2006-11-26 Communion Dedication – Baldwin Christian Church 

Luke 16:10-14 

10 He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.

11 If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?

12 And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own?

13 No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

14 And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him. 

In this life we will all face periods of trouble, when doubts creep into our minds, and we’re tempted to grumble against God.  We might think that we’ve been doing what God wants us to do, and we’re frustrated because nothing seems to be going our way in life.  Jesus gave us a checklist in these verses to help us get back on track, and get through these times. 

First of all, God is Master of all creation.  We must worship Him, not His creation.  He owns the right to every speck of it, and His judgments are final.  He gives us free will, but all this stuff is His.  In spiritual matters it is the same.  In Him we live, and move, and have our being.  We owe our existence to Him (Acts 17:28), and we owe all our hope to Him because He sent His only begotten Son to pay our debt of sin. 

We can hear these things a hundred times, maybe even believe them with all our hearts, but there are still going to be times when we feel uncertain and worried about money and possessions, and times when we feel uncertain and worried about our faith.  At times like these, we can come to this passage, and go down this checklist. 

In verse ten, we should be asking ourselves about the little things.  Have we been dishonest, even in the inconsequential, little things?  Revelation 12:10 says that the devil accuses us before God whenever he gets a chance, and he never sleeps. 

1 Peter 2:15 For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: 

No test is too small.  Prove the accusations wrong by holding true to Jesus, even during those times when you think nobody is looking.  Hold true to Jesus in the small things, and the big things will come.  It’s not much of a test for me to do the right thing when I think everybody is watching me, but if I do the right thing when I think nobody is watching, that’s when I have put God first.  Besides, there is no such thing as a time when nobody is watching. 

Hebrews 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 

It’s not easy to do the right thing when nobody is watching.  We think we can get away with being lazy or less than honest, but the Bible tells us that a large audience is always watching.  This is not an audience that forgets about what we did, either.  This is a spiritual audience in high places, powers of darkness and light. 

The power we have is in the decisions we make.  You and I are faced with these decisions many times each day.  We can serve ourselves and give power to our accuser (that’s the easy way), or we can choose to serve God and silence the accuser.  We have that choice.  We have that power. 

Jesus chose the hard way, and He left us with this checklist to help us choose the hard way.  We can serve mammon without much resistance because that’s the devils will for us.  If we are going to overcome, we have to be faithful in the little things, one at a time, day by day.