Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.
If you do, you'll have no reward from your Father in heaven.
So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets as the hypocrites do in the
synagogues and on the streets to be honored by others.
Truly I tell you, they have received the reward in full.
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.
Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Good morning everyone.
It's great to be together.
If you can smell campfire, do not worry.
The place is not burning.
We had a wonderful time last night.
All the men got together around a campfire, around good meat, good conversation and Liam
led us in a wonderful devotion.
And so it was a brilliant time that we've got one coming up in a couple of months.
So I highly recommend that you get to one of these men's events.
If you're a man, that is.
Before we open the word, let's come to our Father in prayer.
Lord Jesus, we are so thankful that these words have indeed been given to us by you,
these words of eternal life to your church.
We ask that as we peer into these words, as we explore what's being said here this morning,
that you would change us by your spirit, that you would give us ears to hear, hearts to
know you in a deeper way.
And we ask for this in your name.
Amen.
It seems like forever ago, but before COVID or BC, as it's come to be known by many, Australia
actually went through some of the worst bushfires ever recorded in our nation.
They were absolutely devastating and affected thousands of people as their communities were
rocked by nature, burning up in front of them.
It truly was a horrible, horrible time for many people, but something beautiful also
happened in the midst of the ashes.
And that was that many people around this nation gathered together to help those who
were in desperate need.
People did whatever they could with whatever they had to lend a hand.
Some helped with makeshift housing by giving tents, others gave clothing, some donated
toys for children, and some churches even got together with other churches and went
out and made sandwiches and tea and coffee for the hundreds of volunteer firefighters
who were putting their life on the line for others.
Not to mention the millions of dollars raised by anonymous donors moved by the pictures
on our TV screens.
It was a wonderful display of everyday people selflessly giving of their time, efforts and
money to help those in need.
However, there was something that really stood out to me in the midst of all of this, and
that was that one Hollywood power couple were announced by Channel 7 to have a special message
for us all.
And what was their message?
Well that they were hoping for the best and that they were thinking of all those affected
by the bushfires.
Absolutely wonderful.
But things got a bit awkward when you could tell that they wanted to let those in need
know, and the world watching of course, that they were personally giving one million dollars
of their own money.
Now what was what they were doing by giving all that money a great thing?
It was absolutely a great thing.
It was an amazing thing and I'm sure it helped those who really needed it.
And even though the papers went wild the next day and their movie sales skyrocketed, Jesus
says it is actually more of a blessing to help those in need behind the scenes rather
than practising it, this righteousness in front of others.
We're going to see that in our passage this morning.
More on that in a moment.
However in keeping with the theme of famous people, what we've been looking at for the
past couple of months now is probably one of the most famous sermons of all time given
by the most famous person in history who never sought the attention or approval of his peers,
just his heavenly father to which he encourages us, his disciples to do the same.
Now we have to understand a bit of the context in which this sermon that we've been exploring
has been delivered.
See if we go all the way back to the start of Matthew's account of the gospel, we will
first remember that his whole purpose of writing this gospel was to prove to the Jewish people
that their messiah or king as we would call it had finally arrived.
And I say finally arrived because King Jesus was actually spoken about beforehand for years
and years by a group of people called the prophets.
Now I mention this because Jesus came to a nation of people expecting a king to come
and overthrow the enemy which just so happened to be the Roman government.
But as we've seen through the weeks, as we've been going through the book of Matthew, nothing
that the Jewish people were expecting of their king was happening.
For example, Jesus was born in a stable.
I mean when the Magi of the East came to Jerusalem, they were expecting a king to be born in a
palace.
Hence why they asked the puppet king Herod where the real king was.
We all remember how that turned out.
Again Jesus grew up in a backwater town called Nazareth where no one expected anything great
to come from.
And for all intents and purposes, there was complete silence on King Jesus until some
ragged preacher with locust legs and honey in his beard appeared out of nowhere calling
the nation of Israel to turn from the way that they were going back to God as he was
about to arrive and bring in the kingdom of heaven.
Then what did we learn?
God announces Jesus as his son.
He gives him the Holy Spirit and instead of getting on a white warhorse and riding into
Jerusalem to destroy all God's enemies, he goes in completely the opposite direction
to be tested in the wilderness by the devil who is the ultimate enemy of the people.
All this to say, every step of the way God has not met the expectation of the people
of Israel because their focus was completely on earthly things.
And I say that because no more clearly have we seen where their heads have been than in
just the past few weeks.
We've seen it because Jesus has totally dismantled the popular teaching of the time, which was
essentially that the law was given to the people to only deal with the external and
to only change the temporal.
Not so, says the King of God's heavenly kingdom.
No, the law was revealed to cut into the internal and radically change the perpetual.
In other words, the law was given to do major heart surgery, revealed to show that the heart
is deceitfully wicked and that you actually need a heart transplant.
Admittedly, Jesus didn't use those exact words, but that's what he's getting at when he said
it is only the poor in spirit who will enter the kingdom of heaven.
And how have we seen that diagnosis come about?
Well, we've seen it time and time again.
The law is an X-ray machine.
Jesus is the surgeon with the cure.
I'm saying all of this because that's the type of people who Jesus is addressing here.
The crowds to which, as we've seen, were people who were expecting a king, but also looking
exclusively to the physical and temporal to assure them that they were blessed of God.
Time and time again, Jesus has shown it's not just the external, but it's also the internal
that God transforms.
This morning, Jesus is actually going to shift the crowd's attention from what they have
heard to what they have observed.
I want you to notice that in our text and over the next three sections, actually, which
we'll be looking at over the next three weeks.
And we're privileged to have Justin Forie come and preach to us next week on the Lord's
Prayer.
But Jesus shifts from what the people had heard to what they had seen in regards to
giving, prayer, and fasting.
This morning, we're going to just focus on giving.
If you have your Bibles with you, have a look at verse 1.
These are the words of our Lord.
He says, be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.
If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
Now, I'm keenly aware that I just said we'll be focusing on giving this morning, and that's
certainly the case.
But we also need to recognize that this sentence in verse 1 actually encompasses the next three
sections as well.
As Jesus is keen to see his disciples shift focus from that which is earthly to that which
is heavenly.
But two things might be said here with this sentence that we have before us this morning,
which will help us understand what Jesus is going to teach us in the rest of our passage.
First, we're to be careful as the disciples of Jesus to not practice our righteousness
in front of others.
Now, the question that might be asked, what righteousness does Jesus have in mind here?
Well, to answer that, we need to look at the sermon on the Mount as a whole.
And we've clearly seen that the righteousness that he's talking about is practicing the
will of God not only in just what we say, but in all that we do.
I'll say that again.
Righteousness is practicing the will of God not only in just what we say, but in all that
we do.
That's the righteousness that's on view here.
It's not just knowing the will of God, but doing it with all that we are.
And Jesus says here we're not to do that in front of others to be seen by them.
And he'll explain to us exactly what he means by that later on.
Second, if you practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them, well,
there'll be no reward from our heavenly father.
Pretty straightforward, right?
We are to practice the will of God in all that we say and do, but don't do it in front
of others to be seen by them.
Otherwise there'll be no reward.
Well, I don't know about you church, but this raises a few different questions for me.
And good thing for us, Jesus actually expands on what he's talking about here in the next
couple of sentences.
So let's explore what he has to say to us.
Starting with verse two, when you give to the needy, don't announce it with trumpets
as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to be honored by others.
Truly I tell you they've received their reward in full.
Okay, so the first thing that I want you to notice here is that Jesus seems to be kicking
back against giving that is motivated by public opinion.
That's what's on view here.
Giving in general doesn't seem to be the problem in Jesus's day.
It's that the giving had taken on a life of its own where the one who gave was more motivated
by peer praise than anything else.
A little bit of historical background is going to help us here.
You see the synagogue was the central community hub of many Jewish villages in first century
Palestine.
It's where people would meet most days to either read the law because it was usually
only one copy in the entire town or pray and also it was a place to encourage your fellow
Jew to keep on keeping on with life under crippling Roman occupation.
It was also a central place where Jewish boys would go for their religious study not to
mention where the whole community would come together on the Sabbath day to hear the preaching
of the word.
In other words, the synagogue was the heart of any Jewish village and people met there
as a way to maintain their national and religious identity in a world that was being invaded
by pagan ideology.
One thing to note here is that people were really aware of each other's needs.
Most villages weren't like cities that we have now.
No, they were much smaller community hubs where most people knew each other because
there was some sort of physical relation or connection.
Instead of ignoring the disadvantaged and because there was no government agencies that
took care of those who were in need, the synagogue had set up a system where money was collected
from the people and then kind of like Centrelink was distributed among those who are in need
in the diocese.
New Testament scholar Grant Osborne is helpful here.
He says, many depended on the contributions from people in the community to survive.
Therefore, it was natural that serving your community became connected with giving to
the synagogue.
It seems, however, some saw this duty as an opportunity to be seen as particularly holy
in that community.
That's what Jesus is touching on here this morning.
That's what he's drawing our attention to.
He's not saying that it's wrong to give in any way.
No, it's a great thing to give and there was even opportunities to give over and above
that which was collected in the synagogues.
But what he's drilling down on here is motivation.
Notice the language he uses in verse two.
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 honoured by others.
That's what he's touching on.
To be honoured by others, to be seen by others, verse one.
Now, I want to be fair to the Pharisees here.
They had set up a system through the synagogues in which to collect money and distribute the
funds to the poor.
That's not the problem.
That's a good thing.
And even now, there's many incredible charities that work with and out of churches to help
the poor and needy.
If you've never read William Booth's book, Salvation Soldiery, which is his manifesto
to the Salvation Army, I highly commend that you do so.
It's free online.
He had a real heart for those in need.
And giving and charity and fundraising and looking after the poor is great in God's sight.
The Bible reveals to us that the people of God are to help those in need.
We're commanded to do so.
But says Jesus, the motivation that he had witnessed, which was modelled for the people,
modelled for the crowds, was all wrong.
And he draws our attention to this in that trumpet and hypocrite language.
I don't know about you.
I don't know how many of you have gone to a concert where they've had a horn section.
But to say that they're captivating is an understatement.
That's because trumpets are designed and made to be alluring.
They draw your attention to certain syncopated notes.
That's what they're designed to do, to get your attention on something.
That's the kind of thing that Jesus is getting at here.
He's saying, don't bring the so-called horn section with you to the synagogue so that
people stop in their tracks and are captivated by your giving.
Now that's what hypocrites do.
Now I want to say something on that word hypocrites because it's actually a very interesting word.
It's an old Greek word that refers to actors who put different masks on so they could play
different characters for their audience.
So when Jesus uses that word, he's saying there are those who wear masks in their day-to-day
life.
They're one thing in front of their family, their friends, their work colleagues, but
they're another thing in front of the religious community.
They're another thing at church.
It's a two-faced lifestyle.
It's playing different characters in front of different audiences.
To put it simply, it's a theatrical religion.
That's because they don't really care about the needy behind the lights and camera.
No, they give their offerings in order to be seen by the public.
That's why they want people to sit up and pay attention because they want to be celebrated
as holy people and get the applause of their peers.
In other words, they weren't giving because they really wanted to help those in need,
but because they wanted to keep up a status in the public opinion polls.
They were doing for the sake of public relations so that they would be celebrated by people.
Hence, they couldn't stand to do it when no one was watching.
And isn't this the thing that Jesus has been going after time and time and time again in
the Sermon on the Mount?
The crowds before him were taught, and in this case, shown to focus their attention
on earthly things, on external and temporal accomplishments.
The warning that Jesus is giving here is that there is a form of righteousness, dear ones,
which is practiced for the sake of getting the approval of others.
Though it might seem holy, it's not the kingdom righteousness that is given by God, which
motivates us from our very core to please our Creator because we share in the same heart
and mind with him towards those who are in need.
No, it's a counterfeit righteousness that on the surface seems great, but dig down under
that soil a bit, and the motivation is all wrong.
In other words, it's not sharing in God's heart to care and love the needy among us
because the Holy Spirit is cultivating that great desire.
No, it's working hard to be seen by, praised by, and honored by other people.
That's the warning.
People that help the needy from that place of purely seeking the adoration from others,
they might be seen.
They might get the public approval ratings.
They might even get awards in front of the entire world.
But what does Jesus say?
They have their reward.
Go back to verse one, how much reward do they have from our heavenly father?
A little less?
No, he says they have no reward, none.
And it's here that Jesus is addressing and identifying a real danger in the religious
community.
The one that he has before him, and these words have been given to the church for us.
There were people that he is addressing in his sermon who seem to be greatly religious,
saintly even, yet they were stuck, still hard at work maintaining an outward righteousness
as they were looking for the approval of others in their community.
And they, says Jesus, they receive nothing from God.
And we will look at that in just a moment, this reward that he's speaking about.
But Jesus makes it clear for us, doesn't he?
His disciples, he's saying be very careful, be very careful about what motivates you when
you go to help those in need.
Be very careful that you're not seeking the praise of others and motivated to get the
attention around with those around you so they'll think, wow, you are just such a great
guy.
Now when you give, says Jesus, 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 done in secret, verses three
and four.
Now I want to say something here on giving and it has been obvious with everything that
we've looked at this morning.
It is so totally presumed by our Lord, isn't it?
It's so totally presumed of his disciples.
Look at the language.
So when you give to the needy, but when you give to the needy, there's such a matter of
factness in his preaching.
It's like saying when you eat, when you breathe.
So we shouldn't in any way hear Jesus saying stop giving, stop helping so that you don't
end up like the hypocrites.
No, not in any way.
We're to give and help those in need in any way we can.
Some of you might be wondering here this morning, but Michael, aren't we to be the salt and
the light of this world?
Are we not meant to draw people into the kingdom of heaven by the way that we act differently
to them?
Absolutely we are.
There's no contradiction with what Jesus has said previously in verses 14 through to 16
of chapter five about our good works.
What's on view here is when, not if, but when you go to help those in need, don't do your
acts of righteousness for the purpose of getting people to praise you.
Brothers and sisters, Jesus knows that as his church is obedient, he knows that as we
practice our love for God and others in front of this world, that the world will stop and
pay attention.
We saw this last week.
They should.
They're meant to.
But as we go and love our neighbours and even our enemies in this world, Jesus says our
motivation must not be to get praise from the world.
That's not why we help others in need church.
It's not to gain the love and the adoration of our peers of the world.
It's to please our God.
That's what's on view here.
It's the motivation of the heart.
And that's why Jesus brings in this language of secrecy.
He's addressing our own spiritual walk.
He's addressing our attitude towards the practice of giving to others.
You see, Jesus is teaching us that when we give, we're essentially to forget about the
opinions of others and even to not really consider ourselves as our left hand, shouldn't
even know what our right hand is doing.
Now, I have to confess, that's a very funny picture, right?
To be so ambidextrous that your hands can be totally independent of each other.
Every drummer's dream ever.
But it makes sense when we understand the context into which Jesus is speaking.
You see, he's saying to his audience, when you go to give, when you put that coin in
the box at the synagogue, at church, and the other hand's kind of just dangling on the
other side, don't use one hand to put the coin in and the other hand to pat yourself
on the back.
No, don't even consider yourself.
In other words, our giving should be done in such a way that we leave me, myself, and
I out of the picture.
I don't know about you church, but there is something about helping those in need that
I'm keenly aware of in my own life.
It draws me in one of two ways to make it about myself.
The first is so others will see and give praise, we've had a look at that already, but the
second is just as tempting, and that's that we help others to feel good about ourselves.
That's what Jesus is saying in all of this.
He's saying seek the way of God and do it not for your own pleasure, not for the praise
of others, but because you are out to obey God in whatever way he commands and directs
you.
Then he ends on this.
Even your father who sees what's done in secret, he'll reward you.
Church, this is the thing that Jesus says here that completely turns everything on its
head.
There is a word that he has just used in our sentence in this passage this morning, and
I want you to notice it, it's a word that he has used in our relation to God and one
that he will use over and over in the coming verses, and that is the word father.
I want you to notice that in our passage this morning.
And he uses the word father as he is directing his disciples, us, to our relationship to
God as one that is to be thought of as between a father and his children.
That makes all the difference here, all the difference.
That is how we give generously without falling into the temptation of seeking the approval
of others or self-gratification.
It's knowing who we are in relation to God.
It's moving from seeing God as some distant deity that doesn't care about us to knowing
him as our heavenly father.
It makes all the difference in the world brothers and sisters.
You see when we look to Jesus Christ who was declared by God to be his son, that is a declaration
over every single person who has come to put their trust in Christ as well.
That's why Paul uses the language of in Christ.
We are in Christ and because of Christ we are more than citizens of the heavenly kingdom.
We're adopted sons and daughters of the most high.
Meaning in a very real sense we can look to God as our heavenly father and because of
that his commands are in no way detrimental to our well-being.
As a good father towards his beloved children his instructions are only ever for our good.
Think about it.
He sent Jesus and he made a way for us while we were still dead in our sins and his enemies.
And so though giving might not make any earthly sense in our circumstances, whatever they
may be, because of Jesus you can know that he loves you and cares for you better than
you could ever care for yourself.
And he is more concerned about your needs than you will ever be able to fathom.
And so church we can give and serve in light of the fact that the one who sent his only
son for us, who knows what we need, commands us to give because he knows what's best for
us even when it might not make any sense to us right now.
See if we don't look to Jesus we will only ever be insecure before God.
We'll only ever look to our own works to see if we're accepted and therefore we will continually
look for our security by trying harder and harder to please those around us looking to
what they think of us.
As we've seen over the weeks, people looked to the external to find their approval before
God as that's what they were taught to do.
And because they couldn't live to the standard that God had revealed in the law, they had
in a very real way become hypocrites, practicing outward righteousness so as to be honoured
and praised by others all the while internally they were far from God.
We all need to hear this this morning, every single one of us in this room, by the work
of God on our behalf, by his work on behalf of his people, by the work of the Father sending
the Son, by the work of his Son's life, death and resurrection, by the work of the Holy
Spirit uniting us to Jesus, we have been set free from slavery to public opinion.
We've been set free from slavery to self-gratification and adopted into God's family so that we really
might pray our Father who is in heaven and go about doing what he tells us to do with
joy.
And when our Father sees us doing that, he rewards us.
So I want to finish our time this morning asking that question, what is the reward that
we are given in serving the needy in whatever way we can?
Well I want to put it forward to you this morning, that those who genuinely seek to
please our Father in heaven by helping those in need, and I want you to notice the language,
it's not necessarily with money, it can be with money, it can be making dinners, it can
be spending time with people, it can be giving them clothes, whatever it might be, the reward
is to see those in need, served in such a way that those served give glory to our Father
in heaven through our obedience.
I believe that's the reward that's on view here.
We heard it this morning, we don't get to a certain level of Christianity then we say
to God, I'll take it from here.
And in no way is Jesus saying that we work for salvation.
I believe our reward is seeing our Father glorified.
And when through our Father's good gifts that are given to us through his leading and providing
in situations where the hungry are fed, the naked are clothed, the sick are healed, the
oppressed freed, and that person that you have been sharing the gospel with and praying
for comes to faith.
When you see our Father being glorified and praised by your obedience, our reward is seeing
those who were in need provided for by God through our obedience and that he is glorified
in the doing.
He's glorified.
Church, I was tempted, I must say this morning while writing this sermon, to go into the
real practicalities of how we might serve Armidale as a church.
But as I was thinking on these things, our helping the needy is going to take so many
different shapes and will look so different for every single one of us in this room who
is praying for a way to help those in need around us.
We each have gifts given to us by our heavenly Father to serve those around us.
We saw that when we went through the Ephesians series.
And so let us pray to God this morning.
Let us pray that he would use Grace Christian Church, use us individually to help those
in need.
And might we ask that we would take great, great joy in seeing our Father being glorified
in our midst.
Would you please pray with me?
Lord Jesus, we started our time this morning asking that you would help us to understand
the words of eternal life.
And Lord, these words for your original hearers for us this morning is challenging.
We're always tempted to make our giving about ourself.
But we would ask that these words don't just stay in our heads, but are taken to our hearts
and that we would see the work of your spirit in our lives as we look for opportunities,
as you place us in positions to help those in need with the things that you've given
us.
Might we not only be a community here in Armidale, but us individually in our workplaces, our
families, whatever situation you have us in.
Lord, would you please give us opportunities to help those in need?
Might we be a praying people, ultimately leading people to the gospel?
Would you give us courage?
Would you give us wisdom?
Would you help us?
And might you be glorified in all that we do?
We ask for all of this in Jesus' name.
Amen.