Bobby Bosler: I’m Bobby Bosler and I’m speaking to you today from Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, where the weather outside has been a little bit frightful over the last couple of weeks. It’s gotten cold here, but it’s been thrilling to see what God has done.

We’re actually just about this weekend to have our Christmas Carol program, where we have thousands of people registered to come, not only to hear the age-old story of Scrooge and Marley and Tiny Tim, who, by the way, is being played by my son David. But they’re coming to hear the gospel, and we will have thousands of people here, many of whom will be lost. And there will be a clear presentation of the gospel.

I’ve been in some prayer meetings, and I’m just thrilled at what God is doing in our hearts, and looking forward to see what God is going to do in lives here this weekend. So if you think of it, pray for us this weekend that God would work and that many, many people would be saved.

But you know, as I’ve been just kind of in on some of the practices here and there, just observing Ebenezer Scrooge, I think, you know, one of the great issues with Ebenezer Scrooge was he was a miser. He was a man who lived his life for the material. And of course, our adaptation of the program highlights that and his need for the gospel and for Jesus Christ.

But as I was thinking about that, and as I was as I was thinking about, uh, resuming our podcast schedule here, I was thinking, you know, as much as I might point the finger and say, huh, Scrooge, don’t be a Scrooge. Isn’t it so easy to live for material things? You know, we’ve talked about this before, I think this past July, uh, in the podcast, uh, that, you know, the love of money is the root of all evil.

It’s set in direct antithesis to, uh, living true godliness, which is total surrender to God. Uh, and as I was thinking about this, and as I was thinking about Ebenezer Scrooge and the Christmas season, I, I couldn’t get my mind off of this verse in Matthew chapter six and verse twenty-four where Jesus was speaking and he said, no man 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. And you know, there’s a lot that I could say about the overall argument that he’s tracing here, but I really just want to focus on that verse here at this time.

And as we go around and say Merry Christmas, I think we need to be cautious of the great destructive destroyer of Christmas cheer. And that is Mammon. You know, in this holiday season, uh, I think many of us are looking forward to receiving gifts and giving gifts.

And there’s a lot of material things that are passed between hands during this time of the year. Uh, it’s probably one of the biggest boons for our economy as parents and other people purchase gifts and things for their children. And, uh, you know, many of you, you’re in your teenage years, you’re still receiving gifts from your, your parents sometimes many, uh, depending on your economic situation.

But I want to challenge you here this Christmas season. What are you going to be living for? Because really, you will live for a single master this Christmas season.

You know, I find sometimes when the schedule changes and maybe you’re not in school for a week or two, it’s really easy to get focused on yourself and what you can get for yourself, or what you can experience, or what you can accomplish. And your focus can get off of serving Jesus Christ. And Jesus made it very clear here in this passage.

No one, no one can multitask their masters. You know, I think sometimes we can come into a season like this and we can have this thought, well, you know what? I’ll give some extra time for myself and I’ll serve Jesus, too.

We can think, you know, hey, listen, this is the Christmas season. It’s a different time I can live for me for a certain period of time and give this certain period of time for Jesus. And I don’t know about you, but in my personal experience, I have found that that never works.

Because, you know, what happens is when we get into the me-first perspective, when we get into the I’m just going to indulge me just a little bit. It bleeds into the rest of your life, and your change of focus totally pulls you back from serving Jesus. And what happens is you all of a sudden find yourself at conflict with your goals.

Um, and you end up not serving Jesus at all. He says here, you cannot serve God and mammon. I’ve never really looked up that word mammon before, but as I looked it up, I saw, uh, one, uh, lexicon said it’s an Aramaic word, uh, which in other words, it’s not a Greek word.

It’s from, uh, quasi-Hebrew kind of, uh, background there. It’s defined as wealth and riches with a strongly negative connotation. It could be the idea of worldly wealth or riches.

I read in another place. It had to do with, um, uh, gain in the material realm. Uh, so it may not just be talking about money, it’s talking about things.

And you know, this Christmas, you might find yourself looking around at what everyone else got and, uh, starting to covet those things and starting to wish that maybe you and your family could do more. Uh, you could look and be jealous over things that other people got. Or maybe you did get something that was everything you ever wanted, uh, that Christmas.

But you can let your focus shift off of Jesus and living your life for him and to allow it to shift over to living your life and spending your days and your minutes and hours on that thing or that stuff or that money. As much as Christmas ought to be a time of celebrating the incredible gifts we’ve received from Jesus and worshiping Jesus as the giver of those gifts. So many times.

Isn’t it a time when we focus on the gift and not on the giver, the ultimate giver of those gifts? Uh, this is not a complicated challenge here today. Really, my burden for you young people here this Christmas: don’t live your life for Mammon.

Don’t live for the things that you can receive or even the things that you can give. Live your life for Jesus. Let Jesus be your sole master.

Let him be the one who determines how you spend your days, your minutes, your hours. Let him be that which you seek. Let him be that which you focus on.

May he be the true master of your life this Christmas season. That is total surrender. And of course, that’s going to be impossible without Jesus’s power.

And that is where total dependence comes in. I know it’s been a little bit of time since we’ve had these podcasts, and I apologize for the, uh, the lapse. There’s been a lot going on here in Menomonee Falls.

Uh, but I just want to encourage you here as you look forward to your Christmas break and this Christmas season, live your life for Jesus. Be totally surrendered to him in every moment of every day and be totally dependent on him not just to have a good holiday season, but to reach the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thanks so much for listening and Merry Christmas.