Since I've heard that one always one of my favorites always Well, all right, please take the Word of God open to Matthew chapter 6 actually Matthew chapter 6 verse 1 Matthew 6 verse 1 start a new section and Those willing and able to, I'm going to ask that you stand with me please as we share together the reading of the Word of God. We'll begin in verse 1, we'll read down to verse 4. So here we go. Beware of practicing your righteousness before men, to be noticed by them, otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly, I say to you, they have the reward in full. But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving will be in secret, and your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. Father, we pray that You would honor what we do today with the presence of Your Spirit. And I pray, Heavenly Father, that Your Spirit would work in areas where my words aren't going to work. I know that I am merely a human voice, and that's not what we need to hear. But Your Spirit can go into those areas where my voice is just a voice. but can take your truth there and apply it and bring conviction and change. And that's really the goal. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you and pleased to be seated this morning. So, if I were to ask you what's the most dangerous thing you could do, What would you say? If I were to ask you what was the most dangerous thing, something you never wanted your mama to ever find out, what would be, you run through your mind about scenarios, what would be really unsafe? Well, some people would say, I would feel like I was doing something really dangerous if I got in a car and rode without a seatbelt. You know, some people feel like that's the height of danger today. You know, to us, you know, we grew up without seatbelts, but some people today, it's like, whoa, I would never think of getting in a car without a seatbelt. Some people might say, well, you know, it's to break the speed limit. I go over the speed limit, I feel, you know, I feel really unsafe. You know, it might be to make a speech. Some people are terrified standing in front of people and talking to people and to them they can't think of anything that would be worse than having to stand up before somebody and give a speech. It's just, it's horrifying, you know, and I can, I've been there, I understand that, you know. And maybe it's, well, you know, you've seen this running with the bulls in Spain. You know, we see that every year. They bring that up on TV in the news. They make a big deal out of running with the bulls in Spain, you know. And it seems like almost every year, of course, somebody gets gored when they do that. That's pretty dangerous. Yeah, that's pretty dangerous. I heard there's this thing called bungee jumping. And they do bungee jumping over a river that's full of live crocodiles, you know. And so they say, that's the most dangerous thing I could think of, is a bungee jump over a river full of hungry, hot crocodiles. There's this new thing going on in South Africa. Brother Parson, I'm not trying to give your kids any ideas, but there's this thing called, they don't have to have ideas. These boys, you know, boys between like 16 to 26, they get these ideas. Well, they have this thing in South Africa where these boys are train surfing. And I'm sure you're aware of what train surfing is. It's very popular over there, train surfing. And so in South Africa, the trains are so full, it's very difficult to get a place in the train. And so these boys have decided what they can do is they can go up on the roof of this train. Well, this train's moving 60, 70 miles an hour down the road. And so they go up on the roof of these trains, and they surf on the roof of the train. And they're running down the cars, and they're jumping from car to car to car. And they dance up there. The problem is that with train surfing in South Africa is they have these low-lying beams. It's really bad news when you get caught in one of those things, you know, or you don't make the tunnel. So anyhow, it's led to a lot of maimed people and deaths and things like that. Dangerous things we can do. So what would be the most dangerous thing you could possibly think of to do? Well, believe it or not, Jesus tells us what the most dangerous thing to do is. right here in our passage of scripture. Here's a little different perspective on what's really dangerous for the child of God. We're beginning a new section in the Sermon on the Mount. And the first thing Jesus says in this new section is, beware, beware. He says, there's something that really concerns me. I'm gravely concerned. There's a real danger here. Something for God's people to be afraid of. What is it? He says, it's practicing your righteousness before men. Now I know you didn't come off the edge of your seat when I told you that. And you're not just shaking there thinking, wow, wow, that sounds really dangerous. And I know that when I told you that, you're not scared to death about what Jesus Christ said here about practicing your righteousness before men. But Jesus thought it was very, very important and it's very, very serious. And he said, you ought to be concerned about this. It's nothing to play around with. It's nothing to fool around with. It's nothing to take lightly. And Jesus's mind, what he's saying here, is very serious. And let me sum it up for you, it is an attempt to be self-righteous. That attempt to be self-righteous, that is the absolute most dangerous thing that Jesus Christ said you could attempt to do. Why is that? Because it has eternal consequences! You know, there are a lot of things that might cost you your physical life, but when you lose your physical life, that's as far as it goes. But what Jesus Christ is talking about here is something that's going to affect you throughout all eternity. What we're doing here and now in this life and this body is going to last throughout all eternity. It is eternal consequences. You see, Jesus Christ doesn't just look at our physical existence. He looks at our eternal existence as well. He's constantly thinking about how we're going to stand before God. And beloved, until we learn to think like Jesus Christ is telling us to think like here, our sins are going to continually dominate our lives. I don't know about you, but there are sins in my lives that I get tired of committing. Because I seem like I cannot get away from them and I keep committing them over and over and over again. Because I am not looking at my life like Jesus Christ looks at life. We need to change our perspective on life. So what we're going to try to do is we're going to try to look at our lives like Jesus Christ sees us. And I'm going to tell you it's not going to be pretty. It's not going to be pretty. And Jesus is not going to pull any punches. And so he starts off in verse 1, chapter 6, and he says, beware. Now he doesn't use that word very often. We're going to find it again in chapter 7 where he says to beware of false prophets. We're going to find it again in chapter 10 where he says beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And then he's going to use it again in Luke chapter 12 verse 15 where he's going to tell us to beware of any form of greed. And then he repeats, all of those things are repeated over and over again in the Gospels, you know. We're going to see those things over again. But those are basically the three instances in which he uses this particular word. He uses it sparingly, obviously, because he wants to get your attention. And so he doesn't use it very often. Prosecco, prosecco, that's what he's saying there. Prose, from before or forward, and echo for the whole, it literally means to hold to, to hold forward, to hold before, figuratively. The idea is to hold one's mind before, and then to take heed and to pay attention, and to give heed, and to be in a state of alert, and to watch out for, and to be on guard. How many have ever walked upon a snake unexpectedly? You're walking along and all of a sudden you're about to take a step, you look down and there's a snake. A snake! What do you do? Man, you go on high alert. You engage every nuclei in your brain, if that's where it is, and you engage that thing, and you engage your eyes, and you're on high alert because here is danger. Here is a snake! So every part of your being goes on alert and you're watching and you're responding Your mind is fully alert. You cannot take your eyes off of the danger I'm telling you that's exactly what Jesus Christ is saying in this particular word here of beware there's a snake in our midst and we need to be alert and And that snake is our own self-righteousness. Our own self-righteousness before men. It's present imperative. And it's present imperative means Jesus wants you to pay attention to all that. It's a present tense because it means it's continually a problem. It's a constant problem. This idea of pride, this idea of self, it's something that we battle every day of our lives. Everybody here has to continually fight this battle of self-righteousness and self-pride. And let me share with you the inherent danger that Jesus Christ is talking about here in this idea of self-righteousness. Notice carefully the principle that Jesus Christ lays down here. He says, beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them. Did you notice that? He says, beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them. Whose attention are we probably wanting here? We say it's the attention of others. Well, not really. You know, our primary interest is not the attention of others. Our primary interest is our own attention. Now we get that through the attention of others. by garnering the attention of others. But what Jesus Christ really is talking about here is not the attention of others. He's talking about the attention we give to ourselves. That's really what he's talking about here. Subtlest subtleties is that we want men to pay attention to us and we get their attention so that we will have our self-righteousness or our pride and our ego built up. We want to be the center of attention. We want people to notice us. And Jesus is warning us in this practice of scripture here that we have this innate desire. We have an everybody here. I don't care who you are. You have an innate desire to want to other people to focus on you. You just do. It's a sin nature. We, you know, when we do things to be noticed by others, it's because we want to be in first place. This is our tendency, our sin nature. Everybody has to struggle with it. Jesus knows it, and He attacks the problem forcefully here. He's going to do it three ways. We're going to look at almsgiving, we're going to look at prayer, and we're going to look at fasting. All of these things we're going to look at. And He's going to show us in each passage something new and something different. But what's so incredibly important about what Jesus is saying about prayer and fasting and almsgiving is they're all good things. Jesus is not against almsgiving. He's not against giving to the poor. He's not against prayer. He's not against fasting. What Jesus is warning us against here is we can do some very good things that wind up in the burn pile. That's what he's warning us about here. We should get to the poor, we should pray, we should fast, and wonderful, and those are holy activities, but they become worthless when our relationship with God is not what's motivating us to do them. And that's what he's concerned about. Remember what Jesus said earlier about the scribes and the Pharisees? He said, your righteousness must surpass the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees. And then he launches into this discussion on giving alms and prayer and fasting. And he's saying, look, here's how that's going to happen. They're, you know, Jesus said, you're righteous, surpass that of the scribes and the Pharisees, and they're going to their minds, how can I righteousness surpass that of the scribes and the Pharisees? And Jesus is going to show them how that actually happens in this passage of Scripture. This is how it works because it springs from your relationship with God. That's what he's going to show them. That is what turns our obedience from legalism to a true act of love, true righteousness that Jesus Christ is concerned about here is the result of love and love resulting in perfect obedience to the will of God. That's what he's talking about. That's the process we're going to go through. So the question then becomes, Okay preacher, if that's true, how do I conquer my desire of pride and self-righteousness? How do I put my relationship with God first to motivate me to pray and to give alms and to fast as we're going to see a little bit later on? How can I get my righteousness to be genuine instead of self-focused or self-centered? Well, notice the problem that Jesus points out here. Notice what he says. He says, we are doing it, what? Before, two words, before men, before men. The problem is that we are measuring ourselves in the sight of others rather than in the sight of God. And Jesus nails it on the head. That's exactly right. Two words, before men, instead of in the sight of a holy God. That's what he's concerned about. He says, you're valuing being in the presence of others rather than valuing being in the presence of God. You need to think of yourselves as being in the presence of God. You're ignoring the real reality, which is the presence of God. Instead of the presence of men, you're making the presence of men superior to the presence of God. That's what he's talking about here. Jesus knows what's in our heart is our real action. He knows it. He understands that. God knows our every thought. He knows our every attitude. He knows our every action. And He sees all of that. He knows what's going on inside of our hearts, which is the real you. The real you is not external. The real you is not external. The real you will never be external. The real you is always going to be internal. There's nothing better than you could do for yourself than wake up on Monday morning and go, I'm in the presence of God. I'm going to live all day with a consciousness that I am in the presence of God. Now, I don't know how you operate in your personal life. I'm going to tell you how I operate in my personal life, if I can do that and be honest with you. Here's how I operate in my personal life. I talk to myself. I talk to myself. I get a hold of myself and I remind myself that I'm in the presence of God. I remind myself that God knows what I'm thinking. I remind myself that God knows what I'm doing. I remind myself that God knows the attitude that I'm going to have. I remind myself that God knows what I'm feeling right now. Literally, that's what I do. If I'm having evil and disgusting thoughts, then I have to think about myself being in the presence of God, and that God knows what's going on in my mind and my thoughts, and it drives me to repentance. That's how my life works. And sometimes, beloved, we have to have conversations with ourselves, and we have to talk to ourselves in order to get right with God. You know, most of us can readily identify with the Psalms. I love the Psalms. I read, for me, Psalms 112, Psalm 112. It's one of those Psalms I'm going to try to memorize. The Psalms are I don't want to take away from the inspiration of the Psalms They're inspired by God no doubt about that and I'm not trying to take away from the inspiration of the Psalms. Okay, but that the writer a lot of the times in the Psalms the writer was simply stating what he saw as he was living in the presence of God. That's really, you know, you want to put your finger on what made David such a great man of God is because David is continually thinking about himself being in the presence of God. And he wrote a lot of the Psalms from that perspective. In Psalm 139, perhaps the most popular Psalm of all along these lines, David said, where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, and if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will lay hold of me. Psalm 139, verses 7-9. David said, I can't go anywhere to get away from the presence of God. Everywhere I go, he is there. He practiced the presence of God. And if you could put one finger on what made David the man he was, it was simply this principle that he practiced all of the time. I am in the presence of God. And Jesus Christ is saying the same thing, only he's putting it in negative form by saying you're practicing this before men, because what Jesus is trying to get them to do is to realize what they're doing is wrong. They need to practice the presence of God, not the presence of men. It's not your coworkers. It's not your boss. It's not your wife. It's not your husband. It's not your best friend. It's not your classmates. It's not your boyfriend. It's not your girlfriend. It's not even your parents that you need to worry about, although you need to worry about them. But it's being in the presence of God. The only person you need to really please, worry about pleasing, is God. When you say something, it doesn't really matter what everybody else thinks. It does matter what God thinks. When you do something, it really doesn't matter what everybody else thinks about what you do as much as it matters to God about what you do. If you want to start a revival in your heart, And you want to break through the hypocrisy and the lying and the cheating and deceiving pretentiousness of our little hearts, then you start practicing the presence of God. And Jesus now is anxious to show us how this really works out in real life. And so that's what it is. He gives us a principle in verse one, and this principle in verse one actually goes all the way through verse 18, verse 19, somewhere along in there. We're going to see that principle over and over again, but he's going to give us some practical illustrations here. And the first practical illustration he gives is that of almsgiving. And so he goes on in verse 2 and he says, okay, here's, I'm going to show you how it works. So he lays the principle down. He starts in verse 2. He says, here's reality. So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have the reward of full. But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Interesting thoughts, are they not? Indeed, interesting thoughts. And so he gives them this beginning of understanding of how to apply it. It's important that we help people in need. No doubt about that. Jesus is not against that. He's not against all giving. We need to take care of the poor. They didn't have the government then to take care of the poor. They didn't have welfare systems. If you had financial struggles, man, you had to depend on the goodness of the people that are around you. And that's the way they survived. And that's what they did. And the plan worked very well. And it would work well today if we would implement it. But another sermon. First, Jesus is not condemning almsgiving, it's honorable. You look in the Old Testament, we studied this in the book of Leviticus, and I love the book of Leviticus, I love the study of the book of Leviticus, I may have bored you to death, but it was a great study because in the book of Leviticus it tells us a whole lot about how to deal with issues like this, like poor people. And the Old Testament gives us ideas on how to do that. But anyhow, there's a right way and a wrong way to do it, and Jesus attacks the wrong way. First thing, he says there's a wrong way, and he paints this ridiculous picture to make his point. He says don't be like these scribes out here or the Pharisees out here who go along and they blow trumpets Before they drop their money into the coin now bucket now you realize this is this is this is Jesus is making a play on words here because the scribes and the Pharisees literally didn't hire somebody to go before them and blow trumpets and Okay, now Jesus is making a point but he is but he is he's drawing a picture and what was really going on here was this is in the temple there were 13 Offering boxes and these offering boxes were made out of brass and and these offering boxes Resembled trumpets, but here's the deal when you made your offering and you drop your money into this offering box, you can imagine in your mind, you can imagine in your mind how you could take a bunch of metal coins and take these metal coins and drop them into a metal coin box, a brass coin box. You can imagine the kind of noise that it would make. And so obviously, if you took a bunch of coins, if you take a bunch of coins and you started dropping them in, you know, little by little, maybe, You know, 2-3-2-3-2-3-2-3-2-3-3. And you did that, you know, for maybe five minutes, you know. Everybody would be going, who's dropping all those coins into the coin box? And so obviously, because of the noise, you turn around and you pay attention to whoever is taking the time to deposit all these coins. It's making such a racket, you can't miss the sound, you know. It's kind of like going to locomotion down here, you know, or some game. You're in the locomotion and all of a sudden you hear all these bells and whistles go off and this machine of locomotion starts spitting out, you know, a thousand tickets, you know. And so you're looking at all these thousand tickets coming out, you know, and then you're looking at the person who got those thousand tickets. Well, that's kind of what's going on here, except it's not tickets, it's coins. And so everybody goes, oh. Look at him. Oh, man. He must be really spiritual. Whoa. Look how much he's given to the temple Wow, he must be somebody really important. He must be somebody really big, you know And so they get all this attention by dropping their coins in over a long period of time Jesus said that's the wrong way and Yeah, Jesus said, you're doing it for your own reward and you're getting your own reward because everybody's turned around and they're looking at you and they're praising you and they're puffing up your pride, you know, and they're thinking that you're somebody really important. He says, that's all the rewards you're going to get. That's it. That's over. It's not. It's momentary. And then Jesus goes on. He says, look, I want to tell you the right way to give to the poor. And he says, when you give, I don't want you to let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. You say, that's crazy. How can you do that? You know what you're doing. How can you not know what your body is doing? So what is Jesus saying here? Obviously, he's making a point here. So what is he saying by not letting your left hand know what your right hand is doing? He's saying this. He's saying, Stop thinking about it after you do it. Have you ever done something really good and you play that over and over and over in your mind? You know, I did something really good. I gave this. I did that. You know, and you just think about it. That's what Jesus is saying. He said that's the wrong way. When he said, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, he's saying, as soon as you do it, as soon as you do something good, as soon as you do something that is right, as soon as you do something that is just, stop thinking about it, stop praising yourself, stop going on and on and on in your mind about it. Put it out of your mind. Have you ever been around somebody who's always talking and bragging about what they're doing? You ever been around anybody like that? You know anybody like that, who's always talking about, oh yeah, I did this, oh yeah, I did that, oh yeah, I, oh yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah, yeah, uh-huh, yeah, uh, you know, and you're going. Would you just shut up? I'm trying to listen to you. You say, in your mind, you're going, that's just disgusting. That's just disgusting. You know what? When we go over and over and over what we've done in our minds, it's just as disgusting to God. Just as disgusting. It's the same thing. We're just doing it in private instead of doing it in public. And God knows what's going on in our minds. And God knows what's going on in our hearts. And Jesus says, Stop! Stop! Put it out of your minds! Don't do it! Do it! Be done with it! Go on! Serve Me after that! Don't be bragging about your stuff in your own mind! That's basically what He's saying here in this particular passage of Scripture. So, review. What's the most dangerous thing you can do? What's the most dangerous thing you can do, according to Jesus Christ? Put God second you see when you start thinking about your own righteousness and you start getting the attention of other people You are you become the focus of attention? And when you become the focus of attention guess what that does to God that takes God and puts him in second place The most dangerous thing you could do is put God in second place in your life And it's what Jesus is warning us about here. Don't do that. You put yourself first you put God in second You become an idol You become an idol Jesus warns us, don't do that. And the way for you to do that, to conquer that selfish lust for self-righteousness, is to put yourself in the presence of God. Remind yourself, I am in the presence of God. And then finally, when you do something that is good, if it is any good or any merit whatsoever, then forget it and don't dwell on those good acts. God will not forget them. Jesus said, God will remember them and God will reward you, and that is enough. That's as far as it needs to go. That's as far as it needs to go. And the ultimate example, of course, is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ cared nothing for himself when he went to Calvary. He didn't think about his life. He didn't think about his suffering. He didn't really concern himself with what was going to happen to him. He was only concerned about pleasing God and winning the glory of God. And that was it. On your behalf and my behalf. He went to the cross with selflessness. I'm going to ask that our musicians come forward. We're going to begin to prepare for an Invitation Hymn. And maybe the Spirit of God is convicting you this morning about this self-righteousness that we all have to deal with and it's a real problem in our lives. And it shows us how far away from pleasing God we are. We're more about pleasing ourselves than pleasing God. You know what Jesus Christ did on the cross was very, very public. When He went to the cross, when He died on the cross, shed His blood there for our sins. It was very, very public. Everybody knew what was going on. But Jesus Christ was not concerned about how He looked in public. He was concerned about how His Father's will was being accomplished in His own life. He was consumed with pleasing God, and that was all He really cared about in spite of what was going on publicly in His life. Even though it was evident He knew his heart could be seen in secret by God. Listen to me. God sees everything secret in your heart. There's nothing in your heart that is hidden from God. Nothing, nothing, nothing. He knows it all, beloved. But he forgives all too because of his blood. Who you're really living for? You're living for self or you're just trying to please yourself or get everybody to look at you so they can puff you up and make you somebody? Really and truly, what's your motive? Are you doing right because you have this great relationship with God, fellowship with God, and it motivates you to do His will? Is that really where you're coming from? That's where it needs to come from. I'm going to ask that you stand with me, please. We're going to prepare for an invitation hymn today. God works on our relationship with Him and that's what He does. He works on our relationship with Him to draw us closer to a relationship with Him and fellowship with Him. That's what He wants this morning from you. He wants you to walk. He wants you to take a step closer. He wants you to take a step closer to Him today as the Spirit of God works on your heart. You can do that. Let's pray together. Father, we come before your throne. We thank you so much for your word. We thank you for its truth. Oh, it's so hard sometimes, but it's true. We're a selfish, self-righteous, self-conceited, self-focused people. We have a sin nature that demands attention and focus on itself. Oh, it's true. We are sinners, sinners and prideful. But oh God, you're patient and loving and kind and gracious toward us and you sent your son to take care of that old sin nature and break it by the power of Jesus Christ's death on the cross. And so that's where we come to now. That point in this service where the cross becomes our central focus and the necessity of the work of Christ to cleanse us from our sins, from his blood, which we all need. Take control, have thy own way, Lord, have thine own way. In Christ's name we pray, amen.