When I was very young, I was watching a syndicated episode of Oh no, what's the name of the show? It's the one with Alan Thick and Mike Seaver, the Seaver family Growing Pains. That's Growing Pains, right? I think that's right. And yeah, Kirk Cameron's in that. And I remember Kirk Cameron, who's older than me, and you know, I I kind of, you know, taking some cues from these characters on TV about how to get life right and get along with parents and make girls like me and stuff. And there's this scene that I remember where he doesn't know that this girl that he kind of likes can see him from another part of the room. He thinks he's in there alone, and there's this little baby in there, and Kirk Cameron comes over. He's like, Oh, hi, little baby. And he's so gentle and nice and everything. And then the girl steps out, the shadows from the closet or whatever, and she's like, Ha, now I know things about you. You're actually nice. He's like, What? You were watching? What even happened there? What is that? But no, he really wasn't playing a game, as I recall. He was just actually that revealed something about his soul. And so he was seeking only the reward of making this little baby happy and enjoying being around this the adorable little kid. But because someone saw what he did in secret, he also received the reward of having his true character known and getting the girl. I could be botching that plot of that Growing Pains episode, but I think that's the gist. At least that's how I internalized it. But the screwed up thing about how I internalized it is I was like, okay, I need to imitate that scenario. I need to find situations where it seems like I don't know that other people are. Wait, no, this is screwed up and wrong. And I honestly wrestled with that for a while as like a middle school kid, in terms of this concept of do you do things that are right because they're right, or do you do things that are right acting like you don't know other people are watching, but secretly hoping that other people are watching? And surely I still don't have that figured out. I'm sure probably nobody has that completely figured out. But that's the kind of motive stuff that Jesus is getting at in Matthew chapter six when he says stuff like this be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men to be seen by them. If you do, you'll have no reward from your father in heaven. Jesus is settling this question for middle school me very succinctly. I know you just can't have both. It almost sounds like a thing that he says in another part of the Bible that I vaguely remember about not being able to serve two masters. Either you're gonna hate the one and love the other or be devoted to one and despise the other. Where is that? Oh, it's three passages away here in Matthew chapter six. It's almost as though I set that up. So one of the big themes then of chapter six is you gotta pick. Are you doing the world kingdom thing where you try to turn everything into a negotiation to get stuff from other people by being a fraud in targeted ways? Or are you doing the kingdom thing, like I'm gonna buy into these values and what is right and my position before the king, whether I get stuff from other people or not? According to this chapter six thesis statement that I just read from Jesus in 6.1, you only get to pick one reward, so choose carefully. So, when you give to the needy, don't announce it with trumpets as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets to be honored by men. Did anybody actually do that? And here's the thing: if you go and dig deep, you can actually find a whole bunch of Jewish literature from slightly before this era and a whole lot right after, which makes me think that Jesus had an impact on the Jewish conversation very, very early in the game, much like the Protestant Reformation had a big impact on Catholicism in the 16th century, as demonstrated by the Council of Trent. But specifically what I'm driving at here is there's a whole bunch of literature where Jewish thought leaders are condemning the same practice Jesus is condemning. And I really think in the interest of fairness, we need to point that out. Because it's going to be very easy for us going through here to be like, ah, the Pharisees were bad. Anybody who's doing Judaism was bad. Well, at this point, Jesus is still doing Judaism, right? Did Jesus ever not do Judaism? I mean, didn't he go to the cross doing Judaism? Isn't Judaism, according to the Abrahamic covenant that we've looked at together, according to the whole narrative and prophetic arc of the birth narrative in Matthew? Isn't all of that Judaism really always intended to go beyond the ethnic boundaries of Judaism? So I just want to be careful. I want to pump the brakes for a second, because I think if I don't parse this properly, it can sound like Jewish people bad, Jewish religion bad, and the people who are on Team Jesus are automatically good. But there were a whole bunch of people who agreed with Jesus on this. There were people who found this stuff tacky. There was just a sect, a version, an expression of people within Judaism who were engaged in this prideful abuse. Well, let's just real quick think through every single religion we know. In fact, let's go even narrower and just think through every single church you've ever been a part of, if you have. Can you think of people who are awesome and humble, cool, and not frauds and seem to do stuff for the right reason? I hope so. Can you think of people who were just frauds and obnoxious and maybe it's not right for us to be so judgmental toward them? But come on, deep down, you were like, these people are screwed up that has got to be the opposite of what this religion is supposed to be. Well, it would make sense then, if every experience you and I have had is that way, that that would be the deal with Judaism as well. So, in fairness, there were a whole bunch of practitioners of the Jewish religion who did not sign up to follow Jesus, who actually agreed with Jesus, calling out this nonsense, with people announcing their giving to score these religious points in the mind of the public. But again, we see the same theme hinted at in verse two that we see in the thesis statement in verse one. You're only getting your reward from one place. Well, based on the behavior, it's really easy to tell what's in these people's heart. What they want, the thing that drives their motives, is clearly to have people think they are awesome at stuff. In this case, you know, the currency of that relationship that these people had with the people they wanted to look up to them was religious clout. Oh, you know how this is too, right? You got relationships with people, and some of the things that serve as currency in those relationships are just bizarre. Um, like I got I got a really good friend who we have a ton of things that we got currency over in our friendship, but one of the things that's just strange is like talking 1980s toys. I'm talking to you, Bob. You know exactly what I mean. There's a whole bunch of other things that make our friendship fun, but it's just something we have in common. And so if he has some cool new transformer or something that he dug out of mothballs, I'm excited about that. And he gets social cred in our friendship over stuff like that. Well, just picture all the goofy little things that make relationships fun and unique, and then just twist it into something a little more perverted and gross and prideful, and that's what you get here. They knew what they could exploit to make people be impressed. They set this expectation that this would be the standard by which the quality of people are judged in that relationship, and then they go on to dominate at it. But Jesus follows his thesis statement here beautifully. They do this to be honored by men. How can you tell because of the behavior? If they weren't trying to be honored by men, they'd do it all different. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. Let that sink in. You only get to pick one reward in this kingdom versus world decision. These people made their choice and they're gonna get a reward. Okay, well, on the one hand, that's cool. They wanted people to be impressed, and people are impressed. Now, you might not think there's a God or an afterlife. You might think this document is a human creation and that it's interesting and worth looking at. So you might not have the same assumptions I do in coming at that. But if we operate within the assumptions of the document, if you'll indulge me in that for just a minute, I mean, who cares that 2,000 years ago, some people whose names we don't know were like, oh Larry, you are the best at religion. You give so much money and you give it the best. That's awesome. You should tweet that more and make sure people know. Who cares? None of that currency matters. Does anybody care about virtue signaling retweets from even a year ago? I don't care. That currency burns out fast, is my point. Whether that is the currency of the first century social situation or our digital ones and zeros social currency of our current situation. No, they got their reward, they already got it. You only get one, and that was it. So these people then, who Jesus is calling out, should not be expecting anything further. But when you give to the needy, oh, counter proposal, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Dang, that is incredibly private. The idea that one hand wouldn't know what the other hand is doing, it's almost like Ocean's 11, like a caper flick when you're trying to drop money in the offering plate here, according to Jesus. Like you got a sneak, and there's this really catchy little sneaky music, and you don't want anybody to really notice what you're doing. And so you just kind of shuffle that in there, you find a clever way to have somebody else do it on your behalf, or you use a little box in the back, or like some kind of weird online giving thing. Let's be honest, the whole espionage caper aspect of giving is kind of ruined when you have to put your name on it for tax purposes at the end of the year. So I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. But Jesus is promoting something that is radical. Not only don't let anybody else know, try not to even let yourself know so that you don't think you're awesome, so that the reward that you want is not necessarily to impress other people, but so that the reward you want at the level of the heart won't accidentally be impressing yourself with how religious you are and how good you are and how much you have earned the favor of God, which remember, Matthew chapter five absolutely wrecks both in verses. I should know this by now, 20, for I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. And in the passage we were just looking at at the very end, which is the be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect. There's no point in doing the thing where we engage in religious drills or spiritual disciplines to prove how awesome we are to others or ourselves, because the whole thrust of this kingdom value that Jesus is putting forward is that the whole thing has got to be for one purpose and seeking one reward only, and that is the glory of God, to honor God. But when you give to the needy, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. Ah. So there's another contrast here between people who are kind of dumb and only see what's right in front of them and don't really know the motives of the heart, seeing only what they see right in front of them and making their decisions about that. And God who sees stuff that's done in secret, and theoretically, that would mean that God doesn't just see that you donated in secret, He sees why. And I didn't get to the word that I wanted to talk about, we're gonna have to do that tomorrow. But here's what really gets to me about that is that means that God has to be incredibly nuanced in his ability to sort through our motives. Because if you consider your motives carefully for like, I don't know, anything religious or otherwise, there's just a weird conflicted mess. And and or possibly they're not. I don't know. I don't know you. Maybe you are singular of heart and your motives are enormously pure all the time. I'm not trying to say like they couldn't be, I they really could be. I don't know. I've only ever been me. What I know is my motives occasionally are pretty dialed, but more often there is kind of a weird mixture of reasons that I want to do something or say something. Maybe some of it's impress people a little bit on a good day, but mostly it's do the right thing. Maybe on a bad day, it's I just want to feel better about things. I hope I impress people and they like me. Yeah, I don't know. I I don't even know why I do stuff sometimes. I could always give you a reason outside, but the level of the heart, it gets weird. God can sort all of that stuff out. If He can see your giving in secret, he can see your weird, multifaceted reasons for giving. And that means that God's ability to extend patience and forbearance and grace to people has also got to be much more multifaceted than naughty, nice one zero. And I think there's got to be this enormous sense of empathy from a God who can see that much stuff, everything that happens in secret. If this God exists and is unlimited, he can see and he understands and divines completely all the way down to the most minute level of detail that we could never even sort out about ourselves. And he still likes us. And that means I don't have to be a fraud. Because I only see some of the stuff that's mixed motives about me. And sometimes I don't like it very much and don't like me very much and don't feel very patient with me. But here's a guy who sees everything that's done in secret and why, and continues to go through all of this redemptive effort, which I think is uh compelling and encouraging. And weirdly, as much as I don't think Christianity is this therapeutic thing that's meant to just make us feel better, that does make me feel better. And I'm just gonna say that. In fact, that's all I'm gonna say. We'll look at this passage a little bit more tomorrow. I'm Matt, this is a 10 minute five hour podcast. I'll catch you soon.