Feel welcome. I want you to know that you're loved. We're glad that you're here. We're seeking the Lord together as a church, going verse by verse through the Sermon on the Mount. I hope for those of you that's been coming and listening to these series of sermons that you're growing in faith and that you're falling more in love with the Heavenly Father, amen. I was thinking this morning, you know, there's no one like our God. We should admire Him, amen. We should respect Him. We should be in awe of him this morning. I was thinking about Solomon there when he built the temple and the Bible said he was dedicating the temple and he stood before the altar of the Lord and he said, Lord God of Israel, there is no God in heaven above or in earth below like you. You keep your covenant and mercy with your servants who walk before you with all their heart. You kept what you promised. You've spoken with your mouth and fulfilled it with your hand, amen? The psalmist, he said, there is none holy like the Lord. The prophet Jeremiah, he said, there's none like you, O Lord. You're great and your name is great and mine. Moses said, who is like you? You're majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds. You do wonders. And when the prophet Isaiah saw him, he said, woe is me, I am undone. Well, what do we say this morning? I began to think about that sitting at home this morning as I was studying the scriptures, what do we think? As we come into the presence of God, let's not forget this morning that we are gathered in his sanctuary. Before his altar. The Bible makes it very clear that just like in our day-to-day lives, but right here when we're gathered together, the Holy Spirit is present. That means God is amongst us. Bible's also clear that when we gather together in worship, that the angels gather with us. Now we can't see them, but they're here. I imagine that as we open up this book and we read the word of God this morning, that when they hear the words of their creator, they bow and worship. And I hope our hearts will do the same this morning. Our hearts should bow and worship. We should focus and really listen to what the voice of God would want to speak to our hearts this morning. And so if you've got your Bible, open up to Matthew chapter five. We're going to go into Matthew chapter six today, but I want to make sure that we finish out chapter five by looking at that last verse. I didn't really get to look at it last week, and I think it's important. I don't want to miss it. I want you to remember too that the Sermon on the Mount is being preached to those who have already begun to follow him, amen? These words he spoke to his disciples, they were already following, they were already committing themselves to them. Now that doesn't mean if you're here this morning and that you're lost that you can't get something from this. But if you're here and you are lost, there's really only one thing you need to get from this. You need to understand you need salvation. And salvation only comes from one source. Jesus Christ, that's it. That name is above every other name. You see, you can't buy it, you can't earn it, it's the gift of God, amen? You have to receive it as the gift that it is. In Acts chapter four, verse 12, it's written behind us on the wall, it says, there's salvation in no other, for there's no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved, amen? Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8 and 9, it says, for by grace you have been saved through faith, not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Amen. It's the gift this morning. And it's, listen, that gift is extended to you this morning if you're here and you're lost. God is more than willing. He's demonstrated his love to you, his willingness to save you. You say, well, how did he do that? On the cross. On the cross. So if you're here, you can take that away this morning. But in Matthew chapter five, verse 48, I wanna read that last verse there. This is what the word of God says. Therefore, you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. Man, to be a follower of Jesus, to be a disciple is a high calling, amen? And if you're like me, when I look at those words, when I look at that scripture, it seems overwhelming to me. Be perfect. Like the Father in heaven is perfect. I can't attain it. I can't get there. We read in those first 12 verses what our attitude should be like, right? Poor in spirit. Now think about that one. But you know what? There are times that I know that I'm not poor in spirit. There are times that I'm arrogant. There are times that I'm haughty. There are times that I trust in myself. Says we should mourn, mourn over our sin, but sometimes I don't. Says we should be meek, but sometimes we aren't. We should hunger and thirst for righteousness, but sometimes we hunger and thirst for lesser things. We should be merciful, we should be pure in heart, we should be peacemakers, but sometimes we fail to be those things. We should rejoice, he said, and be glad when we're persecuted, but there are times when we weep and we feel discouraged by persecution, amen? We're supposed to be salt and light in the world, but there's days when we aren't. Maybe I'm alone. But you see, we've been looking at the heart, and we've been seeing some things that we have to war against in our own lives as followers of Christ. We have to fight against the urge to be angry. We have to fight against the urge to lust. We have to fight against having a hard heart, against deceit, against desiring revenge, and against hating other people. Those sinful attitudes tried to overtake us as believers every single day. Every day, we're in a war every day. We just spent a week talking to the kids about putting on the armor of God because they're in a war every day. And if we're not careful, and sometimes if we're honest, we let our hearts slip, amen? And then we read these words from Jesus and we hear him say, be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. It's almost like sticking a knife in your heart and twisting it. But I don't want you to be discouraged by those words. Listen, I want you to understand the gospel. We are made perfect in Christ. When we believe by faith that his death and resurrection paid for our sins, perfect in Him. See, a great exchange took place. Christ took our sins and we received His righteousness. And in that moment, we were justified in the sight of God. That's what the Scripture says. In other words, God in that moment declared us to be righteous, morally perfect because of Jesus and His sacrifice for us. We were clothed in the righteousness of Christ. And at the same time, and I don't want you to get it confused, at the same time, we're in the process of being perfected. Even though we're perfect in morality because of Christ now, God is also working in us to perfect us. There's a verse of scripture in Hebrews that shows this so clearly. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 14. Listen to what it says. It says, for by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. Okay, so you understand He's saying by one offering. We know the offering He's speaking of. Christ offering Himself for our sins. by that one offering, He has perfected us forever. And we are being sanctified, and that means we are being perfected. We are coming into maturity. You see, God has perfected us forever, and yet we see we're in the process of being sanctified, of Him making us holy. That work began when He saved us. You see, when we, I know you know this, but I can't not preach this because it wouldn't be complete without it. You see, when we were lost, we were dead in trespasses and sins, but he made us alive together in Christ. He washed away our sins in his blood. He took out the heart that had been hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, and he put in us a heart of flesh. And the scripture says, we became a new creation in Christ Jesus. The old passed away, and behold, all things became new. That's the moment that we were born again by the Spirit. And that work that he began on that day continues in us every single day as we live our lives. The Holy Spirit, through the word of God, reveals areas in our lives where we need to mature as believers. Areas where we're not yet conformed to His perfect will. We don't yet look the way that we ought to look. And the Lord, listen, the Lord in His faithfulness disciplines us and convicts us And the Bible says that he does that, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Look with me in Hebrews 10, chapter 10. You'll see it there, Hebrews 10 and 10. It says, by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all. And there's the sanctification. But we're also made partakers of his holiness. And the Lord uses, listen, trials to test our faith in him. that we may be made perfect. James chapter one, verses two through four. Just listen to what he says. My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. Amen? And let patience have its perfect work that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. So you begin to see the picture. God perfects us in Christ Jesus. He washes our sins away. He makes us perfect. And yet, He wants to continue that perfection in us, not just inwardly, not just in His sight, but in the eyes of everyone else. He wants to sanctify us. And so he begins to work in us to make us holy. He begins through the Holy Spirit and the Word of God to reveal these areas and then he disciplines and he chastens us and he convicts us that we might partake in his holiness and then he uses these trials of faith, these tests of faith that we might become perfect. And make sure that we are coming to maturity. It's an easy picture to understand when you take it all in context, amen? And I don't want you to be discouraged because this is the Christian life. It's a life of growing in grace and maturity. And with each branch that the Lord prunes from our life, with each time He cuts away another thing about our lives that's displeasing to Him, we become a little more like Him. We reflect His beauty that much more. And our light begins to shine that much brighter, amen? And then we can begin to produce that much more fruit. Listen, Paul in Philippians sums it up this way, Philippians chapter three. He said, not that I have already attained or am already perfected, but I press on that I may lay hold of that which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. In Philippians 1.6, he says this, and you can be equally as confident as Paul. He says, be confident of this very thing. He that has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. Amen? He's going to continue to work in you. And see, my hope is that these truths will provide you some comfort. We're perfect in Christ, but we've not yet attained perfection and sanctification. He's still working on us. This is a lifelong, ongoing work of God in us. It won't be completed until the day that we're glorified together with Him. And I say all that, and then I want to preface it with this. By no means am I saying that we have any reason to excuse or accept sin in our lives. When God reveals a sin in us, we're to confess that sin, we're to repent, that means to turn away from that sin, and we're to put that sin to death. That's God's expectation of us. And our desires as followers of Christ should be that people look at us and see Him. His perfection, His love, His grace, His mercy, His forgiveness and kindness and patience, His peace and His joy, and His hatred of sin. and His holy standard. So our aim is to mature towards perfection. So when you read Matthew 5, 48, and you see it says, be perfect, know that that's an ongoing process, but it should be your everyday goal. Every single day to mature and become more and more like Him. And now let's go to Matthew chapter six together. And I just want to do an overview. We'll keep it as short as we can today, but an overview or introduction or whatever you wanna call it to the first half of this chapter this morning. And then in the coming weeks, we're gonna dive more deeply into these specific things. But I would describe the first half of this chapter like this. It's talking about practical righteousness, hypocrisy, and the secret life of Christians. And let's look at Matthew chapter six, verse one. It sums up the whole first half. And this is what it says. Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men to be seen by them. Otherwise, you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Now, I love the way it's written in the Legacy Standard Bible. He says this. He says, beware of doing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them. Otherwise, you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. I want you to remember that originally there were no chapters and verses in the Bible. And so when Jesus was preaching this sermon, it would have just been a natural continuation of what He has been saying all throughout chapter 5. And what we've been talking about in chapter 5 is living life in the Kingdom. Living a life that pleases God. Still what we're talking about right here. The focus hasn't changed. The message hasn't shifted away from that to something else. We're still talking about how the true Christian lives out their new life in Christ. We have to understand that nowhere in this Bible, and I really want you to see this, nowhere in this Bible will you find an example of someone who comes to Christ and is unchanged. Every person who is born again Every person who experiences true salvation is changed and is being changed. You cannot live the same way you once lived. Because you're not the same person you once were. You see, you've got the same name. And when you look in the mirror, you'll see the same face. You'll see the same person. So outside, you look the same, but inwardly, you're not the same. You've been given a new heart, and you've been indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, amen? Ezekiel 36, 26, 27, he said, I'll give you a new heart, and I'll put a new spirit within you. I'll take the heart of stone out of your flesh, I'll give you a heart of flesh, I'll put my spirit within you, I'll cause you to walk in my statutes, you will keep my judgments and do them. So you can't be the same. And the reason you can't be the same is because if what God says is true, He took the old heart, now He's not talking about the organ, He's talking about the person. He took the old person out and created a new person when you were born again. So you cannot possibly be the same. Listen to me, okay? If you made a profession of faith at one point in your life, maybe you came to an altar, And maybe somebody prayed with you. You might have even cried or something like that. You might have been baptized. You might have been given a Bible with your name inside of it or a certificate of baptism or anything like that. That's all well and good. But if you were not changed and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, if your heart was not different when you got up from that prayer or when you came out of that water, if you didn't have a newfound love for God and a desire to please Him and to know Him and to live for Him, If the next time you sinned, you didn't feel conviction and you didn't care that you sinned, what I'm saying to you this morning is you don't need revival, you need salvation. You need to be born again. You need the new heart and the Holy Spirit. That's what's going to change you, friend. That's what's going to make the difference. And every person who is born again is born into this love for God. they did not have before. And when you're living life in the kingdom, it's different than the life we live outside of the kingdom. It's not the same. Listen, there's a great deception that's taking place in the world today. People are being told that they can be a Christian, that they can follow Christ and remain unchanged. They can just wear a cross around their neck. They can just show up and sit in a church sometimes. They can just say the name of Jesus. All they have to do is say they're a Christian if somebody asks them. They can occasionally post a Bible verse about how good God thinks they are. and their life can look the same as it always did. They can still love their sin. They can still live in their sin. They can still enjoy their sin. They can remain selfish and self-serving. They can remain prideful and arrogant. They can stay consumed with anger and lust and deceit and revenge and hate. They can still consume their lives away with seeking the world and its treasures. But I'm here to tell you this morning, that's a lie. John said this morning when he stood up, he said, what is true? This is true. What God's word says is true. That watered down, weak, fake gospel is not biblical Christianity. That is not the way of Christ. That is not the truth. When you come to Christ, you are radically changed. All things become new. Your desires are different. Your life is different. Your character is different. Your heart is different. The things you love are different. The way you think is different. That makes people uncomfortable. Because it makes people begin to question, am I different? That's exactly what you should be asking yourself today. Am I really different than what I used to be? Not just on the external things, not just I don't let people see the way I really think and feel, but am I different in here? Am I really different? Somebody said, well, I know the Lord saved me because I quit drinking. There's all kinds of lost people that quit drinking. I know the Lord saved me because I don't cuss anymore. I used to cuss. You can quit cussing if you're lost. I'm talking about your heart, the desires of your heart. I want you to see it. That's been the point that we've focused on in every sermon the past few weeks. A new heart, amen? A new heart. A heart that loves God and loves others. That's what Jesus has been talking about and it hasn't changed as we move into chapter 6. It's not some new thing. He's gonna use some very practical and very important things to test something about our hearts, okay? And these things are things that should be a part of the life of every born-again believer. So he picks the right examples, amen? There's three things he talks about in the first half of chapter six. He talks about charitable deeds, or in other words, giving to the poor or alms. He talks about praying. and he talks about fasting. All three of those things should be a part of the believer's life. I know the last one gets people real, being out of shape. But all three of those things should be a part of our lives, amen? He's gonna use those three things, and those are three very good things that every Christian should be doing. Notice, I think it's important that you notice that he just assumes that they're going to be a part of our lives. Those are things we can relate to because they're gonna be a part of what we do as believers. And he's gonna use them to help us see another potential heart issue that could set us back and keep us from growing and maturing to perfection like we talked about earlier. So look in verse one. We see Jesus says, take heed or beware. What does that mean? Well, if you see a sign that says beware, It means you better be careful, right? You better be on guard. There's something dangerous here, something that could hurt you. And what he's getting ready to say is that there's something that you have to watch out for spiritually, something you have to be on guard against. Beware, he says, of doing your righteousness before men. Now, if we just stopped right there, We would have to think to ourselves that this is a contradiction to what we read earlier in Matthew 5. Because in Matthew 5, 16, if you remember, we'll pull it up on the screen. In Matthew 5, 16, he said this. He said, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works. And glorify your Father in heaven. You see that? So here he says, let men see your good works. And then in Matthew 6, verse one, it looks like he's saying, Don't practice righteousness before men. I mean, which one is it? Do we follow Matthew 5? Or do we follow Matthew 6? But the answer is, both are right. In Matthew 5, Jesus is saying, let your light shine so that men will see your good works and they will glorify your Father in heaven. And in Matthew 6, he's saying, don't do works of righteousness Don't do the works of God to be noticed by men so that you would receive glory. You see, this is all about the motivation of our hearts. It's what's going on behind the curtain in the heart. And look at these verses closely and you're going to see it. I'm going to read you a few verses. Matthew 6, verse 2. He says, Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, Don't sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets. Now look what it says right here. That they may have glory from men. Assuredly I say to you that they have their reward. Amen? Alright, what about Matthew 6 verse 5? And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. What about Matthew 6, 16? Moreover, when you fast, don't be like the hypocrites with the sad countenance, for they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. You see, there are people Even people who profess to follow Jesus, who do lots of very good things, things that of themselves are very pleasing to God. They give to the poor. They help others in need. They pray. They fast. But they do them with the motive to be noticed. They do it with the motive to be seen, to be praised, and to be adored by other people. Amen? And Jesus says that we, me and you, all of us need to beware of that. That means that He knows that it can happen to any one of us. He isn't saying don't do these good works. He is saying don't do these good works with the wrong motive, but do them with the right motive. That God may receive the glory and that men may glorify their Father in heaven. This is a pure heart. Remember over in the Beatitudes, he said, blessed are those with a pure heart. This is what a pure heart looks like. In each one of those scriptures that we read, he said, don't be like the hypocrite. The hypocrites, they pretend to do things for God. But in their heart, what they really desire is to be praised by men. Now church, Tell me you don't struggle with it. Tell me this isn't convicting, amen? Tell me. Listen, I'm confessing to you this morning, I have struggled with this in my life. As much as I hate to admit it, At times, I still see this struggle in my life. Still see this struggle in my heart, desiring the praise of men, desiring the accolades and the applause. Wanting and worrying more about impressing other people than impressing God. And let's get very practical this morning about it. This is a very practical passage of scripture. After all, he says, beware that you don't practice your righteousness. When you give to help someone, do you have a tendency or a desire at times to tell others that you did that? You won't brag on yourself. I know you won't do that. But you want to make sure people know that you did this good thing. So you might say something like this, right? You might say, well, you know, I saw somebody the other day, and God love them, they were just so pitiful. They couldn't afford this thing or that thing, so I just bought it for them. But anyways, I just wanted you to pray for them. Maybe they'll get back on their feet. But just help me pray. You see what you've done there? You've tried to disguise it, but what you really wanted to tell them is that you've done something good. You weren't that worried about helping that person. I mean, you wanted to help the person. It's not that you wanted that person to be a bad shaper, you would've just walked off and left him. You were glad you did, but you wanted to make sure that some people said, man, old Bill's a good guy. He's willing to help some people. Those are the things that he's talking about here. How about this? You stand up to preach. I'll be in here, right? I'll take the run of this one. Stand up to preach a sermon or teach a lesson. Do you secretly desire that people will say that you're their favorite preacher or teacher? You do? You do. You say, well, I'm not a preacher or teacher, I don't have to worry about that. Let me tell you something, even in your daily life as a Christian, do you secretly hope that people will see you as godly and admire your spiritual stature? Brag on how spiritual you are? Do you love it when other people like for you to, they invite you to the events? They want you to be the one to speak. They want you to be the one to pray. Do you love it when people call on you to pray? Or what about this? What about when you pray? Let me ask you this question. Does your private prayer life look like your public one? Now I know some who when they're in a group, they pray as loud as they can. They pray as long as they can. Some try to use big formal and fancy words. And I wonder when they go to bed tonight, do they shout the house down in prayer? That's hard, eh? See, when you pray in public, do you hope people say, man, that guy can pray. He was in the spirit. Or are you praying to please the Father. Singers, when you get up to sing, do you secretly hope people will admire you, clap for you, love you the most of all the singers? Or do you hope that God will be pleased, that God will be glorified, that God will get all the praise? You say, well, I don't know. Let me ask you, do you get jealous sometimes when you think somebody else likes somebody else's voice more than yours? They like their songs better than your songs? See, if you're doing it for men, you're doing it for the wrong reason. I'm just being honest this morning. This ain't no shower, is it? What about when you get to the opportunity, like you get that opportunity to witness to somebody? You get the opportunity to share the gospel with someone. Do you come back and sound the trumpet, make sure everybody knows that you witnessed? Just want to make sure everybody knows that I got a chance to tell so and so. Because secretly what you want is everybody to be impressed with how bold you are. How you love how many people you've led to the Lord. When you post that scripture on Facebook of you reading your Bible, that picture. Is it so people will glorify God, or is it because you love it when people click the like button on your post? Huh? When you come to church, is it so that people will say, boy, they never miss? Or is it because you had a desire to do God's work? You see, it all comes down to motive. Why are we doing the things that we're doing? Is our heart truly motivated to point others to God, to have Him be glorified? Do we want God to get all the credit and all the glory and all the praise, or do we want to have a little part of it ourselves? It's a real question. Nasty, it's more important to me. Is your Christianity genuine? Or are you pretending because you want the admiration of others who profess Christ? You're just trying to fit in. You see, that's what it means to be a hypocrite. Did you know that that word hypocrite, that was the word they use, same word that we use for actor. Right? So when somebody was an actor, they weren't a hypocrite. Right? And so the Lord uses that word to kind of show someone who's pretending to be something that they're really not. And those actors back in those days, they didn't have a lot of the same stuff we have today. They didn't have all this fancy stage makeup and all these things, so they would often wear a mask. There's a lot of people sitting in church that wear a mask. You see, this entire section of Scripture, Jesus is talking about genuine righteousness, not something fake. but something real, not just outward, but real righteousness, real righteous things done for the right reasons. You say, man, it keeps getting harder. First, it's not enough that I haven't killed anybody. I can't even be angry. It's not enough that I haven't committed adultery. I'm not even supposed to. And now you're telling me that it's not enough to do good things that please God, I have to do them because I want God to be pleased. And not because I want people to like me. It's getting tough, you know why? Because it's gonna get to a crescendo in Matthew 7, and it'll take us a while to get there, so I can go ahead and say, yeah, you'll forget it by then, baby. But in Matthew 7, it's gonna get to a crescendo where he says, narrow is the way. See, it's squeezing in more and more. It's squeezing in. This is all about our secret life. The motives of our heart. This is challenging, but I want you to understand what it's really saying. What he's saying is this is about dying to self. Self-promotion. the need to be admired, the need to be loved, the need to be applauded, the need to be the center of attention, the need to be praised, the need to be highly thought of, the need to be respected. You die to all those things. This is what Jesus said in Luke chapter nine, verse 23, one of my favorite scriptures. He said to them all, if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me, amen? And that's what we're talking about, dying to self, denying yourself. Philippians chapter two, verses three and four, listen to what it says. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit. Nothing. But in loneliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself. And let each one of you look out not only for his own interest, but also for the interest of others. This is what Christ is talking to us about right here. Not being fake, not doing things for attention, not for selfish ambition, not to be seen or admired, not to be loved, not to be the favorite, not to be everybody's favorite person or favorite preacher or favorite singer or favorite teacher or whatever, but that God may be glorified. that men may see your good works, the things that you do, and know that the only reason that you do them is because God enabled you to do them. You get the focus off you and on Christ, amen? Now this is important, go back and look in verse one. I want you to see this. He said, now take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men to be seen by them. You see, that was the desire, to be seen by them. But look at this next sentence, otherwise, you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Don't miss that. He said if we're not careful about this, we're gonna end up with no reward from our Father in heaven. And that's what's at stake. Jesus told us over and over, lay up treasures in heaven, and that he was coming and that his reward was with him, amen? that he was going to reward us for our lives. We know that each Christian, according to the Bible, each Christian is going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ to receive the rewards for the life that he lived here. Amen? Don't miss that, okay? Look, let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter three. Let's look at it. On this great day, when we stand before God, some people call this the Bema judgment, but we stand before God. This is the believers. This is the believers in 1 Corinthians 3, verses 13 through 15. He says, each one's work will become clear. Each one of us. For the day, capital D, will declare it. Because it will be revealed by fire. And the fire will test each one's work of what sort it is. If anyone's work which he has built on, it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so is through fire. Here's an amazing thing. What Christ is teaching us here in the Sermon on the Mount, we just read about it there in Corinthians three. You see, if your motives are wrong, he's very clear here in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter six. If your motives are wrong, these works that you do will be burned up. They're gonna be burned up. You will have no reward. You see what he says to the, as we read those scriptures, he said, when the Pharisees, when they go out and pray in the streets, and they make big, long prayers, and they're loud so that everybody can hear them, you see what he says? He said, they want to be seen by men, and he said, they have their reward. The men saw them. The men said, man, those Pharisees are something else. And that's what they did. That's it. When they go to give alms or to do charitable deeds or give to the poor, however you want to say it, when they go to do those things, he says if they do that so that men will see them, they sound the trumpet like the hypocrites do, he said they have their reward. You know what, your reward now, you've traded an eternal reward. for somebody to say, man, old Bill, he's a good guy. We have to be so careful of our motives. You see, all the work, it's very possible. I believe Jesus is saying to his disciples, when he says beware or take heed, I believe what he's saying is it's very, very possible that you could spend a lifetime working for him, but because you want others to know about it, Meaningless. You'll have received your reward. You wanted the praise of men and you got the praise of men. But if you desire the eternal rewards of God, you've got to get your heart in check, amen, get your motives fixed, and begin to do things for the glory of God. Now I know what will happen. You preach a message like this for the next three weeks, nobody will get upset. You have to beg people to say something. You know, teachers are going to start quitting and everything else. But listen, that's not the point. The point isn't stop doing the good works that you're doing. The point is get your heart in the right place. Get your heart in the place to where you're not. Listen, I admit it to you already. It's embarrassing. I hate that I have to say it. But I admit to you, stand right here and say, there has been many times that I have done, many things that I have done, I will have no reward for. Because I did it for the wrong reason. I did it for the wrong reason. And I hate that, I hate it. But I see it and I know it. But all I can do now is fix it. All I can do now is make sure that my heart, make sure that my heart is in a good place. That's all I can do, is to make sure that I'm doing the right thing for the right reason. God is so patient with us. I think about that. I think about his good patience with us and how much he loves us and how much he cares about us. I'm so grateful for what he does. I'm so thankful that we have a father like we have a son. Amen? So grateful that we have a father who loves us, who's patient, who's kind, who forgives, who loves, who cares. I'm so grateful that God in the times that I've stood up here to preach, I'm just being honest with you, the times that I've stood up here to preach and really the motive of my heart was to get you to think I was a great preacher. I'm so thankful that during those times that God was patient with me and endured with me so that I might really truly understand the truth. I want to do the work of God for God. I want you to be, I want you to like it, I want those things, but if you don't, I gotta be okay with that. If you get up to sing and somebody don't like your singing, you just gotta be okay with that. Remember who you're singing to. You're singing to God. If you go to do something, do it for God. You say, I gave this person money, but I don't know what they did with it. Did you give it to them for God? That God would be glorified to help somebody in a time of need. Be glad in that. Everybody don't have to know. Listen, we're living in a dangerous time. Right now, we think that everybody has to know everything we're doing. That you've got to broadcast everything you do on Facebook. You don't. You don't. You can have a life that not everybody knows about. Amen? One that pleases God. You don't have to sound the trumpet. Listen, here's what I know for sure. We read through these scriptures, you're gonna find out God says the things done in secret, he'll reward openly. One day you'll have a good reward. Everybody will know it. Amen? Everybody will know it. But until then, just live this life for Christ. That's the main thing. Amen? As we stand together this morning. Thank you for your patience with me. Thank you for Sticking through me with this sermon on the map. Stacy asked me this morning, she said, are we still in the sermon on the map? We're still there. I'm not giving up yet. I am there to start things and not finish. But I hope we can work our way all the way through it. I hope you stayed with me through it. Listen, let me say this. All these things that are listed right there, everything that's in those scriptures, he's gonna tell us about how to do them right. how to pray right, how to give alms right, how to fast right. We need to know those things, amen? But as we stand together this morning, my question to you is, as you begin to search your heart, how's your motives been lately? How's your motives been? Are you at a place where you need to begin to come up here and kneel down at this altar and pray and say, God, help me to get my motives right. Help me to do the things I do for you, not for me. If you're in that place today, won't you come pray? There's no shame in that.