The God Worth Serving
Trinity 15| Matthew 6:24-34| Pastor James Preus| Trinity Lutheran Church| September 13, 2026
When Jesus says, “You cannot serve God and money,” He is teaching us the First Commandment: You shall have no other gods. What does this mean? “We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.” Whatever you fear, love, and trust in most is your god. So, you do not need to set up an altar to a false deity and make sacrifices to it to break this first commandment, but whatever you fear, love, and trust in instead of God is your false god, your idol. Money is one of the most common idols people worship. They fear, love, and trust in it instead of God. And so, they skip church, neglect prayers, and obsess in their hearts and minds how to acquire money instead of fearing, loving, and trusting in God.
“I am the Lord; that is My name; My glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols,” says God in Isaiah 42:8. And so, God will not share his glory with money. God forbids you to worship money. Yet, it is not only that God is jealous of your affection toward money and other things. Before God gave Israel the First Commandment, He made this declaration, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” (Exodus 20:2) Then He commanded them to have no other gods. In other words, the gods of the Canaanites and Philistines did not rescue you from slavery in Egypt. Only the Lord God did. Only He could! Do not waste your time worshiping and serving idols, who cannot rescue you. Rather, worship only the true God who has the power and desire to save you.
And Jesus teaches us in the same way when He forbids us from serving money. He tells us, “You cannot serve God and money.” And then He immediately declares, “Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” Later He concludes, “Your Heavenly Father knows that you need them all.” Jesus connects serving money and anxiety. Why? Because the fruit of serving money is anxiety, worry, and finally, death.
St. Paul writes in 1 Timothy 6, “But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.” (vss. 9-10) Money is a tool God uses to give you your daily bread. You are supposed to use it, but not to worship it or trust in it. God could provide for you without money. And you could have all the money in the world, and yet still have a miserable life. Money cannot give you a good relationship with your family. Money cannot give you perfect health. Money cannot take away your sins or give you eternal life. Yet, God does use money, as He uses many other created things, to provide you daily bread and opportunities to serve.
Yet, if you look at money as the source of your good, instead of one of the means by which God provides for you, then you will look to money as your god. The fruit of this worship is anxiety and worry, because money does not love you. Money does not promise you anything. Money always fails those who trust in it. To those who do not have money, but desire it, money makes them anxious for what they do not have. For those who do have money, money makes them anxious that they will lose what they have. Money is a cruel and cold god, which enslaves its worshipers yet always abandons them in their greatest need.
Just consider the richest people on earth, with their billions or even trillion-dollar net worth. Would you trade your life for any of theirs? Many are divorced with children who hate them, surrounded by people who love them only for their money, who are mixed up in unspeakable evils, who do not believe the Gospel of Christ, so their riches will abandon them to hell when they die! Why would you be envious of those poor souls?! No amount of money will solve your problems or secure your daily bread. It is God, who may or may not use money to care for His creatures whom He loves. The fruit of serving money is anxiety. The fruit of serving God, on the other hand, is contentment, as St. Paul also writes, “But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.” (1 Timothy 6:6-8)
And here, Jesus directs our attention to some unlikely teachers, who will instruct us. The birds of the air and the lilies of the field. Now, how can birdbrains and senseless flowers teach us anything? What do we have to learn from birds and lilies? These creatures teach us to trust our Father in heaven so that we do the work He gives us to do without worrying. If God so feeds and clothes these lesser creatures, how much more will He provide for you, who are of infinitely more value than they? God sent His own Son, Christ Jesus to die for you, so that He could save your body and soul from hell? How could He neglect to care for the daily needs of your body?
The birds and flowers do not teach us not to work. God commanded Adam to eat by the sweat of his brow, and He has not removed that command from us (Genesis 3:19). St Paul writes in 2 Thessalonians 3, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.” (vs. 10) The birds are certainly busy gathering food. And the flowers marvel biologists with their industry. Yet, they do not worry at all. So much less should we worry, but entrust our care to God who loves us.
Because God uses our labor and money to provide for us, we often conclude that our labor and money are what provide. But that is not true. Do you think you are a harder worker than those who survived the great depression? Is laziness the cause of every famine? No, it is God who provides and at times, withholds His bounty. And so, we should trust in Him instead of the means by which He provides. When we do this, we set aside worrying. Because you know that God’s bounty is endless, that He desires to care for you, and His timing and purpose are always perfect. Worrying accomplishes nothing. But God blesses the home that trusts in Him.
Instead of worrying about what you will eat or drink, or what you will wear, Jesus tells you to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all the rest will be added unto you. But with what does God feed and clothe us in His Kingdom? For water to drink, Christ gives us His Holy Spirit, who grants eternal life to those in whom He abides. In John 4, Jesus says, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:13-14) and in John 7, Jesus cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” And John writes, “Now this He said about the Spirit” (John 7:37-39) In John 6, Jesus said, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst.” And of course, in the Sacrament of the Altar, Jesus offers us His body, given into death for us, and His blood shed for us for the forgiveness of sins (Matthew 26:26-28). Will He who offers us such precious food and drink, obtained at great cost, and which grants eternal benefits, then fail to provide food for our bellies?
In His Kingdom, God clothes us with righteousness and salvation, even with Christ Jesus Himself, with robes washed clean in His blood. The Prophet Isaiah declares in chapter 61, “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation; He has covered me with the robe of righteousness,” (vs. 10) St. Paul writes in Galatians 3, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” (vs. 37) and St. John describes the saints in heaven in Revelation 7, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
If God so clothes us in His kingdom, so that we may stand before His judgment throne without shame or fear, but spotless and without blemish, will He fail to cover our naked bodies with clothing and shelter us in this short life?
And so, anxiety and worry are fruits of unbelief and the worshiping of a false god, who doesn’t help at all. But when we trust in God through faith in Christ Jesus, who won for us salvation, who feeds and clothes us with eternal food and clothing, then we have no need to worry about tomorrow or slave after money and obey its demands. If we trusted in God’s promises through Jesus, we would not only feel better concerning our position in life, but we would also live better.
We willingly make sacrifices today, so that we may reap more later. We don’t spend money on things we want today, so that we may invest it, so that it grows, so that we may use it in retirement, or to help fund our children’s education, or give them a headstart in life. We invest time, energy, and money on our children’s education and extracurricular activities. We put our trust in systems built by men, like the stock market. But do we trust God to give us a return if we invest in the Kingdom of God? 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.” (Matthew 6:19-21)
Instead of spending time worrying, we should spend time investing in our children’s eternal inheritance, praying with them, reading Scripture to them, bringing them to church and Sunday School. That is how you lay up treasures in heaven where moth and rust cannot destroy. St. Paul admonishes us, “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” (Galatians 6:7-8) And again in 2 Corinthians 9, Paul writes, “whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.” What greater thing can be sown than that for God’s kingdom? We understand sowing and reaping, but unbelief blocks us from recognizing what is the greater harvest!
The worship of money leads to anxiety, worry, bad investments, and ultimately death and hell. But the worship of God leads to contentment, a peaceful mind as God cares for your body and soul, productive labor, good investments that will not fail, but will be harvested in eternity, and of course, eternal life. We know this, because Christ sowed the most bountiful seed, His own body for our sins, so that He might rise to be the firstfruits of a most bountiful harvest. We are that harvest, if we trust in Christ. And so, we should join Christ in sowing for that harvest that does not fail. Amen.