Appearance and Substance

Well, it's certainly good to be back in our home court as it were I You could probably tell in my voice. I'm working through a head cold somehow for the past half a year. I've been like Daniel in the lion's den dodging all the sicknesses, but I'm going around and Course came back from an ad knock with more than used towels and bedsheets.

So please bear with me this morning. I'm hoping my voice will will sustain and be in good shape for events on Thursday night and Friday. This morning we we finally get back to the Sermon on the Mount.

It's been some while since we've had a detour. We've been with with our brother Greg who's who's away this week we've been in Jonah and Jonah 1 and 2 and then of course we looked at 2nd Corinthians and Considered restoration and what a what a glorious opportunity enjoy that was and then last week.

We're in Colossians 3 for several days. And so it's been quite some time since we've been back in Matthew chapter 6 back in the Sermon on the Mount now we finished the Lord's Prayer and if you'll remember when we began chapter 6 there were Three major units that chapter 6 begins with and each one of the units is structured in a very similar way.

Although in the Lord's Prayer, there's this huge elaboration pray in this manner. And we spent a while unpacking that but the three major units began with when you give alms. Or when you give charity, don't be like the hypocrites, right?

Don't be those who only want to appear a certain way before men. But inwardly you have no desire no seeking after God rather when you give don't even let your your hands know between them. What you're giving let it be done toward God in secret and God who sees in secret will reward you openly and so that's the structure we've seen both with charity and prayer and now this morning with Fasting each of these units drives home the point that we are not to be like hypocrites.

And this is really flowing out of Matthew chapter 5. Remember where we left off in Matthew chapter 5 toward the very end. It was you must be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect and prior to that Jesus clarified that there is a exceeding righteousness that his followers must exhibit a Righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees.

And so Jesus here as we come into chapter 6 is helping us understand what this exceeding righteousness Looks like it is not a righteousness that merely performs before others. Is a righteousness that is sincerely offered unto God.

And that's what we have in our verses this morning verses 16 through 18. Moreover when you fast do not be like the hypocrites with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting.

Assuredly I say to you they have their reward. But you and you fast anoint your head wash your face so that you do not appear to men to be fasting. But to your father who is in the secret place and your father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

So this is an opportunity to talk a little bit about fasting. Really? I just have two parts to the sermon this morning. The first is to really focus on fasting and the first three words of this verse.

But then I also want to drive home the point that Jesus has been driving home all along this warning against hypocrisy. About the appearance this fixation on how we appear before others without any consideration of how we appear before God.

And so that's that the two-pronged approach will have two verses 16 through 18. And to my recollection we it's been some time since we've actually spoke about fasting. This is not a topic. We've turned to very often.

I Wonder and I'd love to hear Some other afternoon what some of your personal experiences of fasting are. For me it was a bit of a journey. I don't know that I properly understood fasting for quite some time.

I think I had Views that maybe even here in Matthew 6 ought to have been corrected earlier. But as I've come in here with you saints at grbc I've had many occasions to think through fasting many occasions to fast along with you.

Many times we've gathered in a circle in this very room and we've been praying with fasting for very specific things praying for. Sometimes for things to come to pass for God's will to be made clear and we recognize that though those times feel somewhat far and few between that.

Nevertheless, we are standing in a rich part of our reformed heritage indeed Christian heritage. Fasting has always had a place in practice among the people of God. You you go out to a Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth.

I've been there a few times over the past couple years. They have paintings and facsimiles and all sorts of memorabilia. Connected to Thanksgiving Day back in the Plymouth colony. They don't have any facsimiles or paintings of the fasting days.

That would have been on the other side of those feasting days the the Puritans practiced both fasting and feasting. In fact the fasting days were just as common if not more common in the days of old. Nowadays when it comes to fasting you only hear people talk about it if they're about to undergo a medical procedure.

They need to fast sometimes. That's the only time they take it seriously, you know they won't put their hand in the cookie jar because things might go wrong and under the Surgeon's knife the next day or you hear people that they've tapped into intermittent fasting.

Oh, I fast twice a week. Wow, that's amazing. That's like the Pharisees. Oh, it's intermittent fasting. I've never lost so much weight. It's all a fad to to burn calories. It's nothing spiritual for the Puritans for for Spirituality fasting is always a religious observance.

Not a dietary observance. Religious observance and the focus is entirely on God. We're going to unpack that a little bit together this morning. Archibald Alexander from from old Princeton back in the glory days in 19th century.

He wrote fasting is made a part of all religions true and false. And it's practiced among the heathen the Jews the Mohammedans in other words the Muslims the Romanists in other words the Catholics even Oriental Christians and.

Because of this the practice has been turned so much to superstition. Protestants have too much neglected this duty. So even in his own day, he recognized there's such an emphasis on Containing the flesh and doing sort of ritualistic fasting that Protestants have just absconded with the practice altogether.

He was seeking to correct that. Let's talk about Matthew 6 16 through 18. I'm just going to focus on these first three words when you fast. When you fast notice as with alms and prayer. Jesus does not say if you fast.

He says when you fast. There's an expectation. Fasting is going to take place in a Christian's life. What is the purpose of fasting. It's not just the refusal of food. What is the religious purpose the religious practice of fasting?

Well, John Calvin the great reformer. He described it with three purposes. He said first it's to subdue our flesh. And secondly, it's to prepare us in prayer and thirdly it's to demonstrate humility before God self-abasement before God.

So it's about reigning in or subduing the flesh it's about clarifying and perhaps drawing us into a spirit of prayer and it's to demonstrate both Outwardly to some degree but especially inwardly a certain humility a certain self-abasement before God.

Now these can be found throughout the scripture both Old and New Testament. We have examples of these very things. Calvin himself was aware that in his day and throughout much of church history Fasting was a regulate regulated part of Christian experience.

He himself held that it ought to be occasional and not habitual in other words There ought to be an occasion for a fast. It shouldn't be something that is scheduled on the calendar. Now's our fasting day.

There ought to be an occasion that that is a way of protecting that God were devotion. But this is not to devolve into something that is almost Ritualistic and empty in that very way more to talk about that in a moment our own confession.

Our second London Baptist confession it addresses fasting as a part of how God is to be rightly worshipped. How not not just in a particular setting or place but in all of the ways that we are to worship God.

Our confession says chapter 22 paragraph 5 God has to be worshipped with the reading of scriptures preaching hearing the Word of God. Teaching admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing with grace in our hearts to the Lord.

Does that sound familiar? It ought to. Also the administration of baptism and the Lord's Supper all of this is Aspects of religious worship of God and it's to be performed in obedience to him with understanding and faith with reverence and godly fear.

Moreover solemn humiliations with fastings and Thanksgivings upon special occasions ought to be used in a holy and religious manner. So you see what our confession is putting forth. There's a regular way that God is to be worshipped.

There's always to be preaching and hearing of God's Word. Things that are spoken things that are received things that are sung psalms hymns spiritual songs the word in all these forms saturating the lives of the people of God.

Upon the needs upon the opportunities there's to be baptism the regularity of the Lord's Supper and then on special occasions times of fasting times of Thanksgiving the only other place in our confession that addresses fasting is when elders are Chosen by common suffrage in the church and there to be set apart by prayer and fasting.

I believe that's the only other direct reference to fasting in our confession. What they're recognizing in terms of a religious worship of God is fasting as a way of seeking God. But notice what it was connected to and we'll see this as a pattern.

It was always connected to humiliation self Abasement a certain humbling of the soul. That is what fasting is meant to bring about and if fasting is about seeking God we can recognize it is impossible to see God without humbling oneself.

God resists the proud he draws near to the humble if you're seeking God to draw near to you. You have to humble yourself. That's the only way he can be found. Fasting is a way of getting your body into a humbled position so that your soul can follow train can follow suit.

So fasting and if you look throughout church history fasting was always connected to humility it's essentially a physical display of humility a physical means or form of self humiliation. Fasting is a means of seeking God because fasting is a means of humbling oneself.

I was reading a lot Over the past week on this very topic. I came across a notebook of an old reverend from when him in the 17th century named John Fisk. Just pull out a couple of passages. From his notebook to give you a little window into how fasting was viewed in the colonial days of our country.

Right here on the North Shore. October 19th 1644 a solemn day of humiliation Kept regarding the dominance of the Presbyterians in England. I love that's a personal one. I love that one. January 2nd 1645 a solemn day of humiliation Kept because of the extremity of the season and concern for the church in the town.

February 20th 1648 a colony wide fast ordered by the general court and the governor. For this for the state of England the West Indies and Massachusetts Bay Colony. April 15th 1648 a day of humiliation for a church member who had resisted discipline.

February 28 1661 a day of humiliation before the scriptures to seek reconciliation with all in the church. These are just random. Scattered moments from the notebook of this reverend and he's are counting both in the church and in the colony at large days set apart for fasting.

Even not just in the early days of the colonies, but even later even during the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln Proclaimed three fasts during the Civil War. Two in the fall of 1863 one in the fall of 1864 and and specifically the word went out.

This is a day for public humiliation fasting in prayer. You see in all of this the common word Humiliation, that's the key. The old Dutch reformer Wilhelmus albrock. Oh, I don't think most of the babies have been born.

If you're looking for a name, Wilhelmus is up for grabs. That's a good one to bring back. Oh, Willie I'm Rocco writes fasting in and of itself is not a religious practice merely depriving oneself of refreshment is not observing a day of fasting for fasting is a humbling of oneself and Fasting and humbling are not two separate duties.

You see what he's saying? You can skip food. That means absolutely nothing. You're just denying yourself food if there's no humility. You haven't even begun to fast. Fasting is humility. That's the point he says this.

Fasting serves but one purpose to facilitate the humbling of the soul. It has no significance beyond that. Now he has a lot more in his four-volume Christian reasonable service. To address fasting but notice what he says is the most significant thing humility.

Fasting serves one purpose to facilitate the humbling of the soul. Beyond this it serves. No other purpose. I Mentioned it took me a while to work out. Certain miss misunderstandings of what fasting is and how it ought to be done.

One of my fonder memories that's that's very much an embarrassment is Convincing Alicia that we needed a day of fasting. This was early on long before we were married. It's like we're gonna fast. I'm gonna show her how spiritual I am.

I'm zealous for the Lord. It's like, all right, we're gonna have a day of fasting. How am I gonna do this? All right, I'm gonna have several readings from Scripture appointed times throughout the day.

We'll make sure we get some of that in make sure we spend some time in prayer. And then what so I'm over at her parents house. We're sitting in the living room floor. I bring a Jansport backpack full of Capri Suns and in between moments of reading Scripture.

We spent half the day playing a video game together. We're just playing like Crash Bandicoot drinking Capri Suns and it's like, oh time to read Scripture. Isn't this a great fast? That was no fast at all.

That was just a very bizarre day. It certainly had nothing to commend spiritually to the Lord. There was no humility in that it was actually more of a fun day than a fast day in a lot of respects. It's not fasting if there's not humility.

In Ezra 8 one of my favorite passages just to speak about this matter of fasting. Ezra chapter 8. Ezra is on the verge of leading the people finally out of Babylon. The very thing that God had promised is now on the very cusp of fulfillment.

There's a lot of moving parts just because it's going to happen. All of God's providence has lined up doesn't mean it's going to happen.

Easily.

There's a sort of frenzied search to get the Levites in order and make sure that everyone's ready to go and all of this happens. Within the space of two weeks and as they're all trying to collect all of these things Ezra gathers the people we read in verse 21 and I proclaimed a fast there at the river.

That we might humble ourselves before God. To seek him in the right way for us and for all of our little ones and all of our possessions. So we're if we're coming off of Ezra chapter 7. We have generations that have been thirsting longing drooling for this day of return.

It is a long journey three four-month journey. To get back to the motherland to get back to the land of promise. Most of the people have never even been there. And now they have to gather everything that they've established.

Generationally with their lives in Babylon. This is the seventh year of Artaxerxes rule. It's the Persians have kind of swept in and you recognize they're basically packing up their whole lives in a matter of two weeks so they can fulfill this great promise of God that they would be restored to the land and Ezra who's trying to navigate and Administrate all of the moving parts of this great this great journey.

Stops catches himself and says we're gonna fast for three days. He doesn't do what most of us in the room would do is like we're losing time. We got to go people will catch up. We just got to hit the road.

He says, all right, we got to make it and let's fast for three days. Because we want to go the right way. And we want God to show us the right way. We want his blessing. So let's humble ourselves. He doesn't get ahead of himself.

Notice that it's not just getting there that matters to him. It's how they get there that matters to him. Sometimes the reason that fasting is neglected as a spiritual practice in our lives is because it's just about getting.

It's not about how we get it's just getting and if you're obsessed with getting there's no place for self humiliation. I don't need to humble myself before myself before God. This is just a leverage. This is just a tactic for me to get what I'm seeking.

It's not about humbling myself for God's will to be revealed. For God to show me the right way to show me things about him show me things about myself. It's no wonder that fasting is so wrong widely neglected among us.

Ezra doesn't lose sight of the purpose even in the midst of the busyness even in the midst of all of the turmoil. It's how the people get there. He wants to seek the right way and he seems to be aware of if not directly employing The very prophecies that were connected to how the people would be restored to the land when you come to jeremiah 50 one of the great prophecies of god.

Being able to restore on a set day his people to the land. And God says to the prophet in those days and in that time the children of israel will come. They and the children of judah together with continual weeping.

They will come they will seek the lord their god. They will ask their way to zion with their faces toward it. Ezra seems to be fulfilling that. Taking that in and saying okay. This is not some triumphant march.

We need to remember why we were dragged out of our land in the first place. So let's fast and think about that. We don't want to get there just to be dragged out again a few years later notice that ezra seeks the lord.

Because he wants to know the right way. This is a reason that we humble ourselves. We often find the right way because we've been tripping over ourselves in all of the wrong ways. So finally, there's a place for humility.

Everything that I thought was right everything I sought to do has made a royal mess. So it's time now instead to seek the right way that you have lord. I'm just going to humble myself and stop trying to dart forward.

The problem is we often ask the lord to follow us in the decisions we make. We usually have to fast after the fact I love that ezra fasts before. We're about to go i'm gonna fast as we go. He doesn't presume to know the right way.

He seeks and waits upon the lord. That's very instructive. Ezra seeks the lord and he seeks the lord in a certain way. He proclaims a fast in order to be humbled before god. Again, we often begin to fast or humble ourselves after a stumble after a trial.

Ezra does this beforehand. He recognizes the truth of james 4 10. If you humble yourself god himself will exalt you in due time. And so fasting is a means of humbling the flesh. It's a way of reigning in control over our bodily appetites.

A way as it were of of constraining our our impulses. That ability to just give in to things as soon as they flash in front of our attention. Fasting is a way of tempering and depriving the flesh to be that impulsive.

To not just do automatically as we please to to pursue at great length the things that will gratify or suit us. Fasting is a way of demonstrating that however vital our earthly needs may be. There is still a narrow And temporary way.

That those earthly needs must be met. What is a true need an everlastingly vital need doesn't come from the earth. It comes from heaven. And man doesn't live. By bread, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of god fasting is a way of declaring that.

You're essentially preaching to your stomach and your soul. All that's within you. What does paul describe of the the judaizers and. In the church at philippi he says their god is their belly. When their god gives a command they obey.

They have no higher principle no higher form of obedience than their flesh. Fasting is a way of saying my belly is not my god the impulses of my flesh that that natural Adamic thirst for gratification does not have control over me.

The condition of the body affects the soul we can fall into. Unfortunate ways of describing the relationship of body and soul in distinguishing them. We forget how closely interwoven they are and truly they are distinguishable.

At death the body goes into the ground the soul goes to be with the lord and awaits to be further clothed. But that further clothing is the state that the body is intended to be. The soul is not meant to be apart from the body.

The body is not meant to be apart from the soul. This is the condition that sin that death has brought about human beings image bearers are bodies and souls. Because we're schizophrenic about that separation and have more of a platonic view of the relationship of the body to the soul.

We sometimes discount the import that our bodies have on our spirituality on the soulish aspects of human experience. We we almost marginalize or neglect how in fact impactful our bodies are. And you know what?

It's like when you're very sick. When you're feeling very weak, it's hard to be spiritually minded, isn't it? All of a sudden it's like a burden or a lodestone on your soul. When you're very healthy when everything is is functioning like a well-oiled engine.

Your spirituality is almost taken up to the next level. You come into the church and the doors fly open and bluebirds start to fly and you're just kind of singing all these hymns as you bolt around. And then we're all kind of crackedly into the corners coughing and hacking and saying oh lord how much longer.

The condition of the body affects the soul. That's why paul says he uses all these metaphors of an athlete of a fighter a prize fighter a runner. He says I beat my body into submission. Unfortunately, this has a whole legacy in early christianity of sort of Self-torture as a means of spiritual improvement and certainly scripture does not condone that.

The point that paul is getting at is No athlete that's actually about winning. Lives this life of of splendor and luxury. The one that wins the gold medal the one that makes it to the finish line. Is not the one who had ostrich Feather fans and was just plucking grapes all day.

And that's not picking on, you know, whatever your waist size is, right? I'm. That would be a pot calling a kettle black. Listen, even sumo wrestlers are Very well disciplined I have to say. They get a bad rap.

But I mean, I don't think any of us could hang with those guys. I don't know. I have weird algorithms. I've watched sumo wrestling from time to time. I know a lot more about it than I should. It's it's a pretty impressive sport.

I have to say This is just a way of saying if you want to win if you want to make it. You have to get control of your body. This requires self-denial self-discipline. Paul tells timothy in first timothy four discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.

Discipline yourself. I do that paul says you need to do that timothy. Do you want to be godly?

Godly.

Deny yourself. Discipline yourself. Get some control over your flesh. Learn how to deny your appetites. That's how you'll be godly. It's not all of it, but it's a big part of it. Christian does does your flesh?

Have more control over your life and your walk than it should. Often it is the case that you have no place to seek god. And that's why you need to deny your flesh in the first place. This is what it's costing you.

You're not having a sight or a hunger for god. Because you haven't been denying your flesh because you haven't been disciplined in your walk. It's interesting among you know. Gen z-ers and so on. I have to speak down.

It's like when you're an upperclassman you have to speak down to the freshmen. Well, i'm a millennial. Speak down to the gen z-ers. There's perhaps more health consciousness than ever among gen z-ers.

But I think a lot of that is just chaff. It's so fickle. It's so fickle. There's more concern about bodily health in really good ways. Because the body and the soul is intertwined. But at the same time there's not the kind of concern that the godly of all the saints of old have had.

About the body the bodily denial. Bodily discipline as a means of spiritual. Discipline as a means of spiritual formation. I want to be godly not. I want to be fit. I want to be godly not. I want to be healthy.

Yeah.

To be godly doesn't mean you're going to be unhealthy, but you understand what i'm saying. It's a lot more Than the bodily parameters and achievements of health. It's about godliness. Otherwise, it's just uh, it's not fasting at all because there's no humility.

And it's no humility if it's not humility before god. You might as well just get a backpack full of juice boxes and play video games right it's not.

Real.

Fasting.

Fasting can help sharpen and direct our hunger. For god our reliance upon god that humbling. That sense of a need for relying and finding god comes when we haven't been able to find him when we haven't been relying on Him and so there's a need for a humbling.

That's where fasting comes in. If you look at it, there's an old fifth century document called the opus imperfectum and In in dealing with the early part of matthew 6 the writer says. You know, basically matthew's lifting the lord's prayer is the very center of these things all these things are acts of piety and faith.

Right alms giving the lord's prayer, you know praying and fasting. But he recognized prayer is the central thing behind it all and in fact the only way to combat vanity is if you On the one hand deny the vanity and pride of your flesh by showing mercy to others by giving to others.

And then that is a way of actually being led into prayer, but then also Fasting and denying your own flesh. That's the other way of of aiding and supporting prayer. It's all about prayer. In other words was all about your relationship in pursuit of god.

Fasting can help sharpen and direct that hunger.

That's the point.

You think of jesus in the wilderness fasting. He was about to embark on his ministry. One of three.

That.

In their in the midst of their ministry as they embarked upon their ministry in significant ways. They had a 40-day fast moses elijah the lord jesus the law the prophet the priest.

Jesus.

In the wilderness fasting. And you think again he's the last adam starving denying his flesh looking for the will and the way of god not turning stones into bread. But simply eating and being supported and nourished by all that came from the lord his god.

And that's in high contrast to the first adam not in the desert not in the wilderness, but in paradise. Feasting and giving in. He's going to eat. Hey, you should eat this. God's holding out on you. Sounds great.

Pass it over. He just gives in. There's absolutely no self-denial in the early church. They they put a lot into that about the practice of fasting. Tertullian wrote a whole tractate on fasting. He was connecting the fact that fasting is a christian practice because adam was commanded by god do not eat and he ate.

And so christians need to learn unlike adam how to deny food in their pursuit of god. There's a way of saying we won't be like the first adam who always gave into the flesh. We'll be like the last adam who denied himself to seek out god.

There's that measure of devotion. And faith in all true fasting. Jesus says when you fast this is what it has to look like. If you're just fasting out of a tradition if you're fasting because it's on your calendar.

If you're fasting because you're trying to impress your girlfriend. That's not that's not going to work. It's hard to really humble yourself out of a tradition out of a ritual. There's nothing godward about that.

It's just going through the motions. That's why calvin says it ought to be occasional. That's why as alexander said the protestants have largely neglected it became superstitious. Ritualistic didn't have anything about god anything about sincere humility.

That's only false humility. And if there's only false humility why fast in the first place? In the gospel of mark chapter 2 this seems to be the issue. And there's a lot going on in mark chapter 2 that that goes far beyond the issue of fasting.

But fasting seems to be one of the issues that is of concern. Not only for the pharisees and the scribes. But even for the followers of john the baptist. We read beginning in verse 18 the disciples of john and of the pharisees were fasting.

And they came to him and said Why do the disciples of john and of the pharisees fast and your disciples don't fast? Jesus said to them can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them.

As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them and then they will fast in those days. Notice we have this unlikely pairing the disciples of john and the pharisees.

How did these guys become friends? Didn't john say of the pharisees you brood of vipers who warns you to flee the wrath to come? And now they're walking together. They've both got issues with jesus. Now they're in the midst of fasting right the disciples of john and of the pharisees were fasting.

And we have an automatic tendency to think disciples of john good pharisees bad. But here we see even the followers of john the baptist are put off by how jesus and his disciples are operating. They're a little too loose.

They're getting a little too comfortable with sinners. They're a little too celebratory. Where's that humility the kind of humility we have. Look at our sackcloth. Look at our fasting. They're fasting as we as we know.

The jews fasted twice a week. In fact it did decay. An early christian document in chapter 8 verse 1 Says we ought to fast on two days a week, but the opposite days that the jews do they do. You know, I forget what it was wednesday, you know wednesday and friday.

Then we ought to do tuesday and thursday something like that. We ought to be be distinct but the practice was the same fast two days a week. But here's the disciples of jesus and they're not fasting at all.

What's going on?

Well, these followers were fasting that's no big surprise they were fasting with this humility. That's good. At least those of john would have understood. His whole ministry was a call to repentance. This whole ministry was a call to humble.

Humble the people of israel the children of israel and prepare the way for the lord. Fasting was primarily a symbolic expression of repentance of self-denial of waiting for the way of the lord to appear.

I have many examples throughout scripture. Voluntary fasts. There's really only one positive command that comes through. And that's leviticus 16 the command to fast. On the day of atonement the language there is to afflict oneself.

And the idea again is self-abasement self-humiliation. Very appropriate as we embark toward the day of atonement that the reception of god's forgiveness ought to come with a certain humiliation. A certain repentance fasting was meant to depict that and aid the souls of the people toward that.

Now later on, of course, it's described as more of a common practice. That's the only positive command in scripture. But you read zechariah 7 joel 1 isaiah 58 fasting was very commonly practiced by the people of god.

It had become so customary as we said it was practiced twice a week. So they get all that we're supposed to be mourning. We're supposed to be humble. We're supposed to be a repentant.

And.

What's highlighted is fasting had become an empty display of personal holiness. Why aren't your disciples holy like we are? That was the attitude. You'd be a lot more holy if you would put some sackcloth on and just starve yourself for a day.

We do this twice a week every week. It's just how we live. It's how we operate. And that had withered down into this fleshly display of personal holiness. I'm holy because I ritually mourn my sins. It's the same withered meaningless display that happens every ash wednesday.

When people who live absolutely debauched lives get a little smudge on their forehead and they think somehow now I can display to the world.

That i'm holy.

Look how i've humbled myself before god the furthest thing from that truth. Now in matthew 6 our passage Jesus is targeting this kind of attitude this kind of display. He says don't be like the hypocrites.

They try to make a big show out of it, but it's empty. There's nothing godward about it. It's all directed toward the eyes of men. We get the same air of superiority in luke 18 the parable of the pharisee and the tax collector.

All right, the parable of the allegedly righteous one and the sinner. The pharisee stood and prayed with himself god. I thank you that i'm not like other men. Extortioners unjust adulterers or even like this tax collector.

What's the first thing? He says because I fast twice a week.

That's what he says.

You want proof?

That i'm holy.

Let me tell you about my humility. I I fast twice a week. How humble I am. How holy I am. The tax collector standing far off would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven. He beat his breast saying god be merciful to me as sinner.