We are now entering a new section of the Sermon on the Mount. And I prepared this a week before Bob preached to us and haven't added or subtracted anything since. Let's do a quick review to keep it in perspective. Matthew 5, 3 through 12 was the Beatitudes. This was the description of a Christian in the various stages and processes that he goes through after his regeneration. Then verses 13 through 16 shows us what happens to this Christian in the world. We see how he reacts to the world, and we see how the world reacts to him. And then in verses 17 through 48, it deals with how the Christian is to live according to the law, as opposed to how the Pharisees taught people how to live by the law. And we ended last week with this crescendo of the calling that we have to be perfect like our Father in heaven is perfect. What chapter six leads us into is really something quite wonderful. It paints a picture for us of what the Christian life really is while walking through a world that presents all kinds of difficulties. And the beauty of it, I think, is that it emphasizes our relationship to God in the midst of all of that. Every appeal, if you look at it, every appeal is to our walk in the presence of God. The every why is answered by our walk with God. That's the because. If we were to put a heading to chapter six, I believe we would call it living in relationship to Christ. living in relationship to Christ, or living our daily lives in relationship to Christ. The chapter is divided into two parts. They are the directly spiritual parts, the religious parts, and then the mundane day-to-day life on this planet parts. I think every Christian reaches a place where he wrestles with the place of both. Haven't we all? I mean, haven't we all had to struggle with this? Haven't we all at times felt that we wish we could drop every mundane daily activity in order to do the important things?" Those would be things like prayer, studying God's word, doing acts of service in Jesus name, those sorts of things, watching spiritual media, learning spiritual things, the things that we think of as innately spiritual. Haven't we all felt at times that those are the really important things. Those are the spiritual things. But Jesus addresses the mundane and he adds meaning to them as well. He does not teach that his followers should all join communes and take themselves out of society. He teaches faithfulness in the mundane. And let's face it, for most of us, life is more lived in the mundane tasks than in those things we might regard as spiritual. Guys, how many hours have you spent doing work to provide for your family? And then how many hours have you spent keeping your family running and providing and improving and repairing houses and cars and yards and finances and the like? Should we repent of all that? Well, Jesus does not appear to say so. He blesses it. We'll get to that later in our study. And mothers and wives, how much of your lives have been spent doing mundane things? Carla tells me that I would have never made it as a wife because I went to change in jobs every two years. And she maintains that her work had a certain kind of constancy and consistency and predictability that would have been extremely hard for a person like me. And I'm sure it's true. Many of you ladies, no matter what paths you choose, you know all about the mundane. How many meals have you prepared? How many floors have you swept? How many diapers have you changed? And how do you think those who depended upon you to do those things would have felt if you abandoned those responsibilities to only do spiritual things? When God provided the curse, God mandated the mundane. When God provided the curse, God mandated the mundane. And if we're to live a faithful life, it is going to be a combination of the spiritual tasks and the mundane tasks. And what we will find is that all of them can be done as an act of faith, an act of service, an act of worship. And that division of spiritual and mundane is not as great as we may have thought. In fact, they're all part of being holy. as God is holy. They're all part of being perfect, like God is perfect. So we have this good teaching to look forward to in chapter 6. Now, I have a question for us this morning. Do we want to know ourselves? Do we want to know ourselves? Do we really, really, really want to know ourselves? To know why we do what we do. Sometimes I get concerned that I focus so much on this inner self when I preach. I talk so much about the slippery self and the hearts that are the trickiest people that we know. And I know I generally do not say good things about our natural tendencies and our default tendencies. But read chapter six this week. I strongly urge you, read chapter six this week at least a couple of times and answer this question as you're going through it. What is Jesus warning us against? In chapter six, what is Jesus warning us against? See if you don't come up with the same conclusion that I do. He's warning us about our hearts. He's warning us about how we can successfully keep all the evil and ugliness about ourselves hidden while we try to succeed at looking spiritual. It's about that inner struggle to be inwardly and outwardly congruent, true, honest. It's a focus on motives. And motives are, by definition, internal. Now, it seems to me that if Jesus focuses so much on it, it must be a real problem to overcome. Doesn't that make sense? I mean, if he talks this much about it, Isn't that the real issue that he's addressing? And ask yourself, why was Jesus so negative? Why was Jesus so negative? When you pray, don't do it like the hypocrites. When you pray, don't just babble, bada, bada, bada, which is essentially what it means. When you pray, don't do it with an unforgiving heart. When you fast, don't do it with the wrong motive. Don't live trusting in what you can provide for yourself. Don't think that you can provide your own security. Watch your eyes, your processing of information, how you think affects everything you say. Watch who you really are in your heart of hearts. You can't serve two masters. Do not worry. Wow, is there anything more deeply rooted in our secret thoughts than worry? Isn't that always a battle in the inner self that we have? Tell me this, when you read what Jesus said, do you get the idea that living this way is going to come naturally, or do you get the idea that this is going to be a battle? I remember some of the talks that I had with the kids, and I remember telling them that your biggest problem is not outside of you. The problem you need to get good at wrestling with is the one inside of you. The old man that is the biggest problem isn't this old man, the one outside you. The biggest problem isn't the old man outside of you making you do things you don't want to do. The biggest problem is your old man, the one inside you. And the one inside you is what makes getting along with the one outside you so difficult some days. Do we want to know ourselves like God knows us? Our friend Mr. Jones says this, the natural man evades self-examination because to know oneself is ultimately the most painful piece of knowledge that a man can ever acquire. And really, why push this? Why push to know ourselves? If it's painful, if it hurts, why push? Why look at those things that are hard to look at? Nobody sees them. We can just as easily present pleasant, optimistic theories about why we did what we did as to deeply examine truth of our behavior. We can just as easily say, I'm earning money because it's a faithful thing to do, as to say, I have a problem with trusting God, and I feel compelled to provide my own security. I mean, that's just one example. But we push. Why push? To see the uncomfortable. While we're talking about this, do we see that the assumption in what Jesus said is that we are prone to dishonesty? Do we see that we are prone to hypocrisy, play acting? We are prone to presenting ourselves one way as opposed to another. Have we considered the implications of all of this? Have you ever had someone suspect you of wrong motives or duplicitous behavior and you responded by being offended and hurt by saying, you should know me better than that. You should know I would never do such a thing. Have we ever done that? This effectively blames the person asking the question for having the question and relationally leverages them to silence the question and even apologize for posing it. It avoids ever having to answer the question. It's effective, but it avoids truth. And this is just one example of how easily we have learned to get off the hook. Does that look like honest communication when we consider what Christ says here? We are tricky. And we can expect tricky to come out of us because it's in us. Look how Paul responded when people questioned his motives. He may have been hurt and angry, but he gives a defense. He gives a logical defense for what is true about him with supporting evidence. He doesn't use a relational power play to avoid answering the accusation. That's our model to follow. Truth is what matters, truth. Imagine if when Paul approached Peter or when Nathan approached David or when Paul challenged some behaviors of the churches, If those people would have come back and said, how could you think that about us? I can't believe you don't know me better than that. You see what I mean? The truth is, we don't even know ourselves better than that. We should think that we're always capable of all kinds of things until we examine them before God and say, God, why did I do this? Please show me. I'm willing to see it. I'm willing to see what I did. That's the only way we can get to the truth. We cannot assume we would not have done an evil thing or done something for an evil reason. We can't start with that assumption. We're tricky. If we love truth, if we love Christ, if we want to truly serve him, introspection is a way of life. So when someone brings something to our attention, even if it hurts or feels like it's uncalled for, the highest thing is to consider exactly what is said and look deeply to see if there's truth in what was said. The right thing is not to allow our hurt feelings or our hurt pride to craft our response, a response that's sure to silence the accuser or the questioner. We also need to consider God sees all of our interactions. We do everything that we do in the face of God, in the sight of God, in the presence of God. He knows what we think when we give an answer. Even if we can get away with a relational thuggery or deception, even if we can get the inquiring hound on a completely different trail in our arguments, God sees it all. He knows what we are doing. And while we may set each other at bay, the hound of heaven always follows the right trail. The Holy Spirit always goes down the row of truth. And the truth is that the precious fellowship that is so sweet among believers will only grow to the degree that we are honest with ourselves and with each other. We studied that a lot in 1 John. So we deprive ourselves of that which we so deeply need when we choose to protect ourselves from seeing or telling the truth. We always have to ask the question, why did I really do that thing? None of us have reached the state, the Jesus state of being where we know something is good because I did it. So when we're questioned, we have to be careful. We need to choose a path that answers the questions rather than diverts the attention elsewhere. So is this self-analysis really necessary? Is it necessary to see the real? Won't it hurt? Well, yeah, of course it will, and of course it is. but it's the only path to applying the truth that Jesus gives us. And everything Christ tells us to take off, he turns right around and he tells us what to put on. It's all through scripture. You can't avoid it. But if we can't admit that in our heart of hearts, we're doing that which needs to be taken off, how will we ever apply his medicine? The truth sets us free. The truth of ourselves drives us to the truth of Christ's provision. And the application of his truth sets us gloriously and joyfully free of our own limitations. And that's where we're intended to live. Walking in the spirit, walking in truth. Okay, so what we have before us is a ride of Jesus challenging us to consider why we do what we do. And if we see wrong reasons that we're doing good things, we should conform them to the right reasons for doing the right things. That's what we're to prepare ourselves for. Be ready to see things about yourself that you don't want to see as we go into this text. And be ready to accept the wonderfully freeing medicine of our great physician to heal our souls when we see that stuff. All right. Now let's look at verse one of chapter six. Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men to be seen by them. Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men to be seen by them. From what I have read, there may be a better translation, and it's actually the translation, than charitable deeds. And that's based on two different source texts that two different Bibles use. The source text for the ESV version uses, I don't know how you say the word, but it's a one word for righteousness. And it essentially means righteousness. It's a big headache, righteousness. And the source text for the NKJV version uses another word that means alms and charitable deeds. So we can see right off the bat, there's a pretty big difference between those two. But one encompasses the other. Righteousness encompasses charitable deeds, but charitable deeds doesn't really encompass all righteousness. So while these are similar, I tend to prefer the accuracy of the ESV version. We talked about that before. And it leads more to what Jesus appeared to be doing here. In verse one, Jesus is not limiting his scope to charitable deeds. He is casting it wide. And in verse one, Christ is about to lay out the topic for the whole upcoming chapter. So let's read it from the ESV. 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. When we look at this in terms of righteousness, in terms of our living out our whole lives, in right relationship with God and doing things because we think they will please Him. Now we have the theme for the whole chapter. And with this translation, verse 1 is a broad heading and verse 2 begins a subtopic within that heading. Verse 1 is talking about righteous practices as a whole. Verse 2 moves into the specific category of charitable deeds. We're going to learn how we should practice righteousness and how we should not. We'll see this throughout all chapter six. And we'll see this in those things that are most directly spiritual and those things that are day-to-day worldly responsibilities. Now, what is this really talking about? What is this chapter about? It's about doing the right things, things that look spiritual, things that look right, things that other Christians would say, wow, look how admirable that is. Look how spiritual they are. Look how they are an example of spirituality. Look how they love Christ. Look at how devoted they are to Jesus. That is the effect intended by the action. That's what the effect of the action is intended to create. So they won't look like bad things. They'll look like really good things. They won't look like sinful. None of the righteous things being done with this wicked motive will be bad things. They'll all be good. They'll all appear to be an admirable devotion. They'll all look holy Christian. But what does Jesus say about them? And look at this closely. If the motive for doing these truly good things is in order to be seen by other human beings, If the reason is for it to be recognized by other human beings as being admirable and spiritual, if it is in any way to get the recognition and admiration and admonition and praise of another human being, if that is the motive, if this action would not have been carried out if there were no audience, if no one was watching, it would not have been done. If that is the case, the thing done in God's book adds up to a big fat zero. There will be zero reward from God for doing that thing. Wow. We need to think about that. Is there anything that we have done for God that if no one was watching, we would not have done? That's the million dollar question. What do you think you've done for Christ? I mean, one of the things that you look at and you think, well, I'm glad I did that because I was doing that as a service to God. For me, I'm preaching on Sundays and a few other things. What are you doing? The question is, what would you do if no one at all recognized your contribution? What would you think if others did not honor you for what you were doing? Or even worse, if they spoke disparagingly about what you were doing. What if the leadership or the ones that you served did not appreciate what you're doing? What if no one thanked you? Would you keep doing it because you weren't doing it for that anyone? You were doing it for Christ. That was your only motivation was to do it for Christ. That's the question here. Ultimately, the question is, Why do you do what you do in service for Christ? Now, I've seen enough things in all of us. I've seen acts of service that were intended to be kept secret, that were intended to be done for the right reasons. And it's always refreshing. It's so good to see that there is a lot of that that happens in the Christian life. But we have to ask the question. We've got to ask ourselves the question as we do these acts of service. Would you keep doing it if no one approved of it? Maybe at this point, we should ask, what makes you want to quit what you're doing? Is your temptation to quit based on the lack of recognition that you get for what you're doing? Do you feel like quitting because no one's telling you how good what it is you're doing? Now, all of us like to hear encouragement. I'm not trying to say that, well, then we should never give each other encouragement because that might give them the wrong reason for doing ministry. No, we should encourage all the ministry that we can and bring it to focus as much as we can. But these are internal questions. We need to think about it. We need to consider it. If I study most Saturdays and preach most Sundays because I want you to think I am somehow special, You might say, well, you're doing a pretty poor job of doing that. But anyway, I will not receive any reward for what I do. That is what this is saying. It doesn't matter how many hours I study or what things I sacrifice. If I'm not doing it for God and for God alone, I am wasting my time. I may not be wasting your time, depending on what I say, but I'm wasting my time because I'm not gonna get any reward. Do you see what this is saying? Each of us need to look deeply at what we do and why we do it. And we may not have those loving feelings we wish that we had toward Christ as we're doing that act of service. We might be saying, I know it's the right thing to do. I don't feel like doing it, but I'm going to do it for the Lord. We may not feel the sentimental warmth that we think we should have, but down deep, what drives us to do the right thing? Does it have anything to do with who is watching and the reward that we hope to get from them? Does what we do change if no one is watching or if someone is watching? Well, essentially, whatever change there is based on who is watching will not be rewarded because it was not for Jesus. Here's the question for the week. And I really don't think we need to go any further. I know this is shorter than usual, but I think it's extremely important. What good thing would we stop doing for Christ if no human being sought or would applaud Him? What good thing would we stop doing for Christ if no human being sought or would applaud Him? And the second is, what bad thing would we do if we knew that no human being would see it or condemn it? What bad thing would we do if no human being would see it or condemn it? They're both the same question. What do we do for Christ and for Christ alone that will last? Those are the only things that count. What do you do for the church that no one notices and the fact that no one knows upsets us? Guess what? It's very likely that there's no reward for that thing from God for you until your attitude changes. Is that harsh? Check out what Christ says. Does it mean it or doesn't it? Your motivation determines your reward. That's what it means. Do you realize how many of the church's problems go away when everyone does every act of service to the church only to please Jesus? There's none of this, no one appreciates what I do. My ministry is not recognized or appreciated. I was left out of the thank yous. When every act of ministry is done because we believe Jesus wants it done and we are pleased to serve him, suddenly all the bickering and the complaints go away. Oh, we might recognize that we don't always treat each other the way that we should. We certainly don't. That's for sure. But the fuel for division is suddenly gone. The us against them is removed. The fuel for indignation is removed. That's really what Jesus is saying here. There are to be no fleshly motives for ministry in the church. That's the essence of it. You might serve in all kinds of worldly clubs and expect that you better be rewarded after every act of service. The social clubs do all kind of benevolent services, but you better reward those who sacrifice their time and effort with fleshly strokes. But in the church, it's supposed to be different. And it's a supernatural difference. Everyone here is to be doing exactly what they are doing for no other reason that their savior and master Jesus Christ is pleased with what they are doing. That is, well, weird in the world's way of looking at things. But it is completely normal for the church. Matthew 6.1.