Our Father, You are indeed the fruit after which we seek, the only one who can satiate our soul's thirst, the only one who can fill our empty lives. And so we ask that You would do that by the power of the Holy Spirit tonight. and union with Christ, the one who is risen, reigning, and returning. For we ask in His name. Amen. Matthew 6, beginning at verse 1, this is God's Word. 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. 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. The grass withers and the flowers fall but the word of the living God will stand forever and ever. Amen. I read with great sadness as I'm sure some of you did about the recent fall of Carl Lentz who was the pastor of one of the largest churches in this country, a branch of the well-known Australian church Hillsong. Lentz was a pastor in New York City and had engaged in a six-month plus extramarital affair that came to light recently. But I was listening to a podcast I follow by an atheist who usually has a lot of really, really good insights. And he was discussing this fall from grace with a guest. And the podcaster was noticing how Lentz had been a pastor to someone like Justin Bieber and many other celebrities and how he'd begun to dress like these celebrities. And he asked a very insightful question that has a direct bearing upon our text this evening. After he discussed how this pastor had tried to fit in with these celebrities, he said this, he said, you know, what do you get in reward for all that? And that's exactly the question Jesus would ask us this evening. What do you get in reward for giving your life to yourself? to selfish pursuits. And Jesus wants to recalibrate us as we begin this new section of the Sermon on the Mount in such a way that hypocrisy in spiritual duties gives way to true relationship. That's what he's going to be doing over the next few weeks. He wants to get rid of hypocrisy so that we can enjoy a better, a true relationship with God, maybe for the first time. Now, let's again reorient ourselves here. This is not, the Sermon on the Mount that is, not an explanation of how to get into heaven. That's how it's been treated so often. That's how it's mistaken today. You know if we just did the Sermon on the Mount, if we could just do these kind of ethics in our lives then the world would be so much better. Well no one can do the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount. It's impossible apart from the grace of God. These are instructions for living in the kingdom of God. And in Matthew 5 and verse 20, there was a section that began where Jesus said, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter into the kingdom of heaven. And then from Matthew 5 until Matthew 5 verse 20 to 5 verse 48 which we studied last time, that whole section describes how disciples relate to the world around them. Now in Matthew 6 and what follows in the next few weeks, Jesus describes how disciples relate to God specifically in three areas, in giving, in prayer, and in fasting. three spiritual disciplines that were very much the core of Jewish belief then and really the core of true biblical piety ever since then. And so Jesus focuses his attention now on saying, okay, here's how disciples live in the world. How do they relate to God? And the main point of his teaching on giving and prayer and fasting is fairly simple. As he's been doing up to this point he continues now and even goes deeper. He's exposing our hearts, reminding us that the gospel and living out the gospel is never merely an outward appearance and performance. It's not about what you look like or how you behave Christianly, what is always and ever before this time, always most important is our heart condition before God. This was the principle the prophet laid down in the Old Testament when he said, man looks upon the outward appearance, but the Lord looks upon the heart. And so Jesus is uncovering our hearts. And when it comes to giving, here's what he's going to teach us this evening. He wants to expose hypocritical giving and offer us the only true remedy. He wants to expose what it means to give as a hypocrite and then offer us the only true remedy. And so we'll look at this text under two headings therefore, hypocritical giving exposed and then hypocritical giving remedied. So hypocritical giving exposed and then hypocritical giving remedied. Look there with me again at verses one and two. 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. Thus when you give to the needy sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets that they may be praised by others. Truly I say to you they have received their reward. So here's the governing principle Jesus lays out in verse one for these three vital areas of giving and prayer and fasting. And he uses a very specific word here in the original that we have translated there as to be seen. It's where we get our English word theater from in the Greek. So the Greek word is where we derive the English word theater and it means something like putting on a show. Jesus says don't give to put on a show. In fact, don't do any spiritual discipline. Praying, giving, fasting, going to church, reading your Bible, helping others out. Don't do it in such a way as that you're drawing attention to yourself. And that is so vital for us to understand, my friends. Especially in a culture like we live in that still honors that to some degree. You know, my wife and I lived in the Northeast when I was doing my terminal degree and, well, my wife likes to say we emigrated to the Northeast when I finished that degree, but when you live up there and you live in a part of the country that is not like, where I've spent most of my life in Greenville, it's not like that. There's no longer that Christian memory anymore. You're not honored for doing things like this. It's not a social procurement to go to church. But here's what Jesus is saying. It never should be in our lives. It never should be something we just do as an outward performance, as something to be seen by others. And so again, that theme that he's been unfolding for us comes to the fore once again. Where's your heart? Where's my heart? That's the question he always wants us to ask ourselves. What is in our hearts? And therefore he says, don't sound trumpets. Now he's speaking in a kind of hyperbole here, right? There's no evidence that people went around. before they gave at the synagogue sounding a trumpet. But he's using a metaphor and a hyperbole we still understand today, right? What do trumpets do? They sound forth that something important is about to happen. And so Jesus is saying, don't give like that, like hypocrites. And again, another interesting word there. It comes from the first century Roman theater world again. And it means something like false face. He says, don't give, don't make a show of it like the false face people do. Actors would wear large masks in the theater at this time, the special cone that protruded at the front of the mask to amplify the voice because they lacked, of course, modern audiovisual equipment to do that. And so the actors would put on these huge masks. And Jesus says, if you're giving like this, that's what you're like. You're like somebody who's covering themselves up with a false face. And here's the principle he's getting at. If we give like that, What are we really doing? We're not giving to others, are we? We're giving to ourselves if we give like this, if we sound the trumpet, if we're like hypocrites in our spiritual duties, specifically giving. We're not giving to others. It's not for their benefit. It's for us. And Jesus says, no, no, no, that's all wrong. And that's why he says something here that can seem contradictory. Verse one, for then you will have no reward from your fathers who is in heaven. Then verse two, truly I say to you, they have received their reward. And we'll come back to this at the end, but this theme of rewards runs right through this text. And here's what he's asking us. What kind of a reward will you receive? based on how you've used the money God's given you. And therefore he's distinguishing between two kinds of rewards. There's a reward that lasts and then there's a transactional type reward that is temporary and fading. And that's what he wants us to avoid. He says you'll get no reward from your father who is in heaven if you're just giving to make yourself look good, if you're just giving from an essentially selfish place. As one commentator puts it, if we give like this, we're not only not giving to others, we're really buying for ourselves something, aren't we? We're buying for ourselves temporary glory. Or as Charles Spurgeon, the 19th century preacher put it once, he said, what will it matter, my friend, if your name is etched in granite and not written in the Lamb's book of life? And that's what Jesus is coming to for us here. That's what he's saying to us. There's this transactional type giving that if you just give in order to be seen, if that's how you perform this spiritual discipline God calls you to, then it exposes that your heart is far from him. And once he's given you that reward of temporary glory, of people going, well done, good for you. Let me put your name on a building. Let me name something after you. Jesus says if that's what you're giving for, then once you have that, God owes you nothing else. The deal's done, the transaction's over, you've got your reward. And I've said this before in our Sunday school class, it's a privilege as a pastor to be at the bedside of people who love Jesus when they die. It's sad, it's hard, but it never gets easier. But there's a calmness, isn't there? There's a trust in the Lord Christ of what they're going to get when they die. And one of the things I can assure you that I've never heard anybody say, believer or unbeliever, as they are going to cross the great river that separates, as it were, this life from the next is, Show me the buildings named after me. Let me see all the things that have my name on it that brought me glory here. That's what Jesus is doing. He's giving us an eternal perspective. He's saying, if you give like this and people recognize you, when they die, your glory dies. Your praise, your honor, everything dies with that. And here's the hard reality for the self-centered Western culture we live in. And this can be incredibly morbid if you don't understand what Jesus is saying, and that's this. Most of human history will never remember you, or me, or most of the people sitting here tonight. You'll be important to your family and close circle of friends. But even at some point then, you know, memories fades, genealogies change through the years and people are forgotten. And Jesus says, if you're living in such a way that people will remember you just for what you gave, that's all gonna fade. Just go walk around the university and look at the names on the buildings and tell me what those people did. And I'm willing to bet most of us here couldn't tell us why half those buildings are named what they're named for or who they're named for. Why? Because the glory fades, my friends. And once people die who you've been giving for their approval, Jesus says, everything you did dies with them. And he does not want that to happen to you or to me. And so therefore he gives us the remedy. Look there at verses three and four. 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. So here's two different types of giving. There's one that gives for fading glory, transactional, gets the reward, that's it. Then there's a kind of giving that gives out of a place of grace, of deeply understanding and imbibing the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let's unpack this slowly. Here's why we give like hypocrites, Jesus is telling us. If you give in such a way as to be noticed by others, what is that saying about your heart? It's saying, I have a hole in my heart that needs to be fulfilled by the approval and praise of others. A few years ago, I heard an interview with Bono, the lead singer of U2. I mean, multi-gazillionaire. I mean, every concert they play sells out in 15 minutes. And here's something he said. He's a very perceptive man. He said, how big does the hole inside of you have to be if the only thing that fills it up is 70,000 people cheering for you every night? And you don't have to be a rock star to understand what he's saying because it's the same thing that Jesus is telling us here. If you give like this you're saying I have a need for people to think about me a certain way. In other words you're trying to get from other people's praise what only God himself can give you. You're trying to fill up a lack in your life that only God can fulfill. And so again our hearts are the issue. What brings you satisfaction, my friend? That's one of the problems of sin, isn't it? It disorders our affections, what we set our minds upon. It disorders that. We begin to love what we should hate and hate what we should love. And nowhere is that more evident than when it comes to money. We have an inordinate love for it, it's disordered and therefore we begin to think of it as a way to get something for ourselves that was only meant to be given to us by God himself and that's why we give as hypocrites. And so Jesus says here's the remedy, do it in such a way where nobody ever knows what you did. And I have seen that exemplified a few times. I have a man in mind that I know has given so much to so many materially with his time and no building will ever be named after him and no trust funds, nothing like that. He has given so much in secret and it's just an embodiment of what Jesus is talking about right here. And so what Jesus says is this, if you're lacking something inside, what you're gonna try to do is fill that up with self-righteousness. Self-righteousness goes hand in hand with making a show of religion, doesn't it? Self-righteous people, they lack the knowledge that the only righteousness that matters before God is the righteousness that Jesus Christ earns and gives to you. And so then what we try to do is make ourselves acceptable to God. We try to earn his favor and we try to look good in front of other people, all the while deceiving ourselves and maybe deceiving others for a while, but never deceiving God. And the tense in the original here is wonderful in verse four. The Father, we could translate it like this, who is always seeing you. He always sees you. He sees everything we do. He sees everything we give. He knows every account balance. He knows every bottom line. He sees and he alone sees our heart's condition, Jesus says. And so to avoid the kind of pride that self-righteousness inevitably breeds, He says, go out of your way to make sure nobody notices what you're doing when you give. Don't make a show of it. Keep it between you and the Lord. Don't let anybody ever name a building after you. Don't let anybody name anything after you if you give money. Just give it, Jesus says. That's what he means by that well-known cultural idiom now for us, derived right from the scriptures, the left hand should know what the right hand is doing. Because what he says in telling us that, what he's getting at is, when you give like this, as opposed to the hypocritical kind of giving, when you give like this, you're saying, money is not my God. God is my God. Jesus is my treasure, not money. Therefore, I don't need anybody's acclaim. I don't need anybody's notice because the only person who matters is the one who always sees. And he looks upon me as a beloved child adopted into his family. That's the greatest reward ever. That's why when Jesus finishes his teaching here, he speaks to us once again about rewards. And all of us, by nature, seek a reward, but that's not the typical way of how we seek a reward. That's not what Jesus is talking about here. He's saying that the temporary reward that so many of us seek by our actions, whether it's more money or people thinking well of us or better health, better looks, whatever it is that we're living for to give us meaning, Jesus says, there's a greater reward. And do you know what that reward is? Your father who sees in secret will reward you. Reward you with what? With himself. With him as your greatest treasure and joy forever and ever, starting now. Jesus is gonna come to this again in Matthew 13, 34 to 35, that well-known parable of the pearl of great price. That's him. He's the one for whom it is worthy, always, to leave everything for. He's the one who, if He is your soul's satisfaction and delight and what you're living for, you'll never be empty. You'll never need the praise of others or the comfort and security that money brings to fill you up because you're already filled up in Him. That's a lesson we all need to learn, isn't it? Aren't even as believers, aren't we so often joyless, duty-bound in the worst sense of that term? Duty's a good thing, not when it becomes just what you go through the motions for. Aren't we so susceptible to that, my friends, where we lose sight of what Jesus is telling us here? We lose sight of him. We lose sight of his satisfaction that he brings our souls. So what's the remedy? How do we get to this point of giving like this? When Jesus, I think, makes it very clear that we don't give in order to get. That's the wrong kind of reward. We give out of what we have received in union with him. And here's how Paul puts it. Love this passage, 2 Corinthians 8. Paul talks about the poor church. Paul says they're so poor, but they want to give generously to this other church in need. Okay, why'd they do that? Why is it right now in this country, as a matter of fact, the poorest states are the most philanthropic giving states? Yes, Mississippi and South Carolina, two poorest states in the country, also have the highest proportional amount of philanthropic giving compared to Connecticut, the wealthiest state in the country, which has the lowest amount of philanthropic giving. Fact check me on that. I think that statistic's about five years old. But here's my point. Why is that the case? Well I think that's really a macrocosm of what should be happening in our lives as Christians and that is you give out of what you have and if you're filled up with God money ceases to be your God. And when you're filled up with Christ and he's your satisfaction, and that's what Paul is saying here, you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's how he answers that question. Why'd they give like this? He says, well, you know, Corinthians, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. But the fact that he who was rich became poor so that in him you might become rich. We might become rich. Do you know, Jesus walked around as a rich man. this, if we could put it like this, itinerant evangelist in some sort of a sense. Son of God, son of man, walking around the dusty roads of ancient Israel, and he is the one sustaining the molecules that make up the gold that the nations are fighting over. He's the one who right now is sustaining economic systems so that we can eat and sleep and have clothes on our backs. He's sustaining all of that. And he says, don't let that be your life. Don't let that be what you are living for. Don't let brand names Be your life. Don't let a lifestyle be your life. Don't buy the discontentment being sold you everywhere you turn, Jesus says. Be filled up with me, he tells us. That's why Paul says, you know his grace. You know the gospel story that Jesus came down from heavenly riches to live and die for stingy people like us. Isn't that amazing? Isn't it one of those things too, I remember Tim Keller talking about, he's a pastor in New York City, he preached a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. Now, there aren't actually seven deadly sins in the Bible, it's just a cultural idiom, there's a lot more deadly sins than that. But Tim Keller preached a series on this, and here's what his wife said to him. She said, I bet the sermon on greed will be the least attended. And she said, no, no, no. He said, no, it'll probably be about all the same. Well, true to form, it was the lowest attended sermon. And he said this, he said, this is because so many people don't think they're greedy. So my friend, do you realize you are stingy by nature, that I am stingy by nature, that generosity does not come naturally? that giving like this that Jesus is talking about is a supernatural work of the grace of the Holy Spirit in your life and in mine, making Jesus more valuable to us than things. And that's hard in a society of material plenty, isn't it? So what does this look like in practice then? Here's a few things I think at least that Jesus is telling us. If he counted it a privilege to leave the splendor of heaven for stingy people like us, he says, then here's boots on the ground what it means. Don't budget your money in such a way as that you spend everything on yourself. Give freely, as we heard from the summary of the Eighth Commandment, according to your abilities and the necessities of others. God's going to bring needy people into your life, emotionally, financially, spiritually. Give freely to them, Jesus says. Don't view your money so much as a treasure to be hoarded but a trust you have been given from God. That's what he's saying to us. That's the mistake so many times I make, I think that we all make, that somehow this is my money. It's not. It's not yours. It's not mine. It's his. He says here it is for a little bit. Just a little bit, your life's a vapor, he tells us. It's a little bit, then it's gone. You're gone from this earth. And all the comforts and all the securities and everything else we valued and set our minds on and stressed about and lost sleep over, it's all gone. But he says, if I'm your treasure and I give you treasure, it's a trust. And if you know me, you will simply be the steward of that trust, you will be the manager of that trust. Friends, if we are to be the kind of disciples that Jesus is cheering for us to be, He says, and pleads with us I think, don't lose sight of the heavenly reward of himself in our mindless pursuit of earthly treasure. And this only happens when we're free in Christ. Some of you know I have a brother who's a musician and specifically he's a guitarist and I remember He had posted a video not too long ago with an incredibly technical piece to it. And I was just watching, you know, his fingers, watched him play for years just, you know, how effortlessly they move over the frets. And I said to him, I said, man, that was just impressive. And he kind of, he looked surprised and he said, well, he's like, you know, man, I've played that piece like a thousand times. It's just kind of second nature. And what's true in the musical realm is true in the spiritual realm, my friends. You've got to practice something for it to become second nature. And so what Jesus is doing in your life and in mine with the money and time and talents he gives us is to say here's yours for a little while. Practice giving in such a way that it becomes second nature. Randy Alcorn is a Christian author I'm sure some of you are familiar with. He had this wonderful illustration of what Jesus is talking about here. He said this suppose you have an important package to send to someone who needs it. And as an aside right here, one thing to be thankful for right now at Thanksgiving is the Amazon Prime guy. Suppose you have an important package to send to someone who needs it. You take it to an overnight delivery service. What would you think instead of delivering the package, the driver took it home? You'd go to him and say, why didn't you deliver the package? And he said, what if the guy said to you, if you didn't want me to keep it, why'd you give it to me in the first place? And you'd reply to him, well, the package doesn't belong to you. Your job is just to deliver it. It's my package that needs to go here. Your job was just to deliver it. And here's how Alcorn drives that point home. He says, just because God puts money in our hands doesn't mean he intends for us to keep it. And so as we learn what it means to be generous, and let me say as an aside here, We need to do a better job celebrating the generosity of this church, my friends. Again, going back to Tim Keller, he asked once, if your church closed its doors tomorrow, would anybody in your community notice? And the answer for first prayers by God's grace for 225 plus years now is yes. God has blessed this church. And God has blessed this church and the people here with generosity to fund missionaries and ministries and help out in Columbia. But my friends, there's always more kingdom work to be done. What are we missing out on because of our lack of generosity? What blessings are we missing out on to see happen in Columbia? As one pastor said once, the good news when it came to stewardship season, The good news is he said we have all the money for the church budget this year, every penny has been brought in. The not so good news is that it's all in your pockets. And so what are we thinking about with our money friends and giving in such a way that we are saying strategically what else could we do? Where are we dreaming, as it were, the kingdom dreams of saying, well, we did this, why not this? Why not think big, think huge? Because that's what God wants us to do. Why not take risks? Why not say he's worth it to risk everything we have? Because Jesus will never prove himself unworthy of our admiration. unworthy of our greatest sacrifices. As Jim Elliot, the martyr, put it, he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. What would God have us do, my friends? I'm so excited to see what he's going to do. I'm thrilled because I think that no matter what happens in our external circumstances, we know for a fact that the future is bright for the kingdom of God. What's he going to do with us? What's he going to do with our giving in this church and our strategic prayers and planning to advance the kingdom by his grace and by his grace alone? God didn't intend for us to keep it. He meant for us to give it away. And when we realize who Jesus is and what he's done for us, no price will seem too high to pay. Let's pray. Oh, Father, we are a people in need of being more generous. We confess that about ourselves. So help us to give as we are able. Help us to give and be on the lookout for the needs of others. Get us out of ourselves this week, we pray. And above all, Lord, penetrate our blindness and our darkness to make Jesus more valuable to us than anything on this earth, for we ask in His name. Amen.