Welcome to the Plenteous Redemption podcast, where the cross and the culture are on a collision course for discussion. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign The Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. Under the Jews, a stumbling block. Under the Greeks, foolishness. But under them which are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. Now, here's your host, Thomas Ervin. All right, that's a great start. Well, it's good to have Brother Hoyt back and Miss Stephanie. Brother Hoyt was sick. Miss Stephanie was just playing hooky. No, she's been working hard, which we appreciate. It's good. I know nobody likes it to... Nobody likes when work takes you away from the things you want to be a part of in life, but it's a blessing to have work. It's a blessing to have a job to go to and a way to provide and all those good things. So it's a two-edged sword, you know. It's a blessing and a curse, but it is what it is. But we thank the Lord that you're back. and hear with us. We're going to be in Matthew chapter 6 this morning and do our best to get through the entire chapter as quickly and efficiently as we can. All right, Matthew 6, let's read verses 1 through 4. Take heed that you do not your alms before men, to be seen of them, otherwise you have no reward of your Father, which is in heaven. Therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward but when thou doest alms let not thy hand let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth that thine alms may be in secret and thy father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly." Now we're going to find just some very common sense teaching in this chapter. The Lord's going to name certain Aspects of the Christian life, prayer, alms, fasting, and these are going to give some very basic teaching on those things. And the primary goal, I mean, it's twofold, and we're just doing an overview of these things, so we're not going to pick them apart too much and go as deep into them as we could. But the idea is that the Lord expects you to give. But if you're going to do it, if your purpose for doing it is to show off, is to display to men what a great soul you are, well, you've basically defeated the entire purpose. There's no reason. Now, when it comes to giving, you know, notice that the Lord, He didn't say, you need to give. It's just an understanding that you're going to. It's just the Lord doesn't say, all right, you're supposed to give. Here's how much you're supposed to give. Here's when you're supposed to give it. He said, look, when it's time for you to give, do it in secret. Don't do it to be seen of man. Don't do it to be noticed. Don't walk up front and say, hey, everybody see me putting this in here? Everybody notice me and what I'm doing. The Lord said, if there will be a reward for your giving, I am going to compensate you in Heaven for your giving if you do it in secret. If your goal is to please God, then you come up here quietly and you do your business. When you come up here to put your money in these baskets, it's an intimate moment between you and God. It's not a thing on the checklist that you want to do before you head out the door. It's you coming and saying, Lord, you have given to me. Now, based on that, I want to give back to you and to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And God looks at that and says, man, that's a blessing. I'm going to take care of you. I'm going to reward you for that. Now, if you walk up here and you're like, hey, just wanted you all to see I'm up here giving, you know, just, and the Lord looks at that and says, well, you got your reward. What you wanted was to be seen and you got it. So don't expect anything from me. All right, so you're giving the Lord just expects that you're going to give it's just he just assumes that you understand that I shed my blood for you and and I have saved your soul and the shedding of my blood is also for others and needs to be given to others and getting out to others. And so I need you to give so that can be done." Now, he doesn't need you to give. He can work all that out on his own, but that's the way he's chosen to do it. We've talked already about the things we want to do at this church and the wonderful ways the Lord blessed us this past week, and the finances need to do all that. Well, where does that come from? God provides, but more often than not, he provides through his people. Right now, money can show up in other ways, and I'm sure it will. We're going to see, Lord willing, some incredible things happen over the next few years. And I look forward to all that. But we want to assume it's our responsibility. And it's not our responsibility to do it in such a way to be publicly seen. Like, I'm not going to put your name on the wall to display how much you've given this month so that you can be lauded and people can just come up and shake your hands like, oh, you special creature, you. That's not how it works. That's not how it's done. I don't know what you give. I don't know if you give. I don't care. I know that God will provide for his work. Okay, so I'm not going to come knocking on your door and say, I need to, we need to talk about your tithes and what you're giving. I don't care what you give. It makes no difference to me whatsoever. My wife and I have been all around the world serving God, and God has always provided for our needs, sometimes way over and above than we could ever imagine. Sometimes it's right on time, right what we need, and sometimes it's like he just dumps a dump truck on us and blesses us, and then we got to figure out what to do with all this. All right, so I have no doubt God will do that. But giving is a characteristic of the Christian life. It's a part of what you're supposed to do. Now, how much you give, I don't know. The Bible never says. It never puts a number on what you're supposed to give. So that's between you and the Lord. The Bible says, according as you have. So whatever you have, you need to sit down and look at it and say, Lord, this is the value I place on you financially. And then you give that. And that tells the Lord a lot about you. And so that's the way that works and the way it's going to work. The way it's going to work here. I have a friend. His name is Travis Alltop. He'll be here at some point. We'll get a few more bodies in the seats. I have some friends who are great preachers who will be exciting to have to come down here and teach us the Bible. And this man, his name is Travis Alltop. a highly sought-after guitarist in Nashville. He's unbelievable with a guitar. And he's a very good singer. He puts out lots of music, and he's got a group of friends. In fact, there are three of them, primarily. All three of them. One man, his name is Andy Leftwich. At 16 years old, he was brought on to play for Ricky Skaggs. I mean, he's like a phenom with a violin. And then their other friend is Jim Britton. He plays everything. You name it. He could play whatever it is, but he primarily plays the banjo. And then Travis Althopp. Well, Travis Althopp was preaching one day. He told us his story, and he was trying to illustrate doing something nice for people to please the Lord, not to be seen of men. He was kind of talking about that idea, and he said that He told the story how this couple in his church was hurting financially. So he went and took out a thousand dollars and he went over to their mailbox when they were not home and he put it in their mailbox and he left. He's like, man, I felt so it was so exciting. It was it was a blessing is a but then I was driving in the car and I was trying not to tell anybody and his wife was next to him and he was like, He would just look at her, and she was like, what? Nothing. And then he would keep driving, and he would look at her again. She was like, what did you do? You did something. What did you do? He was like, nothing. I didn't do anything. He would keep driving. And finally, she was like, all right, you need to tell me what you did. He's like, oh, I gave money to somebody. And he just told on himself. And so he ruined the whole thing and lost his reward in heaven. No. But it was just. It's just funny, you know, we do something nice for somebody, and we have this, even if it's not to put on a show, we just have this desire to tell somebody what we did. But that's between you and the Lord. Why is the Lord not that somebody, is the question. Is he real? Is he a part of your life? If he is, tell him what you did, and it'll please him. But if you go telling everybody else what you did, he's like, I mean, I thought this was a thing between us. And now it's a thing between you and everybody in the world. And you put up a billboard saying how much you gave last year. I mean, that's not going to cut it. That's not going to work. Look real quick at Proverbs 15, 8. Hold your place in Matthew. Proverbs 15, verse 8. The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is his delight. If you think that through, and again, we got a lot of ground to cover, so we can't spend too much time on some of these ideas as much as I would like. This is just to give a general overview of Matthew 6. But the wicked enjoy giving sacrifices. The wicked You know, it's God built into every man a desire to worship and a desire to do things for others. And it's your ability to have a good relationship with that built-in desire that begins to cause life to make sense. And so even the wicked want to give sacrifice. And the Lord says, I don't want it. It's an abomination. I hate it. But if your heart is upright and you're right with God, it's a joy, it's a blessing to the Lord. And again, there are a few places in the Bible. Israel was given a commandment to give. They were required under the law to give. In fact, people like to call it, because of the situation God had with Israel, they call it tithes and offerings. Well, the tithe, the tithe was Israel giving 10% of their increase to the storehouse at the temple. Don't bring no pigs up here and put it on. We don't have a storehouse. It just doesn't work that way here. We're not Israel. In fact, in the Old Testament, if you were going to tithe your finances, it was around 30%. But I notice nobody's teaching that. So if we were going to use the Old Testament model of tithing in a New Testament format, well then technically you should be giving around 30% of your income. Anybody want to sign up for that this morning? Bring your tithes and offerings. So in the New Testament, God said it's a heart matter. It's not a law given. It's not a requirement given to you. It's just expected of you. And then how much you give is between you and God. Now there is nothing wrong with you saying, well I'm going to start with 10 percent and learn how to do it, and learn how to give to God, and go through the process and see how God blesses those efforts. You know, if you give 10% and keep 90, I mean, what does that say about your love for God? Not much. All right, so again, what you give, how you give, all that is between you and the Lord. I don't care. If you don't give a dime and you come and you love it here, praise the Lord. Glad to have you. just don't come talk to me when you don't like the paint color or the new rugs or the, we don't care what you think, you don't give. But if you give and you want to have a part, you want to have a say, well, we can talk about it. But, you know, we just, giving is expected. So is the next part. Let's read verses 5 through 15 back in Matthew 6, if I can talk. And when thou prayest, notice again, he doesn't say you need to pray. He doesn't say you are required to pray. Now, there is New Testament instruction on prayer. There is New Testament instruction on giving. But the Lord brings it up here like, why wouldn't you be praying? I mean, it's just, you claim to belong to me, why would you not be praying? It's a part of your life. It's just a given. It's just, the Lord just jumps into it like, when you pray, oh, you want us to pray? I think the response would be, you mean you're not praying? If you're not praying, you're in trouble. You need to talk to God. You need to have a relationship with God. Prayer, reading your Bible, giving, prayer, fasting, these are all the staple elements in a proper relationship with God, none of which are commanded in these passages, all of which are expected, just assumed. And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are. For they love to pray, standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy father which is in secret, in secret, and thy father which seeth thee in secret, shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall be heard of their much speaking." The Lord is funny. I mean, to me, that is hilarious. Like, you know, you can talk all you want. It doesn't mean that God's hearing you. I mean, you can fill this room with carbon monoxide and hot air all you want. It doesn't mean that God is hearing a single thing you're saying. And people think the more eloquent they speak, the more they speak, oh, God's just going to love this. Well, not according to the Word of God. All right. And so the goal is not to just not much speaking, but heartfelt speaking. All right. Now, verse 8, be not ye therefore like unto them, for your father knoweth what things ye have need of before you ask him. After this manner, therefore, pray ye, Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." Now those last two verses should terrify you. You want to make sure in your relationships that you are as gracious with people as you want God to be with you. If you set that as your standard, that'll go a long ways. But what often happens is we want grace for us, but Lord, you need to rip his arm off and beat him with it. We don't want grace for somebody else. We want grace for us. And God says, well, if you want mercy, if you want grace, you need to show it. It doesn't go one way. You need to demonstrate it in both directions. Now, six times in this chapter, the Lord says, in secret. It's twice in Matthew 6.4, twice in Matthew 6.6, and twice in Matthew 6.18. The first one related to prayer, second to alms, and third to fasting. And again, they're all just expected of you, or I might have the first two backwards, but either way, they're all expected of you. The Lord just assumes you're going to do these things, but this is part of your private relationship with God. So, there are four things that are a good measure for you to look at as to whether you have a relationship with God or not. A good relationship or a sound relationship, a useful relationship. Do you give? In secret. If you don't, that part of your relationship with God is missing. Do you pray? In secret. If you don't, then you never talk to God. You don't have a relationship with God. All right, now, my wife and I, if we never spoke to each other, what would that say about our relationship? Not much. That's not a, there's not much there. A major aspect of the relationship is communication. Talk to each other. And God wants you to talk to Him. If you don't pray, that's missing. Next is fasting. The Bible does not command you to fast. But the Lord talks about it often as though He just assumes you're going to do it. All right, so fasting is, an aspect of fasting is to just demonstrate to the Lord how serious you are. And we'll talk about that briefly in just a second. And then I would say the fourth one is reading your Bible. If you don't read your Bible, then you don't hear from God. And some people would say, well, I hear from God all the time. He talks to me in my head. Wrong God. That's not the God you want to be listening to. You want to hear from God from His Word. You want to talk to God through prayer. You want to demonstrate how serious to God you are through fasting, and you want to demonstrate to God the value you place on Him through your giving. If you have those four things in place, then you're going to have a strong relationship with God. You're going to have a good walk with God. If you don't have those four things in place, you've got an unbalanced relationship. broken relationship, and you want to fix that. You want to correct that. Now, the idea the Lord would have us understand is that these areas of the Christian life are not used for showmanship. If you practice the great habits, these great habits, to be seen of men, then you do so with the understanding that you have received whatever reward will come of that. Now, it's a blessing to me to understand, to go into this understanding, if I do these four things, not only will I have a good relationship with God, He wants to reward them. That means it could mean you get blessed here and now. That's certainly part of it. But God blesses you here and now, whether you do it or not. He let you have oxygen today. We had some beautiful sunlight this morning. You're doing fine. God has blessed you. You grew up in America. God has blessed you. If that's all you got, then you are doing great compared to the rest of the world. On top of that, the Lord says, I want you to build treasure in heaven. I want to further reward you based on your faithfulness to do these things. And so the Lord wants to bless even further because of that. Now, when you pray, the Lord wants you to avoid vain repetition. Now, the key term is vain. Now, if you pray the same thing over and over, there's nothing wrong with that, if you mean it. But if it's just an empty prayer that you're just reciting, you're wasting your time. The Lord wants to hear from your heart what your needs are, what your desires are, what's going on in your heart and mind. He wants you to tell Him, and He wants you to mean it. Not just say the same thing over and over and over that has no meaning. You heard somebody else say it or you read it out of a book or whatever. It means nothing to you and you just intend to repeat it continually. That's not going to cut it. Verses 9 through 15, the Lord provides a model prayer that men can follow. It's often called the Lord's Prayer, but it is the Lord saying the prayer, but he said, I want you to use this. He said, after this manner, pray ye. So he's literally telling them, you don't know how to pray. Let me give you a model to follow. All right. And then he gives us prayer. And he says, after this manner, therefore, pray ye. In other words, here is a useful structure for prayer provided by God himself. And this prayer was not meant to be some sort of gateway to salvation. I have no idea how people got that in their heads. Like, oh, it needs to be saved. Pray the Lord's prayer. What does that have to do with being saved? In fact, every aspect of this prayer, every detail of this prayer is for and is meant for the person who is already saved. Nothing about this is going to get you saved. All right, that's not the context here. The Lord says, I expect you to pray. Here's how to do it. Now go do it like this. You don't have to repeat these exact words, but here's the structure. You want to bless God first, long before you get to what you want and what you need and what you're demanding from God. You want to demonstrate that your hope is that his kingdom will come, that that'll fill your life and the world around you and all these great things that the Lord laid out there. And so he said, here's the model. Follow this. So if you need some structure to your prayer, you wanna know how to go to God, study this, read this, do it like this. All right, and so that's the Lord's intent there. Let's read verses 16 through 18, verse 16. Moreover, when ye fast, be not as the hypocrites. I mean, that'd be a good thing not to do. Where are the hypocrites? Don't be like them. It's just, I'm telling you, the Lord is, I mean, think about that. He's on a mountain alone with his disciples, but some of these things he said in town with everybody around, and the disciples were like, you know, the Pharisees heard you say that. I was like, I don't care. It's true, all right? And so, I mean, the Lord can be tough at times. All right, moreover, when ye fast, be not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance, for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head. Again, is there a commandment here? No, it's just like, when you fast, oh, Oh yeah, fasting. Yes, I do it every week, Lord. What do you want me to do? You want me to do it? His assumption is that you're going to fast. and he gives the instruction based on that. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face, that thou appear not unto men, and that's the key to fast, but unto thy father which is in secret, and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. All right, that's the key. Who is this for? I'm fasting. People are like, well, can I take you out to lunch today? Oh, I'm fasting. Just, I can't go. I'm sorry. OK. I mean, a simple no would have been fine. Why did you feel the need to put on the show or the display and make sure that I understand that you're fasting?" All you could have just said is, no, not today, I appreciate it, thank you. And that would have been it. And so if you're going to fast, which the Lord apparently expects that you're going to be doing, the goal is to please God. The goal is to do it so that God gives you the reward, not men. Men are so fickle that they're going to tell you to your face, oh, you spiritual warrior. And then they're going to go behind your back and say, man, that guy was whining today about fasting. All right, so you don't want reward from men. You want it from God. So you should fast. And then when you do it, make sure that it's done in such a way that it pleases God not to put on a show for men. And then the Lord will reward you openly when the time comes because of that. Now, fasting is interesting because we're never commanded to fast, but the Lord speaks of it in the Gospels as though it's expected of us. And it's done. The idea of fasting is to inflict your body for numerous reasons. Number one, it's going to show you how out of control your body is. It's insane how out of control your body demands things. The Bible talks about the desires of the flesh. Man, when your body gets accustomed to something, it'll start screaming, give it to me. You know, I, for the most part, I don't typically eat until about 1 o'clock, 12 o'clock, 1 o'clock each day. So I cut off eating at, you know, the night before, and then I don't eat until about 12, 1 o'clock the next day, generally speaking. And that's fine. I have no problem with that. But typically, once a week, on the same day, I will fast the entire day all the way until the evening. And on that day, suddenly, my body is screaming for food the moment I wake up. It's like, I don't need to eat every day until 12, 1 o'clock. But today, because I've decided I'm going to fast today, my body's like, I need food now. Now, right now. I need that. I need this. I need everything. Eat everything. Go to the grocery store when you're hungry and see what happens. It's just not a good idea. You'll come out with stuff you never would have bought or needed or thought you needed. You'll have a pile of junk because your body is screaming, I need everything, and I need it right now. And so that's your flesh demanding that you appease it. And so when it comes to a man looking at a woman, he shouldn't be looking at. Well, if you can't control the food you're going to eat, how are you going to control your eyesight? When it comes to giving in to other things that whatever it is that trips you up, The battle starts with you getting your flesh under control and telling your flesh, today you get nothing. And your body will start screaming and yelling and hunger pangs and all these battles will start ensuing because you've told your flesh you're not getting what you want. My mind is going to take control of the body. It's going to take control of the flesh. And then as soon as you do it, it just starts screaming and yelling and throwing a fit. And to which you have to say, sit down and shut up. No, you're not getting what you want. You've got to bring this body under and get it under control. And if you don't go through that practice on a regular basis of bringing your body under and using something like lack of food to do it, then when other battles come about, you have no practice in these spiritual battles. Not only so, but apparently it pleases God. When you do it and you do it in secret to Him, it pleases God. If there's something serious in your life going on, a decision you've got to make, a problem you have, and you fast about it, and you pour your heart out to God in prayer and fasting, it demonstrates to God a seriousness And he may be more willing to intervene and help you. And so prayer and fasting, they're just expected aspects of life. Look at, let's look at a few verses real fast. John 12, hold your place in Matthew. John 12 and verse 43, for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. Now that is not the mentality we should have. All right, so if you're praying and fasting and giving because you love for men to see you doing those things and to know you're doing those things, you've cut off whatever reward God was going to give you because you did it in secret. It's stripped from you. Look at 2 Timothy 2. 2 Timothy 2. And we'll read verses one through three. Verse one. Now, why is that there? It means difficulty is going to come. It's certain aspects of the Christian life that are just going to be hard. The Lord didn't say, just hang in there. I'm going to take all that hardness away. No, he said, I want you to endure it. I want you to be able to go through it faithfully for me. And then look at Mark. Well, we'll look at a couple more real quick. Mark 8. Mark 8, verse 34. And when he had called the people unto him, with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." Alright, so who wants to be nailed to a cross? Anybody? Well, the Lord denied himself. In fact, while we're talking about this, turn to Hebrews 12, and I'll show you. The Lord denied himself, took up the cross, and died, not for himself, for us. And now he's telling you, and he's telling me, he's telling us, I want you to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me. Follow me. And this is what he did. Hebrews 12, verses 1 through 3. Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us. and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds." There's something about you considering what happened to Jesus Christ on your behalf, what he went through on your behalf, that strengthens you in times of trouble. The Lord says, before you're weary and you faint, you need to think about what Christ went through. Think about what Jesus Christ did for you. And there's an enabling factor to that that helps you mentally to get over the difficulties in your life. It helps you to see what's in front of you and say, this doesn't compare to what He did. So I'm going to endure it. And then if I endure it and I stick with the Lord and go to him as my refuge, he'll reward me when we get to heaven. The reward is not now. The comfort, the ease is not now. All right. We live in a present evil world and we're trying to live for Jesus Christ in a present evil world. That's not going to provide a whole lot of comfort right now. All right. It's going to bring about some difficulty from time to time. All right. Let's read to the end of the chapter and see if we can finish these next few verses. Quickly, this morning it was Brother Hoyt that held me up, not Miss Pat. She's not here. I gotta blame somebody, brother, so good to see you back. Verse 19, and we'll read all the way down to the end of the chapter. Lay not up for yourselves upon earth, treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The light of the body is the eye. No man can serve two masters, For either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon. Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor yet for your body what you shall put on, is not the life more than meat and the body than raiment. Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns. Yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are you not much better than they? Which of you, by taking thought, can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is cast into heaven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Now, everything we're given on earth is meant It is a means to an end. Everything. It's all given for a purpose, a reason. And that end is the glory and honor of Jesus Christ. Your money, your home, your clothes, your life, everything is given to us as Christians to be funneled into the glory and honor of Jesus Christ. That's its purpose. That's what it's for. Now, if you don't use it to that end, you are misappropriating the great things God has given you. Does that make sense? So your treasure should be in heaven. What you do here with your time, your energy, your labor, your money, whatever, is all an investment for what will be waiting for you in heaven. And that's how the Lord wants us to approach life. The Bible is in no way opposed to you enriching yourself and doing well in this life. But what is the purpose of those things? If you just want more and more and more and more just to have more for your status, for your personal glorification, I mean, again, that's misuse of all that God's given you. Do they exist for the sole purpose of satisfying your lust? Or can you be used as a channel of blessing for the furtherance of the gospel and the help of God's people? That's what you've got to be asking yourself. Why do I have these things? Colossians 3, 1 through 5 says, seek those things which are above. Now, that doesn't mean you don't work. The Bible has a lot to say about a man who will not work. He shouldn't eat. The Bible says, if a man provide not for his own, especially they of his own house, he is worse than an infidel and hath denied the faith. All right, so God expects you to work, and the purpose of that, of working is to provide and to build your home and to create a safe space for your family to live. There's nothing wrong with that. But again, what is the end goal of that? Are you doing all that? Is it all established in a manner to glorify Jesus Christ, or is it just, I like stuff, and I'm going to get me stuff. And so that's what we want to be careful of. You belong to the Lord, and your possessions exist to honor Him. Now, verses 21 through 24 provide an interesting progression of the teachings here. The Lord makes this statement about where your heart is, and then it moves immediately into the idea of light versus dark. All right, and they're directly connected. All right, so this is what we need to understand about light versus dark. It says if your eye is, you know, if you, the light is the entryway, the eye is the entryway to either light or dark. what you're looking at, what you set your eyes upon, where you're going, what you're interested in. And so here's what I need you to see is that either your body is filled with light or it is filled with darkness. Now you say, well, that's incredibly deep, Brother Thomas. Well, you need to think about this in spiritual terms. If I shut all the lights off in here and block out all these windows, what's going to happen in here? It's going to be dark. If you shut out all the light from your life, what's going to happen in your heart, in your mind, in your body? It's going to be dark. If you're setting your eyes on pornography, or dirty movies, or evil, or things that you shouldn't be setting your eyes upon, you are filling yourself with darkness. Now here's the unique characteristics between the two. You can't, what people do is they say, well, I just read my Bible, so I'm full of light. Well, praise the Lord. But then when you went and set your eyes on pornography, you're not now 50% light and 50% dark. Light and dark don't work that way. If I shut the lights off and cover these windows, will it be light in here or dark? Okay, if I only open a few of the windows, will it be light in here or dark? Well, if the light is coming in, it's lit up. So you can't have part light in your body and part darkness in your body. It's going to be one or the other. And so when it's time, when you're going through life and you set your eyes, you set yourself to do something godly, you are filled with that light. But then five minutes later, when you set your eyes on or your attention on something ungodly, you can't say, well, just a minute ago, I was doing something godly. Now I'm doing something ungodly, so I'm like 50-50. No, you turned the lights off. It's now dark. You can't have part light and part dark. If you're in a dark room and you flip a light on, what happens? Darkness goes away. If you flip the light off, it's dark. I understand that's incredibly simplistic, but that's what the Lord is saying. Either you have set yourself to that which is light, and your body is therefore filled with light, or you have set yourself to that which is dark, and your body therefore is filled with darkness." And you don't want to be in that way. Then he goes directly into teaching about serving God and mammon, and you can't do both. Now, you have to earn mammon. You work for it. You need it. But again, what is its purpose? Are you serving it, or is its purpose to be a means to an end, and that end is the honor and glory of Jesus Christ, that that is supposed to be the reason for its existence? And then the Lord ends with, verses 25 through 34, that is the life of faith. That's what it is. Are you dependent upon the Lord and His righteousness to get the things you need? And then from that, you can go over and above and get some of the things you want. But ultimately, the Lord will provide what you need if you will depend upon him. If you're not going to depend upon him, you're going to depend upon yourself, well, then it's up to you. But if you're gonna depend upon the Lord and His righteousness, then seek Him first, put God first, then He will add unto you the things that you need, your shelter, your arraignment, all those good things, and the Lord is faithful to provide them. And I know a few people in the world who don't have, at least at a very base level, shelter and arraignment. I mean, some exist, but honestly, in today's world, it's pretty rare. Now, you may not want to live in some of the shelters they live in, but they have something, right? And so the Lord is promising you that you will always have shelter in Raymond if you will seek him first. Amen. All right, let's pray. Father, we love you. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for your word. Help us to be faithful and true to you. Lord, help us to live lives that please you. And we sure thank you for it. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. We hope you enjoyed this podcast. You can learn more about our ministry by visiting www.plenteusredemption.com. You can hear more Plenteous Redemption podcast audio at www.plenteusredemption.media. Please comment below if this podcast has been a help to you. Also, inform us of future topics that would interest you. Thank you again for listening to the Plenteous Redemption podcast.