Right Motivation in the Kingdom
Kingdom Living May 18, 2025 Matthew 6:1-6,16-18 Notes
In today’s world, appearance often trumps authenticity. Social media thrives on applause. Our culture encourages us to project a curated image—whether through photos, achievements, or even spiritual acts, like saying we’ll pray for someone or give to some cause we say we care about. But what if the pursuit of human recognition corrupts our faith? What if God isn’t impressed by our outward acts at all, but is instead watching our hearts? Watching our motives?
That’s really been the theme of the Sermon on the Mount—Jesus shifting the focus from outward behavior to inward transformation. He’s moved the emphasis of the Law from external compliance to internal motives. And now, in Matthew 6, He turns to our spiritual practices, not to say we shouldn’t do them, but to teach us how and why we should. He challenges us to examine not just what we do, but why we do it. For in the Kingdom of God, the heart and its motives and attitudes matter most.
In Matthew 6:1-6; 16-18, Jesus warned His disciples against practicing acts of righteousness with the motive of human recognition rather than God’s.
Audio
I see all of you here this morning. We're continuing our series entitled, “Kingdom Living.” We've been going verse by verse through the Sermon on the Mount. This is Jesus giving the Sermon on the Mount. Many have regarded him as like a second Moses, yet superior to Moses.
Moses went up on Mount Sinai and brought down God's Ten Commandments. Now, Jesus goes up on the Mount and explains to us what the commandments have always meant. They were always aimed at the heart, not just external obedience, but obedience from the heart. So, we see Jesus, Who we see here. Many have called this, “The greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher who ever lived.”
We're going verse by verse; we're in chapter six now. This is part eight of our series; we've entitled this sermon, “Right Motivation in the Kingdom,” because King Jesus now moves from what His conversation has been for the past few Sundays. He has been saying, “You've heard this law, you've heard thou shalt not murder,
but I say…” He's gone through different laws and moved them from outward obedience to inward transformation. That's where He's been. Now, we'll see that He, in chapter six, begins to talk about our spiritual practices, what some have called “Christian disciplines” or “Christian habits” - things like prayer, giving, fasting and things like that. These are not laws, but these are pursuits of ways that we do our acts of righteousness. So now, Jesus is moving past talking about the right application of the law to the right understanding of why we pursue these things. He says that it's got to do with the heart;
it has to do with our motivation. In today's world, appearance often trumps authenticity. We thrive on applause. Social media thrives on applause, or as it were, “likes” and “hearts” or whatever little buttons you can hit immediately and how many views. It encourages us to broadcast or project a curated image, whether it's through photos or achievements or even spiritual acts like we'll put on social media.
“I'm praying for you;” we don't even have time to say that now. We put those little folding hands emojis; that's me praying for you.
Maybe, you're really praying for people when you do that, or maybe you just want that person to know that you read their comment and you try to reply in a spiritual way. What if this pursuit of human applause, this pursuit of human response to our spiritual acts, corrupts our faith?
What if God isn't impressed with that, when we try to impress people rather than God? I wonder what Jesus has to say about that? Well, that's what we're about to find out today. That's really what Jesus is working on. He wants to move us from external compliance to heart transformation so that we have a new attitude as His kingdom people, His kingdom citizens.
He's calling us to heart change, heart transformation, so that when we worship, when we give, whatever we do for the Lord, we do it unto the Lord and not unto men, but so that we do it for God's glory. This is where Jesus is today in chapter six. In Matthew, chapter six, Jesus warned His disciples against practicing their acts of righteousness in order to receive human applause rather than God's. We can practice our acts of righteousness for the Lord and with a right heart motivation. As we look at the text today, He gives us three spiritual practices that He offers as examples of right heart motivation as we live before the Lord.
So let's look at the text; we're starting at verse one of chapter six. Matthew 6:1-6; 16-18 (ESV) 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. 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. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret.
And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 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. 6 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. …” We're going to skip over verses 7 through 15.
We're going to save that passage for next time so that we can really focus on prayer. Then, we're going to skip down to 16 through 18 because Jesus is following a similar formula here, starting at verse 16, “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 their reward. 17 But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 18 that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.. “
This is God's word. Amen. We're looking for three spiritual practices that Jesus utilizes to reveal right motivation so that God is looking for motivation that pleases God, which is from the heart.
1. When we give, desiring God’s reward, not man’s recognition.
When we give, desiring God's reward, not man's recognition. Christ calls us to the right motivation when we give. Now, look at verse two and then look again at verse three. You'll see the phrase, “when you give;” it doesn't say, “if you give.” There's an assumption that if you're a kingdom citizen, if you're a follower of King Jesus, you're a giver, because followers of Jesus are givers.
When you give, when you practice the righteous act of giving, which is part of being a Christ follower that we're givers, make sure you're doing it from the heart. Make sure you're doing it with the right attitude, not to be seen by others. He sets this whole conversation up with verse one.
Verse one begins with the word, “beware.” This is in the Greek imperative. In other words, it's a command word. It's an imperative word. He says, ‘watch out for this thing that I see among the scribes and the religious leaders, the Pharisees, this behavior of this outward performance of righteous deeds in order to be seen.’
He sets it up like that. He says, “beware,” watch out for practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. Now, to be clear, he's not saying that you shouldn't do righteous deeds publicly. He's saying you shouldn't do them in order to be seen as your motive. Let's be careful here about His focus.
He says, “...in order to be seen by them.” Now, I must admit that I see here a potential contradiction between what Jesus said in chapter five and chapter six. Maybe you remember, maybe you've been with me on this journey and you remember that back in chapter five, Jesus says in verse 14, “You are the light of the world.” He says, “Don't hide your light under a basket.
Instead, put it up where everybody can see it.” Then, He says this in the same way, "Let your light shine before others so that they may see your good deeds and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” Now, is this a contradiction? Has Jesus contradicted Himself? In chapter five, He says, “Do your righteous acts, do your good works in front of people so that they give glory to God.”
In the next chapter He says, “Do it secretly; don't do it to be seen.” Is there a contradiction? No, there isn't. What we're talking about here is we're shifting and I think it's important to see that in the earlier case, He commands it.
In the later one, He prohibits it. What's the discrepancy? One author was looking at this and says that in the first case, in chapter five, He's battling against the motive of human cowardice, that we're trying to be “secret agent” Christians, that we need to let people know that what we do is not to our credit, but it's to the glory of the Father. Then in chapter six, he's dealing with human vanity. So, on the one hand we keep it a secret that we're a Christian because we're cowardly about it.
and He's correcting that in chapter five. Then, in chapter six, human vanity is you're proclaiming it because the social community that you're in gives you social credit for that. Now, He's really checking our motives in both cases. The key, I would say in both cases, is that the glory belongs to God, not you, because when you receive the applause of others, you're receiving God's glory for yourself. This is what A.B.Bruce says,
“Show when tempted to hide and hide when tempted to show.” When you're tempted to hide, you should let people know that you're doing it for God. When you're tempted to show off, maybe that's when you ought to just keep it a secret, because human nature is to do things with the wrong motive. So, He sets it up in verse one.
Then, He begins to drill down in verses two through four. With His first example, He gives three spiritual practices: (1) giving, (2) praying and (3) fasting. He could have given us more, but those are the three that He works out with us. The first one is in verse two, 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.”
Can you picture a wealthy person giving? They're coming into the synagogue to give, and they've paid somebody to play a trumpet. It's kind of a crazy scene. I don't know if anybody ever did that. Maybe they did and Jesus saw it and He's bringing it to battle, or maybe He's just using hyperbole to let people know how people act.
They make a big deal when they give an offering and they want everybody to know it. So, maybe He's just using a metaphor here or maybe He's referring to those offering boxes in the temple where there's some archeological evidence for that. They actually had a trumpet-like shape at the top. I've seen these kinds of contraptions in certain places where you could put a coin in. It's open at the top and it narrows as it goes into the box.
Go ahead and pop the photo up. I have a photo example of what these brass kinds of trumpets may have looked like. If you come in, you're a rich person, you open up your pouch and you've got a handful of denarii, you know, you've got all kinds of heavy chains, you could just kind of throw it in the top there, it would sound off like a trumpet. It would be loud.
Maybe He had that in mind. But at any rate, He's saying, ‘Don't sound off. Don't make a big deal in the synagogues (which is the place of worship for the Jews) nor in the streets, so that you may be praised. He says, “Truly, I say to you…” so there's that formula again that we heard earlier with the law. “You've heard it said, but I say…” remember that formula back and forth.
“You've heard it said, thou shalt not kill. But I say, if you've been angry and called your brother an “empty head,” you've committed murder in your heart.” “You've heard it said, thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say, if you look at a woman with lust in your heart, you commit adultery in your heart.”
It is kind of the thing that rich people celebrate their giving. But, the formula that He's using again, he's still with authority. “I say the word truly, in the Greek, it’s the word “amen.”
”Amen,”I say to you. I've said this to you jokingly, but sometimes if you can't get an “amen,” you just “amen” yourself. So, He “amen’s” Himself here. He says, “Amen”
I say to you. If you won't amen me, I'll amen myself. Verse 2, “… Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.” What's their reward? The applause of man; that's their reward.
Now, they don't get a reward from God because they took God's glory for themselves. They didn't give glory to God, they took it for themselves. That's the reward. The reward is that they got the applause of men. But he says, in verse 3, “But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,”
I don't know how you would pull that off. Do you put one hand behind your back? Don't look, this hand's doing this. It's another metaphor, right?
It's a metaphor to the extreme where He's saying, not only should you keep it a secret from the public, keep it a secret from yourself in a way where you're not telling yourself, I'm so great for doing this giving that I'm doing. Be careful about taking the glory, even privately recognizing that all that we give was first given to us. We would have nothing to give if God didn't bless us. All glory, praise and honor belong to Him.
Even as our left hand is giving or our right hand is giving, don't take credit for it. Don't applaud yourself with the other hand or pat yourself on the back as this hand gives. He says, “don't be like the hypocrites,” right?
The Greek word for “hypocrite” is an interesting Greek word. You'll remember this one because it just got transliterated into the English, hupokritēs. It had its origin in the Greek theater.
In the Greek theater, rather than putting on makeup and wearing wigs, they would just go backstage and put another mask on. In the Greek tragedies and the Greek mythologies, they had these common masks. It would be a frowny face, a smiley face or whatever. Maybe the Greek theater is the origin of our “emojis.”
The idea of being a hypocrite means this, that you're a poser, that you're an actor, that you're a pretender, playing a part that isn't really you. That's the origin of the word. He says,don't be like the hypocrites who are making sure everybody knows how religious they are, when in their heart they're faking it. They're not really doing it for God. They're doing it for the praise of men.
Jesus is telling us to be careful. Beware of this. It says in the book of Proverbs, Proverbs 19:17 (ESV) “Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will repay him for his deed.” When we give to the poor, we lend to the Lord. He says that we lend to the Lord.
2 Corinthians 9:7 (ESV), “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
God cares about the attitude of the heart. Are you becoming more like Jesus? Are you a giver? “For God so loved the world that he gave…” He's a giving God.
He's a giving God. In becoming more like Him, we become givers. But it must come from the heart. There's a story that we read in the book of Mark where it says that Jesus had positioned Himself in the temple area across from where the treasury was in the court of women, where they were dropping coins in those offering boxes that I was talking about a minute ago. It says that He was watching the people give.
Don't you find that curious? Jesus watches your giving. He's interested in it. In Mark 12:41-44 (ESV), He saw two types of giving. He saw the rich people come up and they would pull out their pouch and throw it down, “ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.”
Then, He saw a widow woman, and she came up, very circumspect, and pulled two little copper coins out, each of them very small, and put them in there. So they went silently down into the offering box. He turned to His disciples who were sitting there with him.
Verse 43, “And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. 44 For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” He was looking at her heart.
He was watching her giving. Evaluate your heart when you give. Say, “Lord, examine my heart. Examine my motives.” Are you desiring God's recognition or man's recognition?
Do you give to be seen by others or even give under the pressure of others or do you give out of cheerful obedience to God? Maybe, you're just becoming a giver because you're following Jesus. Notice, He didn't say, if you give.
He said, when you give, because the followers of King Jesus are givers. Are you a giver? Today, at the end of the service, you'll have an opportunity to bring your tithes and your offerings forward as a gift. Do you do it for the Lord and for His glory?
In the lobby, there's two opportunities for giving today. We have the baby bottle collection that we're doing, where you can put your loose change in a baby bottle and bring it back. We will give it to Choices Women's center to help abortion-minded women and others choose life. So, we help support them. We don't just tell them to choose life, but we help them financially and help them in other ways.
Or, you can sponsor a child as we heard Caroline talk about a moment ago. We have a table out there with several packets from different countries. I think we have a couple of packets from Uganda. We partner with churches in Uganda through Pastor George Mybonye. We send teams there nearly every year.
In most of the churches there that he launches, within a couple years of launching that church, he'll open up a K through 12 school that is filled with Compassion International sponsored kids. So, he opens these Compassion schools. We've been partnering with Compassion for some time. We would encourage you to do so as well. There are many opportunities. When you give, give unto the Lord and give for His glory, not your own.
That's the first. Here's the second spiritual practice that Jesus uses to illustrate for us:
2. When we pray, seeking God’s attention, not man’s applause.
When we pray seeking God's attention, not man's applause. Christ calls us to the right motivation when we pray, seeking God's attention, not man's. Applause? Look at verse five.
It says, 5 “And when you pray,” Do you pray? Are you a prayer warrior? Do you pray over meals?
I pray over meals. I pray at bedtime. I pray when I'm in trouble. When do you pray? He says “when you pray.”
He's assuming that followers of King Jesus pray. Then, He gives us the warning. He begins with the warning before He gives the instruction. The warning is, “you must not be like the hypocrites.” The hypocrites are the fakers, the actors; they love to stand and pray.
What do they love? It's not that they love to stand. They love for people to see them pray because they've been practicing and man, they pray good. Wow, that person really knows how to pray well.
That person prays the best. I don't even feel like praying after I hear that person pray. They pray so well. They love to pray in the synagogues; they love to pray in front of the whole church. They love to pray on the street corners.
Is public prayer being corrected here? Is He saying that you shouldn't pray in public? No, that's not what He's saying. You shouldn't pray in public in order to be seen. That's what He's correcting.
He's correcting the wrong motive. If your motive is to be seen, it would be better not to pray at all because you're faking it. You're a hypocrite. He says, “they love to be seen.” My guess is the people who love to be seen when they pray in public may have no private prayer life at all.
They only pray when it's called for. Publicly. He says, “Truly. I say to you,” there's our formula again. You've seen this.
It makes you feel like you don't even know how to pray. They pray so well, you don't know how to pray.
You feel intimidated about praying now because this person prays so well. Verse 5 says, “Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.” What was their goal? What was their objective? It was to have the applause of men.
Did they get it? Yes, people said, ‘You pray well,’ and they replied, ‘I know, I've been practicing.’ They've already got their reward.
But if you want the reward of the Father rather than of other people, He says, pray like this, in verse 6, “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. …”
He says that your motive is not for people to see you; you've closed yourself in. You need to be only interested in the applause of one person, and that's of the Father. You're only wanting His attention.
You're not trying to get the attention of other people. Do you have a private prayer life that is not in front of your spouse or in front of your kids? I know that you're trying to teach your kids.
I know that you're trying to make sure your spouse is not worried about you, but do you pray by yourself? The King James Version of this verse is interesting. It says, “Go into your closet.”
I used to always hear the old people say, ‘You need to go in your prayer closet.’ My mom would say it and I'd be watching her to see if she would go into the closet. I'd peep in her bedroom. She'd be down on her knees, next to her bed, crying out to the Lord. I'd be thinking to myself, that's your bedroom;
that's not a closet.
It literally means in the Greek, “an inner room that has a door.” Most houses were very modest in the first century. A lot of them didn't even have inner rooms, but if they did, it was often a room that they could lock, so that they might keep their stuff that was really important to them. It was almost like a treasury room in their house.
They didn't have all of these multiple rooms like we have today with doors. Here's the point: Go to a place where you can shut out the world, where you can get quiet. Now mamas, I know that you cannot find a place to do that.
You can't even go to the bathroom. You have that toddler beating on the door, saying, “Mama, Mama,” right? It's hard sometimes.
The inner room is your bathroom, right? It's the only place you can get a moment's peace, but it's important. Jesus is saying to pursue private prayer with the motive of your Father hearing you and seeing you. Know this, when you do, He sees you and He rewards you.
How does He reward you? He gives you the thing you're praying for, in Jesus’ name. He hears your prayer, right? I remember when I first married into my wife's family, my father in law and I had an interesting relationship. A lot of sons and father in laws have interesting relationships.
You take their daughter and they're not sure they can ever forgive you for that for a long time. That was kind of how we started out. He never called me by my name. He would introduce me to people in the family and say, “college boy” or whatever. He'd see me play Frisbee.
I used to be able to do a lot of tricks and stuff with Frisbees back in the days. He would say to us that he majored in Frisbee. That's how he'd introduced me. Two or three grandchildren later, he finally started calling me by my name. We started off a little distant, but we grew close.
As you know, I lost my father when I was eight years old. He really became a father figure to me, my father in law. I didn't know what to call him. He never told me what to call him.
Finally, when my son, Stephen, started calling him “Papaw,” that's what I called him. I called him, “Papaw.” I knew that I had arrived when one day he said, “I see you getting up early, reading the Bible and praying. Can I show you something?” He said, “Come with me.” He took me outside. He had these
pine trees that he had planted kind of as a windbreak on the side of his property. He had a pretty good sized property and he had this one area where it was really thick with pine trees. We went into the center of this area, and he had taken a porch swing and he had put it in there in the middle of those pine trees. We were surrounded all the way around with pine trees.
You could see the blue sky if you looked straight up. He sat down and said to me, “Have a seat,” and I sat down. He tells me, “This is where I pray. This can be yours whenever you visit, if you want to get up early, because you can have my sanctuary.”
I knew I'd arrived at that point, that he had brought me to the place where he met with the Father. Do you have a place like that? It doesn't have to be a closet. It doesn't have to be an inner room. It could be a room where you're all to yourself, where you can shut away the world.
You have a quiet place with the Lord. Do you have a “quiet time” habit with the Lord? It's not for others. It's just for you and Jesus. Jesus models this in Mark 1:35 (ESV) “And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place,
and there he prayed.” He liked to go out away from people. Luke 5:16 (NIV) “But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” It was His habit.
Jesus had a habit. He liked to pray alone to his Father in these kinds of places. He told a parable one time about a Pharisee and a tax collector. I like how the parable starts. He says, Luke 18:10-13 (ESV) 10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray,
one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ 13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’
Jesus concludes His parable in Luke 18:14 (ESV) “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
He was really praying to the Father. He wasn't just praying to be seen. Have you cultivated a habit of private, consistent prayer that seeks intimacy with God? Avoid using prayer to impress others in public or in small groups. Neither
abstain from public prayer because you don't feel like you pray well enough. You're still thinking of your performance. If that's what you're thinking, I don't know how to pray in front of people, you're thinking about your performance. No, you're talking to God.
He's not prohibiting public prayer. What He's cautioning against is wrong motives, that you're praying to be overheard by others rather than God. So, prayer is not a performance. It's communion with the Father.
Here's the third; He moves on to the third. He's talked about giving; He's talked about prayer. Now, Christ calls us to the right motivation.
3. When we fast, pursuing God’s reply, not man’s response.
Our right motivation is important here. He says, 16 “And when you fast,” Now, may I admit to you, I didn't grow up in a church tradition that talked a lot about fasting. We didn't talk a lot about it.
Some of you may have and you know more about it. I had to grow into the understanding of this discipline of fasting. It's something that I had to grow to understand more. I have fasted for certain reasons. My fasting has largely been because of desperation, when I've been desperate for an answer to a question that was concerning me.
It usually had something to do with direction, whether or not I was supposed to go this way or not. It often was that, although sometimes it has been where I was desperate for an answer for a loved one that had gotten bad news from the doctor and I was praying for their healing and I fasted for those kinds of things. Sometimes we, as a church, are called for a church-wide fast because we are getting ready to foot onto a real faith journey that we knew if God didn’t show up, this ain't happening. So, we've asked for a public fast and I've been part of those. Someone asked me in the lobby after the first service a question, because maybe I didn't make it clear enough.
They asked, ‘What does that word mean?’ I guess I failed to mention that it means to say “no” to something for a season in order to say “yes” to God. You might say it's to fast from physical nourishment in order to feast on spiritual nourishment. Let me say that again. Fasting might best be seen as “Fasting from physical nourishment in order to feast on spiritual nourishment.”
You're saying “no” to self and you're humbling yourself and saying “yes” to God. God, this is how serious I am about hearing from You. I'm humbling myself so that only You would lift me up. So, He starts with the warning again, as He's been doing, in verse 16 “And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others.”
Oh, man, I'm hungry. Oh, why are you so hungry? Let's go to lunch. No, I'm fasting to the Lord today. Can't go to lunch with you.
Oh, is that chocolate cake? Oh, I wish you hadn't shown me that. Mmm, yeah. No, no, no. I'm fasting to the Lord today.
He says, ‘Don't do that.’ Now, you've ruined your fast to the Lord. You've actually been fasting so others could see you, and you already got your reward. They're all so impressed at how religious you are.
Oh, she's a true Christian. Look at her. Saying no to chocolate cake. That's your reward.
That's what you were after.
Fasting is humiliating to the body because you're saying, ‘You know what? I realize I'm so dependent on God that if I don't eat and drink, if I don't draw the next breath, this body will cease to exist. It's just a reminder of how little I am.’ Fasting humbles the self. It almost always goes hand in hand with prayer; prayer and fasting are integral parts.
He says that rather than going and making a big show about your fasting, “Truly I say to you.” there's the formula again. Verse 18, “...Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 17 But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face,” Don't go out with your head looking like you combed your hair with your pillow. Put some product in your hair, anoint your head and take a shower.
Clean up.
Don't go out and people look at you like, Man, what side of the bed did you roll out of today? Oh yeah, I'm fasting unto God. No, no; just live your normal life. You're fasting privately to God.
You're not making a big show of it because you want God to do a work in you. You want Him to answer you, but you also want to learn something more about God. Every time you feel your stomach growl, it's like an alarm clock saying, Oh, I'm talking to God today. This is a reminder how dependent I am on God. Joel says this, the prophet Joel quoting the Lord.
He says, Joel 2:12-13 (ESV) “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” They had a habit, when they were fasting, they would tear their clothes. He said, rather than tearing your clothes, let me tear your heart. Let me give you a new heart when you are fasting.
Let it be that which transforms the heart, not just outward. James talks about humbling yourself. He says, James 4:10 (NIV) “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” Fasting is self humiliation.
It's choosing to say, ‘God, I'm saying no to this and saying yes to you.’ You're counting on Him to lift you up, not other people. The King James Version has the word, “openly.”
He will reward you “openly;” It was done in secret. He's gonna lift you up. I'd rather get lifted up by God than other people.
I'd rather live for the applause of the One rather than the applause of the many. People are fickled. God is faithful.
Sometimes people meet me in the lobby and they say, “Good sermon, pastor” and I say back to them, “Well, praise the Lord!” Sometimes people stop me in the lobby and say, “You know that one part? I didn't like that one part.” I say back to them, “Well, praise the Lord! Praise the Lord.”
If I give Him praise for the good stuff, I can praise Him if you don't like it, because I'm not doing it for you.
I want to be a humble servant who just gives you the word the way He gave it to me and the way it's affecting me. I've already told you that I've not been one who's practiced fasting a lot.
I fasted for three days the year after my mother died. Those of you that have been around since those days, she passed away in 2001. It hit me after a little while that I was mad at God about that, about Him taking her. I started fasting.
Lord, help me. I don't want to be a preacher anymore. I'm mad at You. It's hard to be a preacher when you're mad at God. I believe in You. I just don't know why You took my mom;
it doesn't seem fair. Do you ever feel like God's not fair to you? That's a losing battle, by the way. You can try to shake your fist at God.
There's a play called, “Arms Too Short to Box With God.” Have you ever heard of that one? I found out that's true. I fasted and He spoke to me. It's the only time in my life that I felt that I heard an audible voice. For two days, I fasted.
I love coffee; I had such a headache from coffee withdrawal, caffeine withdrawal. I was suffering for Jesus. Man, my head's killing me. Lord, when are You going to talk to me?
Can't you tell that I've got a headache? I'm a baby.
But, He humbly talked to me. I haven't been a great faster. I don't fast a lot. You take one look at me and say, ‘We can tell you don't fast a lot.’ But the fasting I'm talking about is not for physical reasons. It's not for dietary reasons.
We fast from physical food in order to feast on spiritual food. He spoke to me. I'm telling you, I wouldn't still be here preaching if He hadn't spoken to me. He recharged my batteries and got me straightened out. There've been some seasons where I don't think I would have heard as clearly if I hadn't fasted.
So, pursue it. Look into it for yourselves. Study the scripture. Do a search for the word, “fast” and “fasting;” you'll see all these different examples. The church at Antioch fasted publicly before they sent Silas and Paul out on their first missionary journey.
Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness before He began his public ministry. I could go on. Esther told her relative, Mordecai, to tell the Jewish people in the Persian Empire to fast and pray for three days before she went in to see the King. I could go on and on, but people fast and pray at key moments. Do it for the Lord's glory, not for your own. Jesus isn't condemning giving, prayer or fasting.
He's the greatest giver, the greatest example of how to pray. The most miraculous fast in the Bible was done by Jesus. He's not condemning those things. He's warning us against wrong motives. That we do it unto God and for His glory and not for our own glory.
This week, think about your righteous acts and think about who you're doing it for. Let's pray. “Lord, purify our hearts. Lord, make us right with You.
We pray like David. Lord, ‘Examine my heart. Search my heart and know me. See if there is any unclean way in me.’ Lord, I want You to transform my heart.
I want to be more like Your son. I want to yield to Your work in me.”
Are you here this morning and you've never given your life to Jesus? You can pray with me right now, “Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner, but I need a Savior. I believe You came to this world and You died on the cross for my sins. You were raised from the grave.
I believe that. I believe that You live today. I believe that. Come and live in me. Forgive me of my sin.
I want to be a Christ follower. I want to follow You as my Lord, my Savior, my King. I give You my life. Transform my heart. Make me a child of God.”
If you're praying that prayer of faith, believing, He'll save you. Others are here today and you're a Christ follower. But you need a heart cleansing. “Lord, we surrender our hearts to You, afresh. Examine our motives.
Make us right with You. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”
Audio
Morning, church. It's good to see all of you this morning. I'm so thankful you're here. We're having a lot of mic troubles today. I guess there must be something good going on today.
There's a lot of things trying to shut us down. That was a lot of fun just now. We're in part eight of a series we've called Kingdom Living. And so if you've not caught the first seven, that's okay. We're in the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus preaching the Sermon on the Mount here. And every one of these is kind of a standalone section, so don't worry, you haven't missed anything. Although I would recommend going back and looking at those on our website. But the Lord's just been really blessing our church, I think, through this series and showing us so much from the Sermon on the Mount. This is a powerful message about how Christ's kingdom is radically different than the world, radically different than our culture, and that that's going to be a powerful way to live for you, that when we come into the Kingdom of God and understand our purpose in it, going to find a new joy, a new purpose, a new peace that we've probably never experienced.
And so we're focusing today. We're starting chapter six, Matthew, chapter six. If you've got your Bible, you can come there now with me. We're going to be in Matthew, chapter 6, verse 1 through 6, and then 6, 16, 18. And you'll see why I'm doing a pause there on 7 through 15.
We're going to go over that next week. But this sermon we've titled Right Motivation in the Kingdom. There's a lot of things that Christ is telling us we as Kingdom citizens could be doing. But this week he's really talking about the motive underneath it, what's in the heart behind everything we're doing. We have to admit today's world is kind of weird about this.
Our society nowadays, appearance is never quite what it seems the way maybe when you interact with people in person, it's better, but everywhere else you interact with people, there's a little bit of inauthenticity with it. It can be very confusing. Appearance often trumps authenticity, if you will. And so our culture encourages this kind of curated version of self. The way you look, your achievements, even spiritual acts can somewhat be, hey, I'm going to put best foot forward every time and show you the best of myself.
And not always the messy stuff like saying we'll pray for someone or that we're about some Cause we're going to give to this. We're going to do this. And that's not necessarily bad. The problem is this oftentimes our pursuit, when it becomes a pursuit of human recognition, it begins to corrupt our faith. It begins to corrupt the real heart behind it.
Because here's the thing. God is not impressed with the outward acts at all. He's not impressed with them. God could do all of these things easily with a snap of his finger. He charges us and encourages us to be a part of what he's doing, because he wants us to be blessed in it.
He wants us to be a part of his kingdom purpose. But he's not all into what we're doing outwardly. He is into watching and seeing the move of our heart. He wants to see if we're changing inside. And the exterior stuff comes from that.
This has really kind of been the heart of the whole Sermon on the Mount, if you will, that he's shifting the focus from this outward behavior that is often hard to know what's going on inside. He's shifting from that to an inward transformation. He's moving the emphasis from compliance to the law to this internal motivation. So now, this week, he's going to turn to some spiritual practices. And this is powerful stuff.
I pray that it'll speak to you and encourage you and teach you, challenge you where it needs to challenge you. We're going to be in Matthew, chapter six. Let's read a few verses together. Now here Jesus is warning his disciples. He starts with beware.
And then he gives three spiritual practices that reveal how we're motivated in practicing those things of righteousness. So here we go. Matthew 6:1 6, and then 16:18, it says, Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from the 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, 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 in the street corners that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. Then he goes on to say, 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 their 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 sees in secret will reward you. This is God's word. Amen. I hope that this will encourage you today and challenge you in the places it needs to challenge you.
Because Christ is calling us to a heart change that results in the practice of righteousness and not the other way around. And so Christ is calling us to a right motivation that first, when we give, we desire God's reward and not man's recognition. When we give notice every one of these phrases. He says, when you give, when you pray, when you fast, when you give. He says, desire my reward and not man's recognition.
He comes right out of the gate with a very careful beware. When you hear the Savior of the world, when you hear the Word of God speak, beware. Tune in, listen up, because he's about to give some pretty important instruction. He says, I already know that you're going to be practicing righteousness. So church, let me just take this off the table right away.
Jesus is not saying, do not give, do not pray, do not fast. In fact, he's saying the opposite of this. He's assuming you're already going to be doing these things, that in Christ Jesus, those who live in the kingdom of God will be generous, they'll be praying, they'll be fasting. This is assumed. He's telling us what is underneath it when you do these things, make sure that they're for the Lord and not for man.
And so he says, beware when you're practicing righteousness. Here's the key phrase. When it's happening in front of others in order to be seen by them. I find this really challenging, in fact, because here's kind of how I feel at times. I didn't get the luxury of doing this today, but a lot of weeks lately I've been able to come out and worship with you guys as we're being led in worship.
And I like to sit on the front row. But part of me is a little confused on this because I really want to just worship God and experience his presence and sing these words and he's deserving of my praise. But then there's a part of me that's saying, yeah, but I'm the pastor. I need to model good behavior so I'm on the front row. Like I need to make sure people know.
And that's a weird place to find myself. I'm not interested in recognition. That's not it. But I'm not fully locked in. So, church, I'm just going to tell you, after this week of study, I may start sitting in the back just until I figure this out.
Because I want my worship to be whole and to be genuine. And it's hard for me because I'm like, but I'm the pastor. Yeah. But in that moment, I'm just a guy that loves Jesus, just like you. And I'm always that guy.
And so that's a good thing for me to think about because Jesus is really supercharging in here. He's saying, beware. When you guys are doing these things that are important things. You're giving, you're praying, you're fasting. I want you to be doing these things, but not in order to be seen.
There should only be one audience, an audience of one. And this is actually pretty challenging when you start to think about your life. The things when I do good things, when I do practice righteousness. And this could be many different good deeds. It could be worship, it could be teaching, it could be giving, it could be serving.
It could be a lot of things that you're doing all the time. It causes you, I hope this morning to pause for a second and say, am I doing this for the audience of one? Who is this for? Jesus says, if it's in order to be seen, you're already going to get your reward. He doesn't curse you for this.
He's just letting you know you're already getting the hand clap of man. I hope that was enough. It's not enough for me, Church. It's not what I live for. I pray it's not what you live for.
This is so powerful in order to be seen. This word means to look upon. As in like a public show. I like what a few. Some of the commentator writings on this this week were so helpful.
John Stotman writing on this says this. Listen up. At first sight, these words appear to contradict his earlier command. And if you were with us a few weeks ago we heard Jesus say, let your light shine before others. Why?
So that they might see and glorify your Father. Now that sounds contradictory to what he's just now been preaching. Stott writes in both verses he's speaking of good deeds before others. But in the earlier case he commands it, while in the later one he prohibits it. How can this discrepancy be resolved?
This was helpful to me. Church. The clue lies in the fact that Jesus is speaking against two different sins. It is our human cowardice which made him say, let your light shine before others. Some of us are too cowardly to profess Christ openly.
To that he says, let your light shine. Some of us, however, struggle with what Stott calls human vanity. Look at me. Look at me. Which made him tell us to beware the practice of righteousness in front of others.
Listen to how Bruce writer A.B. bruce writes. This is, I hope, will help you lock it in. He says, show when tempted to hide and hide when tempted to show. That's very helpful to me this week.
Check your motives. What's underneath? Me praying, me being generous, me serving. What's underneath it? Am I.
Am I about the audience of Jesus? Because otherwise my reward has already been. It's already been received by man, and I don't want that reward. Then he says in verse two, he says, don't give to the needy in such a way that you sound a trumpet. Now, I was really confused about this this week because it made me think, are there literally people in Jerusalem that are walking around giving to the homeless going, you know, every time.
Is this what they're doing? Because this is crazy. Like they're literally carrying around trumpets or they've just got a guy. I started picturing Monty Python, all right, so y' all deal with this however you want. I started picturing minstrels following him around.
Look what my leader's doing. He's giving to the needy. Maybe I found no evidence of that. Although the mental picture was really great. You know what I did discover?
Pop up this image. This is, I think, what Jesus is speaking to here. It's like a picture of like a jar. Do I have that? Yeah, yeah.
It's kind of shaped. Some of these are shaped more like a trumpet. When you would go into the temple, there was an area where you could make offerings to the needy and also offerings to the temple itself for paying for the articles and doing all this. And this was. Jesus is saying, hey, keep doing that.
When you give, you know, it's good to be generous. But don't roll in there. Just picture you've got some drachma, alright? Picture you've got some coins, some big heavy ones. And you come in and start throwing them in this.
Guess what it's going to do? It's going to sound da, da, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, he's saying, hey, when you come in and give, drop it in real quiet. Because the Pharisees and the scribes, he's going to accuse them of this in a minute. I'm going to show you one of the passages of Scripture. But there's people that are coming in and they want everybody to hear.
So they come in with their big old bag of change and go, look what I did. I'm a big time. Jesus says, no, come in and drop it in. Don't let anybody. Don't even let your left hand see what your right hand's doing.
It's figurative. But Jesus is here trying to get us to understand. You've already received the hand clap of man when you come in ringing the trumpets and letting everybody know I'm a big giver.
No, he says, give to the needy. Be generous, but don't be like the hypocrites who desire praise. Now, I've got another image here for you. This word hypocrite, you may have heard this before. It comes straight out of the Greek.
In Greek theater, they were called hupokrites. These are actors. So this word originally means the idea of acting like someone you're not. You can kind of see how hypocrite has come from that. And it kind of means the same thing still.
You act like one thing, but really you're another thing. You're putting on a mask. You're a stage actor. He says, this is what people are doing. They're coming in, they're sounding the trumpets, they're ringing it.
Look how great I am. I'm so generous. But on the inside, they have no desire to give. They just want the applause of man. This is a lot of people.
This might be your struggle today. Whose reward do you seek? He says in verse four. Look, if you want the reward of the Father, he's in secret. He's in that place where only you and him are.
He's in that private place, that secret place. He says, if you will give in secret, he will see in secret. There are no. There are no things hidden from his eyes. He sees them all.
So again, let me remind you, Jesus is not saying, hey, don't be generous, don't give. Quite the opposite. He's saying, you know you're going to be giving as people of God. The citizens of the kingdom of God are generous, absolutely. But they're doing it in such a way that no one sees it.
There's a real, real joy in that. The writer of Proverbs says in Proverbs 19. Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed. You want to know the reward of giving? Wait on the Lord.
If you get this, the Lord's not showing up. You've already got it. There's your reward. God cares more about the attitude of our heart. 2nd Corinthians 9.
It says, each one must give as he has decided in his heart the not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver. Now he tells a story as he's dealing with this kind of thought. In Mark, chapter 12, he tells the story of this widow and her giving. The story seems to unpack in such a way that Jesus is sitting on one side of the temple court and watching people come in and make their offerings.
This is kind of curious. Some of you would do this. I know some of you out here are people watchers, right? You know who you are. You like to just sit somewhere kind of inconspicuous and watch people.
And if you've got a spouse with you or somebody else like, you see that. Yeah, it might be all of you. I'm seeing a lot of all of you people watchers. This is interesting. Guess what this is.
Okay? Jesus is apparently kind of a people watcher. I think that's probably absolutely true. The God of the universe made you. He's very interested in what you're up to.
He's watching. He's so interested in your life. But here, Jesus in the flesh is sitting on one side of the temple watching people give, and he's seeing what seems to be the very thing I've just been talking about. He is seeing the scribes, the Pharisees, the influential people coming in and throwing money into the thing. Whoo.
And then he sees this poor widow. That was really good timing. Kind of like that. It's kind of how it would sound. And then he sees a poor widow walk up with just.
And the Bible describes it as two mites. This would be like two pennies, like nothing. She walks in, puts it in very calmly, and it seems like what Jesus disciples is, they're near or something. He calls them over and he says, I want you to know something. She gave more than everybody else.
She gave from her heart. She gave all that she had. Do you understand this Jesus that you worship, that you serve, he's not interested in you having a lot. If he were, he'd give you more. Whatever it is he's supplying, that's what he desires for you to use for his glory.
Whatever he's giving Use that. Some of us have more, some of us have less. In either instance, he's saying, hey, I want you to come in quietly and praise the Lord with it. Do you want. You want my reward or man's?
Evaluate your heart when you give. Are you desiring the recognition of others? Do not give under the pressure of others either. This is what Corinthians was talking about, not under compulsion. We're never going to be that kind of church.
I know there are some out there like that. I don't think the gospel at all. Because Christ desires a cheerful giver that you would give obediently. He expects us to give. Maybe there's some opportunities today where you could give in such a way that your left hand wouldn't see what your right hand's doing.
We're doing this interesting little thing out in the lobby and I don't know if we have any left. We might have to get more after I'm saying this, but there's these little baby bottles out in the lobby that we're giving to the local pregnancy center and you're supposed to just fill them up with change and we collect them again on Father's Day. I don't know if we have more. If we don't, we'll get more. But that's an opportunity to just fill that sucker up with change for a while.
They raise a mind boggling like several thousand dollars in just people bringing in change. It's actually a pretty big offering for them every year. And it might seem so small to you. It's such a widow's mite moment to just every day put a little thing, a couple pennies, a couple of quarters into a little baby bottle. Maybe this week you can even practice it.
Put your left hand behind your back.
Don't write checks blindfolded. I don't think that's what Jesus is saying. Like not this kind of stuff, but that's going to be a mess. So that's the first when you give, seek his reward, not man's. Then he goes on to say, when you pray, seek God's attention and not man's.
Applause. Verse 5 and 6. He criticizes this public prayer, this standing in public prayer. Instead, he commands us to be sincere, to be praying private in our prayer life. In fact, he says, go into the room and shut the door.
Verse 6. Now, is Jesus saying we should never pray standing up?
No, no, that would be kind of tough since he does that. It seems at times Jesus prays what appears to be standing. In fact, this would be Very difficult. Because just to give you a little bit of behind the scenes, the Jews in this day were practicing prayer three times a day. They were supposed to pray the Shema and the Amidah.
Three times a day. Morning, evening, and night, they were supposed to pray. Is Jesus saying, hey, stop doing that? No, he's not. He's talking about the manner, the heart behind that prayer.
In fact, the Amidah, which was a regular daily prayer, that word literally means standing. That prayer is supposed to be done standing up. Is Jesus saying, you gotta stop the Amidah? I've had enough. No, he has in mind.
There's apparently some people that, that time of the day, whether it's morning, evening, or night, they're getting out in the streets and looking super holy and praying the Shema. Everybody, look, I know all the words. That's a good Jew over there. Look at the Jew on that corner. Boy, he knows every word to the Shema.
Yeah, well, so do I, but I'm not doing that.
Jesus is apparently speaking of some people that he's seeing. This isn't just a random. This is something that's occurring in culture now. I don't know exactly how that translates today, because I don't see a lot of this happening in the streets, in businesses. In fact, I would say I see very little prayer in our culture.
But perhaps there's some way that you can translate this in your own life when it comes to prayer. If I.
This is really wild. Do you struggle, even in your own private time of prayer to just consider you and the Lord in that moment? I do just pause for a second. Sometimes as I'm praying, I'm thinking about every other thing other than talking to God. If that's you, I have good news.
I struggle there.
He says, no, I want you to get into a place where it's just you and I. And maybe when that happens to me, my dad taught me this a long time ago. He said he calls this praying empty. Now, I don't know if he made this up, but that's where I heard it. Pray empty.
So every Paul writes this way. He says, take every thought captive. So as I'm praying, if I start thinking about yah or start thinking about my family or something that I'm not praying about, I just go ahead and grab that and say, all right, God, I don't know why I'm thinking about that. I'm going to pray about that. Rather than worry, worry, worry, worry, worry.
I'm going to go ahead and grab that and pray. Even in my Private prayer life. I can struggle to seek God's attention. Do you see what I'm saying?
Shut the door, go into your room.
Jesus models this. I think perhaps the bigger piece for you on the prayer that Christ is talking about here is not so much that you're hungry for man's applause, but that you're not hungry for his attention.
You struggle in prayer because you're not interested in God's attention. He's become some sort of wish giver or something like that in your life.
When we pray, we seek God, we seek his attention. Jesus models this. There were many places I could go in the Gospels. Here's just a couple. Mark, chapter one.
It says, rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place. And there he prayed. So here's Jesus early in the morning, still dark outside. He's going somewhere desolate, isolated, to pray. Luke chapter 5.
It says Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed if he had to do it. I've often said, we certainly have to do it. This is something that's powerful in our life. We ought to be giving, getting in lonely places and praying. But not like the Pharisees and scribes.
Now Jesus tells this story. I think he tells it right in front of some Pharisees, just so you know how blunt he can be. In Luke chapter 18, Jesus says this story. It says, Jesus told this parable to some who had trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt. Two men went up to the temple to pray.
One a Pharisee and one a tax collector. That would be a very hated person. In that culture, the Pharisee standing by himself prayed thus. Listen to this prayer. This is a good prayer.
Church God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust adulterers, even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get. But that tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Luke 18, verse 14.
Jesus goes on to say, I tell you, this man went down to his house, justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. This, I think, for you this morning when you pray. Do not be like the hypocrites who stand on street corners. Instead, pray in private and seek God's attention.
I pray you would hear that piece, that it would Impact the way you pray. Who is the audience of your prayer? If you've struggled in your prayer life, this is a good way to start with a focus of, alright, God, here I am. I don't totally know how to do this, but here I am with you. And pray.
Pray your struggles, but seek his attention. Have you cultivated this habit of private, consistent prayer that seeks an intimacy with God? Avoid using these prayers to impress others. Sometimes in church. We have community groups here and we get together and we pray in those.
Sometimes we pray publicly as a church. And it can be so tempting in those moments to say thee and thou. And I've been reading my King James, right? Most of you aren't doing that, but you'll try to. You'll start hearing other people and the way they pray and go, wow, that's really good, man.
I like how he said that. I'm going to say something kind of similar. You know, God doesn't. He doesn't need that. He likes you.
He likes you a whole lot. You know how much God likes you. He paid for your life on the cross. He likes you a. He loves you.
He likes the way you communicate. Weird as you might be, some of you are super quirky. The way you communicate, super strange. God likes it. Bring that on.
He's not looking for you to stand up and have all the right words and say it. All right, I've studied enough scripture that I can even pray the word of God. That's good. But if that's not who you are, naturally, not yet, then pray you all your quirks, all your weirdness. Here's the last motivation that Jesus speaks of, and this one's extremely, extremely interesting.
In our modern culture, when we fast, pursue God's reply and not man's response. Notice I said when we fast. Now, church, let's admit something to ourselves, the modern church, at least not in America, not one. At least not. Been my experience that we talk a lot about fasting now.
If you're on social media or you're watching the news or you're somewhere there publicly, people are fasting all the time, right? But they're not fasting to hear from God. They're fasting because there's a few pounds that need to go away. They're fasting because they need a cleanse. Man.
There's something's all wrong in my downstairs. I gotta fix all this, right? That's why people fast. But they don't often fast for spiritual reasons, do they? That was too far.
I'm sorry. Some of you Were like, I'm not coming back. That was too far. I don't know. I gotta check myself.
Sorry, church. But we fast for all kinds of crazy reasons. Sometimes we fast because we think it's going to have a health benefit. I've been reading lately that there's supposedly, if you fast for 72 hours, that's a pretty hard fast. If you don't fast often, that if you do that like once or twice a year, it's supposed to reduce your chance of cancer by like a lot.
Okay, that's cool. So some of us are fasting because we're trying to lose some weight, we're trying to get healthy, we're trying to prevent disease. I don't know. But the church doesn't often talk about fasting to hear from God.
There are some guys in the Bible who fast until God speaks. Daniel, poor Daniel, fasts for three weeks and God finally shows up to speak. I say finally. God's timing is perfect. There's something that God's doing in the three week fast.
I'm sure it was tough. Jesus himself fasted for 40 days. Why? This is part of the process of what God's doing, what Christ is doing in his saving us. How often have you fasted to hear God, remove all the other obstacles, take all the other stuff away.
I'm not fasting to lose weight or health. I'm fasting because God. I just want to know something. Would you speak to me? When's the last time you were so desperate to hear from God that you would do anything to hear him?
Boy, that's a good opportunity to institute a fast. It can be tough. I have a family, four kids and a wife. If I choose to fast to hear from God, there's going to be some hard dinner times because they're going to keep on eating.
I haven't quite mastered the idea of sitting at the table with them when they're eating. It sounds bad, but I'm just not that disciplined yet. I almost have to avoid them at dinner time and that doesn't sound good either. So pray for me. I mean, I'm still trying to figure this thing out too, but I have been desperate enough.
But that's not even what Jesus is saying either. He says, when you fast, don't be like the hypocrites who disfigure themselves. He's not saying that the motivation is desperation. He's not. He's church.
I think Jesus is saying that fasting is a regular behavior. Just like giving, just like praying. In fact, in Jewish culture, it would have been a pretty common thing to do, maybe even weekly. So we're out of the habit. Let's just be open about that.
As the American Christian church, we don't have a habit of fasting. I would encourage you church be in prayer about this. Don't just jump in tomorrow. I'm taking, I'm not eating. Start praying.
Say, lord, how do I approach this? What would you have me do? What should we be speaking about? But maybe a fast is in your future. Jesus tells us the way in which we should do it.
He's assuming that we're going to be a people who seek him in this way. And fasting does something powerful to you. Like every time the stomach grumbles is another opportunity for you to say, God, I'm real small, I'm just a broken man. Speak to me. Every single time my tummy rumbles, I go, lord, here I come, speaking to you.
But Jesus says, don't do it in such a way that you look disfigured and that you're gloomy looking. Apparently they had a habit of like, oh, I'm in a time of fasting and so I'm not going to wash my hair. I might put ash on my forehead. Like I'm going to look rough for a while so that when I walk by, people are going to go, that dude's fasting. Watch out, he's on the struggle, man.
He's mourning something or he's seeking God for something. Jesus says, hey, those people are already giving you that. Oh, he must be super spiritual. Look how disfigured he is.
He must be really close to God because he didn't even wash his hair today. Isn't that wild?
But we're not too different either, when all we fast for is self, self, self. I'm sorry if that's piercing, but that's what he's speaking to here. Are you pursuing the reply of God? He in fact says the opposite. In verse 17.
He says, Anoint your head, wash your hair. Hey, take a shower, get looking good, do your hair like normal. Don't look disheveled. This fasting is between me and you, right? Motivation of fasting has always been about humbling the heart.
Look, the prophets even spoke to this Joel, chapter two. It says, yet even now declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, with mourning, and rend your hearts and not your garments. He says, don't tear up your clothes, rend your heart. I want to see that. James in fact says, Chapter four, Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up.
I think there's so often that the apostles that the writers of scripture, when they're talking about humbling yourself, they have sometimes fasting in mind. This is one of the humblest times of your life, when you're hungry and when you're longing.
Jesus is not prohibiting fasting at all. In fact, there's some powerful examples, both in the Old Testament and New Testament, not of just personal fasting, but public fasting. You can read in the book of Esther, in fact, that the entire Hebrew nation is called to have a fast before she goes and meets with Xerxes. This is in Esther chapter four. So there's a whole people group fasting together.
He's not saying anything negative about that. Jesus himself fast for 40 days. Moses fasted for 40 days. The church at Antioch, in Acts chapter 13, that whole church fasted before they sent out Barnabas and Paul. So it's not that we shouldn't be fasting or shouldn't be fasting together, but rather our pursuit is one on one church.
This one might be an interesting challenge this week. How am I praying? What does it look like? How am I spending very careful, very intimate time with God every week in prayer? Have I ever in my life spent time in fasting to just hear from God?
You don't have to have some dire need to institute a fast. Just say, God, I just want to know you a little bit better. I want to hear your voice. Speak to me in your word. Show me what you want to show me.
And when we fast from physical food, it gives us the opportunity to really feast on spiritual food, in humility, in repentance. Maybe some of you, that's the place you go to God this week and say, hey, I'm like that poor tax collector in that parable. Hey, I'm a broken man. God, heal me, forgive me of my sin. Make me what you want me to be.
That's. Some of us need to go there. Jesus isn't condemning giving, praying or fasting. In fact, he's telling us how to do it from the heart. Church I pray that this is who we can be.
That when people interact with our church, they would say, this is a people that care a whole lot about the audience of women.
They don't get up here and look showy for themselves. I pray that that's the mark of our church, that we be the kind of people who would almost give and pray anonymously at times.
Let's pray now together. Church heavenly Father, I ask that you would move in our hearts in such a powerful way right now as we look at this text. Some of it, some of it we don't exactly know how to apply to our lives. I pray that you would begin to examine our heart and let us see in every way where we do things to be seen by others and not you. Perhaps in the way we serve others, perhaps even in the work we do, maybe even in our home life, Lord, the way we treat our spouse, the way we parent our kids.
Perhaps we're constantly looking for them to say, hey, thanks, dad, You've done good, honey. Maybe we're constantly looking for the applause of our family members or our co workers to that God. I think you're saying we've already received our reward. But when we humbly serve and pray and do it for your glory and not anyone else's, something special begins. I pray for the husbands and wives in this room, for the parents, that that work can feel very thankless at times.
I pray that it would continue to be thankless when it comes to man's recognition. I pray for our hearts that we wouldn't hunger for that. Oh, yeah, at times, Lord, we admit at work we're really working hard and we just want someone to notice and say, hey, good job. Here's a raise. You're deserving of more responsibility.
We long for that at times, God, that our bosses and our managers and these people we work with would say, good job.
But God help us to not work for that.
In fact, your word says, work as unto the Lord and not unto men. God, remind us of that this week. Help us to be people who seek the audience of one and God. I recognize that maybe someone's come in here today and this whole thing is a big struggle. And the reason is because they don't have a personal relationship with you at all.
They may have heard the truth of the gospel maybe in the past, but today it's really striking that their lives are not seeking the glory of one. Not seeking your glory at all, Lord, because they're not in the faith yet. But perhaps today. I pray. I pray today, Lord, that something's stirring in their heart and that, God, you're moving them towards yourself.
That they would say, lord, I need you, Jesus, I need salvation. I want to make you. I want to make you first. I want to put you as king in my life, Lord, over my life. If that's you, you feel the Holy Spirit drawing you in today.
I want to take this opportunity to just pray with you and if you'll pray with me. Romans, chapter 10. It says when we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved. It comes with confession, it comes with lordship, and it comes with an understanding of the cross and resurrection. Would you pray with me, friend?
If that's you today, pray simply this. Jesus, I believe today that you died on the cross for my sin, my guilt, my brokenness, my wrongdoings. You've paid for that already on the cross. And I believe that today, God, I believe that you raised Christ Jesus from the dead and that he's alive and on the move today. And Jesus, I believe that you are Lord of all things and certainly Lord of my life.
You're in charge. And I'm asking now, Jesus, would you help me to put you as first priority in my life? And by doing so, would you begin to order my life in such a way that I've never experienced, so that I understand joy and peace and my true life purpose?
Dear friend, welcome to the family of God. If you prayed that with me in that last piece, we could pray right along with you. Every single churchgoer, every single member of this church today can pray right along with you. Lord Jesus, help be the center of our lives, encourage us and boldness to put you first that we would truly know our life's purpose and see the joy and peace in knowing and serving you with everything we have. We pray all of these things in Jesus name, Amen.