We've begun looking into a third major portion of this sermon, where our Lord has started to address the ungodly actions of the religious leaders. And to this end, we considered several connective elements that exist among the three acts of worship that make up the first portion of this section, which led us to extract the general underlying principle that is to be applied to all areas of worship. And as we have seen all throughout this Sermon on the Mount (thus far), once again, our Lord has brought us to recognize, that God is concerned about the heart; that is, the interior motives which drive our exterior actions, and not merely the actions themselves. In fact, from the standpoint of God, the identifying mark of hypocrisy, is found where any form of Christian service or act, is ultimately done from motives that are impure. And motives that are impure, are motives that are driven not unto the glory of God, but unto the glory of self, no matter how good, generous and holy the (proceeding) act may look outwardly.
To this end, we looked at "charitable giving," last time, where our Lord had commanded His true followers to do their charitable deeds in secret, and not with the intent of being seen by men. This morning then, we continue on, to consider our Lord's addressing of the matter of prayer.
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