Beware Of Practicing Your Righteousness Before Men #2

So this morning, we're going to be continuing on in our Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 6. Last week, we opened this section up, this chapter, by seeing how we as men and women are constantly seeking after one another's approval instead of God's approval. In the sections that followed, verse 1, which we studied last week, that says, Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them. Jesus gives us at least three examples. of ways in which we practice our righteousness before men. We're going to be studying these ways and seeing how Christians are supposed to live out or express their faith. My hope for today is that as we study this passage, verses 2 to 4, that God will convict us of our pride and that he'll help us to sacrifice and obey him in ways that only he can see, which is simply of a...

a layer of bricks laid on top of the foundation last week, which is that if we're not supposed to practice our righteousness before men, that we would then go into talking about how we live our lives and say, okay, well, let's live our lives before God. And these are the things in which we should give our attention to. This morning, we're going to be talking about giving to the poor, or almsgiving, or loving our neighbors. Our text is Matthew chapter 6, verses 2 to 4. Would you stand as we read the word of the Lord? This is the word of the Lord, and it's eternally true.

So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by them, by men. Truly I say to you, they have the reward in full. But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving will be in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. And so just a refresher from last week generally, we have to be ever mindful of how we behave in front of other people. Not to impress them, but to be sure that we're not trying to impress them. We would like to have other people see us and see the things we do and think well of us as a result. Another way of saying that is we would like others to agree with our own opinion of ourselves, which is that we're very good.

that we do very good things, and that we should be honored as a result. Jesus warns us that that's not how we should be doing. Beware of doing that sort of thing. He says, if you do, you'll have your reward in full. And here he reiterates that same thing again. Truly, I say to you, they will have their reward in full. Now, what are they doing? Well, the context is they're giving to the poor. He says, when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and the streets, so that they may be honored by men.

So the first thing we can see from this text is that giving to the poor is assumed and that it's important for Christians because it's the first thing Jesus mentions in terms of us living our lives. He doesn't say if you give to the poor or when you're able to give to the poor. He simply assumes that his people would have it in their hearts and minds that they should be a giving people, that they should see and identify people who have less than them, who are in need. that they would understand that their love for God is expressed in how they care for those people and how they behave in those situations. The problem that I think we face first right out of the gate as Americans is that because of our incredible wealth as a country and as individuals, we've come to think that we are always the poor one and that someone else always has more than us and that we ought to be the recipients and not the givers. When we see those around us, we think,

I want what they have. And when we look at those who don't have the things that we have, we think the reason they don't have the things that I have is their own fault and their problem to solve. What's mine is mine and I've worked hard for it. I wouldn't just give it away. There's good lessons to be learned in suffering, in going without, in doing it the hard way, like I had to do. I hope you can see that that... is a common feeling, sentiment, that we have in our hearts. And it's a sentiment that resides in a hard heart, in an ungrateful heart, callous heart. These words here, give to the poor. When you give to the poor, assumes that you're able to look at other people who are less fortunate than you, do not have what you want, and that you understand that as Christians, as one of God's children, you will give to them. You will provide for them. You will care for them.

This giving, though our passage here is largely about money, this idea of giving to the poor is not limited to money. What else could you give? You could give hospitality. You could give help. You could give counsel. You could give your time. Or you could give your money. When I was reading about this, I was studying for it, there is a Jewish philosopher. I cannot pronounce his name. I can spell it. I've tried pronouncing it. I told my family. I don't know how to say it. It's like Maimonides or something like that. Anyway, do you know how to say it? There you go. Couldn't get it out, what he said. Anyway, this guy was writing about the Jewish understanding of almsgiving and what they would have understood Jesus to be saying here. And what he said is that they had a practice of almsgiving, and they had, like you would expect Jews to do, they had delineated giving into eight ranked.

Priorities from best to worst. And what they put at the top of the list, and they said this is the highest level of almsgiving, was this. They said when you see someone who you could help, not necessarily what we would think of as the poor or the destitute, but if you're able to help someone by giving them work, that that's the highest level of almsgiving that you could do. You could give to someone a livelihood. You could provide for them a means to take care of themselves. Not that you would actually give them money. but that you would provide them with a skill or an opportunity to learn to grow and to provide for themselves. And then he works his way down. He says, well, below that is giving anonymously to people you don't know. But that's actually more commendable than giving to people you do know. Because if you were to give to people you do know, you might be tempted to have judgments about them, and you might be more likely to receive their praise. And so it's actually better to give to people that you don't know.

and who don't know you. And beneath that, you would give to people that you do know, but you would do it secretly. So you knew who they were, but they didn't know who you were. And then you would do it in such a way that they wouldn't know exactly who gave, but they'd know kind of like the group that it came from. And the example he gave was that the rich men would walk into the cities, and they would come, and they would have... They would have their entourage, and they would have food or whatever for the poor people, and they would come, and they would be cloaked. You would not be able to know who it was, but they would come, and then they would stand with their back to their people giving the things out, and they would be unknown, but then an acknowledgment would be made that there was food or whatever for the people, and the people would come, and they'd say, oh, but they wouldn't know who it was, that that was a little less good.

And he kept working his way down through it. And toward the bottom of the list, he said, right down at the bottom is that you would give to people, out of eight, almost the bottom of the barrel was that you would give to people joyfully money. And the one below that, the very lowest threshold of giving, was that you would give it with a grumbling heart. And so you realize there's lots of ways to give. And if you were to think of your own life, if you could read through those categories, you could think of multiple times where people have given to you. or you've given to them, and how you've processed that sort of thing. In my own life, one example would be when I went to pastor's college, somebody paid for it. To this day, I don't know who it was. And I've never cared much to ask who it was. I think that if I had asked my dean who actually paid for it, he probably would have told me once I got out. But I decided I didn't want to know. And so to this day, I don't know who paid for my three years of education. Someone who loves me, I guess. Years ago in our church,

we received an anonymous financial gift. It was like $17,000. And it came from this third-party financial institution that the donor had, basically they had taken their money and they put it into this charitable account. And then they had the discretion to say who would get it, but the recipient would never know who gave it. And so one day we just received this check for, 17 grand with a note saying, here you go. I hope it's a blessing. Thank you for your work. And to this day, we don't know who gave it. And so actually our ways of giving and actually obeying this thing here that Jesus says, which is to give and be generous to the poor without receiving honor for it. But it's not common. It's not common. Most of the time when giving is done, it's done publicly. Most of the time when giving is done, we're aware of who is watching.

And much of the time when there's not people watching, there isn't giving going on. And so throughout history, from this time on where you would have had the Jews doing these different types of homesgiving, you see the poor always being cared for in some way or another, knowing that the poor have a particular place in Jesus' heart. He does care for the poor and love them and care for them. And throughout history, the church in various ways has taken care of the poor. They would feed them. Where did the church get the food? They would house them. Where did they get the land and the buildings? They would clothe them. They would provide medical care for them. They would teach them to read. They would do all kinds of things. The poor were cared for by the church. There's also good evidence historically of benefactors, somebody who's wealthy who took it upon them to provide for others, those who are of lesser means. The point of me bringing these things up isn't just to say that there's one way to do this.

Or that there's one right way to do this. Or there's one best way to do this. My point in bringing up these different examples is simply to say that God's people have always understood their obligation to give to the poor. That caring for them is right at the top of their priorities. Not their theology. Not their marriages. Not their children. Their love for God is expressed in caring for those less fortunate than them. And that we should be doing it without an eye to who is watching, what they will think, or how we'll be repaid. When the giver is praised, when the one who gives does it with an eye to who's watching, they harm themselves. They harm themselves. If I were to do something so that everyone could see it, I would be doing harm to myself. I would be trading out my reward in heaven for your praise. And that's harmful. That's bad. That's a bad trade.

Scripture warns us in James 2 about the sin of partiality. James is talking about a worship service and he warns them and says, listen, if a rich man and a poor man come into your worship service and you give preference to the rich man, you say, oh, you come up here and you sit over here. He says, you've dishonored the rich man or the poor man. You've done wrong. But not only have you done wrong, you've done wrong to him. You've harmed him. You've given him something that's harmful to him. And so you've dishonored the poor man. You've sinned by showing partiality. And you've stolen this rich man's reward because you've given him what he wanted, which was your praise. If someone's giving to the poor without wanting to be recognized, they won't notice when they're not recognized. But if they do notice, the best thing you could do is refuse to pay attention to them.

refuse to pay attention to them. Have you ever been in a conversation or seen somebody doing something, and it's very obvious that this is a political stunt, a photo op. It's being done for the eyes of those around. When you see those sorts of things going on, you would do well to turn your eyes away and refuse to acknowledge what they're doing. Why would you do that? Because you're better than them? No. Because you actually would want them to have reward in heaven and you don't want to be party to giving them their reward now. When you think of what James says in chapter 2 of his book and you think of this sort of concept, the way it works itself out for me as I am here, if we have visitors that come to church, okay? This is me. We have a very hospitable church. If we have visitors that come to church and there's people who like fit in and like look like they're reasonable or they look like us, I tend to ignore those people.

But if someone else comes in and looks like they're kind of an outcast and they might not be quite up to speed, they're the people I'll pay attention to. We all end up talking to everybody eventually, but there have been times where I've seen people come to church and I thought, you know, I think they're trying to impress me and they want me to notice something about them and I'm not going to give them what they want. And you shouldn't either. Don't pay attention to those who want your attention, those who ask for it and demand it. You should get less and less of it. It's a protection to you because you're going to end up coveting their wealth, their life, the things that they have. So stay away from it. Turn away from it. Refuse to praise them. It's good discipline for your covetousness and their pride. And so when you see someone giving to the poor or when you're giving to the poor yourself, you really should do it without any awareness that there are people around. And you shouldn't care if they're going to see it or not.

Jesus goes on and says, when you give to the poor, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. This talk of left hand and right hand is not literal. It doesn't mean that the things you do should be so hidden that no one is aware of it. No one could put it together or figure it out. It simply means that there are times where if you're not noticed, you'll be okay with it. You make a sacrifice and no one notices. In your home, perhaps. That you would do something for your siblings or you would do something for your spouse or your parents or your children and no one notices what you did. No one saw it. No one except the Lord saw what you did. We tend to think that's not right. People should notice. If I'm going to go out of my way to do it, someone should notice the things I did. How many arguments between children and parents and between spouses centers around what's been done and whether or not the other person noticed it.

or sufficiently thanked you for it, or responded appropriately because of it. You and I all have opportunities to do things for those around us, to care for them, to provide for them, that they won't notice. And it's too often that we refuse to do it because they won't notice and won't say thank you, won't appreciate it, or return in kind our kindness. And so here's a question. Do you have things in your life that you've done for people that nobody knows about? Have you given without anyone knowing? Money? Time? Counsel? Hospitality? Or is everything known by everybody? Have you given? Years ago, Mike Bowles, who's a father to me, was telling me about, I think it was his grandfather, lives down in Scott County, Tennessee, which is rural Tennessee.

and lived very poorly. Built his own house, lived very meekly and humbly. And he was the guy who was known, he would walk, they didn't have cars and stuff, they'd walk to the grocery store and then walk back. And one time he was shorted like a nickel. And he walked all the way back to the grocery store to get his nickel. Now granted, a nickel was worth a lot more back then than it is now. But he was unwilling to not have what was his. This was his reputation. Everyone would have thought, this man is miserly. This man is stingy. This man, Only cares about himself. But do you know what happened when he died? Was that they found out that he, through his hard work, had funded the building of the county hospital. And even his wife didn't know. That he was a large benefactor in gathering the funds and putting that together. And the only people who knew were the people who were building it. And he would only do it with the understanding that no one would know until after he was dead what he had done. They didn't name it after him.

That's what we do now. If someone gives a bunch of money, we just put their name on it. You can get your plaque, you can get your brick, you can get your thing, you know. He didn't want to be known. In fact, everyone thought he was a miserly old man. Was he? Seems to me that he cared more about the people in Scott County than many of the other people in that county. And he saw what he had at his disposal that he'd worked very hard for as an opportunity to give to those less fortunate than him. Do you have things like that? Maybe you haven't built a county hospital. I'm not setting the bar that high and saying if you haven't made it here, you haven't accomplished it. But is there anything? You remember when time and time again in the Bible when Jesus heals people, what does he always tell them when he heals them? Not always, but often. Don't tell anyone. And that's one of the weirdest things you see. Why does Jesus tell them don't say anything about it? Why?

Why doesn't Jesus want anybody knowing what he did? Is it because he was ashamed of what he did? Is it because he was ashamed of the people he did it for? No. I think the reason, well, I more than think, I'm convinced that the reason Jesus didn't tell was at least for these reasons. One, he did not want his miracles overshadowing his teaching. He wanted people to listen to him. Did the people listen to him when he said, don't tell them, don't go tell about it? No, they didn't. They went and talked all about it, right? But he told them, don't go tell. He said, don't tell them what happened. Go show yourself to the priest. The guy with leprosy who comes out, can't live in the city, can't be with his family, can't make a living, can't live. Jesus heals him and says, okay, don't say what happened. Just go show yourself to the priest. Why? Because the priest is the one who was like the medical examiner, the county health official who's like, okay, you're clean. You can come back. You don't have to stay at the leprous colony anymore. Go show yourself to the priest, but don't tell them what happened. Just go show them so you can get back to your life.

He didn't want his miracles overshadowed. Or he didn't want his miracles overshadowing his teaching. Also, it wasn't time for some of those things to be revealed. There's another time when he said you shouldn't tell anybody, and that was at the transfiguration. You remember when he went up on the mountain and a few of the disciples came with him, and then he's transfigured into this glorified being, and here come Elijah and Moses. And the disciples are sitting there going, this is good. This is good. And then it's over. And at the end of it, Jesus says to them, tell this vision to no one. Tell this vision to no one until the Son of Man has risen from the dead. And so one of the things we learn is that the kindnesses that we give to people and the mercies that we show to them have a time to be revealed. And that time is not when we do them. It's not when we do them. Much of our Christian life is going to be done in private and seen by God only.

And if we only live like a Christian in public when people see it, the balance of our life will not be lived as a Christian then. Because when we go to work, we're not watching each other as closely, are we? Even when we go home and to our own houses, we're not watching each other as closely. And so we don't have the accountability. And so we say, I don't need to do it, it says. I don't need to give to the poor. I don't need to care for the less fortunate. I don't need to sacrifice because who would notice anyway? As God's people, we should do.

the works of God, and we should be willing to have him reward us. Has it ever been a comfort to you? It has been to me, not as often as it should be, but it has been a comfort to me to know that when there are things I've done and I go, okay, no one said thank you. It was not appreciated or acknowledged or known. I comfort myself with the words that we find here in this passage, which is that it's good for you to do things in secret that nobody sees except God. And that in his time, he'll reward you for those things. And most of that reward, if not all of it, will not be received until the judgment. Will you wait for it? Many of us would wait a little while. We might wait days or weeks, maybe months or years, but a lifetime? We ought to have things that we've done and given and sacrificed, that we don't get back, that only God sees. Now, I think that this idea is unattractive.

to reformed people because we like to know the value of everything and we like to know the the the tit and tat and we like to look at the balance sheet of life and say you know good cost benefit analysis if i do this what will the result of it be and the result the the result is god will see it and reward you doesn't carry as much weight with us as it should we're not willing to wait we're not willing to trust god and to do the things that we ought to do if he will see him and reward us in his time Maybe we're willing to do it. And then, have you ever had it happen that you've done something sweet, something good, something faithful, something generous, and then be accused of not doing it? You know, when you think of Mike's grandfather. Everyone thought he was just an old miser. You think his wife ever thought he was an old miser? I bet she did. I bet she went without things her whole life because her husband was an old miser.

There'll be a real temptation to talk about the good things you've done when you are accused of wrongdoing. We all formulate our own opinions of one another, and we think, do they do this? Have they done this? Are other people willing to live this way? And we make our judgments. We're aware of it. We look down on one another, thinking, well, I have, but they don't. Maybe that just happens in your house. Maybe that happens at your workplace. Maybe you're the guy who's always there late, and the other guy's leaving. and you think the boss doesn't see it or doesn't care, doesn't acknowledge it. Then when you make a mistake, you think, well, I've done these other things. You can't accuse me of wrongdoing. When you're accused of wrongdoing or sinning, it's a good habit to keep your mouth shut still and in that situation. This is what we saw Jesus doing when he was being examined by Pilate or being accused by Pilate. He could have formulated a defense, couldn't he?

Like, I'm innocent of these charges. What you're saying, what they're saying is not true. He could have done it. But he remained silent and waited for God to deliver him, for God to work, for God to act. There have been times in ministry where I and the elders have done work with people, only to be accused of not doing the very thing we were doing. Vigorously told we weren't doing the things that we should be doing. And I know that our response at least one time has been, there is more to the situation than you know. And if you knew the rest of the story, your opinion would be exactly opposite of what it is currently. And that's all I'm going to say to you about it. Because to say more would be inappropriate. Sometimes people listen to that and sometimes people don't. But if pastors withhold their information and answer to God for their work and suffer as a result of it sometimes, is it too much for us to do the same in our Christian lives? Or do we always have to have our rewards now?

In Philippians, it says that Jesus had joy set before him. For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross. And he suffered the shame and the indignity of death. Because he had joy and a reward of going back to be with his father set before him. And he said, I'll go through the hard stuff. I'll endure the shame. I'll be maligned. I'll be killed. And so here's what I think and what I try to do. Is when I think that people are unwilling to sacrifice, unwilling to work hard, unwilling to pull their share, their load, what I try to discipline myself to do is to presume that they're doing things that I'm unaware of, that they're carrying weight and doing things that are helpful that only God sees. And it helps me not be so critical of people, sometimes anyway. We should presume of one another that if Jesus tells us not to let our left hand know what our right hand is doing, that sometimes we're the right hand that doesn't know what the left hand is doing.

You might say, well, that's very hard to quantify because what if I make a wrong decision? What if they're not doing anything? Okay. Then they will receive the reward from God of not doing anything. Right? That's what they'll receive. You were given a talent and you buried it in the ground. We ought to be the sort of people who give to the poor, who sacrifice of ourselves, who give of what we have. And don't tell ourselves, well, we'll do it later when we have more time or money or energy or desire. We'll either do it now. or we won't do it then. We should be aware of this danger in other people. And when we see them wanting our approval, we should refuse to give it to them, even if it's offensive for their sakes. That's probably the hardest thing for me to say, is that you should actually not always be falling all over yourselves, showing partiality to the people who are doing it for your praise. It would be much better if there was a lot more anonymity in our good works, kindnesses that only God sees.

And when we see other people and are tempted to think that they're not doing what they should be doing, we should add into the equation, I don't know everything. And we should make a charitable judgment of our brothers and our sisters, our husbands and our wives and our children, thinking there's more to their life, if they're a Christian, than what I see. And I'm going to presume that they're making an effort, as I am, to be faithful to the Lord and failing along the way, but trying just the same. And as we do it, we should wait for God to reward us in the way that he sees fit.

We all keep balance sheets in our head of what we're owed, debts. And I can tell you that being older than most of you, not all of you, the longer you live, the more tempted you'll be to keep those records. The older you get, the more tempted you'll be to say, but I deserve, I've earned, and you shouldn't do it. You shouldn't do it. And so my exhortation to you, mostly to the young people, but also to the old people, is don't start out. keeping accounts and showing all of your good works for everybody. Do them as an act of worship and a love for God and let him reward you as he sees fit. And if people around don't understand, then they don't understand. And if they didn't see it, that's probably good for you. And if they saw it and didn't make a big deal out of it, then you should thank them for loving you. We really shouldn't make more out of each other than is appropriate.

When we see someone serving God, it should stir us up to love and good deeds, but we shouldn't go around being each other's fanboys. When you see someone being generous, you shouldn't go, I want them to be generous with me. You should say, I want to be generous like them. I think this is one of the biggest discrepancies I see between people who are actually wealthy and people who want to be wealthy. The people who are actually wealthy, the Christian ones, I'm sure there's greedy ones out there, but the Christian ones are often quite generous. And the people who admire them and want to be like them are the most stingy, greedy people you've met. And there's a correlation between the wealthy one's generosity and the poverty of the greedy one. So give what you have as an act of love for God and your neighbor and trust God to see it and give you what you need when it's time. And if that's not until you die, that's okay. That really is okay. If you're always looking over your shoulder to see, did they notice?

Are they responding appropriately? You'll have your reward in full. It won't satisfy you, and you'll have nothing to look forward to. Let's pray.