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Sermon on the Mount: One Master, Matthew 6:24 · Clifford Baptist

• 0:00
  Welcome to Truth for the Journey from Clifford Baptist Church, 635 Fletcher's Level Road in Amherst. Please join us today as Pastor Jeffrey Campbell leads us in an in depth study of the Sermon on the Mount. Today's scripture is Matthew, chapter six, verse 24. And the sermon is entitled One Master. Go to Matthew, chapter number six. Matthew, chapter number six.
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  And I will say this, this will be the last Wednesday night sermon of the year.
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  As we begin tonight, we're picking back up kind of where we left off. One verse is all we're gonna look at tonight. But I wanna start out with a little story about this business owner.
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  He went into a men's Bible study and he decided that God had put on his heart, that he needed to share his story. How many of you know that all of us have a story, right?
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  Well, in case you didn't know, you have a story of how God changed your life and what God is doing in your life. And so this business owner went to this men's group and he felt the Lord leading him to share his story. He had built a very successful construction company business.
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  As that business grew, the demands for his position did as well.
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  And you know what Sundays became? Sundays became a day of work instead of a day of worship for this man. And so Bible reading was replaced by spreadsheets. He would tell himself, once I get through this busy season, I'll get my life straightened and I'll get back to church and I'll do the things that I'm supposed to be doing.
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  One Sunday morning, while sitting in his truck outside a job site, he realized this. It had been months since he had sat in church and worshiped the Lord.
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  Money had told him where he needed to go and when to go and what mattered in his life.
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  That morning, that Sunday morning, this man figured out who his boss really was.
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  He was not his own boss.
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  Money was his boss.
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  The issue wasn't work.
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  We see that the master controls so much about our lives.
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  And that competition for the number one spot, what does that look like in your life? And we're going to look at some examples tonight. But we have been warned over the past couple of weeks, number one, where your treasure is there your heart will be also.
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  And we have also been warned that where your eye, whether it is on good or bad, has an effect on your entire body.
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  But tonight, the first and the best always belongs to the Lord Jesus. He must occupy that number one spot in your life.
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  And so tonight we're going to look at message that I've entitled one master, from Matthew chapter number six.
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  Just verse number 24. Let's look at it together. I'm going to read it now. No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Let's pray. Father. Lord. Thank you, Lord. As we gather tonight, God, we gather under your umbrella of grace.
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  God, I pray, Lord, that you will shower us tonight and show us, open our eyes and our hearts to that competition that is going on in each one of our lives, Lord, that we will take an evaluation of our own life and what is going on in this season of our life to make sure that you are in that number one spot, God, tonight, if there's somebody here that has made something else their master, I pray, Lord, that you will show them the ways to lay that down and to put you in its place.
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  But maybe tonight there's someone that needs to make you savior and put you in that number one spot for the rest of their life. God. I pray, Lord, that your Holy Spirit will guide us now. In Jesus name, Amen. Four points tonight as we talk about this message.
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  In this one, verse 24 of the sixth chapter of Matthew, the first point is this, you need to see a distinct warning.
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  A distinct warning. And that warning comes in the first six words of verse number 24. No man can serve two masters.
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  That is a very clear cut and dry message from Jesus.
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  Those six words tell us a lot. There is not one person, one man or woman, not one that can serve two people, two masters at the same time. It cannot be done.
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  And so when we understand that this is a distinct warning, we see the mindset that Jesus has. And I believe he has had it since he was born, but very real since he was 12 years old. On Sunday morning, you're gonna hear that sermon in the month of January. Okay, I've already worked on it. But here's what we understand. Jesus at 12 years old, what was he about?
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  He was about his father's business.
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  He was about his father's business. So from 12 years old we see that Jesus understood it was about my father's business. That's why I'm here.
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  If we as Christians just could learn that simple truth. It's about our Father's business.
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  It's about putting him first.
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  And we can read that Even as a 12 year old boy, Jesus stayed with the religious leaders in the temple because he was learning and debating and carrying out his father's business. But as I said, these words, six words should show us there is not one man or woman that is good enough, strong enough, or able, gifted enough to serve two masters at the same time.
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  Some people may think, I can try harder, or if I give it more time, you know, if I wake up a little bit earlier, stay a little bit later, it'll all work out, no? How many of you know that those days tend to stretch on out and they even cut into your time with the Lord?
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  And so this warning we see, there's no one that can serve two masters.
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  Now, you see, the servant in Jesus Day fully belonged to the master.
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  So if you were the servant, you could not say, I'm gonna serve here, and then I'm gonna serve here.
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  This isn't church where you serve in five different places, okay?
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  And here's what I want you to know. Church. Here's what I tell everyone that takes our new member class. Find one thing you're good at and serve there. Give it your all.
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  And if everybody in this church served one place and served well, guess what?
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  We wouldn't have a problem at all. No problem at all.
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  But what we see here in real life is this.
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  You cannot serve multiple masters.
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  The servant belonged to the master. And as Jesus is teaching this, you can only belong fully to one of them in order to serve well, you only have one master. How many of you understand that two things vying for one spot can be a good thing?
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  So I'm a sports guy, okay? Don't hold that against me. I love sports.
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  But when you have two teams vying for one playoff spot, man, I want to watch that game. So what we understand is it's great. It makes for good tv, doesn't it?
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  Some of you may watch where maybe there are two people vying for one person's love, right? You call that a Hallmark movie or maybe the Bachelorette or something like that? You see all these people vying for one person, and we say, oh, that's great tv. Or that's a good movie. Let's watch those things.
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  But what we see in scripture is a couple of different things. Let me go here first. Let me say this. How many of you understand what it means, especially in the holiday season when diet and dessert, they're vying for the. Or maybe you're vying for those things, right?
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  It's a competition. Yeah. Diet's gone until after the first of the year.
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  So what we see when we see these warnings here, we see that when two are vying for one, I tell you What? I've worked two jobs. Some of you have worked two jobs.
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  When it vies for your schedule, somebody's gonna get the short end of the stick.
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  Amen.
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  Somebody's not gonna get your best.
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  They're gonna get what's left over.
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  And so we see that too. Vying for one in scripture. What do we see when we see on Mount Carmel?
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  Elijah.
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  We see God versus baal.
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  They're vying for the love of the people.
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  And you see that play out in scripture. And it's a wonderful story that we see played out in First Kings, chapter number 18.
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  People must choose who they will serve. What about Joshua? The believers are told, choose you this day, who you're going to serve.
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  As for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord. But they had to make a choice that day. Who are you going to serve? And who will you serve fully? We see Mary and Martha, we see Saul and David, we see Cain and Abel, and we see Paul in Galatians. Tell us this, that the flesh and the spirit are vying, fighting, warring for you.
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  This distinct warning from Jesus is one that we see throughout the pages of scripture and through those biblical stories and through your real life stories. You understand this. No man can serve two masters.
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  It's a distinct warning.
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  Look at the verse again, verse number 24, Matthew chapter number 6. It says this.
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  For either he will hate the one and love the other.
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  I want you to see a division warning.
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  I watched a tourist video this week from a tourist that were in Yellowstone.
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  They were watching a group of elk run across the hillside. And there was a guy there kind of explaining what was going on. Oh, look at the beautiful elk. It was a whole herd of them come and the next thing you know, six wolves showed up and it was real life, play by play.
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  Those wolves circle those elk and they got them moving and then they got them separated.
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  And then those six wolves not gonna say attack. They pursued the smaller bunch and they divided that bunch.
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  And then the camera went off. I didn't get to see the end of it, but I was locked in.
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  Like, that's good stuff to watch, right?
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  It's real life. It's what happens.
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  It's what happens in nature, but it's what happens within our own hearts.
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  When we understand what division looks like.
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  We see that it could be that happens in Yellowstone as those wolves pursue those elk, but it also happens within our own hearts.
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  And we've got to be careful there.
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  I didn't like division in school.
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  I. I do not like division. In church.
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  But what about when division happens in your heart?
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  When you yourself know there is a spiritual battle going on? Not out there, but here.
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  We see the focus of this verse. Number 24 is a warning about a divided heart or a divided loyalty. The warning of division is one of total opposite feelings. And here's what Jesus says, this warning about division. You will look at those words again in the King James.
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  You will either he will hate one and love the other. There's no sidestepping. There's no trying to. You will either hate or love one or the other.
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  And so we see that division taking place here.
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  Genesis chapter. Oops. Genesis Chapter number 29 gives us a great picture in the life of Jacob.
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  Now, I do not advocate this, but Jacob had two wives, Leah and Rachel.
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  And the story goes. This is the Jeffrey standard version. The story goes that Jacob loved Rachel, Rachel was beautiful, and he wanted to marry Rachel.
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  And so he made a deal with Laban, their father, that this. If you work seven years, you will get my daughter's hand.
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  So what does old boy do? Jacob says, I'm gonna work for seven years. The Bible says that time went by fast.
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  When he comes to Laban, Laban says this.
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  I've gotta give you my oldest daughter first. I cannot give you the youngest before I give you the oldest. I've gotta give you my oldest daughter, Leah.
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  That's not what Jacob worked for.
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  That's not whom Jacob loved. But what Laban said, if you give me seven more years, then I'll give you Rachel's hand.
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  Now, remember, Jacob's madly in love with Rachel. And so what he does is he works for seven more years, 14 years of his life.
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  I'm not gonna say. Wasted on women. I'm not gonna say that.
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  14 years of his life for one woman. And at the end of that, he gets Rachel's hand. You know, here's what Genesis 29, verses 30 and 31 say. Genesis 29:30 tells us that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah.
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  Leah had to know that he loved Rachel more. When you have two wives, guess what? You're gonna love one more than the other.
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  And verse number 31 tells us this. The Lord saw that Leah was hated.
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  Wow.
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  That's what scripture says. Look it up. Genesis 29, 30, and 31.
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  He loved one more than the other, and he hated one. Now, listen, the word hate here does not mean what we would interpret, hate. It just means this. He didn't love her as much.
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  She got less of Jacob's time and attention.
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  But what we See from this picture is what we see from what we read in Matthew chapter number six, it is a divided heart.
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  And what happens when we have a divided heart? There are two things vying to be your master. One will be loved and one will be hated.
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  And the meaning of that word, hate is this. It isn't the intense dislike that we understand, but it's just they don't get all of you.
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  And so if Jesus isn't number one, here's what that means. He's not getting what he needs from you, and so he's hated in comparison to whatever's in the number one spot.
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  The warning from Jesus is, one will be loved and one will be hated. One will be loved and one will be loved less than the other.
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  When we see that second spot, it is defined by hatred here, but it is defined by not being fully loved. And so tonight I'm going to ask people that I love.
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  Do you have a divided heart tonight?
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  Is there something that you love more than Jesus?
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  And if we're sitting in church and I open polled all of you, we're like, no, I don't love anything more than Jesus.
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  There are times where even the pastor has to check his heart and make sure Jesus is number one.
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  So tonight, is there somebody here that's got a divided heart? We see a distinct warning. We see a division warning.
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  But look again at verse number 24, Or else he will hold to the one and despise the other.
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  I want you to see a devotion warning.
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  A devotion warning.
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  This warning trickles down from love and hatred to devotion and despising.
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  Holding to one while letting go of the other.
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  Any of you watch those people that rock climb.
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  When you climb rocks, or even in the artificial world where they race up them, they have to let go of one to get to the other.
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  And some of those moves that they make, it blows my mind. I'm like, what in the world are these crazy guys doing, right?
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  But what I picture from that rock climbing is when you are secure here, you don't want to let go because you may fall.
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  But what they have to do, they've got to be willing to let go of this one to move to that one.
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  And that's the picture that we get here from this verse. He will hold to one and he will despise the other. You will let go of the other one.
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  Despising, let's go while holding on to something else.
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  I call it leftovers.
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  Maybe after a long hard day at work, you have given your family leftovers before.
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  Are we guilty of that sometimes not giving them our best? Absolutely. There are days that my family gets my leftovers and I'm not proud of those days, especially when I was on third shift.
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  That's a whole nother story.
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  I felt like everybody got leftovers.
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  But when we see about our devotion, we see this.
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  What are you holding to?
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  Or what holds more value than your relationship with Jesus?
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  Now the Bible says that that devotion holds to one, but you've got to let go of the other one.
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  Jesus clearly wants his followers to understand that you must choose the Master carefully.
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  There are great stories of devotion in the word of God. I love the story of Daniel, who was devoted to prayer.
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  He prayed every day, three times a day. He was devoted to his Lord and he prayed those times every single day. We see that devotion.
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  He was clinging to his Lord. We see Ruth and her devotion to her mother in law. It's amazing that when she had the freedom to leave, she could have walked away. She said, no, no. Where you go, I'm going to go.
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  Where you lodge, I'll lodge. Your people going to be my people. Your God's going to be my God.
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  Where you die, that's where I'm gonna die. And that's where we both will be buried. That's devotion.
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  I love the story of Ruth, Mary devoted to sit at the feet of Jesus.
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  Martha running around trying to get everything done and Mary's just act Mary's not doing anything. Or is she?
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  She's at the feet of Jesus and devoted to stay there.
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  Jesus was devoted to not my will, but thine be done. How many of you know the early church was devoted to teaching fellowship, breaking of bread and prayer. It's amazing how we see on the pages of scripture the importance of being devoted to the Lord.
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  But I want to share with you a couple of verses of warning as well. James, chapter number four, verse number four says this.
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  Ye adulterers and adulteresses. Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God. Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
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  That's hard.
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  That's hard. Scripture, First John, chapter number two, verse number 15 says this. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
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  If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
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  That's hard.
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  But here's what I want you to see as we think about devotion. We see in James and we see in First John, the teaching is this, that you can hold to be devoted to the world more than you are to the Lord.
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  And the warning is crystal clear that that cannot happen to the believer.
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  How many tonight may be holding to something that is in the world and slowly letting go of the Lord?
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  I want you to know, people don't slowly leave church.
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  People don't slowly leave their relationship with the Lord.
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  I love the song by Casting Crowns. It's called Slow Fade.
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  And what that song shows and speaks of is this. There is a gradual falling away.
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  So when we think about devotion, that devotion happens. It's not one time. It's a slow fade.
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  When you come to church and just say, okay, I'm here and I'm not getting fed and I'll continue or I'm not going to make it this week.
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  And how many of us have missed one week and missed three weeks because we missed one week?
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  When we think of time, time is a factor.
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  And what I mean by that is when we are thinking about devotion, time is a factor that we slowly push and let go of Jesus and grab hold of something else.
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  It's not going to happen overnight.
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  It will be gradual.
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  Which master tonight will we be loyal to? Excuse me? And that's the question for all of us. That was a question for those that were listening on the hillside with Jesus. But it's a question for the sanctuary tonight. And that is this. Is there someone or something that we are devoted to that we are loyal to, Loyal to more than our Lord?
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  There can only be one master.
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  If not, you have division issues and you have devotion issues in your heart.
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  Now, this is a stern warning, isn't it?
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  There's one more point.
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  Look at the end of verse number 24.
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  Ye cannot serve God and mammon point number four is simply this.
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  God and.
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  And I put three little dots after. And God and Jesus ends this verse by simply saying this. You cannot serve God and mammon money, materialistic things, you cannot serve them both.
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  But the warning is this, that money and materialistic things will vie for that number one spot.
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  Now, notice where this one verse is placed in scripture.
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  It's placed between the laying up of earthly treasures and what we'll get to after the first of the year worrying about tomorrow.
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  A reminder that the good eye will be on the Master, causing us to be full of light or full of darkness.
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  Here is the warning.
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  It cannot be God and it must be God.
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  You will have to face something trying to take God's place as number one in your heart.
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  You will.
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  When we understand that battle every day should be looking to the Lord, looking for his help.
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  Making sure he is on the throne of your heart.
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  Whatever is vying for that number one spot, for that love and devotion of your time and your energy and your effort tonight.
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  Can you put that away? Can you ask the Lord's help to put that away?
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  It's amazing. Love and devotion goes to one.
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  Hatred and despising goes to everything else tonight. What's the world throwing at you?
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  What's Satan using to try to get to that number one spot tonight?
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  It cannot happen.
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  No man, no woman, no boy, no girl can serve two masters. There's only one and his name is is Jesus.
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  Maybe you're here, maybe just a reminder that we need to lay down everything else and make Jesus number one.
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  Let's pray.
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  Father, thank you for tonight, Lord. And I thank you for the challenge. Through your word, God, I pray, Lord, that you will use the words that we have heard tonight, God, just to press upon our hearts and our lives.
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  That you are our master, Lord. That we want to serve you, that we want to be devoted to you. That we don't want any division in our hearts and in our souls. God give us strength to look to you each and every day. And in doing so, Lord, thank you for the joy it is to be called one of your own. God, we love you and we thank you for what you're going to do. In Jesus name, amen.