Matthew 6:1-4

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Great to be back here with you guys. A lot of familiar faces here, but if you don't know me, my name is David Kirmanshahi. I serve as one of the deacons here. And I'm also here on Wednesday nights. So if you have me as a group leader, good luck. I guess Ezra survived, so we're all good there. But anyways, yeah, we've been going through the Sermon on the Mount and. And last week, our brother Eazy preached on loving your enemies. Which is good because you might have a lot of enemies at this age. I don't really know. But could anyone tell me what they learned last week from Eazy's sermon? Maybe not. It was good. Yeah, I heard that illustration. It was pretty good. Well, anyway, before we dive in, I'm going to tell a parable that I made up that relates to our passage today. So it goes like this. There was this master and his servant named Jimmy. And the master gave his money to Jimmy to give to the poor. And the master had given Jimmy only one, that whenever Jimmy gave the money, he would not do it to be seen by others, but instead to show the generosity to the poor and thus giving honor to his master. So Jimmy would give his money to the poor every day out of the kindness of his heart and in obedience to his master. And those in need loved Jimmy and Jimmy's master. Jimmy, however, noticed that whenever he was giving money in front of large crowds, people were watching him and started praising him for it. Jimmy really loved their attention. So Jimmy only started giving the money whenever people were around. He loved the recognition he was getting. He said, it doesn't matter. I'm still giving money, so who cares how I do it? But the master saw what Jimmy was doing and rebuked him. The master said to Jimmy, I care, and unless you give in secret, I will take away the money I gave you. So Jimmy, after he realized how he wronged his master, grieved and turned back and only started to give the money where people wouldn't look, so he wouldn't be tempted to do it, only to be seen by other people. And this pleased his master. Although not a perfect parable. To illustrate the passage we'll be reading today, we're going to be talking about giving and how to give rightly and what it looks like to give wrongly, if that's a word. I'll be asking you guys some questions, too, as we'll be going through the text. In this section on the Sermon on the Mount, we'll see that Jesus not only cares about his disciples obedience to him, but he also cares how his disciples obey him. Today, if you have your Bibles with you, we will be continuing on in our journey through the Sermon on the Mount. And we'll be in Matthew 6:1:4. I don't have any points today for this lesson, but I do have a main idea that I'd like us to keep in mind as we're going through this text. And so the main idea for this passage is, since God sees and rewards in secret, the Christian doesn't need to seek public praise for their works. I'll say that again. Since God sees and rewards in secret, the Christian doesn't need to seek public praise for their works. Before we get started, I'll pray for us. Heavenly Father, we just thank you for this day. Lord. We thank you for your Son, that he has sacrificed his own body, Lord, for the needy, for us. And Lord, we just pray for those who don't know you through Christ, that we are not saved through our own obedience, but through the obedience of your Son, Jesus. And we trust in him for our salvation. And we pray in your Son's name. Amen. Can I get a volunteer to read Matthew chapter 6, verses 1 through 4? Yeah. Thank you. [00:04:54] Speaker B: 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. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, 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. [00:05:20] Speaker A: Awesome. Thank you. So starting in verse one, Jesus says, beware of practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them. Righteousness here is our obedience to God and doing his will according to his word. So Jesus warns his disciples not to practice their own righteousness or good works before other people with the motivation to be seen by them. And so Jesus knows his followers may be tempted in showing off their works in front of others. So again, we must be careful. But in Matthew 5:16, we saw Jesus let your light shine before others so that they can see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. But here it seems like he's saying the opposite, saying, oh, don't do your works in front of others so that they may, so that you will be seen by them. But here is Jesus is not opposed to you doing good works in front of other people. However, Jesus is opposed of you doing good works in order to be seen by other people. And we can do this a lot of the time, sometimes unknowingly. We can use our social media for the wrong motives and share what we're doing and our good works just so we can be admired. Or maybe at school you do good things, but it's only to be looked at. Even at church we're serving purely to just get the attention of others. Although sometimes it is probably better to do the right thing with the wrong motive than not do anything. Jesus point is that he cares not only about our obedience, but our hearts behind our obedience. We may be doing something that is actually good externally, but the reality is we may just want people to see us. We're really not doing it for God or for our neighbor. It's really we're just trying to promote ourselves so that we may be seen. And Jesus warns us that if we have this motivation in our hearts when practicing our righteousness, we will have no reward from our Heavenly Father. And you might ask, what reward is he talking about? That sounds cool. And this reward that Jesus is talking about I think is the joy and satisfaction that comes with serving God in this life and eternal rewards that will come in the next life. The reward that comes from God is much greater than what anyone else could produce. God is the giver of everything that is good. James 1:17 says every good gift and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Jesus encourages his disciples to focus and be devoted to God and not be worried to be seen by others. And this righteousness that we practice should display the only one who can make us righteous, namely Jesus, who was pure in heart. He had no evil or selfish agenda. He had only genuine love for God's glory and people. And Jesus has shown us that it's not only the fact that we can disobey God on the external level that but we have disobeyed God on the heart level and have sinned against him and need someone else's perfect righteousness to cover us. So trust in Christ for your righteousness and do not lean on your own to be made right with God. Now in verse 2, Jesus says 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. What's interesting here is that Jesus doesn't say if you give to the needy, but says when you give to the needy. Jesus expectation and assumption is that his disciples would give to those who are in need. Whereas Charles Spurgeon wrote, our blessed Lord does not tell his disciples to give alms, but he takes it for granted that they do that. How could they be his disciples if they did not? So does anyone know what alms means? Does anyone have a clue? Yes. Yeah, it can be money, clothing, just any material good for people. I didn't know that until a couple years ago. So you're doing a lot better than I was at your age. So one of the marks of disciple of Jesus is that they will be givers to those in need. Again, that includes our material resources like money, food, or clothing or something else in whatever is wise in that situation. I think a good example of this in real life is get out of the bus. I know EZ mentioned it last week, but how many of you guys have heard of it? Or at least, yeah, thought about it. Yeah, I know you guys have been there. But basically, it's this ministry that goes out every Thursday night, and they go out on this red bus, and they literally get out of the bus to share the gospel and give food to people on the streets. And really our giving is to point to the character of Christ, who gave up more than money, resources, or food, but gave up his whole life so sinners who trust in him would be saved. We also see Jesus tells us that when we give, we shouldn't sound a trumpet like the hypocrites do, that they may be praised by others. Could anyone tell me what a hypocrite is? Yeah, Kellan. Yeah, pretty much like a pretender. And so this hypocrite that Jesus mentions, although they look great on the outside, on the inside, they have selfish motives, and they pretend that they're doing it for good reasons, but really they're looking for attention, as Jesus describes, which is the opposite of love. In 1 Corinthians 13:5, it describes love as it does not insist on its own way. And Jesus says, do not be like them. Your aim as my disciple is far more worthy, and that is to display God with a pure heart in your giving and love to your neighbor. And all of our sin really could be labeled as hypocrisy. Whenever we claim to follow Jesus as Lord. And yet we still do things that contradict that, whether in heart or in deeds. The trumpet Jesus is referring to probably is just a metaphor rather than a literal trumpet that these hypocrites use. And they want to be praised so much for their giving that they would sound a trumpet to bring attention to themselves. And Jesus is telling us when we give, we shouldn't bring again attention to ourselves. And yeah, imagining someone actually blowing a trumpet before they give sounds pretty ridiculous. If you were in need and the person who was about to give you something blows a really loud trumpet beforehand, and then you realize that person is just giving in order to be appreciated by other people, it probably wouldn't feel that great. On the one hand, you might feel, okay, that hey, I finally got some stuff, but on the other hand, feel like they disrespected you. Now, although this text is referring to giving to the needy, I think you can apply this to other areas in your life where you may really want the praise of others over God's. There's nothing wrong with people praising us, but when that becomes our ultimate desire over God, then it becomes an idol. There will be times in the world and in your life where you'll be tempted with the approval of others at the cost of not obeying God. And sometimes when we love people, well, they won't like us. If you think of Jesus, there were people who hated him, yet he loved them all. At the end of verse two, what do you guys think Jesus means whenever he talks about these hypocrites saying, truly, I say to you, they have received this reward. Does it mean like, the praise that they get from others is all that [00:14:47] Speaker B: they're going to get? [00:14:48] Speaker A: That's the only reward they're going to get? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So Jesus is basically saying, yeah, you wanted the praise of others and so that's what you're going to get. And that may not seem so bad at the time, but when you realize they could have been rewarded and honored by God and instead they traded it for the praise of man, it hurts a little. Especially since we were made to glorify God above all else, and that's all the reward they're going to get. They missed out the reward that only comes from God and settled for the praise of men that doesn't even last long. Jesus points us to God that his reward for following him is better. That is unlike the world where they are fixated on the temporary things. And as followers of Christ, we have eternity to look forward to. And that really is the essence of our sin, that we trade the honor and glory of God for lesser things. Romans 1:22 23 says, claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. We have these disordered loves where we place ourselves ahead of God, who is the only one who can truly satisfy us. Although these hypocrites that Jesus mentions typically refer to unbelievers in Matthew, we can still fall into the same trap even as believers. We can definitely give or do other righteous things just to be praised by others. And if we do that again, we will receive no reward from God. Instead of doing it for the glory of God and loving others, we can crave the praise of others over that so we could have the attention on ourselves and not on God. In verse three, Jesus tells us how we should give by saying to not let our left hand know what our right hand is doing. When you give, you know, that's not a phrase you hear every Sunday morning. What do you guys think that means? Yes, it's so, like, secret almost that like, you're even. Like almost, you don't even know that you did. Yeah, it's almost so automatic that you're not even realizing it. And so that we are so focused on honoring God in our giving that we're not even focused on ourselves. Again, it's like you don't even give yourself time to think about it. You just do it like Nike. And the reason you do that is like in verse four, is that our giving may be in secret. When our giving is in secret, it quiets the temptations of doing it, to be seen and praised by others. And unlike the hypocrite who is in the public, the follower of Jesus does things in secret and does it for the audience of one, namely God, because they know God is the God who sees. Even though our hearts may crave recognition from people and to be seen for our works, we can take comfort as Christians that God sees our obedience even in secret, and he will reward you for it. You may not get the applause or the eyes of others, but you will have the eyes of God on you as you are looking to him as your motivation to give and to serve. And your reward is not dependent if people see you or praise you, but it's dependent on God's faithful character. I'm paraphrasing this, but a theologian once said we kind of have this weird and false notion that if no one sees us being obedient, then it doesn't count, or it doesn't count as much. I think one of the reasons God delights in his people who honor him in secret is because he knows they are doing it for him. Not that God needs anything from us, but instead still chooses to use us. This shows the generous character of our God as well. Not only does he save sinners, but also rewards them. And maybe you're here today and you're just like I just go to church because I want to be seen and be recognized, maybe to make mom and dad happy. And maybe I'll be accepted by people if I do enough. And maybe I'll even be accepted by God if I work hard enough. But the good news of the gospel is that you're not accepted by God by your obedience. You're accepted by God by trusting in Christ who was fully obedient to him and did all things for God's glory. None of us have had perfect motives in our obedience, and none of us have done all things to the glory of God. We've all fallen short. And this Jesus that we cling to always did everything for the glory of God so he could save those who didn't. And ultimately God sees you in Christ if you are united to him by faith, which is what matters the most. However, if you do not trust in Christ, God sees you as his enemy. So run to Christ who rescues sinners. And if you're a Christian today, don't obey sheerly to be looked at or praised by others, because God sees you and reward you. And that is greater than what anyone could give you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we just pray that you'd give us the right motives in our obedience to you. Lord. Help us to do everything for your sake, Lord, and others, and not to be so self absorbed. We need your spirit to change our hearts, Lord, and and to give honestly to you. And we pray in your Son's name. Amen.