Please join me at Matthew 6 - starting at verse 1.  We are going on with our study of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.  There’s good news and bad news. 

The bad news is that apart from God - God’s grace and mercy - what God has done for us on the cross - apart from Jesus dying in our place - taking our sins on Himself - apart from what God has done for us in Jesus we’re all toast.  We are sinners - hopelessly lost - bound by our sin - bound for eternity without God.

The good news is that God offers us so much more in the relationship that He offers to us in Jesus.  God has hugely undeservedly blessed us.  God Himself has come to us and - through what Jesus did on the cross - God made possible our relationship with Him.

Jesus has been teaching this huge diverse crowd - up on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee - Jesus has been teaching about how to enter into God’s blessing and to live in the relationship that God offers us - to live in that relationship at the heart level in the day to day stuff or our lives.

This morning - coming to Matthew 6 - we are coming to a new section of Jesus’ teaching.  Jesus focusing on what it means for us to live righteous.  God comes - blesses us - in Christ make us to be righteous.  Righteous meaning at the heart level God makes us to be right before Him - forgiven - nothing between us.  But, what does it mean for us to live righteous?  To live rightly before God in the day to day stuff of our lives.  That’s where Jesus is going here..

Short video clip.  As you’re watching be thinking about how important it is to know what the right thing is to do.

(VIDEO:  German Coast Guard)

Have any of you seen that?  Its hard to do the right thing - to live rightly before God - if we don’t know what the right thing to do is.

Coming to Matthew 6:1 - Jesus’ teaching is about the doing the right thing - living righteous - living the way that pleases God.

Matthew 6 - starting at verse 1 - let’s read this verse together:  Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. 

Verse 1 is Jesus introducing His theme for this section on righteousness.  Notice three things.

First thing:  The Warning.  Say that with me, “The warning.”  “Beware” - the Greek word - has the idea of paying careful attention - to really think this through - how you’re living - and to make adjustments as necessary.

As we go through this section Jesus is going to give us examples of what was understood by the people that were listening to Jesus - what those people would have understood as living righteously.  “Yep that’s what it means to please God.”  Jesus is going to give them - and us - examples of what appeared to be righteous living.  But Jesus wanted them - wants us - to think through that - to beware - do some honest evaluation here.

Are we really living lives that are pleasing to God or are we just going along with what everyone around us says is pleasing God?

Second - notice:  The Motivation.  Say that with me, “The motivation.” 

At the heart level - when we’re living out our relationship with God - what motivates us?  What’s going on in our hearts?  Is our desire-as Jesus said, is our desire “to be seen - to be noticed - by other people?”  Are we living righteously so that people around us will see how we’re living and think more highly of us?

As we go through this section Jesus is going to give us examples to pay attention to - examples that are going to help us to examine our hearts - the motivations - behind why we do what we do.

Then third - notice:  The Reward.  Say that with me, “The reward.”

There is a way to live before God that God doesn’t reward.  And, there’s a way to live before God that God does reward.  The assumption is that our desire is to be rewarded by God.  Are we together on that?  We want to live in a way that pleases God.  We want to seek God’s blessing not God’s wrath.

Jesus is going to give us two examples of the living the life that God rewards.

Verse 2 - first example - Read these with me:  Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others.  Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.  But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret.  And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Jesus’ first example:  Money.  Why?  Probably because money is huge - stuff is huge - what we possess is significant to us - and its very easy to get our hearts and thinking really wacked out over all that.  Yes?

Giving to the needy - or what some versions might translate as almsgiving - was commanded by God in His law and through His prophets.

Let’s be careful.  Jesus is not talking about giving to the professional poor people like we have today who earn a living by begging.  We’ve seen the cardboard signs - “God bless.  Veteran.  Will work for food.  Anything helps.”  Most of these people are just earning a living off the good hearts of others.  Their desire is simply to maintain their lifestyle of doing whatever they want to do.  Mostly drugs and other ungodly stuff.

In Jesus’ day there was a tax - that was commanded by God - that a person had to pay according to their ability.  The purpose of the tax was to provide relief for the poor.  People who were poor - not by lifestyle choice - but by circumstance of life.  Someone who paid that tax - a person was seen by others as really righteous if they gave above and beyond what was required.

You’ve heard the phrase “tooting your own horn”?  May have its origin here in verse 2.

The Pharisees - as they passed through the streets - progressing towards the Temple or to a synagogue - making their way to the offering box for the poor - had trumpeters marching in front of them.  The sound of the trumpets was like an ice cream truck moving through a park on a hot day - children coming out of no where.  The sound of trumpets would bring the poor out into the street to receive the coins that the Pharisees would toss out onto the street as they were going along towards the Temple.

The trumpets were blown to call people together to see how generous - how loving - how spiritual - how carefully the Pharisees fulfilled the law - to see and be humbled by the righteousness of the Pharisees.

The word “hypocrite” comes from the Greek word “hupokrites” which was the Greek word for someone who wore a mask - an actor who assumed the role of another person.  Over time it came to mean someone who was fake - someone who played a role with the world as their stage.  Jesus called these horn tooting almsgivers “hypocrites.”

Imagine the Temple complex in Jerusalem.  With its elaborately dressed priests - thousands of sacrifices.  Crowds of people.  Exchanges of money.  Animals.  Pilgrims.  Tourists.  The pious.  A religious drama being lived out daily.  The Pharisees - the so called righteous - living out their little drama to the adoration of men.  It wasn’t really like the Pharisees actually cared about the poor.  What they cared about was their own reputation - appearing righteous.

Jesus warns that those who toot their own horns - whose motivation is to be honored by men - have their reward in full.  They have their fleeting moment in the sun.  Their moment on stage.  The adoration of the people.  And then that’s it.

Have you ever been in churches where just about everything’s got a name tag giving the name of who donated what?  Who donated what rooms or buildings?  The pews?  The Mr. Coffee?

Many many many years ago - one church we used to have meetings in had a classroom where most of the space was taken up by this huge dark wooden table that had a large brass plaque in the middle of it giving the name of who’d donated it.  I remember the plaque because when we’d meet around that table stuff kept getting stuck on the plaque as things were being moved around.  Cups got tipped over.  Food spilled.

Are we together?  Some churches regularly print the names of their donors in their newsletter.  Every donation - no matter how small - is publicized.  Reasoning goes - if we didn’t recognize these people they wouldn’t give.

Those who give for recognition have their reward - a letter - a handshake in some ceremony - a picture in a paper - a brass plaque.  But that’s it.

According to Jesus the kind of giving that God rewards has nothing to do with the recognition we gain from others and everything to do with what goes on in our hearts.

Which is why Jesus warns us, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. 

Let’s be careful.  That’s a warning that’s majorly misunderstood - especially when we’re talking about putting brass plaques on things.  Jesus is not saying, “Don’t let anyone know what you’re giving.”  If that were Jesus point He’d be contradicting Scripture where God made a point of letting people know what people were giving.

Jesus is teaching about “your left hand” “your right hand” “your giving may be in secret.”  That’s personal.  Jesus taking us - our egos - our pride - our idea that somehow all this is about us - taking us out of the driver seat of our giving.

Not letting our left hand know what our right hand is doing means that we don’t allow our minds to dwell on what awesome people we are.  How we’ve denied ourselves.  How we’ve given more of our stuff more sacrificially than others.  The incredible sensitivity we’ve shown to the moving of the Holy Spirit.

God isn’t impressed with the little things we do to impress others or to delude ourselves.  He sees the secret places of our hearts.  What’s inside - behind the mask.  Its those secret - deep down - motivations - that God is looking to reward.  That’s what Jesus is focusing us on.

The shortest man in the Bible was who?  Peter, because he slept on his watch.  Next to the shortest?  Bildad the shoe height (Shuhite).  Third shortest?  Nehemiah (knee high miah).  Fourth shortest?  Zacheus.

Let’s sing this together…

Zaccheus was a wee little man

A wee little man was he.

He climbed up in a Sycamore tree

The Lord he wanted to see.

Zaccheus was a tax collector - a legal thief working for the occupying government.  He’d gotten filthy rich ripping off his own people.  Jesus goes and stays in Zaccheus’ house.  All the righteous people are indignant.

But Zaccheus does what?  He receives Jesus into his house and then tells Jesus, “Half of my goods I will give to the poor.  And, if I’ve ripped off anyone - which of course he had - lots - I’ll give back four times as much.” 

Jesus makes this incredible pronouncement:  “Today salvation has come to this house… For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.”  (Luke 19:1-10)

Zaccheus wasn’t interested in any hypocritical pretense of righteousness.  He’d already been judged by the crowd.  What he was interested in was responding to God’s love - God’s forgiveness - God’s presence in his life.  A sinner humbly responding to God, Zaccheus gave generously.  Do you hear Zaccheus’ heart?

Giving to the poor - almsgiving - as an example for us - is not about giving some change to a professional poor person with a “God Bless You” cardboard sign - so that somehow we’ll feel less guilty or so others will think more highly of us - some kind of peer pressure thing.

Giving to the poor - at its basic heart level - should come from our hearts.  Knowing how much God loves us - with all our needs - the greatest of which is salvation - we give to others.  That’s how people who know they’ve been loved by God - that’s how they share His love with others.

Everything we have and everything we are comes from God - if there’s anything that we’ve been blessed with - the source is God.  Life is about God not us.  Everything we are and all that God has blessed us with is His to be used for Him as He purposes for His glory not ours.  If we can get our hearts and minds wrapped around that truth we can begin to get passed ourselves and to give as Jesus is teaching here.

We need to be honest with ourselves.   What really is our heart level understanding of what we possess?  What really is our heart motivation in giving?  There’s a fine line between giving motivated by self - and giving motivated by God. 

Jesus’ next example we’re going to look at comes in verse 16.  We’re going to skip verses 5 to 15 for now.  We’ll come back to them next Sunday and take them as whole separate teaching.  For now, skip with me down to verse 16.

Example number two - living the life that God rewards - example number two:  Fasting.  

Verse 16 - let’s read this together:  And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others.  Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.  But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret.  And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Fasting is kind of an unusual subject for us.  In “evangelical” circles we don’t hear a lot of sermons on fasting. 

Fasting - first of all - fasting is associated with food.  Fasting can also include denying ourselves other things besides food.  We just began Lent last Wednesday.  People give up all kinds of things for lent:  chocolate - coffee - Facebook.

Fasting is the purposeful voluntary choice of abstaining from something.  Point being:  when we fast we’re setting aside the distractions of our lives and prayerfully and purposefully placing ourselves fully in God’s presence to hear from Him.

God’s law - Old Testament - required only one fast - which was to take place once a year on the Day of Atonement - the great celebration of God’s covering of the sins of His penitent people.  As time went by God’s people added a number of other fasts to the list.  Where they would abstain from eating foods for a specified period of time - usually sunrise to sunset.

They fasted to provide for the poor.  Fasted for healing from fears and other mental problems.  Fasted for solutions to problems.  Fasted for protection from Satan.

In the New Testament there are examples of fasts.  Fasting for being able to give one’s testimony.  Fasting for freedom from addiction.  Fasting for insight and decision making.  There are a number of different reasons why people fast.

Bottom line:  Scripture associates fasting with humiliation, sorrow over our sins, brokenheartedness, repentance, consecration, seeking God’s will to be done in our lives.

Are we together?  Fasting is a deeply personal act of opening our hearts up to God - desiring to hear from Him - to have Him work in us and through us - in the circumstances of our lives.

The Pharisees boasted that they fasted twice a week - every Monday and Thursday.  They made sure that everyone knew they were fasting.  They paraded around in public with these long sorrowful faces.  Went without washing and shaving - without paying attention to basic hygiene - didn’t use deodorant or Fufu juice.  They’d sprinkle ashes on their heads to show everyone how humbled before God they were - how deeply sorrowful for their sins. 

All of which Jesus labeled as hypocrisy.  Because their real heart motivation was to exalt themselves rather than to draw closer to God.  Whatever reward they got was from the oou’s and ahw’s of the crowd.  Not God.

Jesus told a parable about two men who had gone to the Temple to pray.  One was a Pharisee.  The other was a tax collector.  A contrast in the eyes of Jesus’ hearers.  The super righteous Pharisee verses the not even close to righteous hated tax collector.

Remember this?

The Pharisee stands up in the Temple and prays to himself - well, and anyone else who might be listening:  “God, I thank you that I’m not like other men; swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week; I give tithes from all that I get.”

The tax collector is standing off a ways away from the Pharisee - in a less noticeable spot.  He’s not praying to be noticed - not even daring to assume that he can move close to the presence of God.  He can’t even look up when he prays.  That would be too arrogant.  He’s beating his chest.  He’s broken.  He’s in mourning over his sin.  He’s praying, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner.”

Jesus’ summary of the parable is this:  “I tell you, this man - not the outwardly righteous Pharisee but the seemingly not even close to righteous tax collector - this man went to his house justified rather, than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the who humbles himself will be - what? exalted.” (Luke 18:9-14)

Do you see what Jesus is getting at here?  Fasting has a whole lot more to it than just not eating.  Fasting has to do with what’s going on in our heart relationship with God verses our practicing our spirituality before others

If we’re fasting and wanting other people to know about it we’ve missed the whole purpose of fasting - denying ourselves because we want to draw closer to God - to more deeply love Him and know His presence in our lives.  When we seek to exalt ourselves - even if its in our own minds - doing things in such a way that we get credit for - our acts of service - our self-denial - offered up to God - we are in serious trouble.

Jesus says, “When you fast don’t be obvious about it.  God knows.  God will reward you based on what’s coming out of your heart.  That’s what really counts.”

Giving and fasting are life characteristics of those who live in right relationship with the living God.  “When you give” and “Whenever you fast.”  Not “If you give” or “If you fast.”  What Jesus is teaching us is how to give and fast in a way that really is righteous - that really does please God - that He does reward.

The bottom line:  We need to honestly examine our actions to see the motivation of our hearts.  In the depths of our hearts - what motivates us - what God is looking at - are we focused on ourselves or are we focused on God?

Are we together on what Jesus is getting at?  Living rightly - righteously - is about living with our hearts focused on God - not everyone else - not us.  But God.  At the heart level seeking with all that we are what meets with His approval.

In thinking about what that can look like for us as we head out of here into out there - there is a significant danger that each of us faces - that Jesus is touching on here.  Here it is:  It is way too easy for us to be impressed with our own spirituality.  Even to expect that others would be impressed with our spirituality.

Larry Osborne - an E Free Church pastor down in San Diego - Larry writes about “Accidental Pharisees.”  Larry writes that accidental Pharisees are “people like you and me who, despite the best intentions and a desire to honor God, unwittingly end up pursuing an overzealous model of faith that sabotages the work of the Lord we think we’re serving.  The problem is not spiritual zeal.  That’s a good thing.  We’re all called to be zealous for the Lord.   The problem is unaligned spiritual passion, a zeal for the Lord that fails to line up with the totality of Scripture.” (1)

We can love God.  We can love God’s word.  And yet, we can get way off track if at the heart level we’re not aligned - centered in on - God.

When we’re doing stuff for God.  Any area of ministry or just where we’re living our lives at home or school or in the community.  Or the time we give serving here.  The hours we put in - like with AWANA or Children’s Worship or going down to Mexico - filling shoeboxes - playing instruments - singing - working with tech stuff - or just being here on a Sunday morning when we have so many other things we could be doing - catching up on sleep being one of them.  But we’re here.  Being zealous for God.  Being committed.  In this place that we’re sacrificing our money to pay for and our time to serve with this congregation.  How we’re giving and serving more than some others are.

Do you hear how subtle that self-focus thing creeps in?

How easy it is for us to slip into focusing on ourselves - all the ways we’re sacrificing for God - our being tempted to think of ourselves as being righteous and wanting others to recognize that.  Are we together?

We may be here worshipping.  But if we're thinking about all that we’re doing for God - thinking about all that we expect from God because we’re here - we may actually be worshipping ourselves and not God.

It is vitally crucial that our hearts are aligned with God’s heart - that our expectation and understanding of what God desires to reward us with is what God desires to reward us with.  That what we are zealously seeking after is not what we are zealously seeking after but what God actually desires to bless us with. 

Do you remember the parable that Jesus told about the master who went on a journey?  Before he left the master calls his servants in and gives them talents.  Five talents to one servant.  Two talents to another servant.  The last servant got one talent.  Remember this?

The talents are the master’s to give.  There’s no transfer of title or ownership.  The servants have no expectation that they should be given anything.  The talents are not owed to them.  They’re simply given to them because they’re the servants.  They have this master-servant relationship thing going.

What the talents were we really don’t know.  Were they a unit of weight?  Coinage?  There are various estimates of what these talents might be worth - somewhere between $5,000 each and $500,000.  They might represent up to 20 years of work to earn.  Point being that they’re valuable.  But, that really limits Jesus’ point to simple finances.

The talent - as Jesus is using it as an illustration - the talent is much more than just money.  It represents applied ability - time - gifting - resources - and even money.  Jesus is focusing us on what we do with what God gives us... and why. 

The master goes on a long journey - comes back - and then what?  He asks each servant what he did with the talents.  The five talent servant did what?  Traded with the five and earned five more.  The two talent servant did what?  Traded with the two and earned two more.  A commitment of everything they’ve been given - put to use - in order to serve their master.

The one talent servant did what?  Buried it and earned nothing.  His reasoning?  “I hid the talent because I know how you operate and I was afraid.”  Heart level fear - a focus on self-preservation - as if the talent is all about him - not the Master.

The master tells Servant One and Servant Two.  It’s kind of a Dr. Seuss moment.  The master tells servant one and servant two:  “Well done, good and faithful what? servant.  Because you did well with a few things I’m going to put you in charge of many things.  Enter into the joy of your master.”  (Matthew 25:14-30)

There are “well done” high fives all around.  The servants are faithful.  The number of talents is doubled.  The master has a profit.  The servants are rewarded.    Responsibility is added.  There’s joy which comes from the master and the servants get to experience that joy.  They get the key to the executive washroom.  Use of the Ferrari chariot with the genuine goat hide hand rail.

The “I buried it” one talent servant is severely punished.

In Jesus’ parable reward is a good thing.  Something we should strive for.  Being rewarded by the master - God.  God really does desire to reward us.  Let’s say that together.  “God desires to reward us.” 

But let’s be careful.  With everything that Jesus said about giving and fasting - and what motivates us - doesn’t it seem a bit self-focused in our thinking - to serve God for the sake of being rewarded?  Shouldn’t it be enough just to do what’s right because it’s the right thing to do and not have in the back of our minds the thought of being rewarded?

We need to be clear on exactly what this reward of God is and why He blesses us with it.

When Jesus says that our Master - our Father in heaven - will reward us  He’s focusing on God - who created us - gives to us our abilities - talents -  gives us everything we need to be successful in serving Him in the first place - and is just waiting to bless us.  To reward us.  To give us more.  To fill us with His joy - the joy of the Master.

That reward isn’t about outward stuff - accolades and things - and happy times - what we tend to focus ourselves on and try to hang on to - the small picture vision we have of what makes us truly happy.  God’s reward is much more valuable that all that.  Much more needed in our lives. 

C.S. Lewis in his sermon “The Weight of Glory” - C.S. Lewis says this:  “We must not be troubled by unbelievers when they say that this promise of reward makes the Christian life a mercenary affair.  There are different kinds of reward.  There is the reward which has no natural connection with the things you do to earn it, and is quite foreign to the desires that ought to accompany those things.  Money is not the natural reward of love; that is why we call a man mercenary if he marries a woman for the sake of her money.  But marriage is the proper reward for a real lover, and he is not mercenary for desiring it.” (2)

In other words, when we’re living sold out to God - from our hearts devoted to pleasing Him with all He’s blessed us with - what we will experience is the reward that comes from satisfying the heart of God.  Not a temporal - here today and I forgot it tomorrow - kind of joy.  But eternal joy that comes from eternally being in the presence and pleasure of God - even today.

Can you imagine the almighty sovereign God of the universe saying to you personally, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”  That’s reward.  That touches the deepest needs of our lives.  Acceptance.  Approval. 

Our Heavenly Father desires to reward us.  To lavish His love on us.  To abundantly bless those who make choices for His sake.  Who live righteously from the heart.

There is a challenge here and a reward.  For us to live our lives not for the acceptance and approval of those around us but to live our lives as an offering for our Father in heaven who sees our hearts - what’s done in secret - and will reward us.

_______________

1. Larry Osborne, “Accidental Pharisees - Avoiding Pride, Exclusivity, and the other Dangers of Overzealous Faith,  Zondervan, 2012

2. C.S. Lewis, sermon “The Weight of Glory” 06.08.1942