We're in Matthew chapter number six now. We finally had enough Sundays to get through chapter five. And so now I'm into chapter six and we'll see how many more Sundays Mark misses, how long it takes us to get through that. But that's been kind of an overarching theme throughout this, um, chapter five and even coming into chapter six, that it's not about the outward actions. It's not about the ceremony, but it's about the heart. In fact, that's what we're going to deal with in chapter six. We're going to talk about, um, almsgiving. There's going to be prayers going to come up. Fasting is going to come up many different things where. If we're not careful, we do it for the praise or the, the ceremony of it. We do it for the, because we're supposed to do it. And if that's all, if that's all that we have, we're missing the big picture that, that I think that's part of what the Lord is trying to get across. Remember he started out chapter five with the beatitudes and he started talking about condition about. Things like blessed are the poor in spirit, right? Blessed are the meek. He's not talking about actions, but he's talking about characteristics, right? Of the individual. And I mean, you can try to act poor in spirit, but I don't know how you're gonna do it, but it can be a character that you recognize. Same thing with meek, that it's not something that you can necessarily display, but it's a character aspect of somebody. We think about in the Bible, there's two men that are considered to be The meekest one of them is called the meekest man. And the other one, we just know him to be meek. Uh, one of them was the Lord Jesus Christ. That's, that's what he was. And the other one was Moses. And to say that if you just simply look at their actions and what they did, they're not going to display the characteristics necessarily of meekness, because generally we, when we talk about something like that, about that characteristic, that it is. Somebody who was pliable, who was bendable, who is humble in spirit. Right. And you'd not necessarily going to see that because if you look at Moses, the actions that he did, didn't always bear that out. Right. I mean, we're talking about the man that, that God used to go in and stand before Moses or before Pharaoh and declare and declare that he should let the people go. Right. And that, and so he did all of those things and that throughout the, the. Uh, wandering in the wilderness and he had to get rough with them at times. I mean, he came down off the mountain and broke the first set of 10 commandments he had and broke up that cold and calf that they made and ground it up. I mean, that's not something we generally associate with meeting it. But because he was pliable with the Lord, he followed the Lord and he was usable. The Lord told him he was that way. And the same way with Jesus. I mean, we, we, we don't see the characteristics maybe that we would generally think of in his actions. Um, because Jesus was stern. Uh, a lot of time, I don't like it when they try to portray him as a weak individual, as, uh, something like that. I believe he was, he was a man's man. I mean, he walked everywhere. He went, he did, he, he roughed, he, you talking about, he didn't have a camper, but he, he roughed it all the time. Right. He didn't have a house. and have a place to live. You talking about a man that went into the temple on two different occasions and cast over, cast out the tables and or cast or threw over the tables and cast out the money changers. I mean, he, he was not a weak man. He was God in the flesh though. And so what we begin to see is that God is looking, not necessarily on the actions on the things that we see, but he looks upon the heart. And in fact, that's what he told Samuel, right? Whenever he was, uh, he sent Samuel down to the house of Jesse to anoint a King, right? Uh, after Saul had been rejected. And when Samuel got down there and Elisha, I believe it is his name was the first, the oldest son of Jesse. And he shows up and Samuel gets all excited. It's like, all right, here we go, man. Now, now we got, we've, we've, we've got us a man right here. And God says, don't look on the outward. It says, I'm looking on the heart. And that's what he teaches. That's what he's teaching all through chapter five, that it's not the outward actions, but it's the heart. Notice he starts in, as he's dealing with the law, right? He, he deals with murder. He deals with thou shalt not kill. And he says, it's not just about the outward action. Don't get me wrong, but does it, we're not supposed to kill and murder or literally, but he also said it's about the heart about if you're angry with your brother without a cause, right? Uh, he goes on and deals with, uh, adultery and says, it's not just about the act, but it's about the lust that leads to the act. And he'll do, he deals with that throughout that chapter. Now we come into chapter six. And we start dealing with maybe what we can, what we might consider religious or spiritual acts. Okay. Things that are being, that are being done. Right. We dealt with laws of things you don't do. I mean, you don't go out and kill and you don't go out and commit adultery. Now we're dealing with things that we might consider to be religious actions. We're going to deal with alms. We're going to deal with prayer. We're going to deal with fasting in the next three sections of this chapter. And he's going to get down and deal with money and anxiety and all kinds of other stuff. that'll come in there. But the overarching theme is still going to be that it's not about what we see on the outside, but it's about what's going on on the inside. Because that's what God is actually looking at. And by the way, that's what determines a man or a woman's character. That's where the child of God has to work. Because if we fix the inside, the outside will take care of itself, right? If we address, and now I'm kind of about halfway getting into what I want to preach later today, but if we deal with the heart, The actions will take care of themselves because just as later on in this book of Matthew, he's going to, uh, deal with the Pharisees and they're going to condemn them for eating with unwashed hands. Now they don't mean dirty, filthy hands. They mean the ceremonial washing. So they go and wash, you know, they'd go to the sink and wash their hands and soap and water and get all that off. And then they go over to the special one and they'd wash their hands in there and get the ceremonial cleansing and then they could eat. Right. And he, he had condemned them for eating with unwashed hands. And that he said, it's not the things that go with into a man that defiled the man, but it's that which cometh out of him. Right. For out of the mouth proceed of cursings and adulteries and murders and things like that, because they come out of the heart. That's what it is. And so that's what we're looking to deal with. So we come into chapter six now, and he starts in with alms, right? He says, take heed that you do not your alms before men. to be seen of them. Otherwise you have no reward of your father, which is in heaven. Therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee as the hypocrites do in the synagogue and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not by left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thine alms may be in secret and thy father, which seeth in secret shall reward the openly. And so we're going to deal with alms. And the first question we have to come to understand is what does the Bible mean when it talks about alms, right? Now, generally, if you'll look at your commentaries, and you go even and start looking the way they're studying out this concept, it has, it is generally brought down into charitable giving, is what the idea is. We're not even necessarily talking about tithe, we're talking about what we might, and this, I know the Bible uses the word charity instead of love in places, but it might be what we consider today's type of charity, right? And it could fall into all acts of giving, but when I started researching what exactly it meant when it was talking about alms, that I found that it goes beyond just giving money or things like that. But it comes down, what it boils down to is it's righteous works. It's works that we do, because let's face it, not everybody has the ability to give financially, right? But everybody that's a child of God has the ability to do righteous works, good works, things that God would do. And the idea behind the word is actually that of compassion. And you can show compassion on people, on others, and in different ways besides just giving them money, right? I'll give you a for instance, one that may affect us in this day and age more than others is that we all see these people around that are asking for money for food or for whatever the case may be. Every now and then somebody will catch you there in the Walmart parking lot, right? And they say, you got some spare change, I need a gallon, I need to go fill my truck vehicle up. Well, we can give the money, right? or, and it still costs us money, or we could go and fill their vehicle up, right? Both of them would resolve, but they can both be charitable actions, right? Somebody that's wanting money to say, go get them a hamburger or something, and we're sitting there, we've just been to Wendy's, we could share the food, right? Instead of giving the money, we share the food. And what I'm saying is this, is it's more than just the giving, rather, it's a compassionate act, right? We've seen things like that all over, you know, here at the church. I know growing up, we would do things like that. We would see somebody in need and then, and instead of taking up a collection to give them the money to go get something done that we get together and go do it. And I, and as a church, we would help them and we would do those alms. through a work, through a righteous work, through something that's a good work. And that's the concept that we have laying out here. Now, primarily to what the group that Jesus is dealing with when he's dealing with the Pharisees, it was dealing with monetary giving, okay? In whichever way it was given. And so he cautions them this way. He says, take heed. that you do not your alms before man to be seen of a scene of them. Otherwise you have no reward of your father, which is in heaven. It says, therefore, when thou do us, thine alms do not sound a trumpet before the, as the hypocrite hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets that they may have glory meant. So the warning there is the, as I said, is the motivation behind the act, right? There was, you know, there was a, a commonality for the Pharisees that they wanted to do things for show, right? They wanted, they wanted people to know how, and I'm using my air quotes here for those that may be listening, spiritual they were right there. And so they wanted people to see that. And what the concept here is, is that they would ensure that if they were giving donations, if they were, presenting the money for the poor, that they did it in such a way that others knew they were doing it. Now, there in verse number two, it talks there about sounding the trumpet. Now, every commentator that I read after everything that I dealt with brought it out that they could find no custom where it was literally done that someone would show up in the street or however the case may be and blow a trumpet before they do it. In some cultures, that was the case in that area. And it may be where this phrase comes from, that like in the Persian culture and a couple others, there was this concept of they would sound a trumpet to gather the poor around that they might disperse to them. Okay. Now I'm not talking about the Pharisees. I'm just talking about in some of the cultures around the area that they might, they would do it that way. They would sound a trumpet and that way they could get them all together and they could disperse whatever they needed to them. There is also in the Persian culture that those that were poor, would carry a little trumpet, a little horn, so to speak. And that if somebody gave them something, that the poor person sounded the trumpet in honor of the one that gave it. And so some think that might be what's being drawn upon here. But again, there was no such custom in the Hebrew or in the days of Israel there. In that nation for that. So that brings, still brings us back to the, to the question of what exactly did Jesus mean when he talked about sound or sound, not the trumpet. If the Pharisees weren't literally blowing a trumpet, what is it? What does it mean? Well, it, it can go with the fact that. there was a sort of a fanfare about it. They waited till there was a crowd around to do those things, um, so that to make sure they were known. But some think it has to do with this, that the trumpet, we know that instrument to have this big bell on it, right? That out on the end of the trumpet, it opens out wide like that and the pipe comes back in and it narrows as it goes down and then has some curves in it, right? Let's picture a tuba, right? Everybody's seen the guys with the tubas, they're actually called sousaphones, but the tubas that they basically wear, wrap around them, and they get that big open thing, and it comes down and it circles around, and this and that, it's made out of metal. Well, they had something similar to that. according to what I, what I was able to read and find and understand, they had something similar to that on the boxes for the poor, where they collected and some of the synagogues out in the streets and even in the temple. And the idea was they had this big, large opening that went into a metal tube that came down and it curved like that trumpet or like that tuba might've, and it curved down and narrowed as it went down into the box. Now, At the bottom of it will be the chest where the money was collected and then every so often you'd open it up and get the money out. The reason that it was made that way is that you could do the donation and it was not subject to being stolen because the way that that pipe was set up that the money came in and it went around and you couldn't just reach down in there and get it out, right? And so that they would do it that way. Now, They didn't use paper money in that day, right? They used coins cast out of silver, gold, or whatever the case may be. So let's imagine that we are walking through the temple and there's a crowd of people around and we wait maybe till a crowd and we go to cast in our money, right? Well, what's it going to do? It's going to rattle and jingle and make all kinds of noises. It goes down. Is it not? And there could be the concept behind this sounding the trumpet of that very action that if you cast the money in it, if you want to, you know, make a big pretense of it, right. The more that you throw in, uh, doesn't necessarily have to be high dollar. You think about it this way. You can generate the same amount of noise by throwing in 10 pennies or throwing in 10 quarters. Right. get the same amount of noise, but not the same giving, right? But it would generate enough that it would get people to notice you. And that might very well be the concept that's behind this, is that the way they would cast their money and they did it in such a way so that it sounded that that bell, which might be called a trumpet, you might consider it would sound that noise as they were casting in their, their donations there. And that way that all that was around would know what was going on and they would get an idea of how charitable they were by how much noise was made. And I can see Pharisees based on what we learned out of the Bible, right? I can see them doing that. Okay. Cause they want that. No, they want that, that, that accolade. And it says that they do it, that they might have glory of men. Meaning they're casting it in there just so that those that are around them can see it. Now we have the same thing that goes on sometimes in churches today, right? I heard a story of a church that was doing a, you know, that was trying to get to or do love offerings or so on to add onto or build to their church. And there was a rich, wealthy man in the community that came and was in the service and wrote the church a very large check. And gave it to them for that very purpose, uh, far beyond the means of what the average man could be. And the check was presented and the guy showed up at the next service expecting to receive the accolades, right? I mean, that, that, that's if you write a large check and you're going to show up that, uh, the church can brightly publicly thank you for such a great donation. Church just took the money and went on about it. And the man got mad. Now, from my understanding, he wasn't saved. He wasn't a Christian. He wasn't even a member of the church. And we have people that do that today, that even still will give tithe or give offerings to churches as a means of trying to glorify themselves. And they're not even, they're not a child of God. They'll admit to it. I had an uncle, he was actually Jewish. He wasn't truly my uncle, but I always called him that. So that's what he is. And I don't know if it was, if he was doing it for the glory of the accolades, but he would never darken the doors of churches. But I know that he would write checks to churches to help support them. Um, and he was relatively, he was pretty wealthy, so he had the means to be able to do that. And we're not talking five and $10 checks, um, throw a couple extra zeros on the ends of that, that he was writing. And there we have that going on today. And so what he is, what Jesus has said there says, if, if that's what they wanted, he said, they got their reward. The men, the people that were around him, the salt thought, oh, wow, how wonderful a person that is that is. And so on and so forth. He said, but the idea behind that is, it says, verily, I say unto thee, they have the reward. It's not just a reward. It's the full reward. It's all that they're going to receive for that donation throughout all of eternity, because that was what they were after. That's the concept that he gives there. And so he goes on to teach us what God would prefer. Now he brings us into something that's a little bit difficult to do. Verse three, it says, but when thou doest alms, let not by left hand know what thy right hand doeth. Now we understand that the main theme of this, the main under the main idea is that we do it in secret, right? He says that this way, he says to him back in verse one, take he that you do not your arms before man to be seen to them. Otherwise you have reward. He comes on down there. He's in verse four. He says that, uh, that Don alms may be in secret. Right now, first thing that we need to understand is this. My left hand always knows what my right hand is doing because they're controlled by the same source, right? They both get their, their signals from up here. So it makes it a little bit difficult to kind of bring it down into practicality, but what it is, it was kind of a proverbial saying of. the Jews of that day to not let, to let that right hand knows not what that left hand is doing. And the best way that I found is I read a commentator. I was reading after commentary. He put this phrase out there. He said, so far from making the display of the action, he says, dwell not on it, even in that own thoughts, meaning that the act is something that's done and forgotten. Does that make sense that you don't take count of what you're doing? You don't. You know, I mean, obviously we, there is planning that has to go on. I mean, there are certain of those things, but truthfully, if we do it in faith, right, we're not even taking the time to do the planning. We're following the leadership of the Lord. And by the way, that's the way that our giving is supposed to be. Now I'm not going to always want to be careful because we're getting into people's pocketbooks. Right. But because we cut, I mean, by the way, this, this can be applied to both tithes and offerings and, and good works outside if we're dealing with the financial side of it. that what our concept ought to be is that we allow the Lord to lead us. in how we give, whether it's to the church or whether it's to the poor, whether it's in charitable donations, that regardless of what righteous works we're trying to do, whether it's a monetary thing or whether it's an actual deed, a work that we're going to do, that rather than setting their dwelling and trying to come up with the best way to do it, that we just simply pray and allow the Lord to lead us to do it, and then all of a sudden it takes our thoughts and our actions out of it, And if we learn to trust in faith and we don't even dwell on it, that's the concept that he has behind there. When it says, let not the right hand know what the left hand know what that right hand do with. But now it gives us this phrase that alms be done in secret. And I want us to understand something because there are those that, and this will come up in prayer and fasting as well, to a certain degree that. The idea here is our motivation, okay? We're not going to be able to do everything without somebody else noticing it, right? I mean, that's just the way it is. It's not going to happen. Let's think about it this way. The only way you can give your tithe an offering without the secretaries and treasurers knowing how much you gave, right, is by doing it cash. If you write a check, they know, right? But the concept, the idea is this, I'm not telling you not to write checks, okay? The idea is that you're doing it not to be noticed, you're just doing it, right? And because of that, we have individuals that will refuse gifts. or refrain from giving because they think, well, somebody's going to see it, and then that's just going to do away with it. That's not what's being done here. That's not the full understanding of this. Yes, it's better if you can do things in secret. That's fine. And that only the individual maybe receiving the act, the alms, knows maybe that's the case. But it's the motivation behind it, right? Uh, we're going to deal with a little bit and we'll come over and fasting and I'm, we'll go and we'll skip ahead and then come back in fasting. It talks about not to make up the appearance of fasting, right? That the Pharisees are going to be accused of. putting on a display that they're fasting, right? Um, and so that men would know that they'd kind of make their face dirty. By the way, I was dealing with fasting, not this passage, but a different place in this book. Um, a few weeks ago over at Woodville and it just so happened to be Ash Wednesday. And I didn't even know, because I'll be honest with you, I don't keep track of the Catholic calendar and all other things. And so I was walking through the mall that day to go up to the food court to get something to eat, because it's just a block or so from the building I work in. And I seen a couple of these people that had this stuff on their forehead. Now, the way I always understood it, they got The little smudge of dirt or ash or whatever and they made a little cross right on their forehead. Well, that's not what I was seeing. The first one I saw, I thought somebody had a big tattoo, a big intricate tattoo across their forehead. It was a young woman. And I thought, man, I bet that thing must have hurt. And now you got to deal with that every time. I said, but at least you can let your bangs grow for a little bit if you don't want to do it. And because that's what it looked like, it looked like some intricate design. And then I got up to the food court and I seen another lady with it and another young girl with it. And I don't know if it was a school trip or something that was going on there, but I began to look around. I thought they've all got that. And then it dawned on me that it must be Ash Wednesday and that's what they were doing. So I don't know how they did that. If they drew it on or if there was a priest somewhere with this big stamp, they'd hold it up, you know, just pop. That's what I pictured, right, was this big intricate stamp. They put it in the dirt. The ladies would hold up their hair and it just, pow, right there on the forehead. Thought, well, that'd be fun. But you say, well, what does that have to do with fasting? Well, because that is a sign that that's what Lent is, right, that they're going to go through a period of fasting, right, that they're going to go through and do that. And it is a show. They're making it known. Well, they weren't the ones that came up with it. Sorry. The Pharisees started it. And by the way, God condemned it or Jesus will condemn it there that they would do those things that would make their face dirty. They would disfigure their face in order to show that they were, they were fasting. And the reason that they did that is so that people would know how spiritual and how, you know, religious they were. Right. And so God will tell, you know, he'll make this statement. And if you're here, when I go through this, you'll hear all this again, probably. But anyway, that God will make that statement there that he doesn't want it to be done. He says, whenever you're going to fast, he says, make yourself look normal. Get cleaned up, get dressed up, ladies, put your makeup on, men, put your smell good stuff on, you know, make it, you know, fix your hair, all that stuff, look normal. that you can be fasting unto God. Now, the question becomes, does it ruin the fast if somebody comes along? And this is what I was after all along. Does it ruin it if somebody comes along, you're working, okay? And you're fasting your food, right? We'll deal with some other things here later, but let's say we're fasting food, and what we're doing is we're fasting our lunchtime meal, okay? And somebody comes along in the office and says, hey, let's go to lunch. Well, if you're fasting, you can't do that, right? And if you're fasting in secret, you know, the first thought would be, well, now I've got to make up an excuse as to why. Right. And that's not what it's coming. That's not what it's getting at. And so we're going to bring this back and tie this back into the alms needs. But in that situation, there would be absolutely nothing wrong with saying, I can't. This is why. I'm fasting. I'm not eating because I want to spend this time. By the way, what a wonderful witness. Another way to open the door, right? And here's the idea behind it. It's not that you do that in order to be seen and known of people of what you're doing. But you at least, but you're doing it to explain why not. And it brings back, brings us back to what Jesus said that in Matthew chapter five, back here, verse number 16, it says this. It says, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father, which is in heaven. So we're given this commandment, right? To let our light shine in the world around us, that we see our good, that people can see our good works. Well, if everything that we do for God was all done in secret and that nobody ever got to see it, how would we let our light shine? Right? And so what I'm, what I'm getting at is this, that with the alms deed and later on, we come back to it again in the fasting that it's all about the vote motivation behind it. Right? The goal may be to do it in secret, but let's, let's understand that there are times where it's going to be exposed. Right. But the question becomes is who and how, right? That's what the difference is. Jesus is dealing with these Pharisees who are doing it solely for the show to impress each other and to exalt themselves above the common man. In fact, remember there's a prayer that one of the Pharisees will pray. I had a parable that Jesus will give. It says a Pharisee and a Senator Republican came into the temple to pray and the Pharisee I'm paraphrasing here. He, he prayed, I thank the God that I'm not like other men and I do all this things. And he said that I'm even, I'm not like this public and that's over here, you know, and he's exalting himself before God. And by the way, if you're going to exalt yourself before God, You're definitely going to do it before men, right? And so that's the concept. It's the motivation that's back here that we're supposed to be trying to get away from. Okay. That our goal is not to do it to be seen, but we understand that we might be right to be done in secret. Okay. And so that's, he sets that theme up and that very same theme that's going to go from alms is now going to come down into prayer. It's going to come down into fasting. Okay? Because now we move into verse number five and we're going to do, we're going to change topics. We've dealt with alms deeds. Now we're going into prayer. It says, and when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are for. They love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, here's that phrase. They have their reward. Now let us Understand that in the culture of Israel and the, and the Jewish culture there, there were appointed times to pray. Can I say, first of all, thank God that we live in the new Testament, that we live under grace and that we have access to the throne of God anytime, anywhere, any day. There were though, in this setup, three main appointed times to pray nine AM, 12 and three. Okay. Those were some of the appointed times. Remember, um, in the opening there of the book of Luke, when, um, Gabriel is going to announce the conception of John the Baptist to his father, uh, Zachariah, that what Zachariah doing he's in the temple at that time offering incense when at the time of prayer. So there was times they would gather to pray, right? And so you can imagine that in a religious society like this, in a city like that, that around those times there would be larger crowds, maybe at the tabernacles or the different places, where they would gather together and they would all begin to pray. Now, we understand this, I hope we understand this, that we can pray aloud or we can pray silently. By the way, I thank God that he knows my heart and my mind and that I don't have to figure out how to express everything because I'm not great at that. And so what we see here is with the hypocrites that he's talking about, that rather than being concerned that God is hearing their prayer, their concern really was that all of those around them was hearing them pray. That's what he's, that's what he's charging is. It says, uh, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets as well. So we have the temple, we have the synagogues and we have the corners of, and we have the streets in general. And so you can imagine in this, in that society that. It's not like it is here. I don't know if I guess most of us have been around or understand what happens in major metropolitan areas. I think of New York where. They don't even need a driver's license, right? I mean, they'll walk or ride the subway or whatever the case. They use public transportation. They walk the streets. Now, that's not something that we can do out here, right? No offense, but I'm not walking to church on Sunday morning, Sunday night. And if I have to, I'm going to find one that's closer and doesn't have a hill in between. I guess back in the days though, they used to do that. Right. But, or ride their horses and stuff. Look, we live in it. We live in a society where we drive or, so we're not used to seeing the crowds on the streets, but in this metropolitan area, that would be the case, right? There would be many people on foot and track. And so they would position themselves so that they could pray out loud so people could hear them and see them. It says for, they love to do that. Right? That's the phrase that use their, their love is to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets that they may be seen of men. And so it's the display, right? It's the religious display again. And he says, verily, I say unto you, they have their reward. Because they're seeking the glory of men, they've received the glory of men. People walkin' by and say, boy, how wonderful you are, how spiritual you must be, and boy, I'd just love to be like you to be able to do that. He said, they got what they were after. And by the way, that's all they're gonna get. There is nothing else beyond that. But now he gives us, in verse six, he gives us a commandment. Or he gives a commandment, rather, as to what they should be doing. It says, but thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, And when thou hast shut thy door, pray to that father, which is in secret and that father, which see if in secret shall reward the openly. So now he's going to give a commandment here. He says, rather, what you ought to be desiring to do is to enter into a secret place. He uses the word closet. If you want to talk about a closet, it's a small area, right? Is the idea is that behind it. Now I understand that not all closets are small. I mean that house Andrew and him built, they got closets you literally walk into and shoot, you can back and put my bed in the closet, but still the concept still would, uh, would apply. You could go in there and shut that door. Right. Um, but that's what it is to get into a small secret place, a place that no one would understand or no one would know. Now that's what he tells them to do instead. So the question becomes, should we pray in public? Or should we only pray in a closet? I think both. Both is the correct answer. And the reason being, it goes back to what we read there that let your light so shine before men, but it comes back to the motivation. It comes back to the desire. And so let's take praying over our food. We're supposed to do that, right? We're supposed to thank God for what he's done. Ask him to bless us, bless the food because I don't care how you got it. It's God that provided it for you. Okay. And we do that out in public restaurants. And by the way, that's a wonderful witness and testimony to those around. To see somebody if nothing else whether they do it out loud or not just to see them to stop And bow their head over their food Whether you hear them say anything or not, you know what's going on, right? It's a witness. It's a testimony but now let me put this way if you're if your whole goal to do it is because there might be somebody else from the church and you don't want them to see you praying over your food or not or eating your food without praying over You might as well just forget it, right? Because you've done it for the glory, right? That's the concept. And that's why, I mean, we pray in church. We pray out loud. We've already done it once. We'll do it a couple more times this morning. There's nothing wrong with that. And that's something that we ought to continue to do. But we also ought to have that time where we pray in secret. And I'm going to tell you that I struggle with praying out loud. Okay. In churches and stuff like that. Uh, obviously it's not necessarily cause I'm embarrassed to speak in front of people. Otherwise I wouldn't be doing this either. Right. But it's because I don't know how to do it well. And I'll be honest with you, the way that I pray in public, that I, way that I pray out loud is nothing, absolutely nothing like the way that I do in secret. It's a completely different method, a completely different manner. And by the way, that's gonna be the way it is. Because I'm not about to sit here in the church and start praying and confessing all my sins to God in front of you guys. By the way, I don't wanna hear you do it either. Because the truth of the matter is, we just go ahead and shut, if we start that, we're just gonna shut the service down, right? Because there ain't none of it. But we need to do that, we ought to be doing that. And that's why I say there are things that are being prayed in secret. That in that position where you can get in that close personal relationship with God, that you cannot do openly, that you cannot do in public. And it ought to be our desire because notice what also what it says. It says that the father, which seeth in secret, that he'll reward the openly. And so he hears the prayer. Nobody else may know what you're praying about, but when God, but when the reward comes from God, that it's oftentimes something that's on display, I think about it this way. Anytime I've read this passage, I've always thought back to this, this time, uh, that on, and we're actually close to an anniversary of it, that on an Easter Sunday, several years ago, uh, I remember we were here in the choir and looked up and a man and a woman was standing in the back door. I wasn't sure who they were. And he came down and he walked over and he sat beside Sister Wanda. He put his arm around her and I said, that must be her son because I don't know very many other people of strangers that's going to do that, right? And it was that one, right? That came to church that Easter Sunday morning. And of course the pastor got up and preached and we went into the invitation and he came in and he got saved. Now, what I thought about was this, that I know that the pastor and Wanda had requested prayer for their children, for their sons, many, many times openly. But I wonder how much time. over all those years that the pastor and Sister Wanda had spent praying in secret in their closet for their children, for Alan. And then all of a sudden, that prayer is answered openly. Although we're here, we witnessed it and saw it happen. And that's the picture, the best way that I can picture what we see that is given here that God is talking about. We ought to continue to request prayer. We have to do all these things. And I think about all of them. There are many thoughts that go through my mind as I look around the congregation right now. of people, of wives that would be requesting prayer for their husbands or of that would be requesting prayer for their parents or for their children. And just because they're requesting it outwardly, they're also praying for it secretly. And it's there where they're pouring out their heart to God, right? And I tell you, I've seen multiple, many of those prayers answered. I was just sitting back there and I see Sister Sharon sit back there and I think of the times that she prayed, requested prayer for Bill. That Sunday night service where before we ever got anything started, he was up here and he got saved that night. I think of Sister Thelma that requested prayer for her husband. And he came, your great-grandfather. And many, many more, Sister Vicki requesting prayer for her father. If I remember, there was a testimony that she gave after that, that she was on the verge of quitting, requesting, wondering whether or not she should when he got saved. And that ought to inspire us to always be seeking the Lord, and to be seeking Him. I could only imagine what some of those prayers must have been in secret, and to see it rewarded openly. I'm looking forward to today. There are more there that I know that are requested. I think of Kim's father that we pray for, or Duck, that he would be saved, and others that are prayed for, that requested all around the church for their children. that they'd be saved. And by the way, it's not just here. It's all through all kinds of churches. I think that I hear some of these names so often. But I'm looking forward to that day where we can see that what's being done, the prayers that are being made in secret that maybe we don't understand where men and women are pouring out their heart to God, that that day where He rewards it openly, we can see those prayers answered and rejoice and give God the glory for it all. We ought to never give that up, to always be desiring to do that.