SEMESTER 6
281 – Your Service and Your Earthly Possessions
BIBLE INSTITUTE OF CORRESPONDENCE
COURSE: SOTERIOLOGY VI LESSON # 81
SERMON ON THE MOUNT
YOUR SERVICE AND YOUR EARTHLY POSSESSIONS
Read: Mat. 6:19-34
INTRODUCTION:
1. The last lesson addressed our attitude of heart toward earthly wealth.
2. The heart alone will greatly affect our service, yet Bible teaching will also improve service.
III: The half-truth: “If you have their heart you will have their money.”
3. In this lesson I want to talk about our service in this realm.
III: If we try to be masters where we should be servants, we will be servants where we should be masters.
III: By the parable of the vineyard and the wicked husbandmen.
4. Conversely, if we say I am not worthy to be called a son, make me a servant, we are treated as sons.
5. Love for God will make us a servant and a master, love for money will only make us a servant.
I. GOD HAS GIVEN US A CERTAIN DOMINION
1. When God created man He gave him dominion over the earth. (Gen. 1:28)
2. This is relevant to his being created in the image of God.
3. No other creature can plan and design and progressively improve himself.
4. Every creature on earth and all the minerals in the earth fall under man’s dominion.
II. THIS IS NOT SOVEREIGN, BUT STEWARDSHIP DOMINION
1. He was not to subdue and use it as he pleased, but as God directed.
III: Of those trees eat freely, of that tree, do not eat at all.
2. The seed of self-will, self-ownership, and selfishness, which Satan planted, is in every man.
3. Perhaps Adam forgot that it was not his garden, but God’s.
4. The basic spirit of Acts 4:32 should be in every one of us.
III. IF WE SERVE MAMMON, IT MASTERS US
1. This word comes from Mam mo nas’ (confidence i.e., figuratively wealth personified, avarice, or defiled ownership).
2. He speaks of wealth in an inordinate place in our lives.
III: Of all the trees of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but not that one.
3. The moment we try to make that forbidden part serve us, it becomes our master.
III: How many men have given their lives for it. (in the great deserts)
IV. IF WE SERVE GOD, WEALTH SERVES US
1. Yet, we have limited dominion when we are subject to God.
2. We are not told we cannot serve God and have wealth, but we cannot serve both God and wealth.
3. God gave it to Job and Abraham and it served them, but they served God.
4. People who do not understand this, watch God`s servants and wonder what they are stealing.
5. True wealth is like happiness, it cannot be gotten by grabbing, but by giving.
III: By Job’s attitude in hard times, and the good times that flowed out of it.
7. Are you walking upon the ground as a servant and trying to climb up?
8. Climb down like the prodigal son, and He will lift you up.