Marcus Mecum - How Great Is That Darkness?
Let's look at verse 22, Matthew 6:22, "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, then your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness"! I want you to underline that phrase, "How great is that darkness". That's what I wanna preach to you about today. "How great is that darkness". "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, then your whole body will be full of light. If your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. How great is that darkness"!
Now, of course, you read a phrase like that, you probably wanna know what I wanna know, and that is how do I get my eyes healthy so my life can be full of light? Or is there any areas my life is unhealthy? And I have read Matthew 6 about 10,000 times. That's probably an exaggeration, but I have read Matthew 6. You can't be a preacher and not read Matthew 6. This is Jesus' first sermon. Matthew 5, 6, and 7 kinda go into the beatitudes and this one of his first messages.
So, let's look at the verse before and the verse after. Can we do that? So, if you got your Bibles, we just read and we're gonna read the verse before, and the verse after, and then we're just gonna keep on reading. "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also".
So, we're getting an idea of what Jesus was saying here. Now, let's go to the verse after. This is the verse on the other side, so, we're gonna get the bookends of that verse. "No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money". What I want you to see is, there is a connection between your eyes and giving. There's a healthy way to look at giving and finances. And if we have a healthy eye, if we have a healthy view of it, then it fills our whole life, our whole body with light. If you look at finances in an unhealthy way, this is what Jesus taught us, then according to him, your whole life would be filled with darkness. And how great is that darkness.
Verse 25, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink: or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air: they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them". Your Heavenly Father feeds them.
"Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you— you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'what shall I eat'? Or 'what shall we drink'? Or 'what shall we wear'? For the pagans run after all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows you need them".
So now, we're seeing that the light that's being talked about and the darkness that's being talked about is the kingdom. There's the kingdom of this world, which is the kingdom of darkness, and there's the Kingdom of God, which is the kingdom of light. So, there's a way that the Kingdom of God goes at everything in life. It doesn't matter how you wanna list it, how you wanna label it, there is a way that the Kingdom of God goes, or the kingdom of light goes at things, and then there's a way that this world or the kingdom of darkness goes at things. And what happens many times is as we grow up in the world, as we're pressured by the world, as we feed our soul with the things of this world, every day, all day, then you come into church for 30 minutes on a Sunday, let's, okay, okay, I'm being a little conservative.
For 40 minutes on a Sunday, and I'm pushing back against all of this worldly influence. The kingdom of this world's constantly pressing in on you, and then it clings with us because we're not established in these areas, when it comes to how the kingdom approaches, how God approaches these things. So, God says, "This is how pagans go at it. This is how the world goes at it. They worry, they fret, they bite their finger nails down to their cuticles. They're just always uptight". That's not how we are. "We seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own".
I wanna take a minute here and just really go through this thought. I believe that many Christians live in constant anxiety, and worry, and fear concerning their finances. Chris Basden, who wrote this in the Journal of Accountancy said, "44% of adults live in high levels of financial stress. Women live in stress twice as high as that". In a separate study, "24% said they have little to no financial stress. 76% of Americans live in financial stress, half of those live in high levels of stress". Which simply means we live in a world that is constantly under financial stress, and this is not the way God's people are to live.
We would all agree, if I were to say, we're to not live in fear and worry, and anxiety, we would all say, "Amen". But if I add, "We're not to live in fear, anxiety, and worry concerning finances". But watch it, if the eye is healthy, if my view of it is healthy, then my whole body is full of light. But if I'm unhealthy then darkness gets, it begins with my eye. It begins with how I see it. It begins with how I think about it. But before I know it, it's finding its way into every area of my life. Communion, speaks of the death and the price that Jesus paid for us. And we know that he died for our sins, we know that he absolutely died for, he shed his blood for our sins.
But the Bible says not only was he wounded for our transgressions, but he was bruised for our iniquities. That's our generational curses. And then it goes on to say that "By his stripes we are healed". Then it goes on to say that "The chastisement of our peace was laid upon him". So, let's notice that the cross doesn't just stop at out sin. When you go to the cross you bring generational curses, you bring, the Bible says that, "Up onto the third and fourth generation shall the sin of the father visit the future generations". So, what we know is that the sins of the father has a way of being passed down, generationally.
And many times we look back at our parents or former generations and we see the sins that plagued their life, and we think, "Oh, my God, I'm worried. What if those sins find their way into my life"? We look at sickness that maybe our family struggled with, or our parents. And one of the first things that you do when you to the doctor is they wanna know what you family history is. Nothing wrong with that. But when you come to the cross, it's not just about your sin issue being addressed, it's about freedom from every generational curse. It's about healing and wholeness in your body, in your mind, in your marriage, and in your relationships. Our problem is we don't keep going to the cross. We stop at our sin issue being addressed. But then it goes on to say that, "The chastisement of his peace".
So, we're not to live in piece. We're to live forgiven, free, healed and in peace, which is shalom. Shalom means whole, complete, or prosperous. So, the cross was for our sin, but it went beyond our sin, and God wants us to have peace in every area of our life. When you're stressed, you're prone to sickness. You can't sleep or eat, it causes you eat more at times. You find ways to sedate yourself. So, you use chemicals, alcohol, drugs, you name it. And all of those things are promising you just a temporary moment of relief. Stress causes you to act irrational with others, it causes you to live with less grace, less mercy, it makes you harsh, temperamental, frustrated, irritable, mean, judgmental.
It drastically increases marital problems, children begin to perform worse in school, and sports, and relationships because the sensitivity they have towards the fear and the anxiety of their parents. Financial stress, most importantly might be that it opens the door to the devil in our life. Revelation 12:10 says that, "Satan is the accuser". What does he do? He comes to accuse us of God. That God's not faithful. That God's not gonna come through. Or maybe that God's wanting to punish you. God's trying to get you. God's trying, oh, you deserve this stress in your life. You deserve this worry because of this, that, or the other.
And so, the devil loves financial stress because it gives him the perfect window to come and convince us that God does not love us, or value us, and he is the accuser. He comes to us and he wants us to know that everything that's happening for someone else, that can't happen for you. The way God's blessed them if he really loved you, he would bless you like that. He's blessing them, and them, and them, but he's not doing that for you. So, he must love them or value them more than you. He accuses us of ourselves. He comes and he starts talking to you about what's wrong with you, and that you're not deserving, and that you're inferior, or you're inadequate.
And he gets into our ear through financial stress, and financial anxiety, and financial worry. And he wants you to live and believe somehow you are inferior because he is the accuser. He accuses us of God, that God doesn't love us, and then he accuses us there's something wrong with us. And finally, he accuses others to us, we start looking at how blessed they are and the devil starts to tell us that, see how blessed they are? They're greedy, they're this, they're that. But this is the thing about that, God wants you to look at the blessing on someone else's life and be encouraged through that. He doesn't want you to live your life looking at the blessing on someone else's life and being upset, or envious, or jealous, or bitter in some way, or covetous.
No, he wants you to see the blessing on their life and say, "Man, God, if you've done that for them, I believe you can do that for me". Now, if the eye is healthy, if I can see this the way God says to see it, if I can think about it the way God says to see it, then if the eye is light, my whole body is light. One of the biggest lies that the enemy tells us is that money will fix all our problems. It's called the love of money, or an unhealthy faith in money. Money is not evil, the love of money is evil. Money cannot solve all your problems, only God can solve all your problems. Nothing wrong with money, but there is something wrong with love of it, with an unhealthy view of it.
God can solve all your problems. I don't need more money if I'm in a deficit, I need more of him. I need more light. I need more of his presence. I need to draw closer to him. I don't need to stress and freak out and worry and get angry and mad, and get up, no, I need to push that aside for a minute and say, "Man, I need more of you in my life". And as I get more of him, as I get more light and as I become more kingdom focused, then I begin to quickly see that money is not my provider, God is my provider. Money is not my source, God is my source. Money is not my hope, my hope is in the Lord, and by the way that hope, the Bible says, "Maketh us not ashamed".
Now, as a preacher, one of the things I've learned is that people think that I can't relate to this type of fear that I'm preaching on. That I just preach on it and that I can't in any way, relate to it. And there's probably a hundred different stories I could tell you, but the one that, this morning I was reading through notes, and I was just really thinking about, just thinking about the faithfulness of God. Thinking about how good he has been to this church. And when I first came I was 29 years old, and the church had been through several years of decline and specifically, the six plus months before I came here was in rapid decline. We were losing about 10% of the finances a month.
So, we were down significantly. When I came in I didn't really know much about how to run a church financially, I just, when I got saved, I was 16 years old. Many of you have heard my story. I never wanted to handle this stuff, I just wanted to reach kids. That's all I ever really wanted to do was preach to kids. And so, I take the church, and I'm just a young man and I'm seeing all this stuff and I don't really know what it means. But what I do know is that when you start to decline or spiral downward in your finances there's certain things that you can't no pay, right? Your fixed cost. So, fixed cost in your life are same things for church. You have your electric bill, you have you mortgage, and you had your payroll.
And then you had the other things that were kind of I guess loose if you will, animal crackers in the nursery, or replacing the carpet, or I can remember lines the projectors that we couldn't replace. So, certain words couldn't be read. I remember they were talking about how long we had left at the current rate. One week, I'm driving home after a service and I'm teared up because I got the offering number. I'm like, "God, you gotta do something. This is not gonna work". And the Lord asked me one question, "Did anybody get saved today"? I said, "Yes, several people got saved". And then the Lord said, "That's all you need to know. If that's happening, I'm with you".
So that established a principle in my life, and this church and we still live this way. We build our church one altar call at a time, or one family at a time. That's how we go at it. That's how we talk to the staff, that's how we talk to the team. Don't worry about the 99, just every family you're in front of, every person you're in front of, do the best you can with them, even though there's other needs, do the best you can, one person at a time. And so, we began to do some of those things, and just keep giving altar calls, keep preaching. In those days we had no transfer growth. No one left another church and came to 7 hills, they all avoided 7 hills because of church splits and history that was whatever, and now that's for the most part of course, almost 20 years ago, it's behind us.
And God has blessed us, and God has taken care of us, and God's done great things. And I bring that up for a couple reasons. One, to let you our story is not a story of thriving, our story is one of just saying, "God, we need you and we're gonna fail without you". And looking in the midst of fear, looking in the midst of uncertainty, wondering if we were ever going to survive. And I say that to those of you that are in a place where you're fearful, to take just a minute and say to your own situation, "God is with you".
If you're here he's with you. If you still have a drawing to his presence, a drawing to his will for your life, a drawing to his kingdom being first, that's what showing up in God's house is all about. It's saying, "God I want you to be first in my life". I don't know what you're up against, I don't what you're facing, but I can tell you today as a church, we don't live in those same level of fears. We have bigger decisions to make, we have bigger things in front of us to try to figure out. It's not like it's all behind us, but what I can say is we've learned to live in that place that Jesus is either Lord of all, or he's not Lord at all.
This is his church, he's the shepherd. I learned that 20 years ago. He is the shepherd of his house. I'm the sheep dog though. And that's what sermons like this are about. Getting the sheep back in the place that they need to be. Just chopping at your little feet. Why? Because I know that's where there's health. I know that's where there's life. I know that's where there's a future. I know that's where God's will for you will be fulfill. So, a few things that I learned during that season that helped me make peace with the financial situation of this place. Number one, learning to receive the fatherhood of God.
Verse 24 says, "No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money". Jesus taught us that money promises everything that God does. Money promises you security, power, peace. It promises you can live a stress-free, worry-free life. And Jesus said, "Unfortunately, you cannot have two masters. If you serve God and money, then you're gonna love that and hate the other". And the best way to look at it would be this. Have you ever loved someone, like really love someone and they didn't love you back? They didn't reciprocate that love? Or what about this, maybe you were in a relationship, you both loved each other and then just suddenly, for no apparent reason they took that love away from you?
Anybody know what I'm talking about? Ever feel that, the sting of being unloved, the sting of being invisible, the sting of not being valued in some way or another? It makes you feel insecure, it makes you feel unlovable, it makes you think what's wrong with me in some way, shape or form. And what Jesus is teaching here is that money has no character. It has no integrity, it has no heart, it can't love you. It is true that it's just cold, hard cash. Yet, we spend all our time thinking about it, talking about, giving our heart and our affection to it, and it cannot reciprocate.
So, we need to realize that it is impossible to have a real relationship with it. When you try to have a relationship with it, what's it do? It brings darkness. Darkness into your soul, darkness into your mind, darkness into your home. It's no different than that wall over there. You can't love that wall, and the wall love you back. You can't love this platform, and this platform love me back. Nothing evil about the platform, nothing wrong with the platform, it's amoral. On this platform, people could use it for evil, or people can use it for good. And so, money is the same way, it's amoral, it depends on whose hands it's in that determines what it's accomplishing in life, for good or for evil.
So, here we are in God's house learning that Jesus said, "Pursue a relationship with me first". The same amount of time you spend worrying about finances and stressing about this thing or that thing, you could spend all that time meditating on him, pursuing a relationship with him, loving him, and by the way, he loves you back, you can never out love him, you can never out give him. It's not in his nature, and it's not within your ability. No matter how much you love him, no matter how much you give to him, no matter how much you sacrifice for him, no matter how much you serve him, no matter how much time you give him, he will always outdo you because he's your loving father and he knows how to take care of you.
So, God is faithful, money is fickle. God is relational, money is a tool. God is our father and he's our heavenly master and money is our earthly servant. I don't allow money to tell me what to do, I tell it what to do. I go to God, and say, "God what do you want me to do"? And according to Jesus, I do what my father says to do, and I say what my father says to say. And as long as we live our life letting him be the master, him be the father, then he'll make sure that we have everything that we need to fulfill his will in our lives.