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Liberty University Bible Commentary
New Testament
Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 6
24. This kind of spiritual double vision causes one to believe that he can serve two masters. Total loyalty to God cannot be divided between Him and loyalty to one's material possessions. A master (Gr kyrios) is a lord or an owner. That God claims total lordship over His own is obvious in this passage. The concept of the lordship of Christ has often been greatly mistaken. Even in the face of the immediate denial of and on the part of His disciples, Jesus said to them: "Ye call me Master and Lord; and ye say well; for so I am" (Jn 13:13). There is no passage or command anywhere in the New Testament asking the believer to make Christ "Lord of his life" after salvation. The very experience of receiving Christ as Saviour is looked upon throughout the Scriptures as an acknowledgment of lordship and ownership. If perfect obedience were required in order to make Christ our Lord, He would be the Lord of no one! It is the fact that He is already Lord that makes our disobedience so serious. As Lord and Master He has the right to demand complete obedience. My disobedience as a believer is an act of sin against His lordship. The believer cannot sin away the lordship of Christ any more than he can His saviourhood.
Therefore, Jesus rightly proclaimed Ye cannot serve God and mammon. The term "mammon" is derived from the Aramaic term for possessions or wealth. Jesus is not condemning money or possessions in and of themselves, but the improper attitude of enslavement toward wealth. His point here cannot be overemphasized in light of the affluent society of our day. Outside the boundaries of North America the average Christian knows much more of the reality of poverty than do we. Within the depth of this message and its application we may certainly see afresh that it is the "gospel of the poor,"
Double-mindedness is an attempt to sit on the fence in relation to spiritual matters. There is no halfhearted service for God. It is either all or nothing. Jesus gives the believer no option between loving God and loving the world. The regenerated heart is one which so longs for righteousness and desires the things of heaven that it lives above the temporal things of the earth.
(5). Fifth example: Worry or anxiety. 6:25-34
25. Adding doubt to the danger of possessions, Jesus now deals with the equally dangerous tendency of those who have no possessions: worry! Take no thought (Gr merimmaδ) means do not be anxious. Filson (pp. 100-101) notes that this word means to be so disturbed about material needs that we distrust God and are distracted from faithfully doing His will. The implication of the test is that all anxiety is provoked by worrying about material and temporal things. Such anxiety causes one to avoid the responsibility of work in order to cooperate with God's provision. Anxious care is an inordinate or solicitous concern or grief beyond our immediate needs. It is the direct opposite of carefulness, cautiousness, and faith. Therefore, even the poor are not to worry needlessly about what they should eat, drink, or wear. The question, Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? indicates that inner mental stability must come from the spirit of a man and not from outward physical provisions. To set one's heart upon material possessions or to worry about the lack of them is to live in perpetual insecurity and to deprive one's self of the spiritual blessings of God.
26.32. Jesus illustrated His point by referring to objects in nature which were immediately at hand: the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. Though the birds which fly through the skies appeared not to labor, your heavenly Father feedeth them. How does God accomplish this? He does it through the normal process of nature. Consider the lilies; (vs. 28) they appear to do nothing for themselves and yet God, through the process of nature which He controls, does clothe the grass of the field (vs. 30). Even Solomon, the great and wealthy king of Israel, was not arrayed in any greater beauty than the flowers of the field which God has made.
The key point of this passage is found in the phrases Are ye not much better than they? (vs. 26) and shall he not much more clothe you? (vs. 30). The Bible makes it clear that God is the Creator and sustainer of nature. He is not divorced from the world which He has made. Indeed, "this is my Father's world!" Worry and anxiety are related to the length of one's life in the phrase add one cubit unto his stature. A cubit is a measurement of about eighteen inches. However, this reference is probably not to one's actual height but to the length of his life. The term "stature" (Gr hēlikia) may in this place mean "age." Thus the idea seems to be that a man cannot add the smallest measure to the span of his life by worrying. In fact, modern medicine would tell us that worry actually shortens one's life. This state of anxiety is related to having little faith (vs. 30). Faith is total confidence in the provision of God. Faith in salvation is a total trusting of the complete work of Christ on the cross on our behalf. The Scripture reminds: "Whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Rom 14:23). Therefore, a lack of faith will lead to a life of psychological anxiety. Since this lack of faith is identified with sin, Adams is correct in asserting that man's emotional problems stem from his sin (J. Adams, Christian Counselor's Manual, p. 117ff.). In the Sermon on the Mount we have then, not only a directive for spiritual well-being, but the model of a manual of mental health as well.
33-34. This portion of the Sermon on the Mount is summarized by the statement seek ye first the kingdom of God. The disciples who have pledged their allegiance to the King must continue seeking the kingdom and its righteousness. The present imperative form of the verb (Gr zētδ) indicates a continual or constant seeking. The word first indicates one's first and ever dominant concern. The contrast between the spiritual and the material is again emphasized. The believer is to seek first the righteousness that is characteristic of God's kingdom and then all these things (i.e., material things) shall be added unto him. Seeking the kingdom of God involves a continued hunger and thirst after righteousness. We are not only to seek the kingdom of God in the sense that we set our affections on things above, we must also positively seek holiness in righteousness. The continual seeking here is similar to that of the seeking face of God. A true believer is never falsely content with what he has in Christ, but is continually seeking to know Him better. Thus, we could say: "Keep seeking the kingdom of God" and as you do He will continually provide your needs. When our priority is spiritual, God will take care of the material, for where God guides, He provides. We need not even worry about tomorrow for Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof (vs. 34). This means that each day has its own troubles and challenges to be responsibly handled, without worrying about the hypothetical problems which could arise tomorrow. God is ever pictured in Scripture as the God of the present. Today is the day of salvation.
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