Divided Loyalties Don't Work Scripture: Matthew 6:22-24

²² Your eyes are like a window for your body. When they are good, you have all the light you need. ²³ But when your eyes are bad, everything is dark. If the light inside you is dark, you surely are in the dark.

²⁴ You cannot be the slave of two masters! You will like one more than the other or be more loyal to one than the other. You cannot serve both God and money. (CEV)

- When I was in grade 10, I didn't realize that I needed glasses.

- I assumed that I could see as well as everybody else or that everybody else saw the same way I did.

- I sat in class, squinting at the board, taking longer than everyone else copying notes often wondering why I was always so slow to get my notes down on paper.

- I never noticed anyone else squinting at the board.

-That fact should have been an indicator, a hint that I had an eye- sight issue, but I was so busy trying to get my work done because of my seeing problem I never noticed.

- For the longest time, it never occurred to me that I might need glasses.

- My problem was not just a sight problem. It wasn't simply the fact that I couldn't see properly.

- My problem was a perception problem.  I assumed that I was okay, when in fact I wasn't okay.

- Before I could get my eyes tested and get glasses, I had to realize that there was something wrong in the first place.

- Jesus said, "Your heart will always be where your treasure is." (CEV), and he went on to talk about how our hearts control our point of view, how we see and perceive our life.

- If we value or treasure eternal things, then our hearts are in the right place. But if we value or treasure earthly or worldly things, then our hearts are not in the right place.

- The state of your heart influences your perception.

- Your heart in what you treasure controls what you see.

- Only when our hearts are in the right place because we treasure eternal things can we see things and evaluate things for what they truly are.

- I had to learn that my assumptions about my eyesight were wrong before I could get eyeglasses to correct my eyesight.

- Eyes that are focused see properly.

- When we focus on the eternal our hearts become filled with the generous grace of God.

- We don't see double. We don't have blurred vision. Our focus is in the right place.

- Since our focus is in the right place, we can see with clarity the world God has made and the needs within it, and we can see how God wants us to meet those needs.

- However, for those who store up treasure down here on earth, their vision is bent out of shape and blurred by materialism.

- Hoarding money and goods is really materialism which is worshiping something less than God.

- New Testament scholar Craig S. Keener writes, "Those who justify their pursuit of material possessions by comparing themselves with others will blind themselves to the truth of their disobedience and affect their whole relationship with God" (Keener, Matthew, 232).

- Those that focus upon material wealth are not focusing upon the light, but upon darkness.

- Materialism is unhealthy and sick because it creates in people's lives a lack of light.  Wherever there is a light deficit evil thrives.

- So what Jesus was saying was that when we hoard money and stuff for ourselves, and refuse to help others in need, then we fill ourselves with darkness.

- Storing up treasure in heaven is what creates inner light, and without inner light, it is impossible to shed light in the darkness.

- If those who are supposed to produce light produce only darkness, then how terrible is that darkness.

- The healthy eye Jesus talked about represents the light of God's goodness shining into our lives, while the unhealthy eye Jesus talked about represents evil in that it is always self-centered and greedy.

- Jesus talked about one eye to draw our attention to the fact that we need to be single minded in focusing upon our devotion to God.

- If we have a single eye, meaning a single focus, then our vision is undivided.  Our eyesight will not be divided between two masters.

- By saying "no one can serve two masters" Jesus was, of course, exaggerating because we do serve the interests of our employers and our families and we have other loyalties as well as to God.

- But, Jesus exaggerated to make a point, which was that full loyalty cannot be divided between two masters who have "competing and conflicting interests" (Evans, Matthew, 156).

- Loyalty to material wealth, i.e., money and stuff, demands a self-centered life, while loyalty to God requires service to others.

- The two loyalties cannot coexist.  Eventually, one will win out over the other and God has not left room for self serving indulgence.

- Those who place their loyalty in wealth come to rely upon it and instead of mastering their wealth, their wealth masters them and their wealth becomes their god.

- It is impossible to be completely loyal to God while indulging a loyalty to wealth.

- Divided loyalties don't work; instead, let's give our all to God.

- God has called everyone to take up the cross of self denial as we follow Jesus.

- That picture of self denial is not a carbon copy for everyone because we all live different lives and we are all different people. 

- But there will be enough similarities for people to recognize that there is something different about us and that something is that we have been with Jesus.

- Divided loyalties don't work; instead, let's give our all to God.

- The single largest competitor for a vital and authentic Christian faith in the Western world is materialism, i.e., the love of money.

- Materialism is the dominant false religion of Western culture.

- So, the question we must answer if we want to have an authentic Christian faith is:

- How is my eyesight?  What is my perception?  Where is my loyalty?

- Let's take time for a reality check.

- Am I possessed by my possessions; mastered by my money?

- OR...  Am I set free from slavery to stuff because I have made loyalty to God my focus?

- Divided loyalties don't work; instead, let's give our all to God.