The Lure of a Lesser Loyalty, Part 1

Much as we try, nothing is hidden from God.

Today from Chuck Swindoll. Do not try to convince yourself that you can hide from the living God. Omniscience has no blind spots. Omnipresence has no limitation.

Everywhere it wants, knowing everything there is on earth, below it, above it, and beyond it. That's our God. In his famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus exposed the folly of split loyalties. He put it this way, no one can serve two masters, for you will hate one and love the other. What did Jesus mean when he gave that bold assertion? Well, today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll sheds light on this teaching from Jesus. It's located in Matthew chapter 6. In this portion of his message, Jesus exposed the folly of trying to serve God and money at the same time.

Chuck titled today's message, The Lure of a Lesser Loyalty. Every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is the Lord Christ. And we anticipate that in the future, though right now it seems a distant hope, but that promise will remain true and sure. God's Word is alive and it is active and it is sharper than a two-edged sword. It is able to pierce where no surgeon's scalpel can ever reach to the soul and the spirit of individuals like you and me. God's Word is a critic of the thoughts and intentions of the heart. If you will, God's Word reads our minds and enables us to see ourselves as we really are in the eyes of God. Because of that, when we turn to his Word, we turn to a body of literature that is like no other on the planet. Whether Old or New Testament, it is equally inspired of God, profitable for doctrine, reproof, for correction, instruction in righteousness, that the man or woman of God may become mature, thoroughly equipped for the work God's called us to do. In your worship folder today, you will find an outline. I'd like you to place it at Psalm 139 and leave it there and then turn from Psalm 139 to Matthew chapter 6, where we continue our study of the Gospel by Matthew.

And specifically, we are in the Sermon on the Mount, which covers Matthew 5, 6, and 7. So your outline is at Psalm 139, and now your eyes are on Matthew 6, 19 through 24. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. So then, if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. May the Lord open our eyes and give us light so that we understand what He said in those days and what it means to us living today. You're listening to Insight for Living.

To study the book of Matthew with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scripture studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies. And now the message from Chuck titled, The Lure of a Lesser Loyalty. The path of Christianity is strewn with the litter of straying saints. Invariably, each who has strayed has chosen to be lured by lesser loyalty. Though at one time, following a higher standard, something happened, or some things happened that created a drift.

Perhaps a better word is an erosion. Often when we discover that the drift is there, we are surprised, sometime downright shocked. It can happen at a seminary that was once a stalwart for truth, known for its standard of righteousness, upholding the inerrancy of the word of God and the deity of Christ and the doctrines of the faith. But now, through that lure of lesser loyalty, they're no longer in that category.

They've drifted away. It can happen at a Bible college. It can happen in a home. It can obviously happen in a church. I once preached at a church in another state that had once been sort of the beacon of hope in the community, known all over that city for its splendid witness for Christ. And the audience, the congregation I spoke to that evening must not have numbered 100 people, though it would seat well over 1,000. In the process of time, the church began to drift, lost its testimony, lost its reputation, and lost its influence.

Erosion is subtle, and it's slow, and it's silent. It can happen, of course, in a life. Candidly, it could be happening right now in your life.

It could be the best kept secret, even among your friends. But deep down within, there is this shift, this drift taking place. The Bible includes several examples. My mind takes me to the Old Testament. The prophet Elisha had a servant named Gehazi. Gehazi followed alongside Elisha, saw the miracles being done, watched as his master led through one difficult situation after another. Gehazi was faithful to a point and then, lured by the lesser loyalty of wealth, he slipped away and fell.

Later was confronted by his master and finally died, tragically, a leper, having been lured away by a lesser loyalty. Jonah is familiar to all of us. He was given a clear direction to take the message of truth to Nineveh, the capital city. No doubt, never heard before the message of the Lord God, and this prejudiced prophet would have nothing to do with that, and took the first ship he could find to the opposite direction. And rather than moving toward Nineveh, he went toward Tarshish, right across the Mediterranean.

Wound up, you remember, in the belly of a fish, huge fish. He finally did get to Nineveh, made the first amphibious landing, I might add, right there on the shores of Nineveh, and preached, though he did so reluctantly, and even at the end was a pouting prophet, lured by a lesser loyalty. Then, of course, you get to the New Testament, the one that stands out is Demas, a once loyal companion of Paul, who traveled with him. Paul writes toward the end of his life, Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world. Demas is no longer at his side. What happened to Demas?

We don't know, but we do know that he drifted away from the calling that was once his. Let me make something very clear to all of us. No one is immune.

No one. In fact, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10 verse 12, let him who thinks he stand take heed, lest he fall. Please don't sit there listening, feeling smug, as if this could never happen to you. I'm sure most who fell once said that. Oswald Chambers' words are haunting from his work, my utmost for his highest.

Always remain alert to the fact that where one has gone back is exactly where anyone may go back. The same man who wrote over 250 years ago, come thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace. Streams of mercy never ceasing call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet sung by flaming tongues above. Praise the mount, I'm fixed upon it, mount of thy redeeming love. Also wrote at the end, prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love, here's my heart, take and seal it. Here's my heart, take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above.

A very honest composer. I give you my praise today, but I acknowledge, Lord, that I have a heart that's prone to wonder, and so is mine, and so is yours. I repeat, no one is immune to the lure of a lesser loyalty.

And that lure can lead us in a number of different directions. We can often convince ourselves that the sin is a secret. After all, who knows what you're watching on your computer when everyone else in the family is asleep? Who knows what you pull up on the internet? Who would ever guess that you're playing with an affair?

Certainly not your mate. No one is immune. I hope you will never forget that. I hope it will stay in your mind till your last breath.

I don't tape many things on equipment in my study. I don't have a lot of mottos hanging here or there, but I will tell you that I have taped one particular statement I gave you a number of weeks ago on my printer right by my keyboard, my computer. It reads, sin will take you farther than you want to go. It will keep you longer than you want to stay.

It will cost you more than you want to pay. I don't ever want to forget that. I don't want to ever try to convince myself that I can live in a bit of secrecy and no one will know I can hide in this allurement toward another loyalty. And so it's with that in mind that I began, not in Matthew chapter 6, but in Psalm 139. I want to show you that there is the very real fact that you live your life like an open book before God.

There are no secrets to him. The Psalm is a prayer. Through the Psalm you read words like, oh Lord. In fact, it begins with those words, and oh God. And he prays for this and he prays for that.

He comes to the very end and it's another prayer. Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. See if there is any way of hurt, literally, from the Hebrew. See if there is any hurtful way within me and then lead me in the everlasting way.

Search me, oh God. He can say that because of what he has written in the Psalm. The kavod begins, oh Lord, you have searched me and known me. Then he gets specific. You know when I sit down. You know when I rise up.

You understand my thought from afar. Meaning, long before I have the thought, you know it's coming. He continues, you scrutinize my path and my lying down and you are intimately acquainted with A-L-L, my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, oh Lord, you know it, A-L-L. Every word spoken, every thought pictured in the mind. I'm an open book, Lord. Look at verse 9. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I could travel the speed of light, like the morning rays of the sun, and if I could immediately get to the remotest part of the sea, the most distant island surrounded by massive body of water, even there your hand will lead me and your right hand will hold me.

Even there I'm an open book. Do not try to convince yourself that you can hide from the living God, please. Omniscience has no blind spots. Omnipresence has no limitation.

Everywhere it wants, knowing everything there is, on earth, below it, above it, and beyond it. That's our God. If that isn't enough, look at Hebrews chapter 4. We love to quote Hebrews 4 and verse 12, the word of God is alive and active and sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and is a kritikos, the Greek word says. It is a critic of the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. In other words, the word of God will reveal what is in your heart.

You think you have a hidden motive? There is no such thing. Not before the living God. Look at verse 13, which most people cannot quote. There is no creature hidden from his sight, but A-L-L, all things are open laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

There it is. Your life is like an open book, read clearly by the one who made you, known at all times, day or night. And when you get to Matthew chapter 6, Jesus is careful to say not once, not twice, but three times that our God is a God who sees in secret.

You may have forgotten, we saw that last time. Verse 4 ends, your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. Verse 6 ends, your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. Verse 18 ends, your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. This is when the life is lived before God with purpose and meaning and purity. In the power of the Holy Spirit, your God who sees it all, is never ever surprised or shocked, knows that your heart is right, and whether you're giving or praying or fasting, which are the three subjects of verses 1-18, the Lord sees and the Lord will reward you for doing it.

Not as a hypocrite, not to be seen, not to make a good impression, but as a servant of the living God, he will reward you. That's on the heels of all of that, verses 19-24 appear in the sermon. Understand this is a sermon. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 comprise the Sermon on the Mount. That's where Jesus sat with his followers on that slope leading down to the northern edge of the Sea of Galilee, and there he taught them, and those people had never in their lives heard a sermon like this one ever. They'd been bored to tears by the scholars and by the scribes and by the Pharisees, dripping with their hypocrisy as they parsed every word and did surgical work on every noun and verb and preposition to the point of being distracted. And along comes Jesus, who talks in terms anyone can understand.

Isn't it amazing? He spoke these words in the first century, before it had reached halfway through the century. And like you, people sat and listened, hearing things that they had never heard in other places. Jesus begins with a warning, do not, and it ends with a fact, you cannot.

Did you see that? They're like bookends. The warning, do not, and the ending, you cannot. And in between is a series of contrasts that we can observe. When you read your Bible, put your mind in gear. Don't be watching your watch, don't be concerned about the time, even if you only have a little bit of time, focus on what you're reading. If you missed it, go back and read it again. If you read it over and miss the thought, read it again. I often read it aloud. I will often read it very slowly. I'll read it from another version of the scriptures than the one I'm using in my study. And by doing that, I found that there are several contrasts that emerge.

Look for yourself. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth. And verse 20, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. There's a contrast. There's a difference between possessions on earth and possessions that are in heaven.

And the contrast is even seen in how they can be destroyed or preserved. Treasures on earth are where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal. But when you have treasures in heaven, none of the three occurs. There are no moths. There is no rust.

There will be no thieves. So that contrast stands. Look at verse 22. The eye is the lamp of the body if your eye is clear. Well, that's one thing, but look at the contrast. If your eye is bad, that's the next verse. Verse 22, a clear eye is full of light.

A bad eye is full of darkness. Jesus loved contrasts and used word pictures to convey a truth that would otherwise be missed. The best communicators are not those that make it sound complicated.

They're the ones who make the complicated sound simple. Jesus is the best ever at that. He's warning his followers about being caught up in a lesser loyalty. In this case, the last word of the passage, verse 24, is wealth, possessions, stuff, tangible things we can purchase and own and must maintain. Now understand the difference. Some people read these words and they warn about Jesus prohibiting against having any possessions, so they encourage living like a hermit, out in the middle of nowhere, owning nothing.

Just to close on your back, and that's enough. Nowhere in the Bible are we forbidden from owning something. It's not what Jesus is teaching.

The Bible again and again encourages wise planning and being careful with possessions. Jesus kept breaking things down for his audience, giving them the truth in simple terms anyone could understand. And there's much more from this passage in Matthew 6 to discover. You're listening to Insight for Living and a message Chuck Swindoll has titled, The Lure of a Lesser Loyalty. And to learn more about this ministry or these messages, please visit us online at InsightWorld.org.

Maybe you felt the tension between serving God and earning a living. Well, to help you cultivate a healthy balance, I'll remind you Chuck has written an in-depth book on this topic and others. It's all based on Jesus' teaching through his Sermon on the Mount. Chuck's book is titled, Simple Faith. In Simple Faith, Chuck dispels the myth that spiritual maturity means that we submit ourselves to the never-ending requirements of rule-oriented religion.

That's what the Pharisees did and Jesus called them out on it. In his uncomplicated style, Chuck describes the joy of being freed from the burden of performance-based religion. If you're tired of trying to meet the expectations of others or even the impossible ones you've set for yourself, then you'll appreciate the liberating principles in Chuck's book, Simple Faith. To purchase a copy right now, call us.

If you're listening in the U.S., dial 1-800-772-8888 or go directly to Insight.org slash store. In addition, you might like to add the message called, Finding Healing Through Forgiveness. This is a complete unabridged recording of a message Chuck delivered, including a stirring personal testimony from his wife, Cynthia. In this message, Chuck helps us understand what it means to face our deepest insecurities that are often expressed in fear, anger, and resentment.

Then Cynthia describes how she found healing from these damaging emotions through a humbling process of seeking forgiveness. So, two resources at your disposal today. First, Chuck's book on Jesus' sermon of all sermons called, Simple Faith, and second, a message called, Finding Healing Through Forgiveness. To purchase either resource or both, call us. If you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888 or go online to Insight.org slash store. Join us again tomorrow when Chuck Swindoll continues his message about, The Lure of a Lesser Loyalty, right here on Insight for Living. The preceding message, The Lure of a Lesser Loyalty, was copyrighted in 2015 and 2021, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2021 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.