"yielding All Things: I Am No Longer My Own, But Thine"

“Yielding All Things: I Am No Longer My Own, But Thine”

Matthew 6:19-34

Jesus tells us: “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on…”

“…do not worry…”

“…do not worry…”

“…do not worry…”

Raise your hand if you have gotten to the place where you “do not worry.”

As I just read, the New King James Version reads: “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. ‘You cannot serve God and mammon.’”

Mammon means “money”, but it also means “accumulated resources.”

Mammon means “stuff,” as in, “We have a lot of stuff around here.”

Or “please go in your room and pick up all your stuff.”

Or, closer the point, “You can’t serve God and stuff.”

Now, raise your hand if you have too much “stuff.”

How many of us have a garage full of “stuff”?

How many of us have a closet full of clothes and yet we still scan the internet looking for more?

Most of us have so much stuff that we can’t stand up under it; it threatens our very existence.

And then, we worry.

We rely on self rather than God.

We are insecure.

We want to protect our stuff!

We don’t trust others with our stuff!

We don’t trust God with our stuff.

One person has written, “When the admonition against worry is yoked with the idea that money is not the ultimate goal, we find ourselves on the receiving end of one of the most countercultural sermons that Jesus preaches.”

“You cannot serve both God and stuff.”

This is not a threat, but a comment on life that speaks its own truth.

Wall Street Journal columnist Robert Frank wrote a book called “Richistan.”

In it, he chronicles the parallel universe that the ultra-rich in America have built for themselves, complete with Gulfstream jets, 30,000 square foot homes, and alligator-skin toilet seats.

These are people who know a thing or two about storing up for themselves treasures on earth.

Frank interviewed a number of them, and was quite surprised to find out that these people are plagued by anxiety—so much so that some of them have even formed self-help support groups.

What could possibly keep these multimillionaires and billionaires up at night?

It turns out that they worry about running out of money.

Now that seems crazy—unless it’s just the way we human beings are wired: we never think we have enough!

Frank asked folks, “How much money would you need to feel financially secure?”

The results are quite revealing.

Those worth $1 million dollars said they needed twice that much in order to feel secure.

Those worth $10 million dollars said they needed twice that amount.

Those worth $100 million said they needed twice that much.

You get the idea; whatever their level of wealth, no one felt that they had enough money to feel secure.

All of this seems to help prove Jesus’ point that money and stuff is no guarantee of ultimate fulfillment or security.

So, what is the guarantee of ultimate fulfillment and security?

For the past 5 or 6 weeks we have been praying together “A Covenant Prayer in the Wesleyan Tradition.”

I consider this prayer to be the “prayer to perfect freedom.”

Because, I am convinced that if we were to be able to pray this prayer and really, honestly mean what it says—we would be set free from the worries of this life.

If we could honestly live lives that say: “I am no longer my own, but thine,” there is no end to what we could accomplish in this life.

If we could truly and completely give everything over to God and trust God and God alone for our happiness, our contentment, our peace—we would find it.

What did Jesus say?: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

Do we believe this?

Do we really believe this?

And this is not some “prosperity Gospel thing” such as “seek the Kingdom of God first and God will make you rich.”

Being rich has nothing to do with the Kingdom of God.

Being loving, generous, kind—those are Kingdom things.

Jesus says, “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.”

We might ask ourselves, “What in the world are ‘treasures in heaven’”?

“Treasures in heaven” refer not so much to “salvation (which too often is treated like some kind of commodity)” or to future, otherworldly rewards, but to transformed lives and transformed relationships that occur in God through Jesus Christ.