Turn our attention to Matthew chapter 6 this morning. Matthew chapter 6 is where we are and we will be continuing in our study of Matthew's gospel in the Sermon on the Mount, the passage that we commonly know as the Sermon on the Mount. We started it several weeks ago as we dove into the Beatitudes and then last week John reminded us that righteousness in accordance with the will and purposes of God is a matter of the heart. He did a great job. He had a lot of passage to cover. Anger, lust, divorce, retaliation, loving our enemies, that the way in which we are to consider how we are to be righteous before the presence of God is a matter of the heart, not external action. And as we probably were reminded and think about and prepare our hearts for today, I would just simply say that God doesn't change the expectations for his people in the New Testament. It's always been a matter of the heart. Religious expression, religious piety, righteousness has always been a matter of the heart. And so even when God gave the Old Testament law, which John referenced and what Jesus references and John covered for us last week in the end of chapter eight, It was always a matter of the heart. We have been saved by grace through faith. We come into the presence of God's kingdom by faith. That was true in the Old Testament as the people of God. It is true in the New Testament as well. And we trust our God and we let our love of God flow naturally out of our behaviors. Our behaviors flow naturally out of our love for the Lord and a heart that's been transformed. And so Jesus hasn't changed anything. In fact, he is reclaiming. as it were, and I think this is important as the king of all creation comes to earth and he establishes his kingdom on this earth, it's important for us to recognize that he is reclaiming the truth of God, the truth of the Old Testament, and reminding the people of God that their responsibility unto the Lord flows out of the heart. first and foremost. And so that's what we see here. As he's calling his disciples, establishing his kingdom, he's reminding them that this has always been the case, that our righteousness is a matter of the heart. The end of chapter five, Jesus is speaking of righteousness in the sense of moral responsibilities. our moral interactions with each other, doing what is right. As we move into chapter six today, he will be speaking of religious observances, religious piety, the things that we do in devotion unto God. And so he'll mention giving to the needy, giving alms to the needy. He also mentions prayer and he mentions fasting, that which we do unto the Lord as a demonstration of our commitment to him and our devotion unto him. So with that update and with that kind of intro, let's jump into chapter six, beginning in verse one, going through verse 18 of Matthew. 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, 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. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues, at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret. And your father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your father knows what you will need before you ask him. Pray then like this. Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. And when you hold fast, and when you fast, excuse me, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. For they disfigure their faces that fasting may be seen by others. Truly, truly, I say to you that 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 your Father who is in secret. and your father who sees in secret will reward you. Pray with me, please. Our father and our God, we thank you for this word. We ask that you will speak to us through it and give us clarity of fault and encourage our hearts as we serve you both now and forevermore. For it is in Christ we pray, amen. Yesterday, uh, James and I struck out and went up to Wiley park, not far from the house. And he likes to go up there and swing. We have a swing set in the backyard, but he likes to go to the park and swing. And so we went up to the park to swing. He likes to, I think takes the little journey up to the park. We walk and then we get to walk on the little nature trail behind he calls the leafy trail and so we do that and we swung on the swings or he swung and I pushed him and Then as we were getting ready to leave they have these little dizzy seats that you can sit on they spin around and around and around and they make you real dizzy and so James got up on one of those seats and he said spin me and so I spun him and and he was a little dizzy and kind of stumbled and he said spin me again and so this time he said spin me longer and so I spun him longer around and around probably about 15 times and his head was down kind of like dizzy bat the old dizzy bat game and when he got off the swing I mean off the seat he immediately started stumbling until he fell over and it was absolutely hilarious because he didn't get hurt obviously but it was hilarious to watch him stumble and fall down and he hit the ground pretty softly but he thought it was the best thing ever so then he says spin me again and so I spun him again and of course then after a while it became a game where he would get off before he really got dizzy and then he would still kind of do the acting you know kind of thing to make me laugh and he would laugh back and we would have a good time. I thought about as we were finishing up making our walk back to the house, I thought about today's passage. At first when James was dizzy, it was hilarious. It was funny every time because he was cackling and giggling and so on and so forth and then he little boy or little girl, four years old, cackling and giggling is funny. But it was funny the whole time. But it was hilarious at the beginning because he didn't know what was going on. He just was naturally acting in his dizziness and he fell over. Right. But as it got older, he got wise to what was going on as we went on about it. And so as he got wise to it, he was play acting. And it wasn't as funny in that it wasn't as natural. When we turn our attention to the passage before us this morning, the text before us this morning, Jesus is speaking to his disciples, and he says, as I said a moment ago in my introduction, the importance of letting our moral life flow naturally out of our faith in chapter five, and then he moves into our religious life, our religious piety, and the things that we do in devotion to the Lord. And he gives those three examples, as I said earlier, of giving alms to the poor, of praying unto the Lord and of fasting before the presence of God. To get us going today, though, I want to focus our attention in verse 1 briefly and take our first point from verse 1 as Jesus shifts into this from righteousness, morality to religious piety, religious action. Keeping in mind the story I told of James, he says this. Beware, Jesus says, 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. Jesus begins this section in Matthew chapter six, telling us to be aware of practicing our righteousness before other people for the purpose of being seen by them. Now, John told us last week that our morality was a matter of the heart. The way in which we are to live in righteousness before the presence of God is a matter of a heart that has been transformed by the grace and mercy of God. It's not seen by a legalistic list of external works. It's to flow from the heart. The same is true here of what Jesus now shifts the attention to say that our motivation for doing what we do is a matter of the heart. It is the motivation for the reason for which we do what we do is, is to bring glory to God. Morality. Yeah, we can recognize that that's good for everyone. The common good. But when we think about our religious devotions, this is specific to those who have accepted the call of Christ on their heart, to those who have responded to Jesus's call and command to follow him. This is a response that we give to our God and our motivation for doing what we do in our devotion unto the Lord is a motivation that brings glory to God and God alone. The Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day, those who would be seeking to lead the people to whom Jesus is preaching, were those who had practiced their religious piety, their giving of their alms, their public prayers, and their fasting in such a way as to garner the attention of everyone else so that someone may look at them and say, man, she is a righteous person. Boy, look at how he prays and look at how he has all these beautiful words to say. He is a spiritual person. They are right before the presence of God. Man, they're truly devoted. They are doing, look how much he gave. Look how much he gave. He gave to get the attention of others so that others would recognize how spiritual they were. And Jesus says here, interestingly and somewhat controversially, Their reward is gonna be given to them by the people who see them and the applause they receive on this earth. But they will have no eternal reward from the Father who is in heaven. Now that's controversial. And it may even be controversial to us today as we think about those that we know who pray beautifully in public. Or those that we know who give wonderfully of themselves. or those who participate in beginning in a couple of weeks, you'll hear a lot of people talking about how they're fasting and participating seasons of the year. And so man, that's a spiritual person and you will applaud them. But what Jesus says here, if the motivation is to get your applause, is to impress you or other people, then there is no reward in heaven. There is no reward in heaven. It's interesting what Jesus says here. I think it's important. Jesus is not saying that somehow our religious devotion when done properly or our righteousness when practiced properly, as he describes in these examples that we find in this sermon, chapter five and chapter six of Matthew. He is not saying in some way, shape or form, we merit a reward from God. He's not saying that some way we earn a reward from God. What are you saying is that those who are devoted unto him who have received his goodness by grace, by through grace, by faith, those who responded to him and allow that devotion to flow naturally are devoted unto him will receive out of his grace and eternal reward. This is not anything controversial per se. You believe this. I believe this, that we are, when we live in a manner that brings glory to God, we devote ourselves unto him. We are going to receive a reward from God because God has promised to give it to us. And He's made that promise solely out of His grace. Let me look at verse 14, if you will. Verse 14 of Matthew chapter six. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will forgive you. If you and I are willing out of the grace and mercy of God that's ministering to our souls, and out of that grace we have received to extend grace and mercy to others and forgiveness to them, then we are confident that God has given us forgiveness. In fact, Jesus talks about this in a parable. When someone owes him a great debt, owes a master a great debt, the master forgives the servant. And then the servant goes and tries to extract the debt from those who owe him a great debt. And Jesus says, you have not understood forgiveness of your debt. If you and I are willing to extend forgiveness to one another, then we have confidence that we have received forgiveness from God and that we will continue to receive forgiveness of God. And again, this isn't something that we merit. We're sinners. We cannot merit anything, any reward from a holy and just God in eternity in his perfection. We have sinned and fallen short of his glory. So any gift that God gives, any reward that God gives, whether we do something or not is a matter of grace as an extension of grace to his people. Devotion unto the Lord. We know there are other examples. If you look at chapter 7 briefly, and just one page over in my Bible, verses 7 through 11, Jesus is talking about praying. And he says, ask and it will be given. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened for you. The one who asks receives. The one who seeks finds. The one who knocks will be opened. And so he says here, if we seek him in the heart of Christ, if we seek him in faith, if we knock in prayer and we ask, we shall receive. This is God's goodness and grace and his promise to us to guarantee that he will give a reward to those who pursue him in faith. But if we do it to get the applause of others, if we do it to show how spiritual we are, if we do it in a manner that we want others to recognize how great we are, right? Then there will be no reward from the Lord. The only reward that we will ever receive if our motivation is to draw attention to ourselves is will be the applause of those who give it to us. That will be it. And so Jesus says, the one who is truly my disciple, not only is practicing his or her righteousness from the heart, is doing it in a manner that brings glory to God. And the motivation of it is to bring glory to the Lord, both now and forevermore. And we can be confident that if we are pursuing the Lord and doing what we do to the glory of God, that we will receive the reward that he has promised to give us. out of his grace because he is good and kind. The examples he gives are verses three and following the first or verse two and following, excuse me, the first example of a religious responsibility or action of religious piety is giving to the needy or giving alms to the poor. We see the disciples doing this, not just throughout the entirety of the gospels, but also in the book of Acts. And we see the apostle Paul telling in particular the church in Corinth, you must meet the needs of one another. You must take up a collection to meet the needs of the saints in Jerusalem, for they are having a difficult time and they are impoverished. We are to contribute to the needs and meeting the needs of one another. If we have plenty, we are to give to those who are in need. freely and openly, not in order to get our name published in a bulletin, not to get a postcard, not to get a thank you note, but rather we are to give to the glory and majesty of God to meet the need that that brother or sister may have. And so Jesus says in verse two, thus, when you give to the needy, I think it's interesting, we'll note this, but in all three instances, when you give to the needy, when you pray, and when you fast, there's an assumption that they're going to do these things. They're going to give to the needy, they're going to pray, they're going to fast. He says, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do. in the synagogues or in the streets. In other words, don't draw attention to yourself. This is self-explanatory to a large degree. Don't draw attention to yourself. Look what I gave. Look how I did it. Now surely giving and a practice of generosity in the heart of a person that has demonstrated the acts of generosity in a giving will often be recognized by others. He's not saying every time you give a gift you have to give anonymously, though some people do. It's not saying that we won't be seen as those who reach out and meet the needs of other people because we're willing to stand in the gap for someone in a short term need. But he's saying that should not be the motivation for which we do it. Don't draw attention to yourself as hypocrites do. Say one thing and do something else. So that, he says in verse two, they may be praised by others. Right? We're not giving in our response to God and our religious piety because God has called us to give to him and to meet the needs of others and to contribute to the treasury of God so as the ministry of the gospel can go forward. We're not doing it to draw attention to ourselves. Rather, we're doing it to meet that need and to bring glory to God. And we do it in such a way to where our right hand does not know what our left hand is doing. In other words, we don't broadcast. Well, I gave this, and I gave that, and I did this, and I did that, and I want you to know what I did, and I want you to see what I did, and I want you to recognize what I did, and I'm not gonna give anymore because that person didn't say thank you as loudly as perhaps they should have, or even at all. We do it to bring glory to God. Giving alms to the poor is an act of religious devotion. Meeting the needs of one another is the carrying out and the living out of our religion. James says, all pure religion is this, to take care of the fatherless and the widow. Meet their needs, but do it quietly and do it in a manner that brings glory to God. The second example he gives is prayer. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. And he says a variety of things, but the main point that he says is in verses five and following, where he says, when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites or the Pharisees, for they love to stand and pray at the synagogues, at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. He says, I say to you, they have received their reward. And in verse six he says, When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you. In other words, understand that our prayerful relationship with God is between us and him. Plain and simple. That doesn't mean there's not a public nature to prayer. We have public prayer here all the time. We pray publicly in the worship. We pray publicly on the Wednesday night. We pray publicly on the Wednesday morning Bible study. We pray publicly in different meetings, et cetera. We share requests with one another. We do all those things publicly. But fundamentally, we understand, as I told the children, our prayer is a conversation between us and God. He is the audience of the prayer. I think if we would grab a hold of this concept more fully, we would be less afraid to pray in public, some of us. I just don't know what to say. You're just talking to God. And understand this is a conversation between you and God. It may be in the private, in the house. It may be in the public square because you've been asked to pray, but the reality of it is that we're doing it to the glory and majesty of God. There's an assumption that we're giving to the poor and there's an assumption that we're praying. Pray in secret to the Lord. Understand that verse seven, when you pray, don't heap up empty phrases. The Gentiles do. He's referring to the Romans and their prayers in their synagogue, prayers in their temples, et cetera, right? For they think that they will be heard for their many words. They're just going on and on and on and on and on and on and on. They're flowery words, long prayers. He says, don't be like them. Your father in heaven knows what you need. Then just simply ask him and then he gives that beautiful model. Call on him who he is, where he is. Seek that his name be glorified. Ask him that his kingdom come and that his will be done on earth as it is in heaven, in your life and in the lives of his people. Pray for what you need, that daily provision. Seek forgiveness from your sins and the power to forgive others, the grace of God to forgive others and ask him to lead you not into temptation but rather to deliver you from evil. In other words, lead me in the paths of righteousness for your name's sake and deliver me from the one who would seek to draw me away from you. Let's order our prayers very simply before the presence of God. I don't know what to pray for. Follow the model, he says. than forgiveness of others. I think in some ways can be a third pious action, learning to forgive others as we have been forgiven. You hold on to bitterness, you hold on to that pill, it will take root and it will change you and impact you for the rest of your life. I'm forgiving you and I'm letting it go as God does, never to bring it up again. And that's a hard one. That's a hard one. but we've got to learn to forgive as Christ has forgiven us. And then lastly, he says, fasting, when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites where they disfigure their faces. Their fasting may be seen by others. He says, In this particular point, don't put stuff on your face to make you look more righteous than you are. Don't walk around, oh, I am doing this because I am so righteous under the Lord, but rather he says, do it in a manner that sacrifices yourself before the presence of God. And whether anybody knows what's going on or not, it doesn't matter because what fasting is, is a, it's a discipline. It's a spiritual discipline to teach us reliance upon Christ, but also self-sacrifice. There will be people in our congregation in the coming weeks who will decide that they want to take part in the season of Lent and the life of the church, and that is fine. We don't do it as a congregation, but that is fine. But let me ask you and encourage you, if you want to take seven weeks to set yourself aside and sacrifice yourself or sacrifice a desire, to sacrifice a longing in your life, so that you can depend upon the Lord and discipline yourself to depend upon the Lord as you prepare for the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Don't broadcast what you're doing. Just do it. Just do it. Just do it between you and God. We don't need to know what you've given up. We don't need to know how hard it is for you to do that. We just need to walk together in the grace and mercy of Christ. We need to give up sin every day of our lives. We need to fast from evil every day of our lives. But if you want to intentionally fast and understand what it means to sacrifice, and it's a beautiful and wonderful discipline to the point where Jesus is expecting his disciples then to be doing it. Do it to the glory of God alone. And don't walk around with a long face, but rather act as if there is nothing going on. Because what you are doing to the glory and majesty of God is to be kept between you and God, not so that others will say, man, he is so spiritual. He's given up something to get ready to celebrate Easter. Or he's giving up something to make a hard decision. He's really wanting to come into contact with who God is. And he's fasting and he's praying about this particular issue. Or she's fasting and she's praying about this particular issue. She's really trying to get to the heart of who God is. And man, she is so spiritual. Because the human pride will say, that's right, I am. You bet your bottom dollar I am. And Jesus says, that's not why we do it. We do it as a matter of the heart. It flows naturally out of our relationship with God. And we do it in a manner that brings glory unto God. Why do we pray? Why do we read our Bible? Why do we give to the needy? Why do we discipline ourselves to walk with Christ? To bring glory to Jesus and to bring us closer to him. That, my friends, as I wrap this up, is, as my grandmother would say, my nanny, a gracious plenty of reasons why we do it. We do it to bring glory to Christ and bring ourselves to Him. Don't practice in the public so that others will see you and applaud you. You practice in the public because it is what you are called to do. If it is recognized great, if it is not great, you bring glory to Jesus by what you do. That's the commitment of the heart of the one who follows Christ. Forgive as Christ has forgiven. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this time together. We ask that you will bless our study of your word and bless our time together in it. And we ask that you will encourage our hearts, both now and forevermore. For it is in Christ we pray. Amen.