WWUTT 1956 Beware of Practicing Your Righteousness Before Men (Matthew 6:1-4)

Jesus said, Beware of doing your righteousness before men, as though to be noticed by them.

Otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.

When we understand the text. This is

When we understand the text, a daily study in the word of Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Sermon on the Mount, we begin

Matthew chapter 6 today, and I'm going to start by reading through the first 18 verses out of the

Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the Lord. Beware of doing your righteousness before men, to be noticed by them.

Otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. Therefore when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be glorified by men.

Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving will be in secret, and your

Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. And when you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners, so that they may be seen by men.

Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your

Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.

Therefore do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask of Him.

Pray, then, in this way. Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.

Amen. For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly

Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.

Now whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting.

Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your

Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

Of course, you recognize the Lord's Prayer in there. We'll go through the Lord's Prayer and each one of its petitions probably on Wednesday.

These 15 verses that I've just read, what seemed to be the main theme?

Jesus is not just jumping from one topic to the next. Okay, here I'm going to tell you about giving.

Here we're going to talk about prayer. Here I'm going to tell you about forgiving others their trespasses.

All of this fit the same theme. And what is that theme? It was given right in the first verse.

Beware of doing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them, otherwise you have no reward with your

Father who is in heaven. So Jesus is addressing here having a genuine heart before the

Lord. Not doing what we do to receive the praise of others, for then you're just giving out of selfish reasons.

It's so I can impress other people. They can see what a wonderful, loving guy I am. And that's all about you.

You don't genuinely care for the other people that you are supposedly caring for. And how about your prayers?

Do you pray so that others might be impressed by how spiritual you are? That's contrary to the reason why we're supposed to pray, that our minds would be conformed to the mind of God, that our will would be conformed to His will.

How can anybody else's opinion of your prayers be an answer to your prayers? If that's the only reason why you're giving, is to receive recognition from others.

If the only reason you're praying is to impress others, Jesus says then you've received your reward in full.

And how indicting a statement is that? So again, this first verse we have at the start of chapter six, beware of doing your righteousness before men.

Jesus is saying, check your heart. What are your intentions?

The apostle Paul had said to the Corinthians in second Corinthians chapter 13, test yourselves to see if you were in the faith, examine yourselves, or do you really pass the test?

That's a good godly thing to do. Examine our motives. Paul talking to the

Galatians in Galatians chapter six says, brothers, even if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual, restore such one in a spirit of gentleness, each of you looking to yourself so that you too will not be tempted.

So even when you see somebody that is going an unrighteous direction and you call them to correction, be sure to examine yourself in the process of that, lest you be caught up in transgression, recognizing our own weaknesses, how subject we are to temptation if we're not careful.

So there are these calls in the scriptures to examine ourselves, our actions, our motives.

And Jesus is calling our attention to that here. Beware of doing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them.

Otherwise, you have no reward with your father who is in heaven. Jesus makes that statement and then he gives these examples.

He talks about charitable giving and then he talks about prayer. So first of all, with regards to giving charitably, verse two, therefore, when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets so that they may be glorified by men.

Truly, I say to you, they have their reward in full.

How chilling is that for Jesus to say that if all they're doing is being charitable to receive the recognition of others, then they have their reward in full.

What's the further implication of that? You don't have any reward from your father is Jesus said in verse one, there will not be any reward for you in eternity.

If you're just trying to get the recognition of men, fine, have at it, be filled with all of that, but you get nothing in eternity.

That's not what I want. Is that what you want? Just to receive the praise and glory of others?

Or would you give to others expecting nothing in return? You expect nothing in return from them.

You expect no recognition from others. You do it knowing that your father who is in secret sees it and he'll reward you.

And you believe, you believe that promise. You may not see reward on this side of heaven, but you believe what

God has said in his word and you believe there is an eternal reward waiting for you on the other side.

That is quite an exercise of faith. That is putting your trust in God and saying,

I believe your word and you believe him and you trust him so much.

You're going to give lovingly and sacrificially to these other people, not expecting anything in return except the eternal reward that you have been promised.

Now someone might think that that sounds kind of selfish. I remember having a conversation with my brother who is an unbeliever and him saying, whenever I do charitable things,

I don't expect anything from anybody else. But when you Christians do charitable things, you do expect a reward.

You expect a reward from your father who is in heaven. So you're actually selfish in the way that you do things, whereas I'm doing this selflessly.

And the reality of the situation is he was not doing that selflessly. He's congratulating himself.

He is expecting some sort of payback from what it is that he does. His own self -righteousness.

What do the scriptures tell us about trusting in God for our eternal rewards?

In Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6, it says, and without faith it is impossible to please him for he who draws near to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him.

So see, to say that I'm just going to do this, I'm not expecting any reward from anybody, even from God, is to actually speak against the character of God.

God loves us and he wants to reward us. And so we should rejoice in that.

Jesus will go on to say in Matthew 7, 9, what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone?

Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your

Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask him?

God is a rewarder to those who earnestly seek him. And so, again, we do what we do knowing our

Father loves us. He approves of us. Remember what we read at the beginning of the Sermon on the

Mount. All of those beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the lowly, on and on it goes.

That is God's approval of us. Approved is the man who is this way.

And so, putting this into action now, we have in chapter 6, when we give to those who are needy, we know we are approved by our

Father who is in heaven. We're not looking for anyone else's approval. We're approved of by God.

And he, our Father, is going to reward us greatly for what we do. Because he loves us.

Because that's his character, to reward us. It's not as though we have to do it going, come on, give me

God, look how much I'm giving now. You've got to give me something in return. God is not obligated to give us anything.

But we know that he loves us. We are his children and he loves us. And he shows his love toward us by giving us good things, especially concerning the eternal reward that we receive in Christ, in glory.

And so, we are to give charitably, not to behave in such a way as though to receive recognition and praise from others, for then we're just doing it for ourselves.

But we do what we do to glorify our Father who is in heaven.

Even when it comes to giving to others, we do it to glorify God. Jesus goes on to say, verse 3, but when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.

Now notice Jesus says there, not if you give to the poor, but when you give to the poor. So there is a directive here, it's kind of an implied directive, that we are to give to the poor.

When you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Now that's an idiom, because it's not possible for you to give with one hand so that your other hand doesn't know what's going on.

Your hands don't have brains anyway, so it's not like one hand can be aware of the other one.

This is all just to say that the intention and the motive of your heart is not to receive recognition from other people.

It's not even to congratulate yourself. It is, you give to glorify your

Father who is in heaven. Verse 4, so that your giving will be in secret, and your

Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. Now let me tell you what this doesn't mean.

This does not mean that when you give, it has to be in secret, and don't let anybody else see it ever.

For the moment somebody sees what you're doing, you've now lost your reward in eternity.

That's not what Jesus is saying, because remember what he said earlier in the Sermon on the

Mount about being salt and light, specifically the part about being light. Chapter 5, verse 14, you are the light of the world.

A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.

So, let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your

Father who is in heaven. The things that you do will be seen by others.

Paul even instructs the church in Romans 12, outdo one another in showing honor.

Now that doesn't mean that our giving or our honorable practices are to be a competition, but that's simply to say, in outdoing one another, you are giving charitably for another person so much so.

You are willing to give so much that there's no way that they could possibly repay you for that. You have to have a heart that is that willing and that generous toward other people.

I'm just going to give, and I don't expect you to match this. That's what it means to outdo one another in showing honor.

Maybe that other person does heap upon you, giving that's 10 times more than what you gave.

Fine, but that wasn't your intention. That wasn't what you were after. You were just giving out of a genuine love and care for this other people, and ultimately doing it to give glory to your

Father who is in heaven. And we do it to give glory to God because Jesus did all that he did to give glory to God.

You know the Carmen Christi, the hymn of Christ. In Philippians 2, verses 5 -11, have this mind in you which is also in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant, and being found in the likeness of man, he humbled himself, even to death, even death on a cross.

Therefore God has highly exalted him and given him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is

Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Jesus did all that he did in his incarnation, in his earthly ministry, to the glory of God the

Father. And so, like Christ, as imitators of Christ, we do the same.

We do all that we do to the glory of our Father who is in heaven. And our

Father who sees in secret will reward you. Again, some of those works that we do will be seen by others, and we should hope that they would be seen by others and so motivate those persons to give glory to our

Father because we do it to give glory to our Father. I remember years ago,

I was with my son, we were driving through Kansas City, and we came up to an intersection where there was a man who was wearing a veteran's jacket, and he had a sign, and he was asking for alms, basically, right?

He's asking for charity. And there had been a warning in the Kansas City area to be careful about giving money to people who were wearing veterans' jackets because they had gone down to the local thrift stores and had bought these jackets to try to gain sympathy from people, but they weren't genuine veterans.

Though I was thinking that when we pulled up to this particular corner, still, the man is needy.

Perhaps he's being dishonest. I don't know. I can't even judge his heart. Maybe he was a veteran who really was in need, or maybe he was just wearing the jacket to try to drum up sympathy.

That's between him and the Lord. I've got my son sitting next to me in the passenger seat, and I want to be an example to him.

So I rolled down my window, and all the cash I had, I gave to that man.

And I had a tract in the car, and I also handed it to that man. And then we continued on our way.

It was a busy intersection. I wasn't going to be able to get out and stop and have a conversation with the guy, but my son got to witness me share charitably with this man.

And I hope that sticks with him, and he takes that cue, and he is going to show that kind of generosity and compassion to somebody else who is in need.

You know, a lot of us try to reason ourselves out of helping those persons in need because we think they're just going to blow the money on alcohol, booze, drugs, something like that.

I think that we do need to be reasonable. We need to be wise with how we handle our money.

There are certain persons who have asked me for money that you can tell exactly what they've been doing with their money, and so I'm not going to give them any cash.

But at the same time, we still need to have a loose grip on that which

God has blessed us with. I'm talking about money, possessions, things like that. We need to have a loose enough grasp on those things that we're willing to share and willing to give to those who are in need.

We should help those who are in the church first, our brothers and sisters in the Lord. Jesus talks about that in Matthew 25.

Paul talks about it in Galatians 6, and it's talked about in 1 John as well and other places.

So we help our brothers and sisters in the Lord first, just like you would provide for your own household first before anybody else.

So we should be also with the household of faith. But then as we have opportunity, we also show charity to others.

And where we have opportunity sharing the gospel, not just meeting their material needs, but most especially the spiritual need that all people have, and that is

Jesus Christ. For if we're not extending the gospel, then we're just giving that person a comfortable seat on their way to hell.

But anyway, coming back to being charitable, don't have too tight a grip on those things like money that are of this world and we don't get to take with us into eternity anyway.

You know that God has given it to you, that you may be a blessing to others. So be willing to be a blessing to others when you give, not if you give, but when.

Let your giving be done in secret and your father who does in secret will reward you.

Have a genuine heart when you give, a heart that loves people, desiring to glorify your father who is in heaven.

Now concerning this address about having a genuine heart before God, we've got two more examples coming up.

The next one is concerning prayer. And then after that, fasting, verses 16 to 18.

We'll pick up with prayer tomorrow. Let's finish with prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for these instructions that Christ gives to his followers, that we may live according to these things and glorify our father who is in heaven.

And others who see our works, may they also give glory to our father. And Lord, we ask that you would reward us because you are a father who loves us and wants to give us good things.

And so we believe that you are and that you are a rewarder of those who seek you.

And so bless us with all the blessings of eternity that we are guaranteed in Christ.

And let that be the hopefulness that fills our hearts even today. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers, and offering commentary on the church and social issues.

You can find a link to the blog through our website, www .utt .com. Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's Word when we understand the text.