Ulterior Motives

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I want to invite you to take out your Bible and turn with me to the Gospel of Matthew.
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And you can go to Matthew chapter 6 and hold your place there.
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One of the great blessings in preaching verse by verse through books or sections of the Bible is that you begin to pick up on patterns which are contained within the text.
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It helps you to understand context and how the context flows.
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These patterns might be easily missed if we were to simply jump from one verse to the next.
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If I were to preach in Colossians one week and Ephesians another week and be in the Old Testament another week, it would be easy to miss the patterns which are in the Scripture.
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But working through large portions of the text helps us to see a direction which the author is taking.
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It helps us to ensure that we're interpreting Scripture correctly.
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The Bible says that it is very important that the person who is preaching be able to divide the Word of God properly.
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That's the job of the interpreter.
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That's the job of the pastor.
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And part of that is that we understand context.
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Someone said, what are the rules of biblical interpretation? Well, there are three.
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It's context and context and context.
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That's the three rules.
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Understanding why this is being written, who it's being written to, by whom it's being written.
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All these things are valuable and important.
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I mention this today because we're arriving at a new chapter in the Gospel of Matthew.
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We have been for many months in the fifth chapter looking at the Sermon on the Mount.
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And we are today moving to chapter six.
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And what we have seen so far is that Jesus has established a pattern in this sermon.
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And it is a pattern of correction.
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He is confronting the leaders of His day.
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He is confronting misunderstandings of the Bible.
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He is saying, you have heard it taught this, but I tell you this.
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He's saying, you've heard it wrong.
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You've misunderstood it.
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You've misapplied it.
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You've had the Word, but you don't know it.
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Here is its meaning.
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We're going to see in this new chapter that Jesus is going to change His focus a bit.
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But He's not going to stop correcting error.
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He's going to continue correcting error.
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But He's going to refocus His attention from ethics, which has been the focus so far.
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Christian ethics.
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He's going to change to the focus of piety and worship.
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He's going to move from the focus of ethics to worship.
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He's going to spend the first part of this chapter talking about three things that we do as acts of worship.
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Giving.
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Praying.
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And fasting.
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And He's going to say, these three things are things that have been misunderstood and misapplied.
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And the key to all of this is going to be one word.
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And that is the word motivation.
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So as we begin to read, we're fixing to stand and read and pray.
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Before we do that, I want you to just put in your hearts and mind the focus of today is what are our motives for what we do for God? What motivates us in what we do for God? Are our motives pure? Are our motives in keeping with what He has called us to? Or do we have ulterior motives? Let's stand and read Matthew chapter one.
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We stand to give honor and reverence to God's word because it is the word of God, the infallible, inerrant word.
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And we give it its due place.
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It says we're only going to read one verse today.
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Matthew chapter six and verse one.
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Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them.
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For then you will have no reward from your father who is in heaven.
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Our Father and our God, we thank you for your word.
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I thank you for the truth of the word.
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I pray, O Lord, that as I seek to explain this verse, that you would keep me from error.
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As I am a fallible man and I am certainly capable of preaching error.
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I pray that you would keep me from it.
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I pray that you would open the hearts of the congregation to the truth.
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And I pray that your truth would go out and that it would bless them and encourage them and convict them.
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And I pray that all this be done in the name of Jesus Christ.
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Amen.
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As I've already noted in my introduction, there is an overarching theme in the Sermon on the Mount.
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The overarching theme of the Sermon on the Mount is the correction of error.
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Jesus is concerned that we know the truth, that we live the truth.
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He even said that he himself is the truth.
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I am the way, the truth and the life.
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The truth is such a vital part of what it means to be a Christian.
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We are supposed to be people of the truth.
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He's focused in chapter five on fixing the misinterpretations of the law.
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The Pharisees had taken the laws which commanded regarding murder and adultery and divorce and oaths and retaliation.
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And they had turned them on their heads.
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And Jesus is the Lord of the law.
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He is also the author of the law, being God incarnate.
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And he demonstrates their failure in a masterful exposition using the pattern, you have heard it said, but I say to you.
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Now we come to chapter six and he starts talking about their failures in worship.
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And he switches his pattern a bit.
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Jesus had used the phrase, you have heard it said, but I say to you now he is going to switch to a new pattern.
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He is going to talk about rewards.
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And this first part of chapter six, he focuses on that word reward.
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He focuses on what is received from doing something good and positive.
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And he said there are two types of rewards.
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There are the rewards which you get from men and there are the rewards that you get from God.
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And thus he's going to use this as a pattern.
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He's going to say, if you do it this way, you're going to get a reward from men.
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But if you do it this way, you will receive a reward from God.
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And therein is the pattern that he is going to lay out.
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And this first verse, this chapter six, verse one, gives the theme of the whole chapter really.
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It gives the theme of what Jesus is going to be expressing.
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When he says, beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them.
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For then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
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Beloved, that verse is not hard to understand.
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Some people might wonder why I stopped there.
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It's not as if it's something that takes a knowledge of Koine Greek.
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It's not as if I have to express all of the Greek words to help you understand what he's saying.
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It's not as if I have to go into lexicons and different types of linguistic sources and draw out from the meaning of the words.
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It's pretty plain English and it was pretty plain Greek.
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And it was probably pretty plain Aramaic when Jesus said it too.
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He says, beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them.
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Simply stated, personal acts of worship and piety are not meant to be performed as a show.
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God is the only audience that should be our concern when we are participating in the activity of worship.
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And by the way, I want to clear something up.
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When I use the word worship, I use the word worship in this sermon and generally speaking in the broadest of sense.
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Worship for many people today has become all about music.
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People talk about, well this is the worship portion and this is the preaching portion.
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Or this is the worship portion and this is the prayer portion and this is the preaching portion.
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Beloved, it's all worship.
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What I do at home with my children at night when we open the word of God or we open some textbook and we study about the word of God, that's worship.
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When I get on my knees before God when no one else is around and I pray to him on my knees before God, that's worship.
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Don't limit yourself to some myopic view of what worship is where it has to have a certain type of music at a certain time of the week and a certain time of day.
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Worship is what we do when we are exercising the ascription of worship to God.
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Worth.
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Ascription of worth.
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That's what the word worship means.
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It means to ascribe worth to someone.
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And the utmost of worth is to be ascribed to God.
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So what Jesus is talking about here in chapter 6 and the first half of chapter 6 almost to the end, he's talking about those things that people do as acts of worship, but they do them as a show.
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And he says three things over a period of few verses and we will go through these verse by verse, but I'm giving the overview.
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I like to overview what we're going to do and then we go back and we unpack it.
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But he's going to say over the in the weeks to come and in the verses to come, he's going to say one giving is not to be done as a show.
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Prayer is not to be done as a show.
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Fasting, an activity that I imagine is not a part of many modern Christian lives, but should be, is not to be done as a show.
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So in the last half of chapter 5, Jesus has established a pattern.
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You have heard it said, but I say unto you and in this chapter, he starts the new pattern by saying simply, here is what you do in front of men.
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Here's what you do in front of God.
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And if you do what you do in front of men, you are doing it for the reward that they will give you.
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And that is all the reward you will receive.
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There's an interesting comparison that can be made between chapter 5 and chapter 6.
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In chapter 5, Jesus is talking about things that are bad.
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Murder is bad.
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I think we would all agree.
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So too is hatred, adultery and lust are bad things.
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Jesus talks about them.
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Unfaithfulness and divorce are bad things.
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Unfulfilled oaths and lies are bad things.
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Hatred and retaliation are bad things.
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And Jesus is expressing about all this bad.
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Now in chapter 6, he starts talking about that which is good.
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Giving is a good thing.
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Prayer is a good thing.
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Fasting is a good thing.
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But the point that we need to understand is that these things are good, but they can also be done in a bad way.
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Not all giving is godly giving.
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Not all prayer is godly prayer.
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And not all fasting is godly fasting.
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Christ wants us to realize that we not only have to seek to keep from doing things that are unrighteous.
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That should be obvious.
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I don't want to murder.
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I don't want to steal.
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I don't want to lie.
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I don't want to lust.
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I should avoid these things.
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Yes, that's part of the Christian ethic.
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But there are also good things that I should do.
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But I need to be properly motivated to do them.
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I need to have the right motives behind why I do them.
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You see, this sermon is hearkening back to an earlier statement made by Christ.
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If you look in chapter 5, just go over a few verses.
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You're right there if your Bible is open.
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Look at verse 20 where he says, For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
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You see, that verse is very important.
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Because we know the Pharisees misunderstood the law of God.
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We know the Pharisees misunderstood a lot of these things and Jesus has already corrected them.
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But you know what? At the same time, they were masters at manipulating the law.
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They were masters at manipulating the system to sort of make it fit what they wanted to do.
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And here's the thing.
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They were the type of people who were really good at giving.
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Jesus even makes a point.
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He said they tied the tenth of everything.
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Every little thing that they got.
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Even the littlest bit of mint or cumin.
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They would tithe that to ensure that they were right with the tithe.
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Their prayers.
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Man, they were shows.
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Come out and hear him pray.
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He's the Billy Graham of Pharisees.
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You come out and hear him pray.
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Because he is a prayer master.
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And they would fast to the point that their bodies would show that they were suffering from hunger.
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So that they would appear more righteous.
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This is what Jesus says in Matthew 23.
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Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses's seat.
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So do and observe whatever they tell you.
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But not the works they do.
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For they preach, but they do not practice.
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They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and they lay them on people's shoulders.
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But they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.
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They do all their deeds to be seen by others.
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For they make their phylacteries broad.
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By the way, a phylactery was something that was worn on the head.
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It was tied on the head with a string.
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And it was used to hold verses of scripture.
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So that they would keep them reminded about certain verses of scripture.
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They would put them in these little boxes and wear them on their head.
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They still wear them today.
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Orthodox Jews will still wear them.
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And they would make their phylacteries broad.
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Look how much Bible I have on my mind.
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They do all their deeds.
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Verse 5.
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They do all their deeds to be seen by others.
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For they make their phylacteries broad.
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And their fringes long.
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The fringes was the part of the prayer garment that they had.
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And they would make it long so that people would see them and be impressed.
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And they love the place of honor at feasts.
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And the best seats in the synagogues.
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And the greetings in the marketplace.
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And being called rabbi by others.
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They love that.
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They love that title.
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That title of teacher.
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The title of rabbi.
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People like titles today too.
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He's the doctor, reverend, pastor, elder, missionary.
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You know, John Smith or whatever.
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He's this, this, this, that and the other.
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Because we have to know for sure that he has all these titles.
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And all these.
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It's D.D., D.S., D.Min, D.Viv, whatever on the end of his name.
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M.Div and all these other things.
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We have to know these titles.
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We have to have these positions.
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Because we like what? Recognition.
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We like to be recognized.
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And the Pharisees were masters of it.
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They were masters of the religious performance.
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They were masters of putting on a show of their worship and their piety.
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And they loved the respect that it garnered them.
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They loved the influence that it provided for them.
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They loved the position that it accorded for them.
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So Jesus is rebuking them here.
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In verse 1 of chapter 6.
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He's rebuking the incorrect nature of the, for lack of a better term, the religious elite.
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And he's challenging them.
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And he's saying what you are doing, you are not doing for God.
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What you are doing, you are doing for people.
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And here's the thing about this list.
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We talk about giving.
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We talk about prayer.
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We talk about fasting.
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Beloved, that is not an exhaustive list.
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Jesus is not attempting to give an exhaustive list.
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He's intending to give examples of things that are easy to have improper motivations in regard to.
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And he's saying here are some things, but you can bring this out into the broader context of other things.
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Anything which is done with the attempt to impress or to influence or to provide your own self-gratification is not an act of worship unto God.
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It is an act of show unto men.
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It doesn't have to be limited to prayer or fasting or giving.
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It could be anything.
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The Pharisees were motivated by respect and position and influence.
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Some modern Christians are motivated by the same types of recognition.
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There are people who like to have their name on the church roll of such and such a church because they feel like having their name on that roll will establish for them some type of position.
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I knew a man once who wanted to run for local office.
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And he was told no, you can't run for local office unless you join this church.
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Because you have to have a certain status.
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There are people who want titles within the church.
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Thank God, I want to say this before I make this next statement, because I do believe the men that I share service with in this church, that they are not incumbent by this issue.
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I want to make sure nobody thinks I'm calling anyone out directly.
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But there are people who look at the elder position, and man, I want that because I want that position.
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I want that notoriety.
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I want to be able to tell people I'm in this leadership position.
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Other people want the position of deacon.
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And man, the position of deacon is pretty high in some churches.
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It's only supposed to be a position of service.
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That's what diakonos is to the servant.
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But yet in some churches, it's very elevated as a position.
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And some people really want that position because with it comes the accolade.
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With it comes, you're not just Keith Foskey, you are Deacon Foskey.
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You're not just Keith Foskey.
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That's my name, by the way, for those of you who have visitors who may not know who I'm talking about.
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That's me.
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I'm not calling anyone out.
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You're Elder Foskey or you're Pastor this or whatever.
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And Jesus is saying that the problem with that is motivation.
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When we want respect, when we want admiration, when we want accolades, we want them from people.
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But in seeking those accolades from people, we're forfeiting the greater reward which comes from God.
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We should be motivated by what pleases God.
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But sadly, many people are motivated by what gets them the most recognition.
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Now, I want to make note of something since we're talking about the subject this morning.
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Earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, it said that we are to be salt and light.
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And if you remember the sermon that I preached on salt and light, I talked about what that means.
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Salt is a preservative and light is something that exposes things.
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It sheds light.
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It cancels out darkness.
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And it says that's what the church is supposed to be in the world.
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It's supposed to be salt and light.
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It's supposed to be a preservative and that which exposes or reveals truth.
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That's what we're supposed to be as a church.
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So someone might see that and see Jesus say, you're supposed to be salt and light.
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And the result be what? Well, here Jesus says that we're not supposed to give publicly.
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We're not supposed to pray publicly.
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We're not supposed to fast publicly.
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So is he speaking out of both sides of his mouth? In one sense, he says, hey, we're supposed to influence the world and do good things and be good things and do these things and be salt and light.
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And here he's saying, but keep it hush hush.
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And someone might look at that and say, oh, man, here's a contradiction.
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Here's a place where there's confusion.
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But there is no contradiction.
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There is no confusion.
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Because the answer is found in the examples given.
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Jesus is not denying in chapter six that we should ever be seen performing good deeds.
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Beloved, we should be seen performing good deeds.
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We should be known by the world as those who perform good works.
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In fact, the Bible says we should be so known for doing good works that the world has trouble finding aught against us.
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That they would have trouble finding anything wrong with us because we are so known for doing that which is good.
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Christians are to be marked by good deeds.
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Good deeds done in Christ's name, of course.
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He's not saying that we should hide our evangelism.
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That would be a problem because evangelism is what? Sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with the world.
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That's our goal.
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How could we hide that? We can't.
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And Jesus said we shouldn't.
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He said, I don't give you a light to put it under a bushel basket.
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Don't do that.
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Neither am I to hide my love for Christ or my devotion to him.
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In fact, Jesus said if we deny him before men, he will deny us before his Father in heaven.
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We don't have that right to go about denying Christ.
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But he chooses specific acts of worship and personal piety which could and are used by people to bring attention to themselves so that people would be impressed by them.
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You see, when I do something good, you know who I want people to be impressed by? Christ.
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When I preach a sermon, and some of you are very gracious to me.
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I would say all of you at some point or some time have been gracious to me.
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Pastor, your sermon was very helpful.
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Pastor, I appreciate what you're doing.
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Pastor, thank you for being dedicated to preaching.
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And that's encouraging to me.
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But you must know, and I hope you all do know, and I'm sure that you do on some level understand that anything that is good that comes from me is Christ.
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That the only good that I have is Christ.
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And I am not doing what I do so that you'll tell me how good that I am.
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Even though I appreciate your encouragement.
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I appreciate knowing that the Word is moving in your heart and in your life.
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But at the same time, you must know too, that any good that we have, any of us, is Christ.
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Beloved, it is selfish to seek glory for ourselves in the name of Christ.
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But it is courageous to seek glory for Christ in all that we do.
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I'll say that again.
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It is selfish to seek glory for ourselves in that which Christ has done.
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But it is courageous to seek the glory for Christ in what He has done.
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And that's what we are supposed to do.
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Everything that we do.
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Everything that we do is supposed to bring glory to God through His Son Jesus Christ.
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We are not to do what we do in pride or self-building up.
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Beloved, even the right thing can be the wrong thing if it's improperly motivated.
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And that's what Jesus is teaching us here.
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I once knew a man.
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He was in a church.
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He wasn't in this church.
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He was in a church.
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And he told me.
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He said, Pastor, I wish I didn't have a job.
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I could just stop there.
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A lot of people would probably say that.
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No, he said, Pastor, I wish I didn't have to work full time.
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Because I wish that I had 24 hours a day to devote.
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And I thought what was coming, devote to worship, devote to ministry, devote to prayer, devote to study the word, theology.
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I don't know, I was thinking.
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I was really expecting that sentence to end with something very positive.
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He said, Pastor, I wish I didn't have a job.
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Because I wish I could spend all my time devoted to calling other people out on their sins.
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If I'm lying, I'm dying.
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I remember where I was standing.
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I remember the church I was preaching in.
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Because I was preaching at another church at the time.
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I wasn't the pastor.
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I was just ministering off campus.
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And you know, I thought to myself, here's a man who is motivated by a sense of spiritual superiority.
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He is not motivated by love for Christ.
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He is not motivated by a desire to see people grow in righteousness.
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He is motivated by his desire to be the spiritual authority in his sphere of influence.
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Beloved, that's the wrong motivation.
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I knew another man, and Jack will remember this story.
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Years ago, a man came to our church, said he wanted to be a pastor.
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And he wanted our church to help support him in the ministry.
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And hey, let's talk to you, let's see what it's all about.
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You know, what are you talking about? What's your heart? Meet with our elders, have them talk to you.
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He met with the elders.
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Our elders asked him a very simple question.
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What motivates you to desire this call to ministry? And his answer was, I like the idea of being my own boss and being able to set my own schedule.
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Now, first of all, total ignorance as to what it means to be a pastor.
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I wasn't in the meeting, and thank God, because I probably would have fainted.
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Because for him to say, my goal, you know, what's my motivation? Well, it sounds like a good idea, sounds like a pretty good gig.
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I'm going to work two days a week, and only an hour a day.
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I like that, you know.
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He had a totally ignorant view of ministry.
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And he had totally improper motivation.
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He was not motivated by teaching truth.
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He was not motivated by being a theologian and a scholar and a student of the word of God.
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He was not motivated by seeing souls come to Christ to administering their ordinances and to administering the word of God to the people of God and equipping the saints for the work of the ministry.
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He was motivated by his own selfish understanding of what it meant to be in the ministry.
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What a shame.
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Beloved, motivation is the key to this text.
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We will either be motivated by what brings glory to Christ, or we will be motivated by our own self-interests.
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And I want to end today by pointing out one word in this text.
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I said I wasn't going to mention the Greek because it's easy, but I will mention one word here.
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And it is the very first word.
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It's the first word in the English.
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It is also the first word in the Greek.
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And it is the first word here in verse 1.
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The Greek word is proskete.
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And it means beware.
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Be careful.
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Take heed.
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The word here is calling for an intense focus on this particular set of principles and their importance in our life.
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And the reason why the word beware is there is because this is such an easy sin to fall into.
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It's easy to want to be recognized.
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It's easy to fall into the trap of hypocrisy.
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You know the word hypocrite? You know the word hupokrisis in the Greek? Do you know what that word means? Hupo means to be under something.
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Krisis is the word for judgment.
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It doesn't mean they're under judgment.
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What it means is you do what you do when you're under the watchful eye of another.
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The hupokrisis was the actor.
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He was the person who did what he did as a show for others.
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The hypocrite is the showman.
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He is the religious actor.
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He is not one motivated by Christ, but he is one motivated by his own self-interest.
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Beloved, may it never be that that would describe us.
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In this church, we teach something called Reformed Theology.
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And if you don't know what that is, I'd be happy to talk to you about it.
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But the five tenets of Reformed Theology are simple.
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Sola Scriptura, the Bible alone is the sole infallible rule of faith and practice.
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Sola gratia, we are saved by grace alone.
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Sola fide, through faith alone.
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Sola Christos, in Christ alone.
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And the fifth and final one is the one we should consider for today's message.
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Sola Deo Gloria, to God be the glory alone.
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Beloved, that is not just a battle cry from a 16th century historical lesson gone to the ways of history.
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But it should be the battle cry of the church in perpetuity.
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That we do what? We do for the glory of Christ alone.
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Not for the glory of self.
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Not for self-interest.
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Not motivated by my own personal gain.
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But motivated to see Christ glorified and God's name spread.
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Such is our mission.
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Such is our goal.
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It is a lofty one, but yet it is still the one that we have been called to.
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Let us pray.
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Our Father and our God, we thank you for this opportunity that we've had to look over this text.
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We thank you for the truths that you have shared with us this morning through your word.
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I pray that you have used this time to minister to your people.
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I pray also that throughout this service, that Lord God, you've used this as an opportunity to bring conviction to all of us.
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For the believer, let it be that we understand that our calls to worship and piety are calls to do these things between us and you.
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Not as chosen to men, that we might receive the reward of men.
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But Lord, to do them unto you, that we might seek the reward of hearing you say, Well done, good and faithful servant.
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And Father, I pray also for anyone here who has come here today who does not know you.
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I pray Lord that they have seen what is supposed to motivate the believer.
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Not to impress the world with our acts of piety, but to be Christ to the world.
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And I do pray Lord, I pray anyone here who has come today and does not know you.
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I pray that they would understand the devastating effects of sin.
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I pray that they would come to a knowledge of the truth and receive Christ as a savior.
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And I know Lord, only you can bring that about.
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Only you can open a heart.
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Only you can change a life.
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I pray that you use this preaching of the word to do just that.
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In Christ's name we pray and for his sake, Amen.
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Beloved, we are going to stand and have a final song.
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We encourage anyone who has a need for prayer to please come.