Luke 16- Who Are You Serving?

In this chapter, Jesus makes yet another point about money and possessions—which is that you cannot simultaneously serve God and serve the money and possessions of this world. I think so often Christians throw that line out there—“You cannot serve God and money”—and say they agree with it without fully considering the implications of that belief. I think too often we may assume, “Hey, I’m a Christian, so obviously I’m serving God, not money.” Maybe it would be prudent to ask ourselves a very serious question: Are we trying to serve both God and money?

Here are the questions I have found myself asking lately. How important to me is money? How important to me are possessions? Is my family spending more time and energy working to get, use, and enjoy more money and more possessions, or are we spending more time and energy focusing on God and following him? How dependent are we on money? And how dependent are we on God? For me, if the answer is that we are spending more time and energy focusing on and depending on money and possessions than we are spending on following God, we have crossed the line. We are then attempting to serve both God and money—and Jesus makes it clear that serving both is simply not possible; you will inevitably give your devotion to one and hate the other.

After Jesus says these things, “The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him.” As Clark and I ask ourselves these questions and begin taking steps to purposefully decrease our dependence on and devotion to money and possessions, and to increase our dependence on and devotion to God, we have been asked questions and thought of as very strange. So many Christians seem to believe that God’s ideal is for his followers to prosper and be wealthy, and that people will see the wealth of Christians and how God has “blessed” them and they, too, will want to follow God so they, too, can be blessed. To put it bluntly, I think that viewpoint is completely off base and, if you read and study how Jesus lived and instructed his followers to live, it appears to be un-Biblical as well.

I think the story of the rich man and Lazarus addresses this topic wonderfully. Here’s a rich man, comfortable and smug in his possessions and money. And right there at his gate, right in front of him, is a poor, sick, hungry man who, in the world’s eyes, has nothing. The God-blesses-his-followers-with-prosperity line of thinking is turned on its head if you keep reading. If that were true, then it would stand to reason that the rich man was following God and was righteous, so God was blessing him—and Lazarus’ hardships would have been God’s punishment or withholding of blessings because of his sins. But that isn’t what we see at all. Instead, Lazarus dies and is carried to Abraham’s side, and the rich man dies and finds himself tormented in Hades. Suddenly the whole situation seems tragically ironic—a man who spent his life enjoying the riches of the world is now in torment and begging for even a drop of water, and a man who spent his life in torment and begging is now being comforted.

The point here is not “Rich people are going to hell.” No, the point is that true riches from God have nothing to do with the money and possessions of the world—or as Jesus puts it, “unrighteous wealth.” In Matthew 6, Jesus told his followers, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” It is clear that the treasures and blessings and riches of God are not worldly possessions, material things, and money. It goes so much deeper than that. I prefer the treasures, blessings, and riches that come from following God—even if it means looking to the world like I have nothing—rather than the money and possessions the world seems to worship. I want to be sure that I am serving God, that I am fully devoted to following him. Jesus says, “No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” I want to be sure that God, not money, is my master.