Sermon on the Mount: One Master, Not Two, Insures the Success of Church

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THE HOLY BIBLE (NLT)

Matt. 6:24

No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.

Rev. 3:14-20

“Write this letter to the messenger of the church in Laodicea. “Since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth! You say, ‘I am rich. I have everything I want. I don’t need a thing!’ And you don’t realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. So I advise you to buy gold from me—gold that has been purified by fire. So be diligent and turn from your indifference.

Josh. 24:15-17

Choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.” The people replied, “We would never abandon the Lord and serve other gods. For the Lord our God is the one who rescued us and our ancestors from slavery in the land of Egypt. He performed mighty miracles before our very eyes. . . . So we, too, will serve the Lord, for he alone is our God.”

Rev. 2:1-2, 4

“Write this letter to the messenger of the church in Ephesus. . . . “I know all the things you do. I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance. “But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first! . . . Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches.

Rev. 2:12-17

“Write this letter to the messenger of the church in Pergamum. This is the message from the one with the sharp two-edged sword: “I know that you live in the city where Satan has his throne, yet you have remained loyal to me. . . . .”But I have a few complaints against you. You tolerate some among you whose teaching is like that of Balaam, who showed Balak how to trip up the people of Israel. He taught them to sin by eating food offered to idols and by committing sexual sin. . . . Repent of your sin, or I will come to you suddenly and fight against them with the sword of my mouth.

I John 2:15-17

Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. The world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.

Col. 3:1-2, 5, 8-15

Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. . . . Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. Now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. Don’t lie to each other, . . . Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. . . . Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.

Rev. 3:1-6

“Write this letter to the messenger of the church in Sardis. . . . “I know all the things you do, and that you have a reputation for being alive—but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what little remains, for even what is left is almost dead. . . . Go back to what you heard and believed at first; hold to it firmly. Repent and turn to me again.

I John 3:14

If we love our Christian brothers and sisters who are believers, it proves that we have passed from death to life. But a person who has no love is still dead.

I John 2:26-27

I am writing these things to warn you about those who want to lead you astray. But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you, so you don’t need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know, and what he teaches is true . . . .

John 3:1-7

There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. After dark one evening, he came to speak with Jesus. “Rabbi,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.” Jesus replied, I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God. . . . No one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. . . . the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.

Luke 5:36-38

Then Jesus gave them this illustration: No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and uses it to patch an old garment. For then the new garment would be ruined, and the new patch wouldn’t even match the old garment. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the new wine would burst the wineskins . . . New wine must be stored in new wineskins.

Ezek. 11:17-20

I, the Sovereign Lord, . . . will give them singleness of heart and put a new spirit within them. I will take away their stony, stubborn heart and give them a tender, responsive heart, so they will obey my decrees and regulations. Then they will truly be my people, and I will be their God.

Luke 5:1-2, 4-6, 8, 10

One day as Jesus was preaching on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. . . He noticed two empty boats at the water’s edge, for the fishermen had left them and were washing their nets. . . . . He said to Simon, Now go out where it is deeper, and let down your nets to catch some fish. “Master,” Simon replied, “we worked hard all last night and didn’t catch a thing. But if you say so, I’ll let the nets down again.” And this time their nets were so full of fish they began to tear! When Simon Peter realized what had happened, he fell to his knees before Jesus and said, “Oh, Lord, please leave me—I’m such a sinful man.”. . . Jesus replied to Simon, Don’t be afraid! From now on you’ll be fishing for people!

Acts 9:32-34, 36-37, 39, 40-41

Peter traveled from place to place, and he came down to visit the believers in the town of Lydda. There he met a man named Aeneas, who had been paralyzed and bedridden for eight years. Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you! Get up, and roll up your sleeping mat!” And he was healed instantly. There was a believer in Joppa named Tabitha. She was always doing kind things for others and helping the poor. About this time she became ill and died. . . . Peter asked them all to leave the room; then he knelt and prayed. Turning to the body he said, “Get up, Tabitha.” . . . She sat up! . . . Then he called in the widows and all the believers, and he presented her to them alive.

Eph. 4:7, 11-16

He has given each one of us a special gift . . . Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.

I Pet. 2:2, 5, 9

Like newborn babies, you must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of salvation. You are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.

SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, by Mary Baker Eddy

SH 583:12

Church. The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle.

SH 30:30-32

We cannot choose for ourselves, but must work out our salvation in the way Jesus taught.

SH 14:5

We cannot “serve two masters.” To be “present with the Lord” is to have, not mere emotional ecstasy or faith, but the actual demonstration and understanding of Life as revealed in Christian Science. To be “with the Lord” is to be in obedience to the law of God, to be absolutely governed by divine Love, — by Spirit, not by matter.

SH 346:30

We cannot serve both God and mammon at the same time; but is not this what frail mortals are trying to do? Paul says: “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.”

SH 201:7

We cannot build safely on false foundations. Truth makes a new creature, in whom old things pass away and “all things are become new.” Passions, selfishness, false appetites, hatred, fear, all sensuality, yield to spirituality, and the superabundance of being is on the side of God, good.

SH 409:23

This mortal is put off, and the new man or real man is put on, in proportion as mortals realize the Science of man and seek the true model.

SH 34:18-20

Through all the disciples experienced, they became more spiritual and understood better what the Master had taught.

SH 35:2

Convinced of the fruitlessness of their toil in the dark and wakened by their Master’s voice, they changed their methods, turned away from material things, and cast their net on the right side. Discerning Christ, Truth, anew on the shore of time, they were enabled to rise somewhat from mortal sensuousness, or the burial of mind in matter, into newness of life as Spirit.

SH 35:19-25

Our church is built on the divine Principle, Love. We can unite with this church only as we are new-born of Spirit, as we reach the Life which is Truth and the Truth which is Life by bringing forth the fruits of Love, — casting out error and healing the sick.

SH 41:6-7

Like our Master, we must depart from material sense into the spiritual sense of being.

SH 52:1

From early boyhood he was about his “Father’s business.” His master was Spirit; their master was matter. He served God; they served mammon. His affections were pure; theirs were carnal. His senses drank in the spiritual evidence of health, holiness, and life; their senses testified oppositely, and absorbed the material evidence of sin, sickness, and death.

SH 296:9

The old man with his deeds must be put off. Nothing sensual or sinful is immortal. The death of a false material sense and of sin, not the death of organic matter, is what reveals man and Life, harmonious, real, and eternal.

SH 45:6-10

Our Master fully and finally demonstrated divine Science in his victory over death and the grave. Jesus’ deed was for the enlightenment of men and for the salvation of the whole world from sin, sickness, and death.

SH 44:10

He met and mastered on the basis of Christian Science, the power of Mind over matter, all the claims of medicine, surgery, and hygiene.

SH 146:5-9

The first idolatry was faith in matter. The schools have rendered faith in drugs the fashion, rather than faith in Deity. By trusting matter to destroy its own discord, health and harmony have been sacrificed.

SH 167:11-14

We cannot serve two masters nor perceive divine Science with the material senses. Drugs and hygiene cannot successfully usurp the place and power of the divine source of all health and perfection.

SH 360:13-15, 17

Dear reader, which mind-picture or externalized thought shall be real to you, — the material or the spiritual? Both you cannot have. . . . If you try to have two models, then you practically have none. Like a pendulum in a clock, you will be thrown back and forth, striking the ribs of matter and swinging between the real and the unreal.

SH 481:1-2

How important, then, to choose good as the reality!

FRUITAGE: SH 670:21-32 (np)

[A]fter seeing my mother, who was fast drifting toward helplessness with rheumatism, restored to perfect health with only a few treatments in Christian Science, I thought surely this must be the truth as Jesus taught and practised it. . . . We soon got a copy of Science and Health . . . . This book was indeed a key to the Scriptures. It was not long after I began reading before I discovered that my eyes were good and strong, . . . I also noticed that I was entirely healed of another ailment which had been with me all my life, and which was believed to be inherited. . . . When I look back and view myself as I was before Christian Science found me, and compare it with my life as it now is, I can only close my eyes to the picture and rejoice that I have been “born again” and that I have daily been putting off “the old man with his deeds,” and putting on “the new man.” —  O. L. R., Fort Worth, Tex.

SH 583:14

The Church is that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race, rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of divine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick.

SH 9:17

Dost thou “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind”? This command includes much, even the surrender of all merely material sensation, affection, and worship. This is the El Dorado of Christianity. It involves the Science of Life, and recognizes only the divine control of Spirit, in which Soul is our master, and material sense and human will have no place.