Sermon Transcript

Alright, we are in the book of Matthew today, Church, so you can go ahead and turn your Bibles over to Matthew 6. So today, Jesus is going to continue to teach us what it means to be disciples. Jesus is building a kingdom. And He’s still building that kingdom today. My hope is that every single one of you will take seriously what it means to be a Christ-following disciple and a citizen of His kingdom.

But that’s not all I’m asking you to do today. And neither is Jesus. Jesus wants you to take seriously your citizenship to the point that you understand your job is to go out from these doors and to find those who are lost and bring them into God’s kingdom as well. He plucked you out of darkness, and we should have hearts for those who still reside in that darkness.

So, as a result, Church, that means that we make disciples. And part of making disciples is following through on the Great Commission. Jesus says,

Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18–20, CSB)

So we make disciples, Church, and making disciples means that we teach them to obey all the commands of Christ. And today, we get to see more of those commands. Jesus is going to walk us through three acts of righteousness that served as pillars of ancient Judaism. And all three of these, they didn’t just belong to ancient Jews and modern Jews. They also belong to Christians. We’re going to see that Jesus actually expects that we perform all three of these. That’s giving to the poor, praying, and fasting. But when we do these good deeds, we must do them with the intention of earning the attention of only one, God Himself.

My hope for you today is that you love your Father in heaven so much, and that you know Him so well that He will be the only one you hope to impress with these three acts of righteousness.

So Church, stand with me as we read Matthew 6. We’re going to read the first eight verses of chapter 6. We’re going to skip over the Lord’s Prayer, because we’re going to come back there next week. That deserves its own sermon. And then we’re going to jump forward to verses 16 through 18.

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. Otherwise, you have no reward with your Father in heaven. So whenever you give to the poor, don’t sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be applauded by people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward. But when you give to the poor, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “Whenever you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward. But when you pray, go into your private room, shut your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. When you pray, don’t babble like the Gentiles, since they imagine they’ll be heard for their many words. Don’t be like them, because your Father knows the things you need before you ask him.…Whenever you fast, don’t be gloomy like the hypocrites. For they make their faces unattractive so that their fasting is obvious to people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting isn’t obvious to others but to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:1-8, 16–18, CSB)

This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated, Church. Let’s pray.

Father in heaven and Father in this room, I pray that today You would fill me with the Holy Spirit, Lord, to proclaim Your word in a way that makes us love You more deeply, cherish Your omnipresence, adore Your all-knowing attribute, and to deeply rest in the peace that comes from knowing that You are always near. Father, my brain is all over the place today. I need You to help me to be singularly focused and attuned to the words of the Spirit. Please give me that strength to do that now. I thank You for the grace that we are here, that we, as a Church, get to see and feed on the words of Christ as He preached the greatest sermon known to man. Lord, help us. Give us ears to hear and eyes to see. And I pray, Lord, that even before this sermon ends, there would be more people to walk through that door. I ask You, Father, that You would please be with every one of us today and protect us all from the enemy who seeks to thwart us from feeding on Your word. Protect our equipment, protect our mics, protect our people. Surround this place with a hedge of Your heavenly army. And now we ask to take a seat and to hear You speak to us. In Christ’s precious name we pray, amen.

All right, so if you’re a guest with us for the first time today, we go by sermon leaflet notes in the bulletin. So as we go through this, you can follow along and fill in those blanks.

Main point: We must embrace a secret righteousness because we enjoy sweet fellowship with the Father.

My hope, Church, for you today is that you will leave and embrace a secret righteousness, but not just a secret righteousness for righteousness’ sake. I want you to embrace this secret righteousness because we enjoy sweet fellowship with our Heavenly Father.

Now, of course, you might be wondering at this point, what in the world does it mean, secret righteousness? A secret righteousness is one that only seeks to impress your Heavenly Father, and not any fellow human being, just one. The one who loves you, the one who is near, the one who is in this room, the one who is with you in your bedroom when you wake up in the morning, the one who is with you as you struggle with your children, the one who is with you as you crack your knuckles at work, the sweat of your brow, whatever you are doing, the Lord is with you in the room and that is the only one that you are seeking to impress. That is a secret righteousness. Your thoughts of what others think of you as a result of your behavior flee from your mind.

1. We must only seek accolades from the Father by a secret righteousness (6:1)

And that brings us to our first point. Church, we must seek accolades from the Father by a secret righteousness. We must seek accolades from the Father by a secret righteousness. We see this at the beginning of verse 1. “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.” (Matthew 6:1) To be seen is very important for you to hear and hang on to. Because otherwise, you might wonder why this does not contradict Matthew 5:16. In Matthew 5:16, Jesus says, “Let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works.” Isn’t this a contradiction? It’s not. You see, in Matthew 5:16, He says, “Let them see your good works so that they would worship your Father in heaven.” But here in Matthew 6:1, He’s saying, “Don’t practice your righteousness to be seen by others where the attention is now on you and not the Father who loves you.” That’s where you must turn your gaze. That must be the seat of your motivations, causing the world to worship Him a little bit better than they did before. Motive is key.

And in verse 2, you actually see what it means to be seen by others. You see, they’re sounding their trumpets because they want to be glorified. The King James knocked it out of the park for this one. The King James is the only one that uses the word glorify. And this is the Greek word here. It’s a beautiful picture of us recognizing that only God has the weight. Only He deserves to receive the accolades from men. We do not deserve to seek accolades from other men. And that’s exactly what they’re trying to do when they try to practice their righteousness. But that is not right for God’s people.

a. Secret righteousness is the opposite of self-glorification (see v. 2)

Secret righteousness is the opposite of self-glorification. At this point, you might be going, well, yeah, seeking any kind of glory is just straight up wrong. But you see, Jesus is actually not saying that at all. He’s saying, “Seek glory.” You might be looking at this text and going, Josh, I don’t see that. I’m going to help you see that today. He wants you to seek glory, praise, and honor. The trick is, where are we seeking it from?

b. The reward for secret righteousness is praise, glory, and honor on judgment day from the Father (Matthew 10:32; John 12:26; 1 Peter 1:6-7).

The reward for secret righteousness is praise, glory, and honor on judgment day from the Father. There will come a day when everyone will be repaid for their works. And if the blood of Jesus Christ does not cover you, then you will be repaid for every wrong that you have done. This is why it is so important, Church, to never lose sight of God’s wrath on the cross.

The Church, many churches are now afraid to talk about hell and damnation, and God’s anger and God’s wrath. But you see, we all had a disease, and there was only one person who could cure that disease, and that was Jesus Christ. If you’re in India’s Bible study, you would have learned in the book of Romans this great word known as propitiation, which is satisfying the wrath of God by making an offering. That is Jesus on the cross. We will be repaid for our bad works, everything that we have ever done wrong, and not just actions, but thoughts as well, unless Jesus is your propitiation, unless He has paid the penalty on your behalf.

But we will receive rewards for our good works as well. And that is praise, glory, and honor. How do we know that? 1 Peter 1:6-7:

[For now] you suffer grief in various trials so that the proven character of your faith—more valuable than gold which, though perishable, is refined by fire—may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (CSB; emphasis added)

When Jesus comes back, He’s going to look at His people, and He’s going to celebrate the good that we have done, and He is going to look at us and say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21). That is the praise, glory, and honor that we pine for as creatures. But people, we are taking it from the wrong source. We are trying to grab it from sinners, the same sinners who hung our Savior on the cross. If they killed a perfect man, then why are we fighting for their approval? It makes no sense. But by secret righteousness, we get the beautiful opportunity to be praised by the God who loves us.

John 12:26 is another example.

If anyone serves me, he must follow me. Where I am, there my servant also will be. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. (CSB)

So it’s not wrong to seek honor, glory, and praise. But we must seek it from the Father who loves us. But you see, seeking glory is not the only motivation for a secret righteousness.

2. We must prefer sweet fellowship with the Father over empty glory from fellow humans.

You can also practice your good deeds privately because, next point, we must prefer sweet fellowship with the Father over empty glory from fellow humans.

There is this terrifying, repeated phrase that Jesus gives in our passage today. He says, “they have received their reward” three times. Church, what you must understand is, He’s using a specific Greek word that says they are receiving their reward in full (ἀπέχω, apékhō). The account is paid in full.

If you want to receive glory from man, and you do an act of righteousness specifically to get man’s attention, Jesus is saying that is all you will get. Church, hear me carefully. That means that when you get to heaven, or God returns to earth, whichever comes first, when you stand before Him, if you sought to get glory from man, it will be as though you never did those good deeds at all. Because you seek it from man, whatever you get from man, your account is paid in full. There is no more recompense for you. Church, that is ultimately trying to trade an eternal weight of glory for this candy that we get from our fellow sinners. Makes no sense.

But now that you have seen that, we must prefer this sweet glory that we get from our sweet Father, our passage shows us good reasons to pursue a private righteousness. Our passage actually shows us what kind of sweet fellowship we get. We get to see beautiful attributes of this God who loves us.

First, Church, we get to see that the God who loves us is omnipresent. We see this very clearly in verses 4, 6, and 18 when He says, your Father who sees in secret, we can give to the poor, pray, and fast secretly because our Father always sees us. That’s the beautiful part. He is omnipresent. He is everywhere. There is nowhere you can go on planet Earth or thought you can think, good or bad, that God does not see or know about. He is everywhere. You cannot hide from Him. But for those who are seeking God’s glory, honor, and praise, that is a comforting thought. For those who recognize that God loves them, that is a very comforting thought.

I’ve recently, in the last few weeks, been rocked by this thought. I’ve known it for years, but I’ve really been meditating on this idea. More like God’s been feeding my soul and forcing me to think through it. And I’m really grateful. I’ve actually started praying with my eyes open because I’m looking around the room as I pray, and I’m going, the fullness of God is there and there and there. And He’s hearing me right now because He’s with me in this room. So if you ever see me praying with my eyes open, that’s why. I think, honestly, people close their eyes when they pray because they’re trying to focus better. But I find that I’m thinking of everything else when my eyes are closed. And so it actually, ironically, by having my eyes open, looking for the fullness of God in every crevice of a room, it helps me focus. So God is everywhere. Your Father is omnipresent.

But we can pursue this private righteousness motivated by sweet fellowship with the Father for another reason. He is all-knowing. You see, when He says, do not pray like the Gentiles who babble on with their many words, thinking by their many words, they’ll be heard. He says, your Father knows what you need before you ask it. He is all-knowing. He knows your needs.

Let me give you comfort right now. Who here in this room has started praying, and they were a little bit reluctant to pray because they know the list of things to pray for is so long that it almost makes you want to procrastinate. Has anybody ever felt that? Thank you for your honesty. Well, I do. And because there’s a lot, especially if you read the news, you never run out of things to pray for if you read the news. Well, you see, this is a comforting reality because our God is omniscient, meaning He knows all things. It’s okay if we don’t pray for everything because the God who loves us knows it and He is going to tend to them. That’s what Jesus is intending to comfort you with when He says your Father knows what you need before you ask.

But that’s not the only motivation. We have another motivation to pursue this sweet fellowship with the Father and that is He is personally near. I love this subtle shift in the way things are said. You see, in the first two, in verses 4 and 6, you see it says the God who “sees in secret” and then you look at verse 6, your Father who sees in secret but He also says in verse 6 and in 18, He says something a little bit differently. He says, “your Father who is in secret” and then in verse 18, He says the same thing, “your Father who is in secret.”

When it comes to fasting, this wording is key. Because when you’re fasting, what are you actually doing? You’re doing a lack of a thing. It’s not something that’s observable, like giving to the poor, right? Or praying. Those are things you can witness and see take place. But by definition, fasting is a negative activity. It’s a thing of not doing. And so it says here that God is in the secret. He is in the secret thing. So even when you are not doing a thing, the Lord is in that not doing. Folks, the idea that He is communicating to you is that God is near. You see, we can have an omnipresent God who is everywhere, no matter where we go, but that doesn’t mean He wants to be near us. This is the beautiful part. Not only is He everywhere, but He wants to be near you. He’s in the secret things that you do.

And then the last motivation that I want you to pick up on is, folks, He cares for you. And this is going to be really clear in the next chapter of Matthew when He says in Matthew 7:9-11,

Who among you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him. (CSB)

So now that we have seen that we will benefit and enjoy sweet fellowship by pursuing secret righteousness, I want us to look at the illustrated examples that Jesus provides.

3. We enjoy sweet fellowship with the Father in…

So, we can enjoy sweet fellowship with the Father in secret sacrifices.

a. Secret sacrifices (6:2–4)

That’s the next point in your bulletin. We can enjoy sweet fellowship with the Father in our secret sacrifices. And this is what He means by almsgiving, right? I think the King James Version has “do alms”, which simply means giving to the poor. This is a sacrifice for us. And Jesus, you’ll notice that He says, “whenever you give to the poor.” Folks, what does that mean? Jesus assumes that His followers are giving to the poor. It’s not “if you give to the poor.” It’s a when you give to the poor. Okay, if that wasn’t clear enough, folks, you should be giving to the poor. Okay? Give to the poor.

“Don’t be like the hypocrites who sound their trumpets” (v. 2). Where are they sounding them? Don’t be like the hypocrites because they’re sounding their trumpets “in the synagogues and on the streets.” Who here has anything but the word streets in their Bible translation? Okay, so here’s what I want you to know. This word in Greek is a word that refers to a small alleyway (ῥύμη, rhýmē). Okay? If I’m standing on the corner of Capitol Boulevard at a big red light, what is that? Eight lanes of traffic, right? Two on each side, and then you got a cross juncture, right? If I’m standing there and I’m blowing a trumpet, does that hurt your ears? No.

Well, now I want you to imagine this. Go stand in the small space between this building and the next and blow a horn. How’s that going to feel on your ears? It’s going to pierce your eardrum. The same Greek word in our text would be used to describe that small space in between our buildings. That’s the location where they are blowing this horn.

Has anyone here ever been to some kind of a museum that lets you walk into a replica of a first-century Jewish synagogue? There’s one that you can see in the Bible Museum in Washington, D.C. My wife and I were there a couple of weeks ago. I can tell you right now, if somebody blows a horn in that room, I’m going to react in a way that will be visceral because it is going to split your ears from the echo. It is basically just a stone room with nothing but an echo.

Jesus is saying, these people are so hungry for self-glorification, they blow trumpets to bring attention to themselves in the most grating, annoying places. I think Jesus is using the trumpet metaphor to show you how God feels about it. And not only God, but your self-glorification annoys other people too. Sometimes the best way to make friends is to just sit down and shut up. But these people are so hungry for attention, they can’t help themselves. There is no room for a follower of Jesus to practice that kind of self-glorification.

But also, I really have fallen in love with this illustration that we get from Cornelius. He is a Gentile leader in the book of Acts 10. I’m going to read this passage for you because it’s a really beautiful illustration of what happens when we are giving to the poor, what happens in the spiritual world between us and God’s throne. Listen to this. This is Acts 10:1-4.

There was a man in Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian Regiment. He was a devout man and feared God along with his whole household. He did many charitable deeds [the same Greek word for almsgiving that Jesus is using here in Matthew 6] for the Jewish people and always prayed to God. About three in the afternoon he distinctly saw in a vision an angel of God who came in and said to him, “Cornelius.” Staring at him in awe, he said, “What is it, Lord?” The angel told him, “Your prayers and your acts of charity have ascended as a memorial offering before God. (CSB)

Church, when you give to the poor, you are sending an offering that makes its way all the way to God’s throne. And He knows it’s directly from you. Your almsgiving is not simply just giving someone money and then driving off as though it doesn’t make a dent. Because though it may not change someone’s life, every time you give to the poor, you are showing God how much you love Him, and that is all that should matter to you.

b. Private prayer (6:5–8)

The second illustration Jesus offers is private prayer. On your bulletin, private prayer. This is seen in verses 5-8. Jesus, again, He says, “when you pray,” He does not say “If you pray.” So Church, that means you should be praying. And if you ask most Christians, what in their Christian walk do they wish they did more of? Almost every single one of them will tell you, pray.

Jesus says, don’t be like the hypocrites. What do they do? Church, they only pray after they stand up. They stand up in the synagogues and on the street corners. The point is, hypocrites, fake Christians, fake religious elite, they do not like to pray unless people are looking at them. That has no room for the Kingdom of God. It’s not befitting of Christ followers.

But that’s not the only thing. He also says, “Do not be like the Gentiles.” Because the Gentiles, they babble on forever and ever. And this word is actually a really tricky word. Scholars are not sure what it means because it’s not used very much. The one time it is used is actually in what they call Magic Papyri. These are scrolls that describe these magical cantations that Gentile nations would use. And they believe they were speaking some kind of god-language, a heavenly language. But it’s unintelligible to human ears. So this verb here is probably related to that. But the idea that Jesus is painting for us is that it very clearly means that you are just going on and on and on, not stopping, and you’re just babbling because you think that your many words earn God’s ears.

Folks, listen carefully. There is nothing that you can do to earn God’s ear. There is only one person who has done everything necessary to earn God’s favor, and that’s Jesus Christ. So you lie down in that sweet, comfortable bed that He has made for you, and you just bask in God’s grace and peace that He offers you. You do not have to utter elaborate, gorgeous prayers that would look really great on a Hallmark card because when the Father hears you pray, He hears the voice of His Son, and you will be heard. So do not be like the Gentiles and babble on endlessly with nonsense. Just know you say, Jesus, please heal me. The Father has heard you. We don’t have to babble. He hears us. We do not have to earn His ear.

c. Heart-centered humility (6:16-18)

And then the last illustration He gives us is a heart-centered humility. Jesus says, “When you fast.” Church, that means you should be fasting. “What?” “This is America. We don’t fast. What is this?” So maybe you might be asking, “What is fasting, and why would they do it?”

In Ancient Israel, there were four reasons for fasting. One of them is found in the Old Testament. If you’re taking notes, just go ahead and write down Leviticus 23:27, and then verse 29, and then verse 32. Leviticus 23, that’s where you find it. But this is a fast that is prescribed for the Day of Atonement. Later, they added a second reason to fast: the Jewish New Year. The third reason they would fast is the anniversary of long-remembered tragedies from Jewish history. One of them, for example, is when Moses broke the two stone tablets that had the Ten Commandments on them. That was something they would fast for every year as they commemorated it. And then the last one is during times of national crises like drought and famine.

But in all of these corporate or private fasts, they were trying to do one thing: humble their hearts and seek God with repentance. It was a thing of mourning. But you see, Israel had this history where they thought they could earn God’s favor by fasting. That was the problem. You want to learn more about that, you can check out Isaiah 58. They were upset that they had fasted in Isaiah 58 and that God wasn’t noticing. And God’s saying, “You cannot earn My attention and My favor by fasting. This is the fast that I prefer. I prefer a fast with a broken heart. A torn heart, not torn shirts.”

And when they would fast, historically, they would fast by sometimes wearing sackcloth. But almost every time they would put ash on their faces. And this is what Jesus means when He says, “Do not be like the hypocrites because they look sullen, sad, and they cover their faces.” Some translations say “disfigure”. The irony here is that the Greek verb being used means they are hiding their faces, but they hide their faces to be seen. They hide their face with ashes to get attention. So don’t be like them. We don’t have to be like the hypocrites and look sad and sullen.

So how do we hide our evidence of fasting? Jesus says, “You put oil in your hair and you wash your face.” In other words, you take off the ashes, the evidence that you are fasting. Why? Because your Father is in the secret things. He knows what you’re doing. This is Jesus’s target, Church. Jesus is after us to pursue humility within our own hearts so that when we pray, we are praying with that humility. We have the same humility of Christ when we seek God from a place of repentance. And as the book of James says, the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective (James 5:16). Fasting helps facilitate that.

Conclusion

In all three of these activities, no one was better than Jesus. Jesus gave to the poor. And every one of us is poor in God’s sight. Because every one of us are sinners. Every single one of us deserve hell and damnation. We are spiritually poor and Christ gave up His life. And He didn’t do it for His own glory. He did it because He wanted the Father’s will to be done. We know that because of His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Father, not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42). He is seeking to elevate the Father.

Jesus prayed. We know that He would get up early in the morning to escape the crowds so that He can go pray in private. Right? And Jesus always gave sacrificially for the Father’s notice and no one else’s. So when Jesus met the Father, you can bet your bottom that the Father looked at Him and said, “Well done, My good and faithful Son.” And you see, yeah, we will hear if we persevere, persevere in our faith, we will hear, “Well done, my good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21).

But here’s what I want you to never forget. We get the same benefit of being His sons and daughters just like Jesus. He is no longer just our God and our Lord. We get to identify with our Heavenly Father by this term of endearment, my Father. Some of us don’t have fathers, and that’s difficult for us to comprehend. Well, here’s what I can tell you. If you have not had a father who shows you the love that you deserve, as a human, the Father who loves you is the one who will die for you. He sent His Son to pay for your sins so that you could live. He cares for you. He’s everywhere you go. You’re never alone. You’re never without Him. He’s always near you. He cares for you. And He will give you everything you ask for in righteousness. He tenderly loves and cares for you. And that’s why Jesus says, “He who follows Me is My brother and sister” (Matthew 12:50). We are part of a family that no blood can hold a candle to.

So let’s go to our Father now.

I thank You, Father, for showing up and glorifying Yourself today. That we get to see Your beautiful presence. That we get to sense Your nearness, Your omnipresence, Your omniscience, Your all-knowing, Lord, we bask in the peace that You and only You can offer to us. Please draw near to us, Lord. And help us to walk out and practice that secret righteousness as we seek glory and honor and praise from You alone. In Jesus’ name, amen.