worked one hour receive a whole denarius (a whole day’s wage). Most people would immediately have their hopes up that they would get even more than a denarius, perhaps even 12 of them (for scale, imagine going from thinking you would receive $240 for the day to thinking you might receive 12 times that, $2,880).  Yet, when the men came to get their pay, they only received a denarius.  They began to complain, but the owner challenges them.  Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius?  They couldn’t say no.  They were not being ripped off.  Yet, it didn’t seem fair in some way.

Jesus get’s to the heart of the manner with the statement, “Why is your eye evil because I am good?”  It was good of the landowner to pay everyone a denarius.  Yet, somehow that because a situation for those who worked all day to become greedy.  This is an important acknowledgment that we need to make.  Our hearts can be overcome by greed, but here Jesus ties it to our eyes.

These men had their hearts on things, on money.  Thus, they couldn’t see the goodness of the landowner.  They could only see that they had been jilted somehow.  This is hypocrisy in the life of a person who claims to serve God.

Thus, wealth not only gets our hearts, but it affects our ability to properly see people (even God) in our life.  Everything becomes twisted and perverted into our lust and desire for more wealth.  Yet, this can even affect your ability to see the Truth of God when He is standing right in front of you.  People would miss Messiah because their eyes were captures (as well as their hearts) with wealth.

When we are generous, it fills our hearts and minds with the light of Jesus.  However, when we are greedy and stingy it fills us with darkness (every evil thing). 

The point is not about having wealth.  It is about how it affects your heart and eyes.  Jesus is not saying, “If your bank account is above a certain amount, then you are full of darkness.”  Rather, it is similar to the statement that it is impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus follows it up with another truth, “but all things are possible with God.”  Similarly, on our own, wealth will conquer our heart and eyes.  We will become hypocritical slaves to it.  But, with Jesus, we can make wealth our slave for His purposes.

Jesus drills home just how bad this problem is.  In the natural, a bad eye simply keeps you from seeing.  However, a greedy, covetous eye is a spiritual problem.  It doesn’t just block light (truth), but also sends darkness into the soul (the whole body).  You become “full of darkness.”  The darkness here is not just the absence of light.  It is something more substantial.  It represents a soul that is lusting with all manner of vice.

Think of it this way.  It is bad not to see when the lights are not turned on.  Israel had received some light in the Law, but the prophets had spoke of a coming Messiah who would give the full light of God.  We can’t blame them for not fully seeing the truth of God.  However, when the lights are turned on (Messiah comes) and we still can’t see, then you find out that something is wrong with your eyes.  The Pharisees and Sadducees were revealing that their eyes and hearts were generally bad all along.

So the problem of heaping up earthly wealth starts by becoming the love of your heart.  It then also affects your ability to benefit from the light of God that you have received.  How can you fix such a problem?  In the natural, there is little that can be done for a blind person, but we are speaking of spiritual matters.  The only solution to spiritual blindness is repentance.  It is casting down the idol that has your heart and going after God.  The sad truth is that we have played a large part in our own blindness because our hearts lusted after things over the top of people and especially God.

The master of your life (v. 24)

A man whose heart is captured by earthly wealth, and whose eye is gripped by greed and stinginess, is a man whose life is filled with darkness.  This leads Jesus to challenge us on who our master truly is.  Is He, who is the Master of the universe, the master of me?  This is easier said than done. 

To the religious leaders, wealth was a sign of God’s blessing upon them.  Yet, they didn’t rightly answer the question, “Why has He blessed me with wealth?”  Most likely, they felt that it was proof that they were such a righteous person and so pleasing to God.  Yet, the truth is that God tests us with wealth in order to see if we will care for our poor brother or not.

The relationship with wealth and things is that wealth enables you to get anything that you want.  This is how it becomes our master.  We will do anything to keep it and amass more of it.  In the end, it rules us and we become its slaves.

Jesus brings up the classical problem of conflicting allegiances.  You cannot be serving your desire for wealth and God at the same time.  You will be drawn one way or the other.  Even selling all of your possessions in order to follow Jesus cannot guarantee that wealth will cease to be an idol in your life.  Idolatry is loving and desiring anything above God.

When we make wealth (or anything else for that matter) an idol in our life, it becomes a worthless and impotent thing.  Nothing in this world can be God to you, but God Himself.  We actually destroy the things in our life by making them into idols. 

It is not that God doesn’t want us to have thing.  The things we have in our life are His goodness and grace.  We should be filled with thanksgiving and fully enjoy them.  But, at the end of the day, if I have to choose between the things and Jesus, I need to choose Jesus.  Otherwise, they have become an idol to me.

It is interesting that Jesus uses the word “mammon.”  Most versions translate this as money or wealth.  This is fine.  However, it seems obvious that Jesus is giving a play on words.  He has been using phrases that keep pointing back to the Exodus.  Jesus is the New Moses come to lead them in a New Exodus.  In the Lord’s prayer, he talks about our daily bread, which is reminiscent of Israel in the wilderness with the manna.  I believe he uses the word mammon because they would have been thinking about the manna in the wilderness just moments before (Daily bread is in verse 11 and this is verse 24).

Just as they didn’t need to worry about their daily bread (manna), so they don’t need to worry about having enough money (mammon).  “Man doesn’t live by bread alone.”  We tend to take this as natural bread, but in the context, it begs to be seen as the manna.  Man doesn’t live by the manna alone, but by the fact that the God of heaven decreed that you were to be given it.  We must learn to rest in God’s care for us, rather than amassing wealth so that we can stop being anxious.  Spoiler alert:  the more money you amass the more fearful you will become about losing it.  If money is your idol, you will never be more anxious than when you have a lot of it.

Life has a way of testing us and trying us.  Do we want God or do we want wealth?  If you are serving wealth, then there is going to be a conflict some day.  Do you really love God?  You will find out on the day choosing God will lose you all your wealth.

Yet, Jesus brings up something more than love.  “He will be loyal to the one and despise the other.”  Loyalty and despising have to do with how much you value something.  Would you rather have God than all the gold in the world?  It is easy to say so when no one is offering us all the gold in the world.  In countless many ways, we make choices that declare God’s true value to us.  This is a good place to start looking. 

Jesus, please show me all the ways in which I am saying that something else is more valuable to me than you.  And then, Lord help me to choose You over them.

This reminds me of Isaiah 53:3-4.  Speaking of Messiah Jesus, it says, “He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.  And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.  Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.”

It is a scary thing to live your whole life saying that you love God, but when He reveals Himself, you value Him little.  This is the big reveal of the Old Testament prophets.  Of course, the nations would be in trouble when God came down to judge.  However, Isaiah shows us that even the people of God who claim to love Him and value Him greatly, would despise Him and walk on by.  Imagine not choosing God and esteeming created things over the top of the Creator.  We should value God above the things that He can give us.  We should be thankful to the Giver for the gifts that He gives, but we should never let them have our heart, damage our spiritual eyes, and make us a hypocritical slave to things.

Pitfalls audio

Putting on the "New Man" at Home II

Colossians 3:22-4:1.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on August 5, 2018 and is the 2^nd part of a sermon that was preached on July 22, 2018.  If you haven’t read or listened to it first then please do so.

Today we pick up where we left off several weeks ago.  In summary this section is about believers in Christ taking off the “old man” and putting on the “new man.”  Of course the old man that we put off is our own nature with its thoughts, feelings, and desires.  The New Man that we are putting on is Christ.

When we stopped in part I, we had begun talking about what it means for a slave to “put on the new man.”  This relationship between masters and slaves was very common in those days and could not be overlooked.  Though western societies may be able to say that they don’t have slaves anymore, we must be careful of discounting these words as no longer relevant, or as morally corrupt.  As I said in part I, the western world has simply taken the slave class and added them to the poor class.  Though they are no longer owned as property by another, they still are at the mercy of those around them who have money and jobs in order to make a living.  Thus these words should be seen as speaking to the relationship of the fortunate and the less fortunate, the haves and the have-nots.

Slaves obey your masters

In verse 22, slaves are told to obey their masters.  In fact, they are challenged and commanded to please God by working hard even when the earthly master isn’t looking.  This is to be done out of a sincere heart that fears God.

In case you haven’t spent time thinking about why even the New Testament emphasizes a positive aspect to a fear of the Lord, I will take a few moments to stir your thinking on this.  It is easy to say something that goes like this.  Fear was proper when people were under the Law of Moses.  But now that we are free in Christ we should no longer fear God.  Besides, doesn’t the Bible say that “Perfect love casts out all fear?”  The problem is that this one verse is not all that is spoken in the New Testament about fear.  We cannot ignore all the other verses, like this one here, and others like Philippians 2:12.

“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;” (NKJV)

The perfect love of God casts out all the fear in regards to His heart towards us.  When you recognize Jesus is on the cross for your sins, you no longer fear that He doesn’t love you.  You know that He has laid down His life for you.  However, this is not what the phrase “fearing God” means in verse 22.  There it is talking about the restraint we should have when tempted to sin.  Like Joseph when he was being seduced by Potiphar’s wife, we must shudder at the thought of sinning against The One who was willing to die for us.  When we are walking in harmony with God we are secure in His love and need not fear that He will change His mind.  However, when we are tempted by sin, we should shrink back from the hideous thought of betraying our Lord’s sacrifice, not because He will quit loving us, but because I might quit loving Him and become an adulterer at heart.  To summarize, the fear that is cast out is in regard to God’s love.  The fear that should remain is in regard to sin’s ability to pull our heart away from the Lord and destroy us.

In verse 23, Paul adds that they should do everything as if unto the Lord.  This verse is not only about slaves.  First of all, all Christians are slaves of God and thus this applies.  However, even contextually, Paul is just stating for slaves what he already stated for all Christians in verse 17.

“And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus…” (NKJV)

Now in verse 23 Paul has added the word “heartily.”  It means that we don’t just outwardly perform the duty.  Instead we put our whole heart into doing it. 

It is worth noting that the effect of what Paul is doing here is not a means of keeping slaves quiet and away from revolt.  Paul is not working for the master-class to keep the slaves in subjection.  Rather, he has just helped the lowest people of society, whose lives and duties give them no obvious sense of purpose and meaning, to see that there is a holy aspect to the thankless and abject station that they have in life.  Regardless of how the world views you and your place in it, God sees you as His servant and that is a high position indeed.  Such an idea lifts our hearts out of the muck and the mire, washes it off, and says, “You serve the King of the Universe!”  It is only our myopic and snobbish elitism that cannot see how many slaves came to find hope in the Gospel that they never found in revolts.  In Christ the Christian slave could lift up his head and know that His true Master loved him greatly.  This in no way supports slavery, but rather supports the slave who had no hope of getting out of their situation.

Paul goes on to explain why a slave, or employee for that matter, should obey this command.  First, they will receive the reward of the inheritance.  The inheritance that Paul is talking about is the one that all believers will inherit from God the Father.  Though they have no inheritance in this world, Christian slaves know that they stand to inherit from God alongside of every other station and class in this world.  This life is simply a testing ground.  The life to come is our inheritance.  No one can touch it or separate you from it.  Thus the slave could be faithful to God because God is always faithful and will reward our service to Him in temporal things with eternal things.

The second reason a slave should obey in this matter is because God will repay those who do wrong without partiality.  Now, this sword cuts both ways.  On one hand the slave, who remains in anger and hatred, and refuses in this matter will also be repaid with judgment from God.  On the other hand, the main purpose is to encourage the slave who tries to obey their master and yet is wronged by the master.  Many harsh, unrealistic, oppressive masters have existed in this world.  But here a play on the word reward is made.  Those who wrong slaves will be repaid by God Himself.  How does a person keep doing the right thing when others treat them wrongly?  Typically we become frustrated, angry, and vengeful.  We throw off the altruistic purpose and take the path of our flesh.  We reject Christ and embrace Satan.  These destructive works of the flesh then pull us down into the slavery of sin.  However, when I recognize that even those who abuse me will have their day of reckoning before God, then I can focus on my part of the situation and let go of theirs.  God is an impartial judge.  He does not say, “It’s okay that you were overly harsh with your slave even though he tried his best to be faithful to your commands.”  No.  The Lord of Heaven that sends Lazarus to Abraham’s bosom and the rich man into the fire will also pay back those who never seem to have to pay for their sins in this life.  With God, no one is ever “too big” to fail and that should be a shot across the bow for all those in this life who have position over others.  By the way, even if society says it is okay to abuse slaves because they are your property, God will then treat you as you treated your slaves.

Masters treat your slaves justly and fairly

Though chapter three ends at verse 25, verse one of chapter four clearly goes with chapter three.  For those who aren’t aware, no part of the Bible was written with chapter and verse divisions.  These were added later for convenience.  In the 13^th century AD several chapter schemes were created and then later in the 16^th century verse divisions were added.  The point being that we should be aware that the chapter divisions are not always in the proper spot.  Chapter four verse one is the counterpoint to chapter three’s instructions to slaves.

Notice that if Paul was just trying to prop up a hierarchical system, he wouldn’t say what he does to masters.  He would most likely tell them to obey the magistrates and the king.  But instead, Paul tells masters that if they have put on Christ it will affect how they treat their slaves.  This is critical because it is the tendency to treat slaves as subhuman, property, and undeserving of basic human treatment that makes it so odious and loathsome.  It is too easy for those of the higher class of society to look upon those of a lower station as being something less than human.  This dynamic did not cease with the Emancipation Proclamation.  It continues to this day.  The leaders of our governments have come to see certain parts of our citizenry as less of a human as they are.  This is always used to justify tyranny.  In the 1800’s it was common to hear slaves described as less evolved and thus on par with animals.  Throughout all of history slaves had no redress for any “wrongs” against them.  They were simply property.

Yet here masters are warned that God will take note of how they treat their slaves.  Both the slave and the master are equally human and therefore imagers of God.  Psalm 62:9 says, “Those of low estate are but a breath; those of high estate are a delusion; in the balances they go up; they are together lighter than a breath.”  The point is that those of high estate are not of greater substance before God.  If you buy into the idea that they do, or that they will somehow be treated differently then you are deluded.  Many a king, magistrate, judge, lawyer, politician, business owner, etc. will have their eyes opened on that day that they stand before God and give account for treating others as somehow less than human.  All humans should be respected as human beings created by God for His purposes, and created higher than the animals, yet lower than the angels.

The treatment is qualified by the word “justly.”  James 5:4 gives a picture of the lack of justice in those days when it says, “The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts!”  It is easy for masters, business owners, and their management to have unreasonable expectations for slaves or workers.  When Israel was enslaved in Egypt, Pharaoh gave the unreasonable demand that the Israelites continue to meet their quotas while additionally having to get their own straw (see Exodus 5).  The key here is that historically masters have done what is in accordance with the commands and laws of their country.  Such laws cared little for slaves.  But God does care for them.  Thus the justness of a Christian’s actions toward their fellow man is not determined by what is acceptable in their country.  It is determined by God.  Many people today are spouting and perpetrating injustices in the name of justice.  They believe that the end justifies the means.  All such self-justification will melt when you stand before God.  The question is what does God think is just and righteous?  His word makes it very clear.

The word “fairly” is also used.  This could be seen in relation to other servants, i.e. treat all the slaves equally without partiality.  However, it is more likely meant in relation to how the slave serves the master.  It is only equitable or fair that the master treats the slave kindly when the slave’s life consists of the lowly duty of serving you.  The slave’s task is not easy.  It is only fair that the master not oppressively add to that task out of selfish concerns.  In fact it begs the question, “How harsh of a task master is God to the master?”  It is intended to make the master realize that he will be held accountable for how he treats his slaves.

Verse one ends with the reminder to masters that they have a Master in Heaven.  We are all in subjection to God.  Clearly, He is not like we are.  But He will hold all men responsible for their actions in this life.  The ultimate principle here is to focus on your side of the relationship, and do it in a way that pleases God despite what others do or don’t do.  We are serving Him in this life not self or society.  If we can righteously work for a change in society then that is good.  But the end does not justify the means.  The goal does not justify the path that we take to get there.

This is the new man: a person who is not trapped in the constructs of today, whether hopelessly furthering them or vengefully rebelling against them.  Even if your flesh and heart wants to identify as homosexual, transgender, white nationalist, black power, ad infinitum, we are called to identify as simply a follower of Jesus.  Instead of seeing ourselves as a 99%’er we are called to see ourselves as a follower of Jesus.  Whatever the distinctions that this world tries to put on you, or you want to take upon yourself, today Christ calls you to drop those things and come follow Him.

New Man II audio