Well, we are making our way through the core of Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount.
So we are into Matthew chapter 6 as Jesus begins to teach us about spiritual practices.
And he's helping us get beyond just our behaviors, our practices, and actually get to our motives behind those practices or those behaviors.
So let's just jump right in.
Matthew 6, verse 1.
Beware 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 when Jesus says practice practices of your righteousness, he's talking about those practices of faith.
Now specifically, he begins with alms giving or generosity giving to the poor, to the church.
But the conversation then extends throughout the text into prayer and fasting, as you heard it as Al read, verses 1 through 18.
So our first point is this.
Point number one, generosity, prayer, and fasting does not seek the approval of others.
That's a probably kind of pretty easy point for us to begin with, having heard the entire passage.
So let's just imagine you are parent of a wonderful 15-year-old daughter.
And five years ago you were promoted to chief marketing officer of your company.
Incredible opportunity, incredible job.
I mean, you got a huge raise and you love your job.
You're good at your job, you're respected at your job.
You get to travel the world, you get to go to great places.
You are you are somebody in the world.
And you can finally wear the clothes you wanted to wear, you can finally join the club you wanted to join, you can finally, you know, when you walk in a room, when you walk in a room, people know.
Like people know you you have shown up.
But along the way, along the way, even though you're so capable to do so much at work, you're even running the even running the PTA, right?
Like, even though you can do all of that, you can do all of that.
And you're subtly making sure everybody knows you're doing it online, just real subtle, right?
In your social media post, just real subtle, just a little bit, right?
Just a little bit.
Along the way, you've just step stopped checking in with your daughter on any heart-to-heart level.
But her 16th birthday is coming up, right?
A big one, right?
I mean, this would be the perfect moment.
It's gonna be the perfect moment to celebrate her.
You're gonna gather all her friends and all your friends together.
And so the party, the night of the party, you're there, but she's off with her friends and you are with your friends, talking about your great job.
You've barely spoken to her on any meaningful level, right?
Because at the core, because at the core of your being, everything is really about everybody out there seeing you.
But a big moment's coming.
And you bring everybody outside.
Everybody outside.
And you give your daughter a brand new red BMW convertible with a red bow on it.
Kelly from 90210 is what I'm talking about, right?
That's what I'm talking about.
The whole crowd cheers.
I mean, what a how generous you are.
What a parent.
Like you and your daughter must have the best relationship.
I mean, this must be such an incredible relationship that you have to.
Now your daughter's gonna take the car, okay?
Like your daughter's all up in that car.
Five years into therapy in her 20s, she's gonna realize that car was never a gift.
Right?
It was a payment of your own guilt.
Because listen, you or I in the story, any of us, any of us, we can care more about everybody else's approval and finding it everywhere else in the world rather than the goodness of the reward of a heart-to-heart relationship.
And we can become so preoccupied with everybody else, everywhere else out there, then miss the meaningfulness of the reward of a heart-to-heart relationship.
And we can be around someone all the time.
But if the motive is off, the reward of the relationship is threatened.
I mean, do you hear it in the in the text when Al read it over and over again?
Reward, you'll miss your reward, you'll miss your reward.
It's like you can be around the heavenly father all the time, but when the motive is off, the reward of the relationship itself can be threatened.
This is what Jesus is just beginning to hammer into these people here at this context, but also to us.
Verse 2.
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, they have received their reward.
So you got your reward.
Everybody cheered for you.
You got it, you got it.
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.
Now, I don't think you're gonna win the lottery on Tuesday.
I don't think it hasn't happened to me yet.
I don't think it's gonna happen to you.
I think what it means is the reward of the relationship we can have with God.
Like, don't threaten it, don't diminish it and give it away to get a few cheers and pats on the back.
I think that's what it means.
Now, this is also interesting because in Matthew chapter 5, Jesus said, Let your light shine before all men.
Isn't that interesting?
Matthew 5, we have that, and then in Matthew 6, he says, hey, do a whole bunch of stuff, do most of your stuff in secret.
So theologian A.
B.
Bruce, he said this.
He said that we are to show when we are tempted to hide, and then we hide when tempted to show.
Now that's a clever way to say we are called to brave witness in the world, and we're also called to brave secrecy.
We're called to both.
Show when tempted to hide, and hide when tempted to show.
Here's what author Priest Henry Nowen, Henri Nowen says about people pleasing.
For as long as you can remember, you have been a pleaser.
Depending on others to give you an identity.
You need not look at that only in a negative way.
You wanted to give your heart to others, and you did so quickly and easily.
But now you're being asked to let go of all these self-made props and trust that God is enough for you.
You must stop being a pleaser and reclaim your identity as a free self.
This leads us into point number two.
As we come alive to God's satisfying love, we are freed from the approval of others.
At first, maturing in faith has all this development of spiritual practices, right?
You come to faith, maybe teenager, young adult, maybe recently, and then there's this development of spiritual practices, going to church, giving to the church, prayer, fasting, reading the scriptures, maybe you journal, all this development of spiritual practices before you know it, before you can blink, your flesh will love the religious pride that comes with the spiritual practices that develop.
And those very practices are threatened by that sinful nature that's still in us, of being seen.
Trust me, I know.
Trust me, I know this.
And then the furthering of the growth and grace is to let go of the need for anybody to see those practices.
Just to walk in the presence of the one who always and already welcomes you, affirms you, accepts you, forgives you, deems you righteous, justifies you.
Now I wrestle with this text.
I mean, I think about this text.
I get paid.
I get paid to pray in front of people, right?
Like I get paid to be spiritual.
Right?
Like all of you come to church out of your own volition.
I get paid to come to church.
I don't even know what I would do if I didn't get paid.
Who knows?
Nobody knows.
I've been getting paid to do this for like 20 years.
That's crazy, right?
That's a crazy reality when you come into this text and you go, like, oh, you're not even supposed to let anybody see you do it?
Well, like I'm I'm walking up here every morning letting you see me do it, right?
And so I'm just reminded there has to be a space between, and even you, if you lead a small group or you have some leadership in your life, there has to be a space between what is private and what is public.
What is private sacred and what is public sacred.
Now, these two relate, but they are different.
They have to be different.
And there should be parts of your private sacred that I don't get, and your cousin doesn't get, and your friend down the street doesn't get, right?
And there should be parts of my private sacred that you don't get, right?
Like, and then there's public, we come together communally.
They relate, but they're not the same.
We have to be willing to have parts of our lives, our spiritual practices that go unseen, so that we receive the fullness of the reward of the relationship with God without it being threatened by all the pats on the back.
Oh, you're so great.
You're so great.
Look what you're doing.
You're maturing so much, you're growing so much.
And Jesus is just hammering home relationship with God in spiritual practice is to have spiritual practices that nobody sees.
And then you'll have a reward you never imagined.
Matthew 6, we're going to read verses 5 through 8, and then skip to 16 through 18.
It's a section about prayer and a section about fasting, and then we're come back and look phrase by phrase at the Lord's Prayer.
Uh verse 5.
And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites.
For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners that they may be seen by others.
Truly I say to you, 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.
And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.
Do not be like them, for your father knows what you need before you ask him.
So you say, Well, like why should I pray?
Because of the relationship.
It's not a transactional getting everything you ask.
You're praying because of the relationship itself, the goodness of it.
Jumping to verse 17.
But when you fast, so that would be to break from a meal in our context today.
It could be breakfast, it could be break from your phone, it could be break from television, certainly not college football on Saturday, but something else important in your life, right?
To break from it in order to use that time to come before God and prayer, scripture, quietness, to feel the hunger of the missing of that, and then to realize what really matters in life.
And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others.
Truly I say to you, they have received the reward.
But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your father who is in secret, and your father who is in secret will reward you.
Point number three, our practices, our faith practices solely birthed from a heart that longs to be for God alone.
So when we talk about prayer, we're talking about relationship, we're talking about surrender, not transactional, you know, like put a coin in the vending machine and get out the three things you ask for.
It's never worked for you, and it won't in the future.
It doesn't work that way.
It's a relationship.
You're praying for the relationship, the goodness of connection and abiding with the Father.
In Matthew 6, 9 through 15, Jesus gives us this great prayer model, the Lord's Prayer.
Some of us grew up saying this all the time.
Almost when Al started to read it, like I started reading it.
I don't know if you felt that you're like we were supposed to, right?
Because we're so used to the words of this prayer, and that has such goodness for us.
This prayer for us gives us a framework of how to pray, and then it also can give us actual word for word to pray, what to pray.
At times when we're so tired we don't know what to pray, or we're so numb, or we're so hurting, or we're so apathetic, we don't care.
But we could pray that.
And so at times it's a framework for us, and at times it can be word for word.
It's a gift either way.
We're gonna go through it phrase by phrase so we understand it whether you use it as a framework for prayer or whether you use it word for word.
Verse 9, our Father in heaven.
So this is to address God.
And in it is us addressing God as the loving Papa, the Heavenly Father.
This is the dominant New Testament image for us to understand God and to embrace.
And as we understand Him as loving Papa, that automatically puts us as beloved child.
That's the positioning for us to begin with.
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
So that's ancient language to say, may your name be sanctified.
This is an affirmation of God's holiness and his majesty.
So we've positioned ourselves, loving Papa, I'm your child, your holy, and you're majestic.
Verse 10, your kingdom come.
This is about God's influence in our lives and the world, Him making all things new.
Now, the kingdom in Matthew, the book of Matthew, is never spoken of as something we do.
We may seek the kingdom, which is in Matthew 6, 33, or we enter into the kingdom, Matthew 12, verse 25, but the kingdom is coming.
The kingdom overcomes us, Matthew 12.
It's likened to God's forgiveness, Matthew 18, and it grows of its own accord, Matthew 13.
Here's what Carl Barth said.
The coming of the kingdom is totally independent of our powers.
We are as incapable of doing something toward its coming as creation itself.
So this is not a shifting of responsibility that you gotta go and make everything in the world happen for God.
We join into the coming of God's kingdom into our lives and into the world.
So this is a prayer of confession, a prayer of surrender into God's plan, a petition, a petition for this.
Your kingdom come, your will be done.
Now, this is a release of the attempt to control our world and our lives, the people we love.
For me, I'm like way, I'm super deep into U-10 girls' soccer as I'm coaching again this year.
I've got two assistant coaches now, which really helps.
But yesterday on the soccer field, it's like prayer or explosion.
Prayer or panic attack.
These are the only options.
When my midfield left player, sweet little Cindy Lou, will not hold her position.
It's like either God, your will be done here, or it's gonna be panic attack on the sideline for the pastor.
That's the only options that are gonna happen.
Your will be done, it's a prayer.
It's a freeing of the fight, right?
That's a silly example.
There's much bigger examples.
It works pretty much exactly the same, though.
It does work exactly like that.
It's a freeing of the fight of our wills to try to be sovereign over a circumstance and to say your will be done.
Like there's I'm I'm a participant, I'm I'm responsible, but I am under.
I am in this relationship, I am underneath your sovereignty.
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, a confession that things are not right in this world.
Things are right in the world to come.
But we are praying and asking God to come into the hurt and the sorrow we experience here.
Verse 11, a transition occurs over to our concerns and needs.
Verse 11, give us this day our daily bread.
So daily bread is us asking for God to come into the provision of the basic needs of our lives.
If God is big enough to care about the huge macro level stuff going on in the world, he is also big enough to care about your life in Marietta.
Right?
That would make him even bigger.
If he only cares about the big stuff, he's not really that big.
He's big because he can care, and he does fully care about both.
Verse 12, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Now, this can sound like, especially verses 14 and 15, as we heard him read, it can sound like our forgiveness is contingent upon us forgiving others.
I mean, it really sounds like that at times in this text, but it's not.
That's not the language, that's not the point.
At least that's not how I understand it to be at all.
For me, this is language connecting, being forgiven, and being a forgiving person.
And Jesus saying, This is the same person.
This is the same person, a person who is forgiven is learning to become more and more a forgiving person.
Verse 13 lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
So this is a prayer to say, God, help me resist the temptations that will destroy.
Destroy the good stuff in my life.
And then also help me resist the temptations in me that will destroy the good stuff in my life.
Help me resist the temptations of the lies that are in my heart about who I am.
And they're not true.
That I would need other people's approval, even in my faith practices.
What a lie.
What destruction over something that should be so good for us.
The context of this entire passage is Jesus talking to a group of people, the Pharisees, who just fell in love with other people approving of them.
To be seen and approved.
And here's the key, as you heard it over and over again in the text.
In verse 2, and verse 5, and in verse 16, that kind of person is being a hypocrite.
The imagery, the context at that time, when Jesus used this word hypocrite, he's saying, you're like an actor.
You're like an actor on a stage who wears a mask.
You've probably worn a mask before, right?
To scare somebody, you're gonna wear one a couple weeks for Halloween.
Or maybe you wore a mask to have your pores cleansed.
I did that once as a separate sermon illustration.
Masks are always uncomfortable, right?
They're just uncomfortable because it's not you.
They itch, dig into your scalp, can't breathe.
It's an exhausting life.
That's what Jesus is saying.
This is an exhausting life of seeking the approval of others.
And you and I, we don't have to live out our faith or live our lives like we're on a stage with a mask on.
We're already accepted by God and Jesus.
So we don't have to use our giving and our prayer and our fasting for other people to see us and congratulate us and approve of us.
Over the past month, I've been listening to this song by Mission House.
We sang it a couple weeks ago.
I don't have much.
And over and over again there's this line.
I was thinking about it this week, thinking about this text.
I don't have much, but I have a heart that beats for you.
And the question that comes to me, I think it comes to you this morning, is that enough?
Is that enough in your faith?
Just to have a heart that beats for God.
Nobody else's admiration, approval, affirmation.
Is your heart beating for God alone enough for you?
And it's all good news this morning.
It's all good news.
That can be that can be really challenging.
It's all good news because Jesus is saying it is.
It's enough for you.
Trust me, he's trying to reveal that in these people to say that he is enough.
And that there is a wealth, there is a wealth of reward of relationship with the Heavenly Father waiting for us as we practice our spiritual practices and we have them in place in our lives.
Just with God.
Because what you'll discover, what you'll discover is that He has a heart that beats for you.
Let's pray together.
God, thank you for this good news.
Thank you for teaching us that you are enough for us.
Forgive us for all the ways that we try to use even our spirituality to be seen, affirmed, accepted, approved, applauded.
Thank you that we are not condemned by that in Jesus, but we are certainly convicted, and we certainly get to repent this morning in your grace and joyfully, joyfully fall back into your arms of love and say how silly, how silly I am, and how good you are.
Help us discover more and more the wealth of the reward of the relationship we have in you, to know you as a Father, and to understand ourselves as your beloved children, fully secure, forgiven, and righteous in Jesus alone.
In his name we pray.
Amen.