The Sermon on the Mount XIII

Subtitle:  Correcting the Righteousness of the Hypocrites IV

Matthew 6:16-21.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, March 3, 2024.

Today, we will finish this central section where Jesus corrects the righteousness of the hypocrites for his followers.  We will particularly be looking at fasting.

Let’s look at our passage regarding the way we should fast.

The way of righteousness in fasting (v. 16-18)

As Jesus has said in the other issues of charitable giving and prayer, so he says here.  The hypocrites are only fasting in order to be seen by others.  They want the glory and praise that comes from people.  It is an interesting thing that, in all the ways we shouldn’t be focused on others, we generally are, and in all of the ways we should be focused on others, we generally are not.  Of course, this is the tendency of our sinful nature.

I will give a caveat up front in this passage.  It is clear that Jesus is talking about a private fast that you may do on your own and not a group fast for a specific purpose.  Israel did have a fast on the Day of Atonement, in which everyone would fast.  We see some similar things among the early Church.  Acts 13 shows us that Barnabas and Paul were called into their missionary work during a time of group prayer and fasting.  Later, in Acts 14, they had been able to build many groups of converts.  We see Barnabas and Saul fasting and praying as they commended elders in each new church.  So, there is a time and a place for fasts within a community for specific purposes.  In such things, others will know that you are fasting, but generally so are they.

Jesus is not making a new law in which no one can ever see you fast, or you are in trouble.  The true point is that the hypocrites “love” others seeing them, rather than God.  There is no fundamental relationship of love to their times of fasting.  Thus, such group times of fasting should be the tip of the iceberg.  Ice bergs always have much more mass under the water (that you can’t see), then what is above the surface.  In fact, icebergs that have large chunks drop off under the water can even flip over. 

Again, Jesus is showing us how to please God in our personal times of fasting.

Last week, I mentioned The Didache, a document for new disciples whose title means “The Teaching.”  In this manuscript, new converts are told not to fast on Monday and Thursday like the hypocrites.  This may seem odd, if you don’t know the cultural dynamics in Israel at the time. 

The religious leaders had developed the tradition of fasting on Mondays and Thursdays.  It wasn’t required, but if you wanted to be seen as a righteous leader, then you pretty much needed to do so.  The idea is that new Christians who continue to fast on Monday and Thursday are doing so in order to avoid persecution.  You would look like you are following the traditions of the elders, and no one would suspect you are a Christian.  The point is not the day, Monday and Thursday.  The point is the reasoning of your heart.  What are you after?  They wanted people to see them fasting, and this is hypocritical.

Jesus is able to judge this because he knows what is in their hearts.  Yet, he doesn’t point to this.  Instead, he points to some external acts that they do, which reveal their hearts.  It wouldn’t take divine omniscience to recognize something was wrong with these guys who were always looking for attention.

Jesus points to their sad countenance.  They would walk around with a sad countenance when they were fasting, and most likely acted a little more weak than they needed to do.  Of course, it is not about sadness.  We may sometimes fast following a sad event, like the death of a loved one.  The point here is about drawing attention to the fact that they are fasting.  Jesus further describes them “disfiguring” their faces (NKJV).  Here is the idea of the Greek word behind this.  Whatever you are talking about will have something that is considered to be nice-looking, presentable condition of it.  When that is spoiled or ruined, this word would be used of it.  Thus, a person goes to bed at night not looking so bad,  but then wake up in the morning not looking so good.  We usually fix ourselves up to go out in public.  These guys would purposefully not fix themselves up, of course, because they were fasting.  This also drew attention to them.

I remember one time in grade school where a friend and I walked off of campus to his house in order to play video games.  The school called the house and my friend answered the phone.  We were busted of course and told to come back to school (where his mom worked no less).  As we headed to school, we figured our best excuse would be to say that we were feeling sick.  And, guess what, I had no problem looking pale and sick when I arrived at the principal’s office because I knew I was in trouble when my parents found out.  We should never underestimate the power of a hypocrite to put on an act that is worthy of an Oscar Award when they desperately want to do so.  I was powerfully motivated by my flesh.

However, God was not impressed with what these hypocrites were doing- I’m back to talking about the religious leaders of the days of Jesus.  Many people were impressed with their sheer volume of fasting.  However, I wonder if there were some people who were turned off by this? 

Jesus then tells us that “Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.”  God doesn’t owe them a red cent.  They want the praise of people and that is all they are going to get.  However, they probably vainly imagine that God is impressed with their works, like the praying Pharisee in Luke 18:12.  “I fast twice a week…”

Yet, in Isaiah 58, we are told that God is more interested in the heart that is behind the fasting.  If your heart is oriented towards God, then your fasting will become focused on the things that are important to God.  You will be focused on honoring His Name, living out His Kingdom rule and doing His will.  Yes, Isaiah speaks about helping the poor, but think about what that means in light of honoring God, His rule and His will.  We can help the poor out of a wicked heart as well.  We can do it as a moral cloak for selfish reasons.  However, when we love people as God loves them, it then becomes a clean thing.  They had gone without food, but the fought with one another and ripped off their employees.  They weren’t fasting for God, but for their own glory.  Am I working for the glory of God and His purposes?

All of this begs the question, why should we fast at all?  Fasting is a way to bring  your fleshly desires under control.  They are a battle for everyone who wishes to become like God, like Jesus.  We do not want to be ruled by our flesh and its desires.  We don’t want to be a person of the flesh, but a person who is led by the Spirit of God.  James used the analogy of a wild horse.  Breaking in a horse so that it is useful is essentially a battle of will, and it requires wisdom.  Our flesh is naturally hostile to the things of the Spirit of God (His purposes).  Fasting is a mechanism by which we put a bridle in our flesh, so that it can be useful for the work of God’s Kingdom.

This brings us to a second purpose.  It not only brings our flesh under control, but it also orients and focuses us towards the things of Christ, of His Spirit.  Fasting is always accompanied by increased prayer.  We are telling ourselves that we would rather have God than a full belly.  God means more to me than food.  “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”  This is essentially at the base of all true fasting.  It is a worship of God.

Of course, we must avoid thinking that God is impressed, i.e., answers our prayers, for the sake of a quantity of days we fast.  In fact, we should be careful that our fasts are not driven by a single-focused prayer for a particular item or act that we desire from Him.  Ultimately, we come as beggars to God asking for wisdom to live out His purposes in this life.  “Lord, please lead me by Your Spirit!”

Jesus tells his disciples to fast in order to be seen by the Father, and not men.  In fact, he just assumes his people will give charity, pray and fast in this section.

The Father who is in the secret place will see your fasting and reward you.  This is different than prayer.  We don’t have to go into our closet to fast.  However, we should keep our private fasts hidden as we go about our day.  In this way, the “secret place,” or “hidden place,” is a spiritual place before God, no matter where we are.  No one can tell your belly is empty as you walk around.  We are to squelch the desire of our flesh to obtain credit and praise from the people around us.  This is what makes it a hidden place before God.

Jesus tells us to do the opposite of the hypocrites.  Instead of looking sad and a “disfigured” face, we should do all the things that we would normally do when we go out in public.  Jesus tells them to anoint their head and wash their face.  You might even want to slap your face a couple times to combat that pale look you might get when you are not used to fasting.  The whole point is to make sure that you do not stick out, so that people won’t ask if you are fasting, or guess that you are.

By the way, don’t be a person who is always asking people if they are fasting, or other such things.  Don’t be a guesser.  We are to be brothers and sisters walking together with the LORD.  We will have different expressions of love for God at different times, and that is good.  Let it be what it is.

Let me just say a few more things on our reward for fasting.  You may not receive everything that you want, or even prayed for.  Fasting is not the secret to receiving everything you want.  It was never about that.  In fact, we don’t always know what is good for us.  Sometimes, God is saying no to the thing we asked for, but giving us something greater (like intimacy with Him).

In Psalm 106:15, the psalmist says of the LORD, “He gave them their request, but He sent leanness into their soul.”  When Israel was in the desert, they began to complain to the LORD that there was no bread and meat.  God gave them what they wanted, but then sent leanness into their souls.  Why?  When things become more important to us than the presence and love of God, then they essentially become our God, even when we pray.  The life that we think we are deriving from them, however, always fails to satisfy the heart.  Our soul was not designed to be satisfied with anything less than the presence of God, relationship with Him.  Until God means more to us than bread, meat, water, gold, wealth, fame, glory, etc., our soul will always be spiritually starving and lacking the good thing it needs, God Himself.

If we will listen to the wisdom of Jesus in this sermon, then we will not be men and women driven by our flesh.  We will be a people who would rather have leanness of flesh, than leanness of soul.  It is not that there is always a choice.  I do believe God would have provided bread and meat for them, just as He did for Jesus when he fasted in the wilderness.  However, it would have happened in a way that was good.  Yet, sometimes you have to make a choice.  Fasting helps us to have a better grip on the lusts of our flesh so that we do not displease God, and miss what He has for us.

We are very blessed in these United States of America.  Perhaps, you have nothing that you need and would ever fast for.  How about just to know Jesus more?  Maybe, we should fast to ask God whether we have grown complacent and blind to all the things we should be fasting and praying for?  The Laodicean believers thought they were rich and in need of nothing.  If they had spent more time in fasting and prayer, they may have been enabled to see how spiritually poor they had become, how naked they were, and how spiritually blind they were.  Do not trust the eyes and the mind of flesh when it comes to spiritual matters.

Lastly, let me add that some people have medical conditions that make fasting hard, or even dangerous.  They may get the shakes, or have a glucose imbalance.  We must understand that this is not a contest and a necessity in order to please God.

I have a brother whose adult life has been one physical battle after another.  Essentially, he has battled lupus and the variety of ways that it attacks his body.  He has been physically challenged his whole adult life.  He has other brothers who haven’t ever had a thing wrong all of that time.  On the one hand, a person can beat themselves up emotionally because they are so weak and think that God doesn’t care, and on the other hand, a person could think that God is quite pleased with them.  God knows your heart and He knows your physical frame.

I say this to challenge us in the area of fasting, and yet not to place a burden on those to whom this cannot happen, at least not in the traditional way of going without food.  It can be tough to accept our lot in life without blaming God.  It is even tougher to catch the vision and to rise up to the calling that is in those things we call weakness.  Sometimes it is our weakness that enables us to do the greatest spiritual good in the lives of others.  However, we have to learn that by the help of the Holy Spirit as we fight against the mind of flesh and bring it to heel.

This brings us to the third section.  Jesus begins to reveal areas that are pitfalls for becoming a hypocrite.  If you do not want to be an actor, a spiritual poser, then listen up as Jesus teaches us how to avoid it.

Revealing Areas that are Pitfalls for Hypocrisy

Our relationship with things (v.19-21)

Jesus first speaks to our relationship with things (verses 19 to the end of the chapter).  Chapter 7 will open with a look at our relationship with difficult people.  It will then move to our relationship with God.  Hypocrisy grows out of improperly relating with things, people and God.  He spends most of his time on this topic looking at things.

Before He gives us direct teaching on what to do and what not to do, Jesus deals with three images that ask a question.  This first one has to do with what our treasure is, and what our heart loves.  What’s your treasure?  We can pray for our heavenly Father to bring His heavenly things down to earth, but is that where our heart truly is?  This tension between loving earthly things versus heavenly things is important to face in your spiritual walk.  Yet, it is not just a metaphor, but more on that later.

Jesus commands us not to be laying up treasure on the earth.  The focus here is in storing up treasure, literally treasuring up treasure.  It does beg the question of what qualifies as “storing up,” but let’s hold on to that for a bit too.

Jesus gives us one immediate reason for not laying up earthly treasures that has leverage on a natural minded person.  It has to do with the threats that exist on the earth to the treasure that we store here.

He gives three different kinds of threats: moths (sentient but animal), rust (the laws of nature) and thieves (sentient beings).  If you want to retain wealth, then you will have to plan against these categories. 

Moths could just as easily be mice or rats, etc.  How many clothes, bins of grain, etc. have been ruined by such critters.  They have the ability to break past many of the best attempts at stopping them.

Rust is not even sentient.  It represents things that have no mind, but we might be angry with God about them.  Why would God create a universe where my hard earned stuff rusts, rots, essentially falls apart and is ruined?  This is why certain things have risen over time to be a better store of wealth than others.  Gold resists tarnish more than many other metals, and it also has a rarity that is enough to be desirable, but not so rare as to not be obtainable to use as money. 

As if animals and the laws of nature aren’t bad enough, then we have to deal with thieves.  In general, these are other humans who work extremely hard at stealing the accumulated hard work of others.  For some reason, they get excited at stealing from others rather than putting their hard work to honest ends.

For every thing a man does to make his wealth safe, another man can figure out how the safe works and see a way around it.  It is not hard to see that if one man can create something, another man can figure out how to dismantle it.

Today, we are being sold on digital currency because of the great trouble with scammers and thieves.  Yet, digital currency is just another mechanism created by a man.  It is a lie that it will be impossible to hack.  In fact, the greatest threat to stored wealth throughout all of history has been governments of some sorts.  Either your own government taxes it away, or another government conquers yours and takes it from you.  How much stored wealth was capture for the glory of Rome, or Genghis Kahn and his “Mongol hordes?” 

The main point Jesus is making here is not that you should be fearful of all of these things.  His main point is that you can spend your whole life amassing wealth on the earth, and then it is gone.  What have you obtained?  He doesn’t mention the ultimate robber of all wealth, death.

Thus, Jesus points us to a wiser plan.  Lay up treasure in heaven.  This continues this tension between heaven and earth.  We tend to think that a lot of stored wealth on this earth will make my existence heavenly.  However, this is not God’s way, and it is a way that causes pain, fighting and sorrow on the earth.  Before He gets into what it looks like to put treasure in heaven, Jesus balances out his argument.

You don’t need risk management plans for treasure that is stored in heaven.  The risks of earth cannot touch wealth stored in heaven.  You don’t need to purchase insurance for things in heaven.  Jesus is not only our insurance, but even more, he is our assurance that our spiritual treasure is safe.  God doesn’t lie, and there is no being in the universe strong enough to take it from Him.  There is no safer place in the universe for treasure.  He is the great Safe of safes.

Yes, there is a thief who dwells in the heavens, the devil.  John 10:10 tells us that he is a thief, a murderer, and a marauder.  Yet, even the devil cannot touch heavenly treasure.

1 Peter 1:4 tells us that God has called us to “an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”  In fact, this suggests that you “kept by the power of God” are His treasure.  This obviously comports with Malachi 3:17.  There, speaking to those who fear the LORD, God says, “‘They shall be Mine,’ says the LORD of hosts, ‘On the day that I make them My jewels.  And I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.’”  Jewels sparkle when they are in the presence of great light.  Thus, the resurrected righteous are described by Daniel in chapter 12 as shining like the stars.  The reason the battle is down here on the earth is because the devil knows that you are His treasure.

Jesus is teaching us that to make an earthly difference, i.e., cause His kingdom to come, we need to put our treasure in heaven.  So, how do we store treasure in heaven?  We do it by making the Kingdom of heaven our primary purpose: His Name, His Kingdom and His Will.  When we do earthly things for heavenly reasons, God credits it as true righteousness born of the fruit of faith in Jesus.  We can use our wealth of time, knowledge, money, relationships, etc. for reaching the lost and strengthening God’s people.

In fact, two people can do the exact same thing and for one of them it will be earthly treasure and for the other heavenly.  Let’s take as an example the raising of a family.  Two people can raise up the same number of kids into society.  One can do it for the glory of their family name, or their national fame.  The other can do it for the glory of the Lord.  Of course, they won’t do everything in raising those kids “exactly the same,” but you should be able to see the point made earlier.  Raising a family has a natural aspect that anyone can do, but it also has spiritual aspects. 

This brings up another point.  Don’t read this to mean that you will have nothing on this earth.  A family raised for Christ is great heavenly treasure, but it has earthly rewards to it as well.  Often those who try their hardest to obtain earthly rewards, at the expense of heavenly purposes, find that it never turns out as great as they had hoped.  The point is where your heart is.

This is why Jesus says what he says at the end.  “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  Who or what has my heart?  What is my heart longing for, and what is it fixated upon?  The Lord’s prayer is a prayer that is focused upon the purposes of Heaven, and yet it still affects this world because God’s purposes are uniquely focused upon this world, particularly His image-bearers that He placed upon it.

He knows that we are flesh and blood, mortal.  As mortals, we will need literal, daily bread.  However, we can live out eternal purposes in these temporary lives.

The point is not about never having a bank account, or saving up to buy a house, etc.  It is asking the deeper question.  Messiah is asking us.  Do I have  your heart?  Or, does this world and the things thereof have your heart?  If you had to choose between Jesus and the desires of this world, which would you choose?

The apostle John reminded us of these questions in 1 John 2:15-17.  There he commands us (in the name of the LORD) not to love the world and the things of the world.  This world is passing away, and the things of it, especially the lusts that we have for things.  However, he who does the will of God abides forever!

This brings us back to the Garden of Eden.  Yes, there is a choice between innocence and knowledge of good and evil.  However, deeper than this is a question of love.  The serpent is tempting their heart away from what they already knew, God loved them greatly.  He tempts them away from the love of God towards the love of things (in fact, they are His things).  How can we be in right relationship with God’s things in our life?  It starts by not making them our treasure.  Instead, God Himself must be our greatest treasure.

God is the greatest good.  He is the source of all things that we might deem as good (and countless others that we are too ignorant to realize their goodness).  He gives us all kinds of things.  Yet, I guess He held back one thing, the knowledge of good and evil.  Have you been seduced by things that become nothing if they are divorced from God?  A love of things that cannot satisfy a soul that was made for the love of God is essentially what Romans 1 pictures.  We worship the creation rather than the Creator who made it all.  In the end, we will be left with things and a very, very lean soul.

God forbid!

Fasting/Treasure audio

The Sermon on the Mount XII

Subtitle:  Correcting the Righteousness of the Hypocrites III

Matthew 6:11-15.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on February 25, 2024.

We are picking up in the middle of the Lord’s prayer.  This is the center point of the Sermon on the Mount, and it is also a central issue, that of prayer.

Jesus is speaking to the way of righteousness in the area of prayer.  There was a lot of praying that happened in first century Israel, but not many righteous prayers.  Righteous prayer is not about quantity, but instead, it is about quality.  Thus, Jesus has pointed out that our desire for others to think well and highly of us can lead us off the righteous path in this area.

The first half of the prayer is praying for God’s purposes, i.e., His Name, His Kingdom and His will.  Of course, there is no question that these things are done in heaven.  The prayer is for these things to also be done on the earth.  Let your purposes be done on earth as they are done in heaven!

The emphasis here can be boiled down to praying in a way that demonstrates that we love God first.  We can also notice that the second half of the prayer focuses on our love for our brother or neighbor.  We not only should pray for God’s purposes because we love Him, but even when we ask for things from Him, there should be an aspect of love for others wrapped up in it- more on that later.

Let’s look at our passage.

The model prayer: prayer in relation to love for others (v. 11-13)

If a person didn’t get the imagery through the use of the term “kingdom” throughout this sermon, you should catch it here in this first request.  Jesus is in the wilderness preaching to the people, and he teaches them to ask God for their daily bread.  This would have stirred up the imagery of Israel in the wilderness receiving the supernatural manna each day.  It the recognition that we are dependent upon God for our daily bread.

We should not be too quick to jump over the natural aspect of this.  Just as Israel would have literally died in the wilderness, if God had not fed them, so we are mortal and in need of physical food.  Bread is often called a staple of life.  A staple food was the predominant food in any group’s diet.  We are spoiled today, but throughout most of history, regions had particular food that was the main source of their diet.  If it was destroyed, or ruined, then their lives were in jeopardy.  Thus, bread took on the metaphorical connotation of life itself.  No bread…no life.   Humans must eat, that is how God has designed us.  We don’t have to eat all of the time.  We don’t have to eat fancy stuff, but we do need to eat periodically.

This biological reality of life is recognized in this prayer.  “Give us this day our daily bread.”  However, God always uses natural, or material, things to teach us spiritual realities.  This is why Jesus taught using parables regarding the everyday life experience of first century Judeans.

Moses told Israel in Deuteronomy 8:3 that God had allowed them first to know hunger, and then to know His gracious supply of food in order to learn a spiritual lesson.  Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.  Thus, the literal bread that we ask of God connotes our need of spiritual bread.

In John 6:341 and following, Jesus said that “the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”  He then said, “I am the bread of life.  He who comes to me will never hunger.”  That is an amazing statement.  It is the same statement that he gives to the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4:14.  “[W]hoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.”  Jesus is the spiritual water and bread that we need in this spiritual wilderness.  In Jesus, God supplies spiritual food to sustain your daily walk of faith with God.  Prayer is an important part of that.

We should also notice that the prayer is couched in us language.  Yes,  you need bread, natural and spiritual.  However, you are not alone and should pray as a part of a community.  This is easiest to see in a parent approaching God.  Of course, you pray for your daily bread, but I have kids who need to eat too.  A parent approaches God in prayer for the sake of the family, not just as an individual.  Yet, this dynamic needs to scope out to our extended family, our town, our county, our State, our Republic (or nation as the case may be), even to the whole of humanity.  I may pray alone in the secret place, but I am not to separate myself from others as I ask God for help.  Lord, help me so that I may be part of your help to others.

In fact, let us recognize that some people have plenty of food and money, but they still commit suicide because they have no hope or faith in the future.  This is a spiritual need that no food and money can supply, only Jesus.

I get it that people look at our world today (particularly in our cities), and they lack faith or hope.  Yet, Jesus lived in such a devastated time, and he said, “the fields are white unto harvest.”  He could do that because he spent time with the Father in prayer.  He had spiritual reserves that we are often ignorant of.  Even in the United States of America, we need a miracle of God to supply our daily spiritual bread, so that we might continue in faith, rather than fainting in death.

The second request asks for forgiveness for our sins, or debts.  In Luke 11, Jesus shares this prayer and asks, “forgive us our sins,” instead of “debts.”  There really is no difference.  The concept of debts had connotations of sin.  When someone sins against you, it is pictured as a debt that needs to be paid off through repentance and making it right.  We are asking God to forgive our sins.

However, it is connected to our forgiveness of others sins, or debts to us.  The preposition “as” is not giving a timing element.  It is not asking God to forgive us at the same time of our forgiving of others.  Rather, the word “as” is establishing a fact that should motivate God to forgive us, “as in fact, we forgive our debtors.  In Luke 11, it says, “for [because] we also are forgiving everyone who is indebted to us.”

In our private prayers, there is a strange sense in which others are always there, at least in principle.  This is my relationship with God, but I cannot relate with God without recognizing that He loves others.  If I ignore that, then it affects my relationship with Him.  This contingency recognizes that if I want God to forgive me, then I need to be forgiving of others.  Our relationships with one another affect our relationship with God, as far as it depends upon you.

This does beg the other side of the equation, i.e., when I have sinned against others.  We can demand that others forgive us, even pointing to the Bible, but that is between them and God.  It is your job to be truly repentant when you have sinned against others.  The rest is between them and God.  A truly repentant heart doesn’t require others to act perfectly.  Duh, we are admitting that we have done wrong and want others to have mercy on us.  None of this (repenting or giving forgiveness) will ever be done perfectly, without error.  Can you forgive someone for not perfectly forgiving you for your imperfection (sin)?  Of course, we can, but the truth is that too often we do not desire it.

This should remind us of Matthew 5:7, “Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy.”

The third request is generally translated as being about temptation, but the word is bigger than that, and it should be seen as properly a time of testing.  “Lead us not into testing..”  We should again imagine Israel in the wilderness.  The wilderness is not in and of itself temptation, but you had better believe that temptation is a component of what goes on in the wilderness.

God took Israel through the wilderness for several reasons.  They weren’t ready to fight all the Egyptian armies they would continue to run into along the coastal plain.  Also, they needed some time alone with God in order to get to know Him better.  This allowed a covenant to be made with God at Sinai.  Lastly, the wilderness would test their metal.  The wilderness is tough on the flesh.  There isn’t much provision in the wilderness for our flesh.  We do become tempted by the devil and the world around us, but we are just as much tempted by what our flesh likes and doesn’t like.

God often leads us into wilderness times of testing. However, we should not think that God is doing that in order to tempt us.  God leads you there because it will make you stronger spiritually, if you trust Him.  You see, when ore is tested, it is what it is.  You crush it and heat it up.  A certain amount of metal comes out of the ore and an assayer can determine how rich the ore is.  However, people are not inanimate objects.  Even as we are being melted down (thief on the cross), we can choose to put our faith in God.  In that moment, something valuable springs into existence that wasn’t there earlier.  The mercy and grace of God is with us in the time of testing.  We can choose, have faith, humble ourselves, and ask for help.  And, guess what!  There He is to help us in time of need.

There are some subtleties happening in the verbs of this section.  It can be explained easiest by translating the words this way, “Don’t just lead us into testing, but deliver us from evil.”  The point is really the heart of God anyways.  God deliver me from the evil (bad things) that I will run into in the time of testing, and there are a plethora of these.

By the way, some translations will say “evil one.”  It is true that we need deliverance from the devil and the lying demonic spirits that work for him.  However, the Greek here is simply an adjective that is being used substantively (like a noun).  The context is supposed to supply whether it is an evil man, woman, thing, or one.  In this case, there is some ambiguity, and I believe that is one purpose.  The bad things that can destroy us in the time of testing are the devil, his demons, worldly friends and societies, even my own stinking thinking.  We need delivered from any bad thing that would tempt us away from trusting God.

Are we not in a time of testing right now, as a republic and as individuals?  Yes, we are.  We do not have to be afraid of the wilderness.  If God delivers us from the evil, then only the good will remain.  The wilderness was good for Joshua and Caleb.  Do you know why they could defeat giants?  It wasn’t because they had honed the art of slaying giants while in the wilderness.  It was because they had learned that God could be trusted with even their very life.  They had learned to trust God.  Caleb was not the original trash talker trying to manipulate people into fighting giants, and scare giants with his crazy talk.  Rather, he knew that his God was greater than those giants who made him look like a grasshopper.

Be careful of thinking the lesson of this time is that Joshua and Caleb were better than the others.  No.  Joshua and Caleb were the same as all those others.  However, they trusted God over the top of the fears of their flesh.  We can all fail in time of testing, but the good news is that we can all succeed in the time of testing by trusting God with our life.

There is a question about how the prayer ends.  The second part of verse 13 is not in the earliest manuscripts.  It does show up in a 2^nd century writing called the Didache (Greek for “Teaching”).  This was a discipleship manual for early Christians and dates back to at least A.D. 130.  However, it is in a shortened form (I believe it only mentions the power and glory, leaving out the kingdom).

Regardless of whether it was original or not, it is a very biblical thing to pray, and we find it in 1 Chronicles 29:10-11.  David has been calling Israel to join him in bringing forth donations for the Temple that was to be built.  His prayer uses the same themes that are found in this closing and even matches much of the whole prayer, e.g., using the phrase “our Father.”

David was recognizing that they were all donating stuff that they had.  Yet, at the same time, all of this stuff had come from God.  We must never forget that everything we receive from God in this life (including our body and breath) is His.  The Church has often made this mistake through history.  God would give them power over natural kingdoms, but we forget it is still His.  Yes, we are His representatives on the earth, but it is always still His.  We are only stewards of His stuff.  We will one day stand before Him and give account for what we did with His stuff.  This is what is meant in Romans 11:36.  “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to Him be glory forever. Amen.”  It all comes from Him, even through Him to us.  However, all we do with it is to be to Him, i.e., for His glory.  He is the source, the channel and the goal of it all.  When we forget that, we make it about ourselves and fall into the trap of the devil.

Let’s look at the last verses of this section on prayer.

An added explanation on prayer (v. 14, 15)

There is not much interpretation needed here.  Jesus is not teaching that we don’t need his death on the cross, that we can save ourselves by simply forgiving others.  Rather, he is showing us his heart (the Father’s heart).  This is who he is.  He loves the brother that you have trouble loving.  If you truly have faith in him, and love him, then you will trust his way, his path, of forgiveness.  This is in the category of things that are easier said than done.  It becomes a litmus test of our faith and love for Jesus.

In truth, none of us can forgive those who sin against us without the help of the Spirit of God, which Jesus has supplied to us.  Still, this is a challenge from our Lord to be the merciful ones of Matthew 5:7.

We see this principle throughout the teachings of Jesus, especially in Matthew 7, the end of the Sermon on the Mount.  There, he speaks about judging your brother.

No matter how much you believe on Jesus to forgive your sins, and no matter how willing He is to cover them, He will not do so if you continue to refuse to forgive others.

In Matthew 18:21-35, Jesus gives us the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant.  The servant owed the king 10,000 talents.  When he couldn’t pay and begged the king, the king had mercy on him and forgave the large sum of money.  The man then went out and found someone who owed him 2% of 1 talent.   Thus, if we treated the 10,000 talents as $10,000 (believe me that it was much higher than this), then he was throwing a man into debtors prison over 2 cents.  Of course, the king was incensed when he found out.

Jesus uses this story to get our attention.  Yet, in our flesh, we tend to think that God may have forgiven us 10,000 talents, but my brother’s sin against me is like 10 million talents!  The beam in our eye always measures our sin in small quantities, and the sin of others in great quantities.

Perhaps, we should look at it differently.  The story hinges on what we owe the king versus what we owe one another.  Have you ever thought that our sins against one another, that seem so huge, are a pittance compared to our sins against God.  When you sin against me, it is understandable because I am a sinful human myself.  I should be able to forgive it easily because I sin myself.  Yet, our sin against God is not understandable.  God is perfect, and has only loved us.  Our sins against Him are so great as to be impossible to quantify.  It is an eternal debt.  If I want God to forgive my eternal debt, then I would be smart to forgive people their small debts to me.  Which do you want, two cents from your brother, or a clean slate with God?

Prayer audio

Sermon on the Mount XI

Subtitle:  Correcting the Righteousness of the Hypocrites II

Matthew 6:5-9.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on February 18, 2024.

We continue our study of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus exposes, or corrects, the supposed righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, which he calls “hypocrites” in this section.

Last week we looked at the issue of charitable giving.  We now deal with the area of prayer.

Let’s look at our passage.

The way of Righteousness in prayer:

This section is expanded compared to the section on deeds of mercy (charitable deeds) and the coming section on fasting.  In fact, it has three sections: this first one that explains the teaching of Jesus regarding prayer (5-8), a model prayer (9-13), and then a last section that gives a further explanation (14-15). 

An explanation (v. 5-8)

This section does exactly the same thing with prayer that Jesus did with the section on charitable deeds.  It contrasts how the hypocrites pray with how Jesus wants his followers to pray.  It essentially boils down to wanting to be seen and heard by people versus wanting to be heard by God.

We should take this as a challenge to us from the master not only to pray, but to pray rightly.  Today, the Spirit of God helps us to sense that original challenge that Jesus gave to the people when he taught.  Do I pray?  And, how do I pray?

Just as the hypocrites did charitable deeds only to be seen by others, so they pray in order to be seen by others.  In fact, Jesus adds the descriptive word “love.”  They love to pray in the synagogue or on the street corner because people will see them.  They love the glory that people give to them for their apparent righteousness.  Yet, they neither love God, nor love others.  In truth, they pretty much love themselves.  They for sure do not love praying in secret.

If you are the kind of person that marvels at certain people when they pray- maybe their flowery language stirs your heart, then you should be careful.  Seek to become a praying person yourself, rather than marveling at the praying abilities of others.  In fact, when are We the People going to stop being so easily stirred up by the presentations of others, both for the good or for the bad?  We should stop being so easily amazed because we are atrocious at knowing whether the image that is presented is only skin deep, or whether it goes all the way to the bone.  When we are not in tune with the Holy Spirit through prayer, we do things like help out in stoning Stephen in Acts 7.

Jesus tells us that such praying receives the reward it wants, the glory of people.  God may be offended by such praying, but He lets them have what they want, the adoration of the people (at least as much as the people will give).

God is not offended like we are as humans.  Rather, He removes the restraints would have spared you great damage.  Humans were never designed to have the adoration of crowds, the worship of them as people do for Musicians, Actors, Athletes, etc.  If you look at the lives of people who reach the top of glamor and glory, their lives collapse under the weight of such false worship.

Of course, not everyone who prays in public is fake.  In fact, we could not even have a public worship service without praying, singing, preaching in public.  However, the point is not to put more value on such public acts than they are truly worth.  If public prayer does not have a foundation of secret prayer, then it is worthless, whether people know so, or not.

Thus, Jesus tells his followers not to love to pray like that.  Instead, we are to find a secret place to pray in.  The word for “room” in verse six is a word that was used for a storage closet.  They were typically small rooms in the middle of a structure that would not have windows.  His point is not so much the exact place, but that it is a place where no one will see you.  It could actually be translated “hidden place.” 

I know, I know.  Mom’s are saying right now that there is no such thing as a hidden place!  Of course, how much glory would you expect to receive from your child seeing you pray, or knowing that you are praying?  Jesus is not creating a law of prayer.  He is doing heart surgery here, and we should not become bogged down in snarky retorts. Jesus is pointing us to the intention of our prayer.  A person who only prays in public has a heart problem.  They are not in relationship with God, but seeking satisfaction somewhere else.

Jesus emphasizes that your (singular) Father in heaven is also in the secret, or hidden, place.  This phrase would have reminded them of the same phrase in the Old Testament, like Psalm 91.  David learned that,  even though God was in heaven, He was also in those hidden places when no one was looking.  David spent tons of time praying out in the field with the sheep.  God met him there. 

Even though God is everywhere, He recognizes that prayer done when no one is watching truly has the intention of relating with Him.  This private audience with the King of the Universe happens to also be a private audience with your heavenly Father.  Have you ever thought about the reality that our minds are the original secret place?  You can be in public, but meet with God in the secret place of your mind, and those in the place would never know.

Let me just point out that God as a Father is mentioned 17 times in the Sermon on the Mount.  One time it is “our Father” (The Lord’ Prayer, Matthew 6:9).  Also, Jesus refers to God as “My Father” one time in Matthew 7:21.  The other 15 times Jesus says that He is “your Father.”  Five of these are a singular “your/you.”  The other ten are plural.  Yes, God is individually your heavenly Father, but the emphasis is on us as a group.

Again, Jesus promises that secret prayer will have its reward in the open.  He doesn’t guarantee what that will look like.  In fact, the resurrection and being with Jesus is put forth as our ultimate reward.  We must be careful of thinking that if we pray alone enough, then God will have to give us some really cool things publicly.  Pray because you want to know God, not because you want stuff from Him.  He is your reward!

Jesus gives another warning in the practice of prayer in verse 7, but this time, he looks to the religious practices of the Gentiles, instead of the hypocrites within Israel.  The word translated “vain repetition” is hard to translate without more context.  It is clear though that it has to do with praying many words.  The point has to do with lack of true heart-content.  It is more about rituals, incantations, or techniques that are supposed to help gain the attention of the “gods.”

In Gentile spirituality, the so-called gods did not care for humans, so they had to learn techniques and formulas for drawing their help.  They would even hedge their bets by worshiping many different gods.  Surely one of them would come through for them.  We should not repeat phrases like a mantra over and over.  We should not speak a certain power syllable over and over.  There really is no end to the empty techniques that false religion will conjure for its acolytes.

The One True God in heaven, your heavenly Father, is not impressed by such empty tricks.  We cannot treat God like some sort of cosmic machine that we can put in the right amount of quarters, or pull the lever just right, in order to get what we want.  Instead, we are to speak to our Father simply, and clearly.

Can you imagine speaking to your earthly dad in such ways?   He would probably call the men in white coats to come and take you away, if you did.  God wants us to approach Him as a child to a Father.  He wants to have real relationship with us as that signals.

Jesus even tells us that our heavenly Father already knows what we need before we ask.  God is omniscient.  He knows what you need way better than even you do.  He is intimately aware of your needs.  He is paying attention to your life, regardless of what it seems like to you.  You think you are cursed because of your experience of life, but Jesus tells you that you are blessed (Matthew 5:3-12).  You don’t have to employ tricks and techniques to draw His attention.  You just have to really pray to Him in the hidden place.  Don’t pray rote prayers over and over again in particular sequences while making certain signs.  This is not what Jesus wanted our prayers to become.

A Model Prayer (v. 9-10)

Let’s look at the first part of this prayer.  It starts out with the words, “In this manner, therefore, pray.”  The emphasis is that this creates a template or model that we can use in our own praying times.  Yes, we can pray it, but it is not a mantra or incantation that “always works.”  If we will pay attention to the components of this prayer, then we will be instructed in how to pray, and in what to pray about.

I will lay the prayer out to demonstrate the structure of the prayer.

“Our Father in heaven,

          Hallowed be Your name.

          Your Kingdom come.

          Your will be done.

                  On earth as it is in heaven.”

The first line is the address.  Who am I addressing when I pray?  It is interesting that Jesus has made the point that God is “your (singular) Father.”  Yet, in this model prayer, he uses the plural concept of “Our Father.”  Think of it.  You are approaching God alone in a hidden place, and yet you address Him as a part of a group. 

There is an obvious lack of the concept of “I” and “me” in this prayer. I am reminded of the prayer of the Pharisee in Luke 18:12-14.  His prayer keeps repeating “I,” and when he does mention others, it is in contempt and derision.  Yes, the tax collector also uses the first person pronoun of “me.”  However, the prayer of repentance and humility is always heard.  This is not about never using first person pronouns.  Rather, it is recognizing that Jesus is signaling something important to us by their absence.  Perhaps my prayers are far to self oriented?  Do you think?

The key is not so much never using the pronouns, “I,” “me” or “mine.”  It is about being fully aware that your heavenly Father is also your brother’s heavenly Father.  We should approach God alone, but not as ones who are alone.  Even people who are not God’s child are desired to be so by Him.  He is bringing us into a larger community, His family.  And, He wants us to care for one another, even in our secret prayers.

This address is followed by three requests that focus on God and His purpose, rather than on me and my purposes.

Israel had fourteen centuries of wavering between focus on God’s purposes and focus on their own purposes.  At some point, we must become a broken person that realizes “our purposes” generally get in the way of God’s.  Also, His purposes are more beneficial to us and others than the purposes that we come up for ourselves.

We generally even pray for God’s purposes selfishly.  You can pray for God to bring in the Kingdom, but why do you do so?  Do you want the Kingdom because then you will be bossing people around?  Are you focused more on how good your experience will be instead of the glory of God blessing all the earth?

Israel, in general, had come to a place where they couldn’t wait for God to put the Romans in their place under the boot of Israel.  Yet, Jesus showed the remnant the heart of God wanted to take the light of the Gospel to that Gentile world and invite them into the Kingdom in a good way.

Let’s look at the form of the three request first.  The form of the first one, “hallowed be Your name,” is true of them all.  The verb is first followed by the subject.  The other two would look something like this: “Come be Your Kingdom.  Done be Your will!”  These are also imperatives (commands).  However, they are in the third person singular.  This has the effect of begging the question of just who is to do these things.  Perhaps, it is both God and us.

The first request speaks of God’s name.  This is His reputation, and the way people view Him.  The prayer is that God’s name, person, and reputation be seen and treated as holy.  In fact, the most holy thing in the universe.  Holy means that something is set apart for God’s purposes.  This may seem redundant (how can God not be holy, i.e., about His own purposes).  Yet, the emphasis is on how others see Him.  God is perfect in His character and attributes.  He is not like sinful humans, nor like the sinful spiritual beings.  However, we don’t always see and treat God as such.  People have no problem slandering God, and attributing things to Him that are not true.  It is a prayer for God to be respected by all.  So, this should start with me.

The second request is that the Kingdom of heaven would be brought in, or that it would come.  This is clearly a reference to the Kingdom of Messiah.  We are praying for its full realization on earth, instead of just being in heaven.  This does involve living out the Kingdom today in our lives.  We are to be an expression now, of a coming Kingdom later when Christ returns.

Is my life an ever-clearer expression of the values of Jesus?  May God help us to give ourselves to being an expression of the coming King and His perfect Kingdom that is coming.

The third request is that God’s will would be done.  Sometimes God’s will seems to be at odds with His Kingdom.  When Jesus went to the cross, it seemed to be the opposite of bringing in the Kingdom.  Submission to God’s will as the All-Wise One is important.  We can be a person who expects God to do particular things in our life, and when He doesn’t, we can be disillusioned.  “God, you said I would be blessed, but now there is a cross in front of me!”  We don’t always understand why God does what He does.

When we pray for God’s purpose, we are praying for the greatest good to come about.  In fact, there are layers to the will of God.  God put a curse upon the earth.  Is it His will that it last forever?  No!  What I do with it is important.  Wrestling with God like Jacob did is rewarded with intimacy.  Yes, the wicked man will be judged and go to the Lake of Fire, but God wants us to resist that by telling him the Gospel, the love of God.  God wants us to plead with the man that He resist God’s will properly, that is, through repentance and seeking mercy.

All of this connects to the greatest commandment.  When you love God with all of your being, you will pray for His purposes to come first.  All of this is a desire to have the goodness of God expressed on the earth, and not just in my secret times of prayer with Him. 

For the sake of time, we will pause here and pick up on the second half of the Lord’s Prayer next week.

Correcting Righteousness II

Sermon on the Mount X

Subtitle:  Correcting the Righteousness of the Hypocrites I

Matthew 6:1-4.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on February 11, 2024.

Chapter six of the Sermon on the Mount clearly moves on to another main point.  Jesus has been looking at the teaching of the Scribes and the Pharisees, the teachers of his day, and showing how it fails to fulfill the Law.

Now, Jesus moves to exposing the problem with the apparent “righteousness” of these “hypocrites.”  However, more than exposing their problem, Jesus shows his followers how to live out true Kingdom righteousness.  Whereas the previous point showed the lack of love for others in their teaching, this point will show the lack of a true heart for God in their righteousness.

In fact, what Jesus shows here is at the root of the common problem that religious institutions tend towards corruption.  If their teaching is superficial, i.e., has no heart, so their righteousness itself is also superficial.  It is generally not for the glory of God.

Jesus will look at three areas of spiritual matters: charity (acts of mercy), prayer, and fasting.  It is not by accident that prayer is at the center of this point, and at the center of the whole Sermon on the Mount.

Today we will focus on the acts of mercy that are often called charitable deeds.

Let’s look at our passage.

The way of righteousness (v. 1)

Though Jesus does not use the word “way” here, it an important theme throughout the Old Testament, and the work of Messiah.  John the Baptist details this when he comes forth as the voice in the wilderness that calls for the way of the LORD to be prepared.  At the end of this sermon, Jesus will point to the “narrow way.”  This is essentially following the teaching of the Messiah, Jesus.

We also know that Jesus is talking about their “righteousness” in this chapter because of his words back in Matthew 5:20.  There is a question in the manuscripts in verse 1 on whether it says, “Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds…,” or if it read, “Take heed that you do not do your righteous deeds…”  The manuscripts that are older and more reliable actually split about 50/50 on which is original.  The difference is not significant, but if the proper word is “righteous deeds,” then this verse serves as an up front description of what is wrong in the following three areas of righteous deeds.  I believe that is most likely and it would also create a clear tie back to the earlier recognition that our righteousness needs to exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees.

In truth, deeds of righteousness is the larger category of which charitable deeds is a subset, just as prayer and fasting are other subsets of this larger category.  Historically, these were so close that “righteousness” was often used to refer to them as a synonym.

Let’s tie this into our role as imager of God.  If we will listen to Jesus on this point, we will be able to properly image God the Father to the world around us.

We should also recognize that charitable deeds is not just about money.  It literally means an act of mercy.  If we use the Good Samaritan as an example, you will see that the most important thing that he gave to the ambushed man was his careful attention.  Everything that he did from that man flowed from a heart of compassion, mercy.

Jesus gives us a command.  “Do not do your righteous deeds before men…”  However, instead of putting the imperative upon the verb, i.e., “do not do…,” he puts the imperative on the verb “take heed!”  The effect of this is to intensify the imperative.  Jesus commands us to take up this area of our life and pay close attention to it.  It can be translated as: “beware,” or “Be careful.”  We need to spend time thinking through this any time we go to do an act of righteousness.  In the book of Deuteronomy, this kind of language generally points to an area of sin that we need watch out for or we will fall.

Thus, we are told that our intention must never be about other people seeing us.  If you do that, then you will have no reward from God because He knows that you are not doing it for him, but for them.  We see this in the story of the widow’s mite.  The motive of the rich man will only be rewarded by the adulation of the crowd.  What about the widow?  Most people who saw her probably contemptuously looked down on what she was doing.  Even when she did it in public, she was not in danger of doing it for the praise of man.

Messiah corrects them in their charitable deeds (v. 2-4)

Let’s be clear up front that we are not talking about salvation as a reward for our “righteousness.”  Before we come to Christ, our righteousness is as filthy rags.  However, when we come to Christ in faith, we are now saved.  Yet, through his teaching and with the help of his Holy Spirit, we are enabled to walk out the righteousness of Christ, and even fulfill the Law.  We are enabled to better image God the Father to the world around us.

Of course, walking out the righteousness of Christ is wrapped up in our salvation.  Our salvation in Christ is the foundation upon which we walk forward.  If I don’t keep my eyes upon Christ, and worse, I begin to resist and rebel against the Holy Spirit, then I can harm my own faith in Christ, even to the point of walking away from him.  Thus, on one hand, we can never merit salvation through walking out the righteousness of Christ.  Yet, on the other hand, if I become discouraged and walk away from Jesus, then I can forfeit it.  So, the one is integral to the other.  He has saved me, and that stirs up the desire to image him to the world.

We notice in verse 2 that Jesus describes a trumpet being blown when the hypocrites are going to do a charitable deed at the synagogue or on the streets.  It is unclear whether this was literally being done, or if it is an apt symbol of what they were doing.  Regardless, whether literal or metaphorical, it does serve as a great symbol of a person trying to draw attention to what they are about to do.  They do things that “trumpet” their deeds.  Of course, this doesn’t just happen in religious works among religious people.  The secular world is full of trumpeting one’s own goodness.  But, God’s people should be different.

The point is that they would not give, or do an act of mercy, without having a mechanism by which to draw attention to it.  Why?  It is because they want to be seen by men so that they will receive some kind of glory from them.  If we think of all the inner vices that Jesus referred to in working through the six case studies on the Law, they lust for the attention and glory that people will give them.

It is easy to despise those who give great sums of money in order to get their name on a building when we don’t have enough money to do the same.  The problem is not that they have money, and it is not that they even give it away.  The problem is the intention of the heart is all pointed towards people and not God.  In fact, not all people who give large donations do what we are seeing in these verses.

Essentially, Jesus is speaking to a crowd that most likely does not have much money.  He is telling them that these rich scribes, Sadducees, and Pharisees, might appear to be quite righteous, but most of their hearts are not right before God.  They simply lust for the glory of people.

We people are too quick to give glory to others.  Of course, we are not God and cannot see the motives of people’s hearts.  However, that is exactly why we should be careful glorifying the righteous deeds of others.  We are all too ready even to trumpet for them, and to continue to trumpet long after the deed has been done.  This is not about judging them, but recognizing that we do not know the true value of what they have done.

All of this is couched in a negative command.  We are not to draw attention to our charitable deeds.  More importantly, our motivation for giving must not be driven by the recognition we could get from other people for being so righteous.

This brings up the greater issue of why we should give charity.  Notice that Jesus just assumes they will do it.

As I said before, the word basically means “an act of mercy.”  It emphasizes that you do not owe a person anything, but you are touched in your heart (actually deep in your guts) for them.  You have compassion upon them.  In prayer before God, and with the knowledge of my resources, I determine in my heart what I am going to do. 

However, we need to be careful of thinking that God needs to give us a particular number- not that He can’t do that if He wants.  However, He actually wants you to become like Him.  That means your love and compassion needs to be expressed by you.  Perhaps, you could have done more, but what you did was good, if it was done for Him.  An act of love is and act of love. 

Imaging God is at stake here.  No one is more compassionate and giving than God.  Our charitable giving needs to be out of a desire to be like God in this world by helping others.  In fact, it shouldn’t even be about a desire to get God to bless you more in this life.  God is always blessing us.  Why do I crave more?  As God supplies in your life, respond compassionately to the world around you with your time, energy, help, and even giving. 

At the end of verse three, Jesus gives us the command in a proverbial form.  I believe this is all about counteracting our inner desire, even lust, to be recognized by people for our charitable deeds.  All proverbs can be abused.  I’ve heard some justify not telling another family member what they are doing because we are not to let our left hand know what the right hand is doing.  However, verse 4 clarifies exactly what Jesus means.  Do your deeds in secret.

The right hand was typically the hand of giving to others.  Yet, we should recognize that the left hand belongs to the same body.  So, this may actually be saying something that is going on internally within us.  When we give, we should not give a second thought to what a good thing we are doing.  We should not even judge our own works as too how good they are before God.  We should simply do them and move on.  Don’t get a big ego over it.  Don’t even internally trumpet your goodness.  This will only have a corrupting influence in your heart.

Of course, Jesus is not creating a law here, and if someone finds out that you gave a charitable donations, then God will be angry and punish you, or simply not give you a reward.  It is actually quite hard to give mercy to another person without at least them knowing.  Should you hide such things from your spouse?  I don’t think Jesus is trying to create an environment where we are hiding things from our spouse.  The point is to be taken simply, and at face value.  Make your aim to please God and to show His love to others.  Pay close attention to your motivation, the desire that is motivating you.  If you will do this then the details will become immaterial.

Let’s end with looking at the rewards for both the hypocrites and for the followers of Messiah.

The hypocrites are rewarded.  However, it is not by God.  God allows them to have whatever glory people are giving for such things.  They simply get what they were looking for.  God doesn’t owe them anything because it wasn’t done for Him.

Yet, there is a trap in their giving.  The corrupting influence of the glory of the people will continue working in our hearts.  It will continue to corrupt until no good thing remains.  The word here for “rewards” can be used for positive or negative things.  Thus, it can take on the idea of punishment.  Perhaps, the glory of men is a punishment that God gives to the wicked.

How much charity is given out of wrong motives?  How much charity is given from hearts that hunger for something other than God?  Whatever you are hungering for (whether as a giver, or even as a receiver) becomes an idol, and to worship an idol is to become a worthless, vain thing ourselves.

We were not designed to hold up well under the glory of people (just look at the lives over time of those who have it). 

There is nothing wrong with giving honor where honor is due, but we need to be really careful.  We are a people who love to idolize others.  Perhaps, it has something to do with living vicariously through them, even being a part of the group that they came from.  Yet, the adulation of a crowd can never satisfy a heart that was designed to be satisfied by the One True God.  All other things fall short of His glory.

This brings us to the righteous who do their charitable deeds for the right motives and in secret (as best can be done).  Giving secretly leads to a reward from God.  The word “openly” is in question and is not found in the oldest manuscripts.  We should be careful of overemphasizing a reward in this life.  God is constantly blessing us in this life.  But, later in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus will emphasize laying up treasure in heaven.  Peter speaks to this in 1 Peter 1:4.  There, he calls it an inheritance reserved in the heavens.  If we live for Christ in this life, then He has a great reward for us in the life to come.  Our great reward is to be resurrected and inherit the whole earth with Jesus.  We will serve as the glorified, righteous administration of King Jesus.  It is not yet manifest what we will be, but when Jesus comes, we will appear with Him clothed in His glory!  Now, that is much better than screaming crowds of fallen people shouting our name!

Correcting Hypocrites audio