Sermon: Private Religion
Performing Our Righteous Acts in Secret
#1709
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 20-May-23; 79 minutes
description: Over the years, the godless Hollywood movie moguls have enjoyed creating a stereotype or caricature of a religious zealot, sadly having a plentitude of real material to draw from, including the glossolalia performed by charismatic evangelicals. Every religion on earth employs titles of aplomb and extravagant displays of piety to draw attention to themselves. Jesus Christ insisted that His followers should display little public piety, keeping their daily walk with God outgoing, private, and personal. Someone misusing piety to draw attention to themselves to enhance reputation destroys character and they will not enter the Kingdom of God. In the semantic drift of the word "hypocrite" the connotation is of donning a mask for deceiving or lying, a deadly mortal sin (Revelation 21:8). In the three separate parts of Matthew 6:1-18, focusing upon charity, prayer, and fasting, Jesus insists that these acts of righteousness be done in private, not practiced before other people, and that all acts of righteousness be regular habitual practice, as natural as breathing. The acts of righteousness performed by His saints in secrecy, privacy, and inconspicuousness shall be rewarded by God publicly.
transcript:
Now we have all watched a lot of television and movies over the years. I am sure none of us are like Ted Williams, who during his whole baseball career would never go to a theater or watch a movie in any way because he did not want it to hurt his eyes so he could bat 400, like he did at least once.
But we have seen a lot of movies. We are very video conscious people, we get it on our TVs and our theaters and on our computers and even on our phones, which we carry around with us all the time. So we have seen a lot of movies and we have been able to figure out a lot of the stereotypes that movie makers and television show producers like to throw in there. So a story will be going on its merry way and a new character enters the scene. And because of our experience with video like this, we know immediately, at first sight or first sound, that this new character is the religious fanatic. And that religious fanatic will end up being mocked or hated throughout the rest of the show.
The character, as a actors do, you know, they exaggerate things, but the character is over-devout, wears his or her religion on his sleeve or her sleeve. They pray at the drop of a hat and they are often shown looking in disapproval or offense or horror at the other characters' faults and sins. So it is a caricature of the religious person. It is religion as Hollywood sees it. And so, as they see it, that is something to be ridiculed or derided as much as they can because, let us face it, a lot of them are irreligious and perfectly amoral.
Now, while we may criticize Hollywood writers and producers for this sort of thing, they are in actuality working with real world materials when it comes to this, and simply exaggerate it just a little bit. That is all they have to do. Just tweak it a little bit to make it obvious because many religious people in this world act pious. They frequently criticize others for their failings. They make a show of praying in public places and make a big deal out of their church going and charitable works and their obvious closeness to Jesus. They put Bible verses on their car bumpers, they wear religious symbols as jewelry or they have them on their clothing. They publish their religious activity on social media and wish God's blessing on everyone they see—because they are a good person. I would wager we all know or have seen someone like this. Maybe we were once like this. Or we have a family member like this.
Whole denominations in the world make a point of shoving their piety in everybody's face. The one that comes to mind first off is Charismatics. They do this with speaking in tongues, their ability to speak in the "language of angels" is a sign, they say, of their holiness and how much God loves them. They claim the Lord has gifted them with this strange, useless talent. Most often, this talent actually makes them look and sound ridiculous, whether they are hysterically laughing or braying like a donkey or roaring like a lion or speaking in absolute gibberish; and that brings no glory to God. What it actually does is draw attention to the person who is doing them.
I am going to be a equal opportunity criticizer here. The Jews, especially the Orthodox, have their way of grooming and dressing to show their piety in public. Like the Pharisees from which they descended, they make an outward show of their devotion to the law. Muslims too with their hajibs and public prayers, and the haj to Mecca, and so forth, are no better. It seems like every religion tries to make it plain, an outward show, to make everybody understand that they are religious. Even the Tibetan monks dress in a way that you know immediately that that is a Tibetan monk.
Many churches actually require their clergy to dress in various robes or maybe they have a stiff collar, like the Catholics with their little white square right there in the midst of their collar, because they want to be seen immediately as God's chosen servant. People call them reverend and vicar and father, all titles that are actually blasphemous once you know what they actually stand for.
Some churches, many Christian churches (Catholic churches seem to be the worst at this), display ostentatious wealth to show how much God has blessed them and to impress both their parishioners and the public with their blessedness and power. They have the largest cathedrals, the highest steeples, the largest choirs, and the grandest stained glass windows. They have works of art that line their halls, painted by the masters. Their ceilings are painted by Michelangelo. They have statuary that should be in museums but are actually in working facilities.
Over in this part of the world, with Protestants mostly, have ministers with healing ministries where they televise God's gift of healing, at least what they think is God's gift of healing, to millions of people, to the public, and they rake in millions of dollars by taking advantage of sick and fearful people who really just want to be well, be healthy again, unless they are in on it. And that is possible, an Elmer Gantry type of thing.
Other ministers, this is not so much today, but back when I was a little bit younger, these ministers cry huge tears of shame and regret on national television to show their grief over a sin. And then there are a lot of people, a lot of these ministers, that use pious sounding vocal tricks to make them appear sincere and devoted to God, where their words just drip like honey. And everybody knows that they are a religious and very humble man. And then of course, there are those who pump iron for the Lord and do all kinds of ridiculous things, and it is all for Jesus—and I have yet to figure out how that works.
Is it any wonder, then, after that litany of things, of descriptions, why Hollywood grabs on to religious hypocrisy and mocks it so relentlessly? It is so blatant and so contrary to the meek and humble spirit that most of these religions profess, but yet they do it anyway, these people. As atheists or agnostics, Hollywood types cannot help pointing it out and painting all religious people with the same brush.
Jesus, however, never said we should do this. In fact, He says we should do the opposite of these descriptions. Jesus has explicit and very strong instruction on this subject and that appears next in our ongoing study of the Sermon on the Mount. His vision of true religion has little public pomp and ceremony, no religiosity or any kind of dramatic public expression of piety. He is not interested in that. The religion He teaches is essentially outgoing, private, and personal, which He explains in the first 18 verses of Matthew 6. And we will focus on that three-part passage today.
Now I am going to assume you understand that when I say essentially outgoing, private, and personal, I am not including the fellowship of the church or holy convocations or that sort of thing. Those are the sorts of things we do as a community. But in our day-to-day walk with God, our religion is essentially outgoing, private, and personal.
I want to read these first 18 verses of Matthew 6 just so we know the whole scene here that is going on.
Matthew 6:1-18 "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. Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.
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. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.
In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites with a 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. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly."
Except four verses, 9 through 13, which is the section on the Model Prayer, this part of His Sermon on the Mount contains little that is difficult to understand. Now, there are some pretty deep things in the Model Prayer but that is something for another time.
It is very clear from reading all of this, that Jesus stresses genuineness and sincerity in serving others, and in prayer and in fasting. And He shows us in each one of these three categories that our piety, our devotion, if you will, should be private. It is not for public consumption. It is not to draw attention to oneself and it is not to enhance one's personal reputation. These righteous deeds that we are to be doing are in every case to be seen by God alone.
Now, if we look at this though, I would say what I just said within the last minute or so is a very good overview of what is being said here. But there is more to it than that. As a whole, this 18-verse section of Matthew 6 is a rather stern warning from our Savior that serving God for self undermines the whole process of character and relationship development with God.
If we are serving God for selfish means or in a hypocritical way to get something for ourselves ourselves, then we are actually doing ourselves a disservice when it comes to character development and drawing closer to God. He says very plainly, the praise and the glory of men will be such a person's only reward. If we are doing this to aggrandize ourselves or trying to do it to spice up our reputation or build our ego, well, all we are going to get is the praise of men. What He is saying without saying it is that a hypocrite like this or a self-satisfying person like this, will not be in the Kingdom of God.
Let us go to a few places and see His condemnation of hypocrisy and hypocrites. Let us go to chapter 15. We will read verses 7-9.
Matthew 15:7-9 "Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: 'These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.'"
Did you notice the wording here that He used? Saying these are not My people, their heart is far from Me and they worship in vain, their worship is futile. It is not going to get them what they want.
Let us move on to chapter 23. Obviously He talks about scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites throughout this whole chapter. But let us just pick out verse 13 and verse 25.
Matthew 23:13 "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in."
That is a pretty sound condemnation.
Matthew 23:25 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence."
Which we have seen already in Matthew 6, that they are indulging themselves in doing these supposed acts of righteousness out in public to be seen by other people.
Matthew 24:48-51 "But if that evil servant says in his heart, 'My master is delaying his coming,' and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
So He compares here hypocrisy to beating a fellow servant. Neither will be in the Kingdom of God. They will be thrown out and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Our English word hypocrite is a transliteration of hypokrites. Almost the exact same word, which is Strong's 5273. I know that we have heard sermons and read articles about hypocrisy enough that we do not need to belabor the point. But one of the things I want to bring out here is that when you go and look at a definition in a lexicon or some sort of Bible dictionary, you have to understand that there are times when a word evolves.
Now, the Greek language has been around for a long time and because of their history and culture and those things that happen, the words change meaning. I mean, even in English words change meaning. Conversation used to mean something else way back in 1611 when the King James was written. And other words are like that too so you have to be very specific about which definitions you use for a word. The definition for hypokrites actually has about five or six definitions to it. They range from the early way the Greeks understood it all the way up to how they understand this word today. And so you have to be a little bit careful about which word you pick out as the definition because that could skew, actually, your entire way of looking at a particular doctrine, let us say.
So I want you to hear the evolution (I know that is normally a bad word, but it just means a process of change), of the word hypokrites. Originally, it was one who gives an answer or a response, like a judge if there was a trial and there were an argument on the prosecutor's end and an argument on the defense side. It was the judge who was the one to give an answer or to respond and give his judgment. So that was the original meaning of this word.
Then after a while it changed a little bit to an interpreter. That is, it mostly moved from these ideas of judgment into the arts, mostly on stage. And the interpreter, hypokrites, was one who gave sense to a poet's or a playwright's words. Now, he made it with his actions. Maybe he did a dance, maybe he showed some sort of vocal variety or gestures or whatever to make it plain to the audience what the poet or the playwright was trying to say. That is the second one, but it is not the one that is mostly used in the Bible.
The third one after it became an interpreter was an actor, a player on a stage. He was someone who did this, interpreted in a Greek play. Sometimes it might have been even the chorus where they were explaining things to the audience. That is a small step. We will go then to the next step which became more general. And that is that the hypokrites is a dramatizer. He takes something normal and makes it all dramatic. He then is a pretender, and then if he is a pretender, he is a deceiver. He is taking something that should be, let us say normal, and puffing it up and making it more dramatic and pretending it is something else, something greater than it is. And so he is deceiving whoever is watching.
And the last two, then, once it got this idea of being a pretender or a deceiver, it moved into general society and the hypokrites became a moral or religious counterfeit, somebody who was not really moral or religious but acted as if he were. And so the final one, bringing it into the modern era, is what we understand as a hypocrite: someone who pretends to be something that he is not.
Just has a little explanation on the stage part here from Vines Expository Dictionary, "It was a custom for Greek and Roman actors to speak in large masks with mechanical devices for augmenting the force of the voice. Hence, the word became used metaphorically of a dissembler." A liar.
Let us go to Revelation 21, verse 8 and just ram that point home that such people will not be in the Kingdom of God. Now, it does not use the word hypocrite here, but it does use a similar word.
Revelation 21:8 But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.
Hypocrisy is a very, very serious sin. It is pointed out throughout the Bible as something we must avoid with all we can muster because the human heart has a tendency toward hypocrisy, just as it has a tendency toward all sin because of human nature. It wants people, wants others to see it as something different than it is, better than it is. They want to put themselves in the best light—and we all want to do this. We do not want people to see us as we really are. I mean, do you really? I mean, you know your own secrets faults. Do you want other people to know about those things? And so, like the Greek actor, we put a mask on and pretend.
Now, we can keep our sins from other people. That is not the problem, especially if we are busy trying to overcome them. But trying to mask them by hypocrisy is a whole 'nother ballgame.
What is the takeaway so far? The takeaway is that Jesus, who is our Judge, considers hypocrisy and self-aggrandizement to be disqualifying sins, if you will. Misusing acts of righteousness to fluff one's ego or to increase one's power, reputation, or standing, are missing the mark—hamartia, sin. And sin will keep you out of the Kingdom of God, if you do not repent of it. Misusing acts of righteousness is stealing God's glory, taking it for oneself. Misusing acts of righteousness then is a form of idolatry. You are idolizing yourself.
I tried to figure out how many commandments hypocrisy actually breaks and I came up with a good five, I think. And possibly more if you are talking about that it breaks the idolatry commands. It certainly breaks the third commandment, taking God's name in vain. It also breaks commandment number eight on stealing, and number nine on false witness, and probably also breaks number ten because you are coveting the glory that other people can give you, the praise, and that sort of thing. So, it does a lot of damage to one's character to be a hypocrite.
We are getting into the main part of this. I wanted you to get that overview so you could have an understanding of what Christ is trying to get across here.
Now we get to the specific parts. There are three parts here and the literary structure of this passage ties the three parts together with a nice pretty bow. It is just like we went over in the "But I Say to You" sermons that I gave. Those had a particular structure, they were pretty much all the same, and because they were all the same, we could have a better understanding of what Christ wanted us to get out of it.
So, here in chapter 6, Jesus considers three common religious acts. They are very clear. Charity, they are giving to others, serving, giving alms; prayer; and fasting. He takes all three, but He works with all three in the exact same way. Now by itself, if we look at it in the pattern, the pattern indicates that His instructions apply to every act of righteousness. These are just His three examples. He could have then put just about any act of righteousness in the subject line here and spoken about it in the same way.
His teaching in this chapter, verses 1 through 18, also covers tithing. You do not want people to know how much you tithe and how much you give because that could be hypocritical. The same for Bible study, letting everybody know how that you spend six hours a day reading your Bible. How you teach, how you preach. It can even be something like setting up the hall. You know, the normal acts of service that you would do among the brethren. Your hospitality, whether it is all for show or not. Visiting the sick or imprisoned, helping the widow and the orphan, even random acts of kindness and such like that could all be done in this same hypocritical way. And the solution is the same for all of them. Do these things privately, do these things in secret.
It is important that we understand the structure here, so we have to start with the first verse because the first verse is the introduction to the whole passage—all three. The New King James translators make a hash of this verse, I am sorry to say, because they cause it to appear to apply only to the paragraph on charity. It would have been much better if they had made this its own paragraph so it would be very easy to see that it applies not only to charity, but to prayer, and to fasting, and all deeds of righteousness.
I like how the Lexham English Bible puts it. That is the Bible that comes with Logos, if you have that computer program and that whole Faith Life corporation, I guess it is. But Lexham English Bible on Matthew 6:1: "And take care not to practice your righteousness before people to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father who is in heaven."
Now, if you look at the New King James, it says, "Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men." They actually change the word there because in the Greek, it is righteousnesses. So it is not talking about charitable deeds alone. It is talking about any kind of righteous work or act or deed or word that you would do or say, so it is an overarching introduction to the whole topic. And so what it does actually is it states the main point of the entire passage and He repeats this main point several times. And like I said, if this verse were set off as the introduction, the structure really becomes very clear, but that is the main point. Let me just read that again from the Lexham English Bible. "Take care not to practice your righteousness before people to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father who is in heaven." That is the point. That is what He is trying to get across over the next 17 verses.
More about the structure here. Each of the three sections starts with this, "And when you. . ." X. X is the act of righteousness. You could put any act of righteousness in there that you want. But that is how He structures this. When you do a charitable deed—when you pray, when you fast—that is how He begins it. He puts the spotlight on your righteous deeds. He forces us, this is very interesting I thought, He forces us eight times within these 18 verses to acknowledge that He says when, not if you do these acts of righteousness. I mean, look at it verse 2. "Therefore, when you do a charitable deed," verse 3, "when you do a charitable deed," verse 5, "when you pray," verse 6, "when you pray" and "when you have shut your door," verse seven, "and when you pray," verse 16, "when you fast," and verse 17, "when you fast." It is never if, it is always when. He is making a very strong point here; that it is not enough to do them once. But instead, these religious works, these acts of righteousness are a mandatory part of the way of God. They must be done. You cannot skip them.
The sense here that we get from His repetition of when you do these things, the sense is regular habitual practice. Just look at Luke 5. I am just going to pick this right out. They had asked Him why His disciples were not fasting. He said, "Hey, I'm here. They do not need to do this right now because I'm right here with them." Then He says,
Luke 5:35 "But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them; then they will fast in those days."
Is Jesus here in the flesh, as it were? No. So as His disciples, we will fast. Jesus says, they will fast and so we should fast as well. And the same should be said for doing things in terms of charity and prayer and all those other righteous deeds. They are just simply part of the Christian way of life. And they are, to use the illustration, to become to us as natural as breathing because it is what we do. It is what Christians do. It is what righteous people do. Righteous people do righteous acts and they should always be doing them.
So these things are vital parts of what it means to be a follower of Christ. And we cannot neglect them. If we do neglect them, then we are falling behind. We are not taking advantage of the full force of being a Christian, why God called us at this time.
Let us go to I Thessalonians 5 where Paul makes a comment in this line of thought and we will read verses 16 through 18. He is closing out his epistle to the Thessalonians here and he gives them and us some things that they need to be doing. I am sure you have read these 1,000 times.
I Thessalonians 5:16-18 Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
I do not know if you have ever parsed, especially verse 17, before. But have you ever considered that you cannot physically, mentally, psychologically, ever pray without ceasing? You cannot, it is an impossibility. But that is exactly what the Greek says. Pray without ceasing, or constantly. But yes, it is literally what Paul writes here, but he is clearly using hyperbole. He is exaggerating here for effect so he must mean something closer to "pray as a priority," as a frequent regular practice. It is more than just often—pray often—but consistently often, or as often as possible. It is kind of like you breathe ceaselessly. And if you quit breathing ceaselessly, you die. He wants us here in this expression to pray like you breathe. That it is always something that you do automatically as a first choice because who would you rather talk to in any situation than God? We need to develop the habit of communicating with God as a priority activity. It is a first choice.
The same would apply to other religious acts, probably not as frequently, but still habitual in the proper time at the proper place. Because that is what righteous people do. They act righteously and they know when to do things for the right reasons.
Let us go to Luke 18 and just to see some of these where this idea is said in other ways. Jesus here spoke a parable to them that men always ought to pray and not lose heart or become discouraged. How could you be discouraged if you are talking to God, who has got your back, who is going to give you the things that you need?
Let us go to Romans 12. We will just jump in the middle here.
Romans 12:12 . . .rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer.
We do not need anymore. That is kind of a good way to think of this, that you continue steadfastly in prayer as a habitual practice.
Let us move on to Ephesians 6, coming toward the end of his epistle.
Ephesians 6:18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit [that is a lot, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit. And then he goes on]; being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.
He is just piling it up here, where it is "be praying all the time with perseverance and supplication" for everyone, for all our brethren."
Let us go on to Colossians 4. This is the last one here.
Colossians 4:2 Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving.
So another way of looking at it, just more words that maybe help describe what he is talking about here in I Thessalonians 5.
Now to this in verse 18, Paul says, "this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." After he is saying rejoice and pray and give thanks, he says, "this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." This does not apply just to giving thanks. It actually applies to rejoicing and praying as well as giving thanks, all these three things in this short paragraph.
So he is saying it is God's will in Christ Jesus that you rejoice, that you pray, and you give thanks. Those are three things that God wants us to do, if we are in Christ. It is His will that we continue steadfastly in these things. It is His will that we persevere in these things. It is His will that we are always in the attitude of doing these things, and ready to do these things at the drop of a hat. The will of God here expresses God's moral requirement. It is a requirement as a Christian that we rejoice, we pray, and we give thanks.
In other words, if I can just put it simply in one sentence, if you are in Christ, if you are a Christian, if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, God requires you to rejoice and pray and give thanks always. It is very clear, it is like a law. It is a law if you want to meet His standards. These are the things you have to do and these works, these three that Paul specifically mentions here, stand at the center of our relationship with the Father and the Son.
Think of it. Rejoicing covers our attitude. Our attitudes should always be one of joy. Is that not what we are headed toward? Does Jesus not say in the Parable of the Talents, Hey, you did a good job. Enter the joy of your Lord. That is the joy of God. And our attitude is supposed to be one of joy.
Then it says, pray without ceasing. Prayer covers our communication with God. So we have got our attitude covered. Now we have got our communication covered, that we are always in an attitude of communicating with God and Him communicating with us. There is no break, we are always there. It is even better than, you know, just a phone call away, because He is in you and the communication is instantaneous.
And then the third one, giving thanks, covers our gratitude for our privilege of being among the elect and having the opportunity of the first resurrection. And giving thanks for all the gifts that He has given us and all the promises that He that have yet to be fulfilled but we know in hope and in faith will be given, will be fulfilled. And so we have gratitude, not only for what has been done and what is being done, but for also all the things that will be done that we are assured of.
So Paul hits the high spots here. He hits our attitude, he hits our communication, and he hits our gratitude.
But you think about it; that these things are supposed to be done habitually, always, in perseverance and all those other things, all those other ways to describe it. There is a lot to do. It takes a lot of practice to live God's way and to be like God. And we need all the practice we can get because we are human and our nature needs the practice to change, to get rid of the old ways and put on the new. And so this is why he is so urgent, so insistent here that we always rejoice, that we always pray, and that we always give thanks, because it is so necessary for our relationship with God and the development of Christ-like character.
Let us get back to Matthew 6. We spent a long time there but I wanted to go into I Thessalonians 5 to understand the underlying attitude that is so different from the attitude of the hypocrite. Because the hypocrite is all about himself, whereas the elect person is all about God.
The next structural element in Matthew 6 is found in verses 2, 5, and 16. Let us read them.
Matthew 6:2 "Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men."
Matthew 6:5 "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."
Matthew 6:16 "Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to be fasting."
That is the next structural element. It has to do with what the hypocrites do and why they do it. And He tells us in very clear terms that we are not to do it like they do it.
What we have here in this structural element is Jesus' description of the hypocrites' bad examples and their reasons for acting as they do. And He says they do it to receive glory from people, to be seen by others being religious or pious, and we can add that they are burnishing their reputation and trying to make others think they are good and caring people; and that they and God are best buds.
That is what they do it. They are hypocritical for these reasons so that other people will see them in a certain way, in a good light. But the reality is far different. If the harsh light actually shone on them, then it would expose them to be something very bad. Like Jesus said in Matthew 23, on the outside they look nice and clean, but on the inside they are full of sin.
On this objective of the hypocrites, that is, that they want to be seen of men, they want to be seen as something they are not, Jesus says, "Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward." He means, basically, you can take it to the bank. They have been paid in full. There is no doubt about this. They, if they wanted glory, if they wanted to be seen by other people, if they wanted people to think that they are better than they actually are, that is it. They got it.
Now there is an underlying illustration here in the Greek that does not come through in the English very well. But the essential illustration is that the reward is a receipt like you would have in a regular kind of business transaction, an invoice. And what Jesus is saying is, that once they have played the hypocrite and the people on the street have seen them, well, they have been given a receipt for that transaction and it is all over. There is no more that is going to come of it. It is a done deed, it is ended, that the whole transaction has ended. There is not going to be any more given because they have had their reward. They will get nothing else beyond that initial public recognition and certainly nothing from God except disapproval and condemnation. They will not get a reward from God, which they think they will. They cannot fool Him. He sees right through their hypocrisy and the Judge will say, No, you can't come in, you are going into the Lake of Fire. So their reward is temporal. It is not going to go beyond the grave. And that is very scary.
Let us go to Luke 18, once again looking at the attitude here. We will start in verse 9. I am going to read down to verse 17 because I think these two sections go together.
Luke 18:9-17 Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others. "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.'
And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Then they also brought infants to Him that He might touch them; but when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to Him and said, "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God. Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it."
The first section here contrasts the Pharisee with the publican, and shows that the Pharisee was full of himself and he exalted himself and made himself look to be pious in doing all of these works. Whereas the publican, tax collector, was just fully aware of his sinful condition and begged mercy from God. And he said, God, the Judge, is more willing to justify the latter rather than the former because He is at least humble. He is asking for forgiveness. He is laying himself out there and saying, God do to me whatever you will. I know I am a sinner. He is one of those poor in spirit who realize that they are lowly, they do not have anywhere near the righteousness that they should.
And then in the second one, second part of this, you have an illustration that describes the attitude of the publican, of the tax collector. He is like the child. A perfect example that comes up right after this where Jesus could point to a child and say, these are the kind of people that are going to be in the Kingdom of God. It perfectly illustrated the parable that He had just given. It highlights the positive nature of what the publican did, because the children, I mean, you know children, if they are not influenced badly, children are innocent, generally, they are submissive to their parents. They are teachable. They have no ego at all. That comes in over time and they become more sophisticated and cosmopolitan, and more selfish and inward.
But as little ones (notice the term here, they brought infants to Him), we are talking little ones, little little ones that are just learning to do things like walk and talk, not the ones that are playing "king of the mountain" when they are five or six or seven years old. But these are little ones, true innocents, and they are very teachable. And Jesus says these are the kind of people that are going to really make hay in the Kingdom because they are going to be able to be taught, they are going to be humble, they are not going to have their focus on themselves like this Pharisee, this hypocrite. But they are going to be willing to take all God's instructions and put it to use.
That is what we are talking about in Matthew 6. We are supposed to be the child, like ones like the publican, the tax collector. Not like these hypocrites that do these things to be seen of men. We are supposed to be the child, like innocent ones that want only what God will give us, and want to reciprocate back to Him the love that He shows us and not take it to ourselves, not put ourselves out there as some sort of righteous example, but as poor in spirit, saying, "God, I'm a sinner. Please forgive me, help me to move forward."
Let us get back to the structure here because I do not want to get too bogged down in any of those examples. The next one, the next structural part is in verses 3, the beginning of verse 6, and verse 17. So let us read those verse three.
Matthew 6:3-4 "But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly. [I read verse 4 too. I just meant to read verse 3.]
Verse 6, just the first half.
Matthew 6:6 "But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut the door, pray to your Father who is in a secret place. . ."
Matthew 6:17 "But when you fast anoint your head and wash your face, . . ."
Jesus here, in these three verses, teaches a proper, positive, and private approach to doing righteous acts. Charity, prayer, and fasting are to be done, in each of these cases, in secret, without others knowing or seeing. The word there, and it was probably good that I read that in verse 4 and verse 6 and also in verse 18 (which we did not read), suggests total secrecy. And the reason why we know this is from what it says in verse 3, "Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing."
Have you ever tried to keep one body part from knowing what you are going to do? It is another impossibility. It is another piece of hyperbole, an exaggeration for effect. He is saying impossibly, "Keep it secret even from yourself." That is an impossibility. You cannot keep something you do secret from yourself. But what it does do is give us an extremely high standard to try to hit. It is actually an impossible standard to hit. But you get the point.
If He says, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that is the amount of secrecy that you need to aim for. Actually, it tells you that you get to the point where you are doing righteous deeds and you do not even think about it as something righteous. It is just what you do because you have become like God in that area. It is because of what He is inside. He does everything and He wants us to get to the point where that is how we are inside, and we do not consider it odd or strange or any kind of stretch. It is just what we do. We do righteous things for each other.
Now, these three commands that Jesus gives in these places, verse 3, verse 6, and verse 17, are nuanced. They are very interesting to look at them as different, even though they are in many cases very similar. But in each case Jesus emphasizes something that is a little different. And the difference is in how we can keep others from seeing our good works.
So in the first one, in verse 3, He says, "When you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing." Here He does stress secrecy. No one else knows. No one else is in on it. It is done in secret.
In the second one, in verse 6, "But when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place." In this one, the nuance, the emphasis is on privacy. No one sees, you may not have told anybody, but because you do it in a secret place, because you do it behind a closed door, you are doing it in private and no one can see what you are doing.
And then in the third, in verse 17, "But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so you do not appear to men to be fasting." This nuance is inconspicuousness or we also might call it discretion. No one else can tell by our appearance that we are in the midst of doing a righteous deed. So when we fast, we look like anybody else, we have washed our face, we have gotten a shower or we put on our deodorant (this is a good thing), and brushed our teeth, and nobody knows that we are fasting.
What Jesus is doing here by giving us these nuances: secrecy, privacy, and inconspicuousness, is that He is covering all the bases to avoid leaving any loopholes or back doors so human nature can exploit these things and we can do something that will be obvious by other people. So He makes sure that we understand that we are not to talk about these things to other people to make them think that we are somehow better or more religious or more pious. We are not to do these things out in public, especially in terms of prayer. He was talking about public prayer. Here He is talking about private prayer, and that we should do our best to make sure that a lot of these things are done behind closed doors. And then the third that we are to appear to all people to be just going about our daily business.
So put all these things together, we are to be so humble and so selfless that we do not care a fig about receiving credit for doing any kind of good. We do not want to get any credit for following God's instructions, not from other people. In fact, He says or implies that we are to go out of our way to keep our righteous acts hidden so they do not give a wrong impression or they cause somebody offense. It is better to do these things secretly, privately, and inconspicuously so that nobody gets offended. Nobody gets the wrong impression. Nobody even thinks of you as more than you are.
Why? Because if we do it for those reasons, then we have a reward. Instead, He wants us to have an attitude on these matters like we see in Luke 17, verse 10.
Luke 17:10 "So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, 'We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.'"
We are nothing special. We are just following God. We do not need any credit.
Finally, back in Matthew 6, we have the final part of the structure.
Matthew 6:4 ". . . that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly."
Matthew 6:6 ". . . pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees you in secret will reward you openly."
Matthew 6:18 "so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly."
Same thing in all three places.
Jesus assures us here that the Father sees what we do in secret and will reward us openly, in public. He is omniscient. We cannot get around that. That is just part of who He is. He sees all, nothing escapes His notice, and it is what makes Him a perfect judge. He knows everything that happened. He knows all the details of every situation we have gotten ourselves in. He knows us. He knows people we may have hurt or may have hurt us, and so He can make righteous judgments.
Of course, there is His character, too, that is perfect and He will not ever go beyond what His character says is right.
So Jesus says that the most important Person in the universe will see our righteous deeds. We do not need anybody else to see them. Only the One who can make a difference, and that is God Himself. He is the only one we need to impress by our faithfulness, our compassion, and efforts to draw near to Him. I mean, this is kind of what the author of Hebrews says in Hebrews the fourth chapter, verse 11.
Hebrews 4:11-13 Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
In other words, He sees all, and because He is the great Judge, He is the only one we need to impress with our righteous deeds—and He will see them. He is not going to miss them and He is the only one who needs to know.
Let us go to Revelation the first chapter. I just want to put a couple of scriptures together.
Revelation 17-8 Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen. "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End," says the Lord, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty."
Revelation 22:12-13 [the same one, Jesus Christ, says] "Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last."
Now Jesus says in Matthew 6 that the Father will reward us openly. And these two passages in Revelation confirm that He will do just as He said. We could also add in here Matthew 24:30-31, which prophesized that all the tribes of the earth will see Christ coming and the angels gathering His elect from all over the world. Zechariah 14:5 and Jude 14 says that the Lord will come with all His saints.
And of course, if we were to go further into the book of Revelation, in each of the letters to the seven churches Christ promises to give His saints various rewards for their overcoming and growth. As He said in Matthew 6, the rewarding of the sons and daughters of God will be before all the world. Everyone who is alive at the time will see Him reward His saints who have persevered, probably through many years of their conversion, in making sure that their own righteous deeds were secret, private, and inconspicuous.
Obviously, we skipped over a large part of Matthew 6, verses 1 through 18. We ignored verses 7 through 15. We only read them to get to get through them to the other part. I will refer you to my recent Forerunner Bible study series on the Model Prayer if you are interested in seeing my thoughts about Jesus' teaching on the kind of prayer we should be praying.
But I wish to point out here that the Model Prayer, in contrast to what we saw the Pharisee praying in Luke 18:11-12, does not contain a single personal pronoun. The Pharisee was saying "I did this," "I did that." But in the Model Prayer in Matthew 6, that "I" never appears. It is all about God. God's name, God's Kingdom, God's will, God's power, God's glory. And even in the personal requests that are there in verses 11 through 13, He does not use "I," He uses "us." "Give us this day our daily bread" and "forgive us our debts" and "do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." There is no "I" in God's elect.
That is a bit of an overstatement. But it is something that Christ is trying to get us to understand in this whole passage here, that it is not about us. It is about God. It is about our brethren. It is about those two great commandments of the law. "You shall love the Lord your God" and "you shall love your neighbor as yourself."
Let us conclude in Psalm 91. We will read the first two verses and the last three verses.
Psalm 91:1-2 He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, "He is my refuge and my fortress; my God, in Him I will trust."
Psalm 91:14-16 "Because he [this is God speaking] has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him, and show him My salvation."
Being in the secret place of the Most High is the best place any child of God can be. Seek it often, dwell in it, and God will bless you tremendously.
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