Sermon - Trinity XV 2020 - Matthew 6:25-34

“You cannot serve God and mammon.” The first commandment teaches us what it means to worship or serve a god, namely, to fear, love, and trust in it above all things. What that fear, love, and trust looks like however is dependent upon which god you worship. The worship of mammon looks like worry and anxiety, while the worship of the true God looks like a confident trust that He cares for us.

Rich or poor alike, mammon is a god that requires you to serve it by a constant and insidious worry and anxiety that you may lose it at any moment. Mammon is more than just money, it’s all of our worldly wealth, be it property, health, or prestige. Mammon is terribly flaky. In but an instant you can lose it, even without any fault of your own, and mammon abandons you. 

Property can be taken or destroyed. Money can be lost at the drop of a dime. Health can turn to sickness by invisible threats. Family can forsake you because of one wrong word. Prestige can be turned to shame with a rumor. The worship of mammon is characterized by worry that it can be so easily lost, because it is.

To be clear, there’s nothing inherently sinful about possessing mammon. God is the giver of all good things. Afterall, before He created Adam and Eve, He created all of this world, all of this mammon, in order to care for them. There is no sin in possessing mammon, the sin is when mammon possesses you! There is no sin in using mammon to serve your bodily needs and those of others’, the sin is when you begin to serve mammon!

So how do you know if you’re sinning by worshiping, serving, and being possessed by the false god of mammon? Answer this question for yourself: Do you believe that you would be happier if you had more, or that you would be sadder if you had less? Would you be saddened if your cars, campers, televisions, computers, houses, food, animals, clothes, health, and honor were all taken from you today?

But why should you be unhappy if they were all taken from you this day? Do you not know that just as we come naked into this world, naked we must depart from it. “Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” Moreover, if you value things temporal more highly than you value things eternal, then what are you saying about yourself? Your soul is eternal and of far greater value than the things of this world. So why would you attach your eternal soul to things so temporary and fleeting?

Remember, dear Christian, that Christ sacrificed everything temporal for your eternal reward. He had no home since the Son of Man has no place to lay His head; He entrusted His money to Judas who betrayed him for a few bucks; He gave His mother to His friend; He lost His health when He was flogged; He abandoned all prestige when He was stripped naked, beaten, spit-upon, and nailed to a post. He gave up all mammon for you, knowing that the temporal must pass away and the eternal endures. It was more important that He lose everything temporal, so that your eternal soul would spend eternity in paradise instead of in the fires of hell.

So instead of fearing, loving, and trusting in mammon above all things, pursue Christ and His righteousness first, and only then will your soul be contented. Afterall, Jesus says, “whoever drinks from the water I have given him will never thirst.” “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Be like the widow at Zarephath: “She went and did as Elijah said. And she and he and her household ate for many days. The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the LORD that he spoke by Elijah.”

God does provide for all of your needs, so you need not be anxious about any of them. God will provide the mammon for you as you need it. In fact, God has already been the one who has provided for you in all things and He will continue to do so, don’t doubt it!

You will not protect yourself by taking every recommended safety precaution, God will protect you. You will not rescue yourself by saving up a large emergency fund, God will rescue you. Your insurance will not provide for you when your house burns down and your car gets wrecked, God will provide for you. Your government will not feed you and house you when you go broke, God will feed you and house you. Your pension will not satisfy you unto your old age, God will satisfy you unto your old age.

“O you of little faith, do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles [the heathens] seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.” With those words Christ both rebukes us and consoles us. 

In regards to our unbelieving worry and anxiety about the things of this world, Christ rebukes us as having little faith, and compares us to heathen gentiles who are only ever concerned with temporal mammon. Don’t be filled with anxiety about Covid nor cultural Marxism, don’t spend your days striving after an income  nor lazily ignoring it, don’t worry about supply chains and riots and fires and the government and elections and everything else temporal.

But be consoled that Christ provides everything for you. “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns [like we do], and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” Likewise “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow…” or that “God so clothes the grass of the field… will He not much more clothe you.” 

It is true, God loves you more than anything else in this temporal world because you are not temporal, you are eternal, you are immortal! If God has provided for your eternal life with His great sacrifice, then most assuredly will He provide for your temporal life too. Do not fear, all good things come from the Father of life who knows what you need and gives those things to you. If you lack any good thing, He will provide it in due time. And lest you think that when you must go without God is failing at His duty, know that He is God and the Lord gives and the Lord takes away according to His infinite wisdom, knowing what is best for you, blessed be the name of the Lord!

So in all times and at all places, “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Worry not about mammon, but hold to a confident trust that God is good and provides for you. Seek first the kingdom of God, and by that, I mean believe in God and trust in Him above all things. Even in 2020, God still provides. This is the day that the Lord has made, let us be glad and rejoice in it.