This brings me to my Gospel address for this morning:
“Sons of Light are Concerned with Heavenly Matters”
Luke 16:8b-13: For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light. And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home. He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much. Therefore, if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in what is another man's, who will give you what is your own? No servant 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. NKJV
Luke 16:8b-13: For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light. And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home. He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much. Therefore, if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in what is another man's, who will give you what is your own? No servant 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. NKJV
My Christian friends: Jesus ended His parable of the unjust steward with the pronouncement, “You cannot serve God and mammon.” Just as the master commended his unjust steward, so Jesus made the comparison of the unbelievers to the believers, or the sons of light, saying: “The sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light.” R.C.H. Lenski, in his commentary on Luke, comes directly to the point when he says, “As the sons of this world are concerned with earthly houses and riches, so the sons of light should be concerned with heavenly, eternal habitations. When unrighteous mammon comes to an end, even our bodies will become the property of others to do as they will, along with every dollar we have accumulated while on earth.”
All mankind has a master whom it serve and to whom it is accountable. Luther would have man viewed as a beast of burden or a horse that always has a rider. That rider is either Satan or God. But our Lord said it best with these words, “No servant 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.”
This Gospel lesson, more than any other, seems to suggest that we all hate God in favor of our adulterous affair and attachment to money and material possessions. This world cannot hide its unbelief in God for its self-indulgent sins. Here, we can plainly see that it is more the love for money than love of God that the world has. As St. Paul tells Timothy: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness.” And no matter how spiritual people claim to be, people make all their decisions based upon money and worldly possessions. The truth is that people make all their decisions based upon mammon even at the expense of high moral values and justice.
If Jesus and His apostles were to ascend the myriad of pulpits across our country and preach the pure Gospel, the attitude of the world most likely wouldn’t change one iota. And while it is true that the Church possesses the true saving Gospel, what is your response in knowing that when you received the Gospel you were forgiven your sins? Whom do you serve?
For the common Christian, the one concern is to hear the Gospel, learn from it, and apply it to daily living, for unrighteous mammon will surely fail. You shouldn’t be surprised at my musings, for since the beginning of recorded history there have always been more outstanding thinkers, more outstanding talent, greater learning, and eagerness in applying the principles among heathen and pagans than among Christians. As our Lord said, “For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light.” Jesus is stating that those who profess to follow Him are to be experts in their field of study, namely, the one, and true, Christian faith.
If you are not devoted to the things of Almighty God then you are devoted to the devil. There is no neutral ground. And whether you believe it or not you will be serving the things of the devil and not the things that are of eternal value. If you are not devoted to God, you are serving the devil, and servitude to Satan comes in various ways along with a wide range of feelings and satisfactions.
There are those sins that can immediately bring apparent joy. You can often get immediate gratification from these sins: Gluttony, a full belly; drugs and drunkenness, a euphoric feeling and temporary escape from the responsibilities in this world, and so forth. Even if you claim to be your own master, like those women who claim a right to abort their babies because it is their body, you have been duped into believing that the devil, the god of this age, hasn’t any power over you. But it is the devil who is “the prince of the power of the air that now works in the children of disobedience.” Also, you may wish to take note of what St. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, namely, “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.”
It comes down to whether you believe you are your own master, as the Buddha taught; that you really are no servant to anyone or anything. In the late 1980s, when I was a pastor-missionary in the upper Ottawa Valley in Ontario Canada, I had a meeting with the principle of Pembroke’s Champlain High School to discuss the daily morning devotions that students read before first class. He handed me the official book for the daily public (i.e. protestant schools) meditations and prayers comprised, and approved of, in Toronto. He pointed to a meditation of the Buddha and challenged me to find anything objectionable. Immediately I pointed out the simple phrase, “Remember that you are your own master.” I handed the book back to him and asked him, “Are you a Christian?” to which he proudly replied, “Yes.” Then I asked him, “Well then what do you do with the verse in the Bible that Jesus says in Matthew 23:10 “Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ”? He was speechless.
The devil already has those who are the children of disobedience, but also wants to be the master over the Christian that is unstable in his faith. Therefore, on the Christian’s journey in this life to his everlasting habitation, the devil sets up three major obstacles: Reason, Self-reliance, and, of course, Mammon.
There are three obstacles that exist in our earthly sojourn: The first obstruction to the heavenly habitations is reason. Reason claims that our journey in this life is to be led solely by our conscience which is the “Jiminy Cricket” Walt Disney type of guidance to Pinnochio. Now we know that the conscience is a good thing to have; that is the one thing that sets us apart from the common criminal. However, since Adam’s fall in the Garden of Eden, man’s conscience often falters and can err in spiritual matters. What shrewdness is this? It is certainly not befitting the sons of light. The conscience is therefore not my true guide, nor should it be yours. Our guide should be the man, who is true God, Christ Jesus!
If, and I emphasize the word “if,” my conscience guided me all the time, and “if” everyone else reasoned by their own consciences then the words spoken in the very last verse of the Book of Judges would come alive for us even today, namely, “In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” The Lord, Jesus Christ, and His Word alone should always be your Guide, for He alone is the One who makes us wise unto faith and the saving Gospel that has called and enlightened the holy Christian Church on earth. It is the Word of God that leads you to your eternal habitations as well as shows you the works you are to do that our pleasing to God.
It is too bad that many preachers don’t or won’t direct their hearers to God’s living voice, the Bible. They would rather have their congregations follow what they believe to be right in their own eyes. Believe me, society would be impacted greatly of only it could see the results of the children of light living and acting in accordance to God’s Word and not according to what reason deems to be the conscience.
Another obstacle that the devil sets up for the Christian sojourner is self-reliance. Self-reliance is a type of individualism that points the Christian inwardly to his own concerns. It is this second obstacle of self-reliance that makes one wise to worldly excuses. This is manifest within every Christian congregation. For I have heard people proclaim just how spiritual they are even to the point of proclaiming that their relationship with Jesus comes ahead of the Church. This is tantamount to saying, “My relationship with my spouse comes before my marriage.”
See what shrewdness is behind the unrighteousness here. Yet God’s Word tells us as individuals that our union as the Bride of Christ unites us to His body, the Church. All who believe that Jesus died for the sins of the world are united into one, holy, apostolic, Christian church. Therefore, our individual relationship with Jesus lies within His body, the Church; whereupon He has established His Lordship over us all; for we are living stones built into this magnificent structure with Christ Jesus as our chief cornerstone.
The Christian therefore is individually free but not without constraints. Martin Luther said it best in his writing on “Christian Liberty” of 1520, when he set forth these two theses to Pope Leo X:
“A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none; and,
A Christian is a dutifully servant of all, subject to all.”
“A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none; and,
A Christian is a dutifully servant of all, subject to all.”
The final obstacle is the most comfortable and the easiest one for the Christian to take: Mammon. Mammon is the Semitic word for wealth and material possessions. One of the most quoted verses of the Bible is 1Timothy 6:10, “The love of money is the root of all evil.”
This is the most relenting and vain master with which the devil tempts Christians. The greed for money and the power that it brings also demands the complete and full worship of its devotees. In reality, money and wealth never provide anything in the shape of pleasure or joy, yet for the worshiper of money, the money kept in the bank or invested in the market demands a constant vigil on trading values, or savings money-market statements. Money defies you even to pay your bills, yet alone to give to God what is in proportion to your income in order to spread the Gospel or help some poor soul in need.
Bob Dylan in the early 60’s wrote these lyrics “Ya gotta serve somebody” which were later picked up with the fusion of rock music and jazz and made popular by the group named “Blood, Sweat, and Tears”. One of their earlier recordings in 1967 had these words: “Ya gotta serve somebody; whether it is God or the devil, ya gotta serve somebody.” If you have to serve somebody, how do you know that you are serving God?
Can you even pray aright the Lord’s Prayer when we come to the fourth petition “Give us this day our daily bread”? Luther gives us a splendid explanation to that petition in how the one, true God actually becomes a servant too, as Luther said: “God surely gives us daily bread without our asking, even to all the wicked, but we pray in this petition that He would lead us to realize this and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.” This daily bread includes all our possessions, good government, family and health as Luther rightly discerns. We, as God’s subjects, are merely caretakers of His possessions, for all things were created by Him (Jesus) and for Him” (Colossians 1:16).
So just how do you know with any certainty that you are serving God, and God alone? God doesn’t demand that anyone runs away to a monastery to live a life of poverty, and obedience, neither does He demand a celibate lifestyle or to avoid luxury. But, on the other hand (and there always is another hand) God neither commends you for making yourselves prosperous by means of unrighteous mammon. Rather, we know that we are serving God as we are at peace with Him through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and, in turn, live at peace with our neighbor.
Mammon demands more and more of its devotees until there is nothing more to give. But the true God, our true Master whom we serve, feeds us with His own true and essential Body and Blood to strengthen our faith as He wants to nourish us and refresh us with His Word, as springs of living water. When we serve the living and true God, we come to a realization that the Master demands little but He Himself gives us all things and that which He demands of us He always supplies the means for us to accomplish. Mammon could never be able to do that. Faith and the Gospel message of forgiveness of sins for Jesus’ sake alone bring us to the knowledge that God, our Master, serves His people. God, as our Master, makes us shrewd in understanding that Jesus has brought us to eternal life in spite of the obstacles the prince of this world has erected.
You cannot serve both God and mammon. But when you know the true God and all the benefits that He freely bestows on His people, why would you ever again want to serve mammon? Isn’t it good news to know that the One that you serve serves you even more? And it is definitely good news to know that the One you serve is with you always and bestows upon you His true, essential, and natural Body and Blood with the bread and the wine for the forgiveness of sins and for the strengthening of your faith. Rejoice and be happy in knowing that you are subjects to such a wonderful Lord. Amen.
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