Is It OK to Post My Good Deeds Online If My Heart Is in the Right Place?

Example that people give with that would be like, you know, your daughter is Has coins to give to the offering plate or whatever and she drops each one individually loudly

Everyone can hear the sound Do ding do ping

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The message of christianity is that salvation is found in christ alone And any who reject christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation any hope of heaven

The issue is that humanity is in sin and the wrath of almighty god is

Hanging over our heads. They will hear his words They will not act upon him and when the floods of divine judgment when the fires of wrath come

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Welcome to bible bash where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions You're not allowed to ask.

We're your host harrison kerrigan pastor tim mullet and today we'll answer the age -old question

Is it okay to post my good deeds online if my heart is in the right place? Now tim before we get started on this question.

What bible verse do you have for us? Yeah, matthew 6 1 through 6 says beware 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 that 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 and on the street Corners that they may be seen by others

Truly I say 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? Well, that seems pretty open and shut doesn't it? I mean certainly there's um, there's a lot there that um our culture particularly our culture that is

Influenced by social media would do well to you know, try to reflect on yeah It feels like social media is one of those things where it basically um

It's it's it's the type of thing where you typically get rewarded for talking about yourself right, not not rewarded in any in any like Real tangible sense, but I mean you get likes and hearts you get fake internet points that's what you get on, uh on social media a lot of times and so yeah, likes and and hearts and little laugh emojis and whatnot and so um

So so basically it sounds like just from a cursory sort of like listening to you read that passage off It sounds like essentially what's being said there uh, the application for our day and age is essentially like a um

You know beware boasting about your good works online Otherwise your only reward will be the little thumbs up The the number of thumbs up that you got on facebook

Right. Yeah, is that yeah, definitely is that an accurate so that's an accurate What so okay?

but I mean, what does that mean though? Does I mean does that mean like Hey, I can never talk about anything good that i've ever done ever in my entire life online

Lest I you know lose my reward in heaven for those things

Yeah Yeah, so, you know part of what's happening is you have a verse like this It's basically telling you to be aware 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. So what's happening is um, there is a

There's something you're that you're warned against so that what you're warned against is practicing your righteousness to be seen by other people

That's what you're warned against So then in the minds of many people as they're trying to interpret a passage like this

They think then That the issue is entirely one of motive. Okay, okay so like their way of trying to understand what's happening is to basically say hey the problem jesus is

Addressing is not the problem of practicing your righteousness before others period right?

Right. The issue is it's just a motive issue and I mean certainly yeah, he's critiquing a certain motive

But it's a little bit more complicated than what people are making it out. So What what's happening is like, um, right so the idea here is to say hey beware practicing your righteousness before others in order to be

Seen that by them for then you'll have no reward And there's specific applications that jesus gives at this point

So if you're going to give to the needy don't sound a trumpet, right? Okay, if you're going to give to a needy don't sound a trumpet and then if you're going to pray, right?

don't be the be like the hypocrites who You know love to stand in the streets and pray and you know make long prayers

Go in your prayer closet basically shut the door and pray to your father who's in secret and You know when your father who sees you in secret, he'll reward you so people look at that and they'll say okay

Is jesus then? They'll start with a prayer kind of thing. Is jesus criticizing the idea of ever praying in public?

Right, so that's what the logic well. No, he's not necessarily praying the Discouraging the idea of ever praying in public or else it would always be sinful and always be wrong

For people at church to pray in public. So then what it reduces to in their mind then is it's all about motive, right?

It's not about Like the the issue is not about praying. Um Publicly Or not praying publicly is only the issue is only don't do it in order to be seen by others

And then the problem though is to say that that's just that's not really what's happening. Okay, what do you mean?

like meaning like um so Taking a step back part of what's happening is christians in their mind.

They don't have Like a category for an external action that decisively

Demonstrates the character of a person's heart. Does that make sense? Maybe keep going.

Keep going. Keep going. All right All right. So what what's happened is christians have been really like religiously policed with this idea that you could never

Assume anything about the actions of other people and like what you need to do is you need to always kind of assume the best possible motives for other people

And you need to always basically like you can never Like draw any conclusions whatsoever

From a person's external actions as it relates to their heart condition Okay, so in every single encounter no matter how bizarre a person might actually act you have to basically

Like put your fingers in your ear and say I don't know what this means, right? I can't assume anything negative about this.

The only things I can assume are positive about this And so basically like you have to go into every encounter and if you have bizarre external behavior

You have to pretend like you don't know what it means. Does that make sense? Yeah All right.

So like let me see if I can give you examples and then talk about well How does it apply to a passage like this? So like think about it like this like so Like if a girl were to dress immodestly

What kind of assumptions would Could you make she's a hussy

All right All right, so like in the minds of many people you're not really allowed to say that she's looking for attention, right

She's desperate for attention. She's looking for attention. Uh, she's possible possible dad issues

Possible dad issues godless hussy. All right, you know, whatever you're not allowed to assume anything in the minds of any people but then like people in a past generation, they would know like Okay, like if you're constantly

Posting pictures of yourself in various states of undress online Like that means something you're communicating.

You're easy. You're communicating. You're a hussy. You're communicating your attention starved, right? Yeah, you need affirmation you need

Because so objectively like those behaviors reveal something about a person's heart

To where like if a person has a like a content like heart, right?

They're not filled with vanity Um, they're concerned about their brothers they're not going to engage in certain actions along those lines

And so what's happened though is the church we've kind of declared a ceasefire Against all of these things to where we're not really allowed to assume anything one way or the other, right?

Yeah And so you always have to kind of assume well, they just they don't know how they're coming across It doesn't necessarily mean anything.

It could be Totally innocent and you know, like who knows right you and so like that's kind of how we're trained in these encounters in general is to view the world kind of like that and then

So like what what you're not really allowed to do is just decisively fill in the motive

Right. Yeah but then the problem is that like Yeah, like your whole justice system is

Like built upon like getting like gaining evidence in order to establish motive, right? like in order to convict certain people of crime like you don't have to Like there's different ways you can convict a person of a crime

Certainly if they have a confession that says hey, I did it, right? Yeah, here's a video of me telling you what i'm going to do and then yeah, certainly that would be evidence

But like there's other ways to establish motive besides just Confession public.

Yeah. Yeah, and you know, and then there's a reality that we all have evil hearts and we're probably deceived about like Like even if we're christians we have like the old man in our heart that is deceiving us about like how wonderful How benevolent we are?

Right, right, right So like so but there's a variety of ways that you can establish motive on the basis of external action

And so as christians, we basically have lost this kind of way of thinking um

Because we're so committed to the proposition that you can't make any judgment whatsoever about motives in a way that kind of like it

Makes it to where it's almost impossible to understand what's being said here So like just to give you an analogy let's say that you see a person online and we're so kind of inculcated by like social media and the expectations of social media that some of these things don't seem as absurd as what they actually are but like I mean if a person like basically posted a video of himself online saying like Look at me

Help this homeless person Right. Uh -huh. Yeah I'm just out here helping this homeless guy

Just out of the kindness of my heart no, no, no, no, don't thank me don't thank me

I'm doing this because I love jesus, you know And I love you, you know, all right now you

Think about something like that. Like okay, like the normal kind of christian reaction to something like that is to say

Okay, you're full of something right? Like Yeah, it may not be may not be May not be love you're filled up with here

Right, uh, but like so but you think about something like that that Like there's no need like if you really are motivated by the love of god for this other person like there's a sense in which

There's no There's no need for you to put it on display like that, right? Yeah, and show the world how great and wonderful and you know, awesome you are and you know generous you are, you know

So, I mean, you know if you were to say hey, you know, I used to be greedy, but now I'm generous You know because god changed my heart watch me help this homeless person, you know, it's like oh come on You know like just do it just just do it, you know, and so part of like the passage is saying

When you give to the needy right when you give don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing So you're giving maybe in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you right?

So like the whole issue is like you can engage like externally like like if you're just going to broadcast this thing, right?

Like so when you give to the needy sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do Like on the face of it if you saw someone saying hey, i'm going to give to the needy

Right blow the horn, you know, so everyone can watch me give to the needy Everyone would look at that and you say hey, that's crazy, right?

That feels a little weird That's a little excessive. You know what the good news is though. I mean

I can't even play the trumpet so I'm safe from that one. You're safe from that. All right, so but the whole all right

So the logic of the passage is to say that that external action is revealing your heart

Uh -huh. Yeah, you get what i'm saying? Yeah, like like, uh There was there was no requirement that you

Announced to everyone Hey, i'm, you know giving a hundred dollars to this homeless person

Right, there's no that wasn't that's not like a necessary step You could have just done it.

Right, right, right And so like the issue is like if you really want to beware of practicing your righteousness before others in order to see

Be seen by others What you need to do is you're not just like Trying to figure out if your heart's in the right place

And that's what everyone gets stuck at right? They think well It doesn't matter what you do externally.

So in the minds of many people they read the passage and they're reading it They're saying well Whether you blow a trumpet or not before you give is entirely irrelevant.

So long as your heart is in the right place But the whole logic of the passage is if you blow the trumpet before you give

That shows decisively that your heart is not in the right place Yeah, does that make sense? Yeah, like so like what you need to do like like if you're modest, right?

You want a reward from god or you want a reward from men? All right, if you want a reward from god just give to that guy

Okay, and don't parade it around don't turn it into a social media video Don't put it out there on youtube, you know to show how generous you are

Because all you're going to get is you're going to get those likes and those hearts which I mean Shows us how vain we actually are is that youtube has like both a thumbs up and a heart one

And I have no idea which one you're supposed to use And so you end up having to use both because one one method of affirmation is not enough, you know, you mean yeah as uh

So people with regular accounts on youtube all they can do is is give a thumbs up to comments, but then when you are a content creator

They give you the ability to heart Uh to heart and like the people who comment on your videos

There you go. I I don't know what the difference is other than the heart Immediately distinguishes that a person got a like from the content creator themselves, so maybe that's like a

I mean, that's like the definition of of you know the praise of men kind of thing

They only gave me the thumbs up they didn't give me the heart this time I got a like on my comment from the person who made this video

Right. Well, it's all nuts. All right So but I think the broader point though is just to say hey you're looking at a passage like this

There are certain external things that you can do. Here's the point. There's certain external things you can do that decisively show

Where your heart is? All right. So if you feel the need to sound a trumpet before you give

It's like that tell that like that's decisive that should be decisive proof to everyone around you

Your heart is not right, right? Yeah, it's like it's like the person who says hey, I want to be a

You know starting quarterback in the nfl, right? And then they you ask them like, okay.

Well, what are you doing? That's a pretty lofty goal. What are you doing to get there? And they're like do you like do you study film?

Well, no, I don't really study much film. Oh, okay. Well, do you Work on your mechanics a lot.

Like are you working on your um technique? Nah, I don't really practice that a whole lot.

Oh, okay Well, are you at least like getting in the gym and working out and getting stronger?

It's like no, I don't really do any of that. It's like All right, maybe maybe you don't actually want to go to the nfl and be a starting quarterback.

No No, I definitely do. I definitely do want that. How dare you judge me? You know, it's like I don't think you do if you did you would probably be doing those things

How do you yeah, how dare you judge me that uh, you know Judge my heart, you know, right.

How do you know what I really want? All right. So but that's the point like you're like biblically speaking your behavior is gonna

Like reveal the state of your heart. Sure Like the things that you do are going to reveal the state of your heart

And so when you're thinking about a passage like this, here's I mean the point there is just to say hey Like this passage is telling you certain behaviors

Right certain behaviors are cues to tell you where the state of certain people's heart

Is and so like so the idea is like when you give to the needy don't sound a trumpet before you

What you're meant to do is you're meant to say, okay Sounding a trumpet before you give that's absolutely bizarre

The only reason why anyone would ever do that is because they're looking to draw attention to what they're doing, right?

unnecessarily So then the way you are meant to apply this today is you're meant to say you're like what are

Equivalents to blowing a trumpet before you give that we can look at see right? Like what are some modern equivalents to doing that kind of thing?

That will tell people irrefutably. Here's the state of your heart, right?

Like and so and I think I mean posting like Like just some easy modern equivalents this kind of thing is that like Why do you feel the need every time you have a bible study to post a picture of you?

You reading the bible on social media? Like what are you trying to get out with the filter added? with the filter

With your you know sepia filter or whatever I mean like what did you get out of that?

Like look at me reading the bible, right? Hey, look at me being a good husband picture of me being a good husband

Look at me like giving here's a picture of me given to a homeless person like aren't I you know, it's like Why did you do that?

Smile homeless person? Take a selfie with me cheese. Look at how benefit.

All right. Good luck being homeless You know, I don't need any of this like the the homeless guy takes the stuff you just gave him and throws on the ground after he leaves but No, so like there are things like there are equivalents to this kind of thing and the problem is like when you live in a narcissistic society

Like for many people this is just a foreign way of thinking like it's a very foreign way of thinking that it would be even remotely wrong to You know make a online record of all your good deeds for everyone to look at So like we've lost like we've utterly lost any idea of humility

Like in our society in general sure to the point where Like all like it's just it's obvious like, you know, if I have good deeds to do

Why wouldn't I tell everyone about it? And and then you know, if anyone criticizes it then you just look at them and say hey, you don't know my heart, right?

Right. It's like well I know I don't I know a trumpet when I see one I know what it sounds like Yeah, I know what a trumpet sounds like so You know

That's told me what your heart is Right, that's the point now. What about the argument like hey

This might be encouraging to someone else to hear but essentially like a you know, like a um

Hey, i'm sure i'm trying to share my testimony Or like i'm trying to you know

Communicate to others like what what it is that god's doing um, you know

And and using that as a means of encouragement to other people Um, where does that fall into all of this?

Yeah, I mean so I think the like the main Issue here is like you're you know, be aware of practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them

Uh for then you have no reward from your heavenly father who is in heaven So like you think about that what you're meant to do is you're meant to kind of identify

Like what are some trumpet equivalents in this kind of way, right? What are some things that are trumpet equivalents?

And so like what you're meant to think is like you're meant to like look for moments where individual is

Like parading their righteousness in front of other people Unnecessarily so Like is this unnecessary or is this like necessary in that way?

So like meaning all right So I think about like this like when you give like you give like don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing

Let your giving done Be done in secret. So Like if you're going to give to people

Like there's a sense in which Like actually giving to people might mean that some people find out about it, right?

Uh -huh All right, so like you can't just absolutely always make every single one of your giving anonymous, but then like Here's the thing like to the extent to which you can tone that down Not make a spectacle out of it not make a show about it

The better off that will actually be so there's there's any number of ways in which you can encourage people to give in public right so like if I if you were to you know

Post verses online about like the importance of giving the importance of being generous.

You can do that over and over again without Like every time you give to someone posting a receipt about Here's the thousand dollar check.

I sent to x, you know, here's the five hundred dollar check I said so a lot of this is about like how specific does this information

Actually have to be you get what i'm saying and so like the more that you can tone that down The more that you make it about the like the message like so the met like you can have an encouraging message

Without putting all the focus and intention on yourself, right? So you can be a person who's talking about the importance of giving all day long

So and this is these are just kind of basic distinctions that people are mixing up when you talk about this kind of stuff online to where Like every time you decide to give to a charity, you don't have to broadcast.

Hey, i'm going to give a thousand dollars to this charity Hey, i'm going to give five hundred dollars to this charity because I appreciate this charity and support this charity and you know

And then you say well the reason i'm doing this is because i'm trying to encourage you to give as sacrificially as I am right

It's like you can Like there's any number of ways you can encourage people to give sacrificially without broadcasting

All the specifics of what you're doing. Does that make sense? Yeah So hey, we should give like here's a good charity.

You should be supporting right? um Here's a charity I support i'm not going to tell you how much

I support them But here's a chair like if you're thinking through charities to support here's some ones i've identified as good methods of supporting

Like any number there's any number of ways to say the same kind of thing without necessarily having to rub people's face in Like all the specifics of it.

Does that make sense? Yeah, what um, what about You know, like there's a lot of in this day and age.

There's a lot of guys out there who do like, um, uh evangelism street evangelism where they where they're filming it or you know, some form of like, um, uh

Protesting abortion clinics or you know pride pride parades or whatever whatever it is something like that They're recording it and Um, they're posting it online like hey, here's my interaction with a atheist

Sharing the gospel or something like that Is that falling into the same category of you know boasting before men?

I mean, I think right so you can take the same kind of action And like if you think about like the principle that's at work

They were right people are practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them for then you will have no reward

Uh, that's when you give sound no trumpet before you As the hypocrites do in the synagogues.

So part of this is like, um Discussion about what kind of things that we're talking about here.

Yeah, okay So you have a certain So obviously like being a public witness

You're supposed to let your light shine before men that when they see your good works They're going to glorify god your father in heaven

So this like when people are trying to harmonize these kind of things They often go to that kind of passage where that passage is basically talking about the importance of letting your light shine before men

And like so you're going to do public Things to show your allegiance to god, right?

In general like that's just a part of the christian life. You don't have to keep your christian life. Just utterly private and Everything else but you can do you know um, like if you're gonna post a video of you

Talking to an atheist with the goal of trying to edify the body and equip them To see how do you talk to atheists right equip them and train them?

Yeah You can you can like there's There's there's a way to do that that puts the focus on equipping and training, right?

And there's a way to do that that puts the focus on your own personal achievements, right? like meaning like okay i'm gonna post

This is my you know, uh This is hour number five of me evangelizing this week

Man i'm really tired my voice hurts so much from sharing the gospel with 1 000 people today, but I just gotta keep going

All right, so that would be so that's Now like the difference see see what

I mean like the difference between those two scenarios doesn't just resolve to motive it resolves to like the presence of the trumpet

Sound does that make sense? like in that way like the like that trumpet like there's um

Things that are entirely unnecessary Okay To what you're doing and sounding a trumpet like what like that like that kind of thing would be the kind of thing that's entirely

Unnecessary to the goal. Does that make sense? Yeah, it just it just kind of seems though like if if the passage is saying practice your righteousness before men that feels like Practicing, you know, hey, here's a video.

Here's a video of me sharing the gospel You know that's meant to be an encouragement and a

Method of equipping you to go and share the gospel still feels like practicing your righteousness before men

When that's not a necessary That's not like a necessary step in sharing.

The gospel is filming it and in fact in some ways it might even be like a Deterrent because like hey,

I don't want to be in I don't want my face on your video. No, you know Without necessarily

Yeah Validating that one way or the other just like the prohibition though is beware of practicing your righteousness before men in order to be seen by him so In your mind like the prohibition is not practicing your righteousness before men

It's practicing it in order to be seen by it. And then the issue is that there are tells

Like there are behavioral tells That will tell everyone around you That they'll out you.

Does that make sense? So there's like, you know, there's poker tells That will out an individual that that like they are practicing their righteousness before men to be seen by men

And so this is a passage which gives a few poker tells so to speak, right?

Like that will out you that will out your motives, okay Uh, so so yes.

No, the issue is not Practicing your righteousness before men period. Okay The issue is practice your righteousness before men to be seen by them and their behavioral tells that will tell your heart is doing that okay and so Now it doesn't give you like an exhaustive list of all of those tells

But it gives you examples that you're meant to try to extrapolate out to other scenarios.

Does that make sense? Mm -hmm All right. So the tell what gives is thus when you give to the needy don't sound a trumpet before you

Mm -hmm So you could give to the needy in a public way What do you get what

I mean? What do you mean? Like just you're out in public and you and you give to like a homeless dude, is that what you mean?

Right. Yeah, so you're giving to the needy, right? now if you want to make it to where Everyone knows you're doing this to be seen as you do it

There are certain things you can do like record it Right. Yeah, put it on the internet and say hey i'm gonna go give to this homeless person watch me give right

Like that like you don't have to do that You know if the goal was to bless the homeless or the poor person right you could do that Right if your goal was to be seen doing it

Then you sound your trumpet you turn your camera on you put it on social media, right? Does that make sense? Yeah, but then it seems like kind of the same thing though with the evangelism is like hey, you could just evangelize them

Or you could evangelize them or you know turn the camera on find the person and then evangelize

Yeah, well no, I think it's a good example I think it's a good example of something that people should be thinking about where Um, there is um

There is An inbuilt temptation in that kind of framework to make it about Things that it's not too.

Okay. Yeah, and by the way, i'm i'm Pushing back on this as someone who feels like they've benefited greatly

From watching a lot of those videos like great comfort or something like that. Yeah, like you have to urban yeah, because I mean just because You know for so long

I was terrified to say anything And be thought of as unloving and then I just saw these guys who were

Like going out there and and they were just saying it all, you know and so me watching that I don't

I don't know that I don't really watch them very much anymore, but Initially, it was like, uh, oh there's guys out there that are just doing it

I guess I should go do that too, you know, and so so I benefited a lot from from those videos whether you know

Whether they're good or bad at the end of the day. I I did benefit from them. I feel like So but then i'm just you know, i'm still wanting to push back and say well, hey if we're you know

What does that mean for these things that I've been? benefited from It so, you know if if that's sort of the application with this other thing, you know giving to the needy so All right.

So like the issue is like what like the issue is like what would be some irrefutable?

Tells that would tell you that the primary goal here, right? Yeah Is to receive praise from men, okay

So as it relates to giving The tell that would say hey, this is about Like this is a tell to tell you what the motive is, right?

Sure Yeah, as it relates to that, um, you know example that people give with that would be like, you know, your daughter is

Has coins to give to the offering plate or whatever and she drops each one individually loudly

In order that everyone can hear the sound Do All right, so that would be a tell

To tell your motive, right? Uh -huh. Yeah Okay, that'll be yeah, that would be pretty off All right.

So so what you're meant to do is you're meant to try to think about what would be tells it would be irrefutable

And obvious to explain motive, right? the motive of wanting people to praise you

That would be an example of a tell now Like you if your motive is to equip the church on how to evangelize

Then there could could be a bunch of tells that would prove that's what you're trying to do

Do you get what i'm saying? Yeah, I I guess I guess the difference could be like, you know, if someone's watching, uh

If you ever read the comments on some of these videos that girl who's given is that girl who's given the money? Is she trying to equip people to give?

By Yeah, yeah, that's what I was gonna say. It's like when you read the comments on these videos You know on the evangelism ones

There actually are a lot of comments that are like hey, this really helped me this really encouraged me

This really made me want to go out and tell you know, someone about the gospel Whatever and then on the money videos,

I assume, you know, I assume it's probably a lot more of like a wow Good job, you know, like right like literal praise literal praise instead of some sort of like thanks

I actually got something out of this All right So that's that's the point so like that's the point of what jesus is talking about and that's the very distinction that he's talking about I mean, you're gonna know it by your fruit, right?

So no one's gonna come away from that with the girl dropping the coins into the offering plate thinking man like that is a good like um

Offering giving strategy that I could model after right? Like I mean you showed me the proper form to how to drop it in there

Right and how to do it each time you taught me that instead of a check. I need to bring a giant bag of pennies

Bag of pennies that I individually drop in there and stop the whole thing, you know so like like what do people get from it and generally like you can tell the difference when

You know, it's it's like well you go girl, right? Way to give you know like Over and against.

Oh, thank you. Like I learned how to do X thing or or whatever else so like what so i'm not trying to say that every scenario is

Effortlessly easy to identify, right? Yeah and you can do the evangelism videos and you can market them in a way and i've seen guys that kind of market those kind of things in a way that the sketch feels like yeah, it feels like the you know, the emphasis for them is just uh,

Log all their great accomplishments, you know, yeah. Yeah, I can demonstrate how committed they actually are, you know, and everything else

So i'm not trying to say that like it can't be Done poorly. I'm just trying to say that what you're meant to do with the passage is identify these tells does that make sense?

Like what are the tells and the tells are going to be like completely unnecessary things That serve the sole purpose of getting praise from other people

Yeah, you know so what are those things as it relates to any of these um Like like meaning like, you know, if you're gonna pray for someone right when you pray right

You don't have to go out in front in front of everyone Hey guys, just want to let you know i'm all praying for my grandma right now

She's she's in the hospital And i've been praying hard for her So hopefully she's okay because i've just been praying so much

Literally from the moment I wake up to the moment. I fall asleep. I pray for my sweet sweet grandma

But there he is like, you know on the street corner praying for his grandmother still, you know, oh grandma

I mean, but that's the kind of thing that they're doing, you know And so when you're when you're looking at that you're saying well, why is it necessary to do this make a public spectacle?

Out of an issue where you're praying for someone that no one knows but you right? Like and you're making you're turning it into a public spectacle, right?

Yeah, and then like the end result is like what are like What is the overwhelming obvious like end result of all this going to be that everyone's just going to look at you man

He really that guy's really spiritual man That guy's always praying for his grandma Yeah, he's always

So but that's that's the point. What are the tells like? What are the things that like are behavioral tells that show you?

Something's off here, right? Yeah That this isn't about what it's advertised to be about in that way.

So, okay So does this passage, you know, it it makes it very clear that the person who gets uh praised from men

Is they've already received their reward it says so they will get no reward from god because they've already received their reward

Uh, which is the praise of men. So does that does that passage mean that there are?

uh In my in my mind, there's two ways to uh understand this and And so I wanted to I want to just ask you

I think I I think I know which one I think it is But then I want to ask you for everyone is um, you know, there's one way to hear that passage which basically means like hey the person who

Is doing these things? um Who is is constantly promoting their good works in front of everyone?

They're not going to receive their reward from god They're going to receive it from men because ultimately at the end of the day no christian acts that way

Um, and so so what's really being said there is hey that person is not a christian

And so they're not going to receive any reward from god. They're receiving a reward from man, and that's it

That's one way to understand it. The second way would be it uh, it applies to people who are christian and it's simply saying that um,

You know, whatever rewards they're going to receive in heaven They are not going to receive a reward for that one specific

Good work that they boasted about in front of everyone Does that does that make sense the two? Sort of categories so which so which one of those?

Uh is the correct way to understand the passage or is it some third way that I haven't I haven't thought of Yeah, I mean my answer before you said the third way comment was just going to be to say yes, you know

Yes. Okay. What do you what do you mean? I I mean it's both

Like like meaning like um So, you know as you read like it's you have a condemnation against this kind of thing from god

So beware of practicing your righteousness before others To be seen by them for you'll have no reward from your father in heaven

So you know jesus is presumably looking at his followers and telling them like beware of doing the very thing that The hypocrites are doing right, right?

So that's when you give to the needy sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the street That they may be praised by others truly.

I say they have received their reward So like the hypocrite is the insincere person like the person who's like making a public spectacle of serving the lord

But it's insincere. So like that's the category of like the hypocrite. So the hypocrite people are the like they're the tax they're the um are they're the uh

Pharisees and the sadducees and the scribes and all that Like there's an assumption being made that their religion is fundamentally insincere

And it's only it's not going to result in any Eternal reward is all about you know praise of men here and now that's all they're going to get but then the issue though is that like when you're living in a culture that's fundamentally

Controlled by the hypocrites right You're indoctrinated and inculcated in certain practices that seem reasonable to hypocrites

And that you may unthinkingly adopt as a believer just because it's all around you.

It's the air you breathe, right? Yeah, so like this is the air you breathe. This is all around you. This is the way people operate

And then you may be unthinkingly kind of led into doing things that it upon like a second examination

They really don't make any sense right to do and like the only thing like the only things these behaviors are doing is they serve the sole goal of Parading your righteousness in front of people in order to be seen by them

So you may because you're surrounded by a bunch of people to whom that seems normal, right?

Yeah, you may be led into doing those kind of things yourself and then you need to be warned against doing that because One it's displeasing to god.

It's taking away the glory from him And then two you're not going to receive any reward from it, right?

Yeah All right. So in that way like it's yeah, it's both It's both of those things at the same time in the same instance.

And then I mean with with social media like That's part of the problem with social media is it's training so many people

To normalize things that are kind of insane when you think about them That are a little bit insane like meaning like, you know social media basically trains everyone to think that they're like the actor in like the main character in their own story and then

You know every time they do something they need to tell everyone everything that they do step by step in their day um

You know, here's me waking up, you know Look at me brushing my teeth, you know

All right. Oh i'm gonna read the bible. Here's my bible picture, right? Yeah with the with the coffee next to it the point though is just to say that those are like Like social media trains you to think in weird ways.

Yeah, you know i'm saying like to where Like how many like videos have you seen online of people who instead of just helping person they record like these awful things, right?

Yeah, that's where like this whole topic is just absurd like Meaning like you live in a social media dominated world and you think like it trains you to think in really stupid ways, right?

like to where your first like where you like hesitate for one brief moment because you're What am

I supposed to do here? You know like to where um, like And then a lot of the things that you think are normal in society right now

Like a lot of things you think are normal, they're not normal, right? so it's not normal just to post every single step of your like of your day online in order to Like the only reason why people do that is just to you know get people to like here's my morning routine

Have you ever seen those videos? right, right I mean, but but all that so like you you do need a pause and you do need to stop and then you do need

To ask basic questions Like why am I posting? You know selfies of myself all day long.

Yeah, you know To people like what am I trying to accomplish from all this like is this just a chronicle of all my good deeds for the day that i'm

Posting in front of everyone just in order to be seen by it. And you know, I think like, you know, you'll

You know if that's what it is Yeah that quiet time it didn't help you any you know But you know all that was is a photo op for you to get a bunch of likes that that wasn't that didn't help you

You know, yeah, that's a bunch of that's a photo op for you, you know, that's just uh, all right You got a bunch of praise from people and that's all you got

You know so I think With social media people really do like and i'm not claiming that I have all the answers about how to do it, right?

I'm, just i'm just saying hey it very really it does like introduce a lot of temptations for people

Just to parade their righteousness in front of others in order to be seen. Okay All right.

Well, I think that's a good place for us to um, end the conversation on was there anything else that you had to add there tim or Yeah, but no

I think you know as you're reading that kind of passage be worried practicing your righteousness before others in order to be Seen by them

I do think you know, most people are Ignoring kind of like they're missing the point of it and they basically think that it just reduces entirely to motive.

So Like the external behaviors don't matter so long as your heart is in the right place But then I think if they could get their mind around what's actually happening

What's actually happening in the passage is that there are tells you know, there are tells that irrefutably show like the condition of your heart and So there's certain things you can do

There's trumpets that you can do that you can sound like there's a there's a way to give where you sound the trumpet

Jesus is saying don't sound the trumpet And so what you're meant to do is say what are comparable things like that?

What are trumpets I can identify in my life like what are things that are completely unnecessary to doing these good works that serve the sole purpose of Getting approval and praise from men

And help me, you know What we should be praying is lord help me to identify those trumpets and get rid of them, right?

So the point is not just to say hey lord help purify my heart The point is I did help me identify the trumpets and get rid of those trumpets so that The praise can come from you and not from men.

Does that make sense? Yeah yeah, I think all that makes sense and I think it is a you know something to For us to really think through in a society that is so self -focused in so many ways and um so determined to you know um

Make make you know make every single one of us the own our own individual center of the universe kind of thing and and um, it really it really is, you know when when you brought up the whole like people

Being trained to think hey i'm the main character in the story Everyone else is just an npc

Out there, you know don't really matter. I I really do, you know, I think I don't know that I had necessarily uh, you know consciously recognized that That social media trains us to think that way

But then hearing you say that it does really it really does do that, you know and it trains you to think about yourself and how do

I look in this picture and What are people going to think of me when they you know, see this post that I made online and you know

Whatever else it's all me me me me me me me Which is the total opposite of the bible obviously how the bible tells us to live, you know with humility um

And especially this passage talking about you know, hiding your good works um

So that you're not purposefully Uh purposefully pursuing the praise of man

I I have to assume this passage in some way is you know, it's a command and it's it seems like it's meant to um commands are typically meant to They're meant to help us honor god, but then also protect us from certain things right and so it seems like this sort of command is really meant to protect you from the temptation of Viewing of constantly viewing or thinking about yourself and whatnot

So I think this is a pretty good and challenging topic to really think through.

Um, so For everyone out there listening, we thank you for all your support. We hope that this episode the conversation that we had

Was challenging for you and gave you a lot of things to think about and we'll catch you on the next one

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