Matthew chapter 6.

And here’s what Jesus goes on to say in His Sermon on the Mount. Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. Then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not 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.

And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.

My first car was my sister’s first car. And so when I got it, it had been hit by a deer. She didn’t hit a deer. A deer hit her. And it was full of deer guts and deer hair. And so I got this car, and I was like, all right, I’m going to remake this car. So I put in new seats. I scoured junkyards. I put in new seats. Put like a new dashboard in. New CD player. Redid the inside. I sanded the outside. Had it, you know, professionally painted. So like I did all this stuff to get this car back where it wanted. So much work. And not soon after I had remade this car, the engine blew. And I had to take that car to the junkyard from which I bought all these parts and basically sell back all these parts to this guy for pennies. You know, he’s making, you know, so much for all these parts that I had bought so expensive from him. And it’s like, well, I got nothing. Nothing to show for it. Jesus is talking to us this morning about the same thing. We all labor in life. We all have passions in life. And we hope to end somewhere good. No one’s living for nothing. We’re all living for something. And Jesus is challenging us on the labor of our life and what fruit we think we’re going to get at the end of it. The fruit of the kingdom, the reward of the kingdom, it doesn’t come easy and it’s not obvious. Jesus said there’s a secret, hidden life to be lived that He sees. There’s a secret, hidden life in the kingdom that we must live to receive this reward. So the question is, friends, are we working for a reward that will vanish? Or are we working to receive a reward that will be eternal and never go away? So this is the hidden life of righteousness that Jesus is talking to us about.

So He says, beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen, to be seen by them. For then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. So Jesus says beware often in the Gospels. And Jesus is not fear-mongering. It’s sincere. Jesus really wants you to beware. He wants you to be careful. Jesus wants us to pay attention. You say those kinds of things to somebody who’s at risk of taking something lightly to their demise, don’t you? You say to kids, hey, if you touch that stove, you touch that stove, it’s hot, it’s going to hurt you. You want them to take it serious because they’re not going to. So Jesus is not having light-hearted conversation. But Jesus is using His words to help us if at all possible, ignore a catastrophic, ruinous end. But what ruin is Christ seeking to save us from? Well, not from His practicing righteousness. Surely not. We’ve been in Matthew’s Gospel for a long time and if there’s one thing we know, Matthew’s Gospel is all about the righteousness of Christ’s kingdom. Remember, Christ started His ministry. He’s saying repent. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. The spiritual rule and reign of Christ of God in our hearts, minds, and lives. So that’s a rightness. He wants us to repent towards and away from ourselves. So that’s not what He’s wary about. Christ, the wariness He implores us to have, it’s a wariness for the motives of why we would live right in front of other people. It’s a wariness in relation to the people who see us doing right.

Righteousness is not something that’s simply an act of the will. It starts with, and here’s our word again, the disposition of the heart. Jesus is telling us there’s a vast chasm that exists between the right you do that seeks to garner the praises and approval of man and the right you do because you’re supposed to do it because it looks like God. And Jesus says if it’s the first one, it’s going to come at the cost of terrible suffering, of eternal law. It would be a terrible end. So Jesus says, beware. Pay attention. Watch out. And I think we’d be cut short for time this morning to talk about the infinite variety of ways in which we could practice the righteousness of the kingdom in our lives. We cannot do that. Jesus doesn’t do that. But here’s what Jesus does. He draws us to two premium, and I do think they are premium, two premium arenas in life in which He expects this kind of righteousness to be practiced. The right righteousness. He’s challenging us in these two arenas to avoid the wrong kind. So the first one is this. If we are to live right before the Father, our lives ought to be characterized by secret deeds. Secret or hidden deeds.

Verse 2, Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised. Praise by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not 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. So I want to note here at the beginning, Jesus is making a when not if statement. When you give to the poor. When you help the needy. It’s not an if. I think laziness would prefer this to be an if. If. If you get around to it. That’s not what Jesus says. So Jesus’ people, Christ’s followers, helping the needy, giving to the least of these, the hurting, the helpless, that’s always a must for us. So let’s start there. And it’s not even like this is some New Testament advent. Like Jesus is this humble, compassionate dude. And the God of the Old Testament, He’s angry all the time. And He’s striking people dead. That’s not an accurate view of God on the whole. And who God has always been. I want to run through a few verses with you in Deuteronomy. Chapter 15. So all the way back in the Torah when God’s instructing His people. He says, For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore, I command you, you shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy, and to the poor in your land. Proverbs 19.17 Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and He will repay him for his deed. Isaiah 58.7 Talking about what pleases the Lord. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless, the poor into your house, when you see the naked, to cover him, and to not hide yourself from your own flesh? So that’s Old Testament. Literally all throughout, God expects His people to take care of hurting, of the helpless. And of course, we go to the Apostle John in 1 John 17. He says, If you have the world’s goods, and you see your brother in need, but you don’t help him, God’s love couldn’t possibly abide in you. And then Paul says in Galatians 2, when he’s being sent out to be a missionary, he was eager. Eager, he says, to remember the poor. So this is very much so, friends, who we’re supposed to be and what we’re supposed to be doing as God’s peoples. Helping, hurting people. That’s a characterization of God.

But this righteous act rooted in God alone, honoring to God alone, surprise, surprise, it became a means for the religious leaders. It became a means for those who wanted to twist Judaism. It became a means to seek the praises and the approval of not God, but man. Sinful men popping up sinful men. Jesus said, you know what that is? It’s hypocrisy. You know what the truest statement about hypocrisy is? If you’re going to define it in Jesus’ time, the origin of this word, it’s an actor. It’s someone who says and does something that’s not really true to who they are. So doing the right, the right thing, helping people because it pleases God, but doing it for the wrong reasons, it’s an absurd attempt to gain meaning and purpose at last. Because doing good to others for the sake of praise by others, friends, that’s a vapor of a reward that’s gone before it even comes. It’s a hollow reward Jesus is teaching us. It’s a wage. It’s a payment that passes through your fingers like sand. Why?

Well, because, man, sinful man, has no lasting purpose or value to impart to another man. Humans, fallen, frail as we are, we’re fading creatures. We don’t have what God has. Innate power. Innate authority. Innate purpose. Innate identity. This is what we walked away from in the garden. So anything that a man could give me to prop me up, make me feel good about myself, it’s nothing more than an illusion of importance. It’s an illusion of glory. When we lose our connection to the God from whom identity and purpose and blessing flow, we settle for the next best thing, or what we think is the next best thing, man.

But could I ask you to consider with me what a poor substitute man is in place of the eternal God from whom all goodness and righteousness

originates and flows? Sinful man, proving of sinful man is like one terminally ill patient feeling good about his disease because another terminally ill patient with the same disease told him he liked his disease. It’s absurdity. But this is what we do, sin affirming sin. So you have a false righteousness that has a false praise and Jesus says it ends in a false reward. Nothing. So Satan wrapped it up, put a bow on it, and delivered it to humanity. You know what the gift was? Pride. Pride. And what is pride? Pride is an attempt to be something meaningful. It’s an attempt to do something meaningful apart from God.

So doing good to others, it cannot be done for the sake of praise. But let me also encourage you to consider when you do good to others, it’s not for the sake of the one you’re doing the good to, which sounds kind of counterintuitive. Like, what do you mean? That’s who you’re doing the good to. It’s for them. No, it’s not. Because if God alone is right, if God alone is compassionate, I can’t be the one who at the end of it gets the praise and the glory and thanks. I am an unworthy sinner, a vessel, a broken vessel that God filled with His love and His compassion. So when one sinner shows compassion and mercy to another sinner, it goes back to the God who was kind enough to us in the first place. It always ends in the praise of God. I’m not just concerned about the temporal welfare of others. I am. But in that, I want God to receive glory for who He is and what He alone has done.

So I want to contrast it. If man’s greatest aim is to be praised by man, we must say Christ’s greatest aim was to die to the approval and praises of man and live for the will of God according to the character of God. This is only what Jesus did in His ministry. Jesus did a lot. He said a lot. He did a lot of miracles. But did Jesus do them because He just wanted to help people? I’m so glad for you now. Now you can see. Go live a good life. You can see now. I’m going to do this for you so now you don’t struggle with this anymore. Jesus loved people, but Jesus loved people to this end. The goodness and kindness and mercy of God would be magnified. So friends, if our intent when we help people is because I have a knowledge of God, I have a love for God, I have a desire for God to be known,

we will be blissfully unaware of ourselves. And when we’re blissfully unaware of ourselves because we want God to get glory for His compassion and mercy to people, it will be as if our right hand doesn’t even know what our left hand is doing. Jesus says this is the kind of hidden righteousness of doing good that the Father sees and the Father rewards.

John Stott says Christian giving is to be marked by self-sacrifice. And I love these two. I love these two words together. Self-forgetfulness. Not by self-congratulation.

It’s the hidden secret righteousness. The prophet Jeremiah says this in 1710. I, the Lord, search the heart and test the mind. So see where it starts. I, the Lord, search the heart and I test the mind to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.

Someone has written self-righteousness as like a bottomless cup. Though you pour and pour, you will never be able to fill it. Why? Because pouring yourself into yourself adds nothing to you. Nothing plus nothing always equals nothing.

And what we’ve got to do as the church, as followers of Jesus, is constantly come to the place in humility and say, God, I am and I have nothing. Jesus is my something. And when Jesus is my something, Jesus is the compassion I know. Jesus is my definition of mercy. Jesus is my definition of goodness. I don’t want to show myself off. Showing myself off when I do that seems silly. Why would I do that? I don’t have anything of my own. What I want to do is show off Christ. Let me show you who this God is. Let me show you how He manifested Himself in Jesus. Let me show you how kind and humble this Jesus is. Jesus is our something. It’s Christ in us alone. And I do think when you go back again to the garden where man’s pride broke Him apart from God, what did we forget about the garden? We were not created in our own image. We were created in the image of God. So God always created us with the intended purpose that we perfectly bear His image. We were always created to celebrate God in our relationships for one another. God never intended for us to praise one another. Our relationships and the way we love and care about one another, it should go back to the God who loved us this way first.

So friends, do good. Do a lot of good. Help a lot of people in humility. Give your money away. Help the cause of the poor. Ask the Lord to show you this, but also ask the Lord to constantly be showing your heart to you that you’re doing it for the right reasons because you desire God’s compassion and love and mercy to be magnified. Don’t sound your trumpet when you do it.

Jesus says previous, and we considered this months ago, let your light shine. So Jesus can’t mean literally hide your righteous deeds. It’s going to be impossible to live for the Lord in this broken, fallen world and people will not say, oh, you look different. That’s not the hiddenness. The hiddenness is the motive of the heart, right? And I think you have to think about our times. I know I say that a lot. I think you have to be contextual. But let’s be honest. Social media, it makes this very difficult. Like, did you really post that Scripture because you really believe the Lord wanted you to post it or you want people to think you were spiritual? So you’re like, this is what the Lord’s been teaching me about this. I just want everybody to know I’m real spiritual. Or I don’t know that I quite understand pastors that tweet their own sermons, like blips from their own sermons. Like, I don’t know about that. Even when churches post on social media, we saw this much happen and God did this and we have this many people. We have this many people get saved. Again, I’m no one’s judge on these things. At the same time, it’s so easy to bypass our motives for why we’re doing what we’re doing. Really, we just want to look good. Like, look at me. So that’s pride, right? Of the heart. I’ve got to constantly be fighting. It’s not about many people think well of me. It’s about Christ being made much of. That should be the prerogative of the Christian when we’re doing good in the world.

Verse 5, Verse 5, Jesus goes on to say,

And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners. They may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. I want you to consider with me a few example stories in the Old Testament. And for time’s sake, I’m not going to go to every passage. I’m just going to kind of talk about these. In Genesis 30,

Rachel and Leah at different times can’t get pregnant for different reasons. Yet the Scriptures say when Rachel and Leah, came before the Lord, they humbled themselves. It says God listened.

In Judges 13, Manoah, Samson’s father, the angel comes, and he says, hey, you’re going to have this son. He’s going to be a Nazarite. Manoah’s like, we’ve got to ask the angel to come back and help us understand this mission. Help us understand what we’re supposed to do to parent this kid well. When Manoah does that, it says God listened.

When Solomon dedicates his house and the temple to the Lord, and he pleads with the Lord, be faithful, be faithful to the covenant you made to David. Always be upon us, Lord, we want to serve you. And be merciful to us. The Scriptures say, God said, I have heard. When Ezra is traveling back to Israel from exile with a group of people, he wants a safe travel, so he calls for a fast, and it says God listened to him. When David’s in trouble, David says, God will hear me. Micah says, I will wait on the God of my salvation. God will hear me. I run through those things to remind us God has always been, from ancient times, a God who listens. Not to his equals, he doesn’t have any. Not to his authority, he doesn’t have one. But God condescends in his grace to listen to us when we come in humility, earnestly seeking his face. And that’s it. That’s the common denominator in every one of those scenarios. God never fails to listen. To quickly come to the aid and to listen to those who humble themselves before him. Does God ask for a fancy show? No. Does God ask for fancy words? He doesn’t. Time and time again, we see God come to what? Those who are lowly in heart. That’s the only qualifier here. In 1 Kings, you get a really amplified picture of it because the prophet Elijah, he challenges the prophets of Baal. He says, hey, let’s soak this, this, this sacrifice in some water here. Let’s build this thing and we’ll see who’s God’s real. And so they go first and all day long, they’re screaming and they’re raving and they’re jumping around and they’re cutting themselves until they’re bloodied up. And Elijah the whole time’s mocking them. You know, is he taking a nap here, God? What’s he doing? So Elijah goes on and on and mocks them and no matter how loud they get and how much they cut themselves, he never comes. But the moment Elijah

gets down, and he prays simple words, God, I want you to be glorified. I want these people to know that you are God. Immediately, it says the fire, it licks up the water and consumes the sacrifice.

Friends, it’s a humble heart that God hears and listens to. 2 Chronicles 7, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from me, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. God asks only for humility to draw near to us. That’s it. Babbling, that’s fancy show. That’s what non-believers do because the non-believer doesn’t understand the nature and essence of prayer, which is what? Dependence. That’s what prayer is. When you pray, it is a declaration. God, I don’t have anything good to say. God, I don’t have anything to offer up to you. Prayer, before you even say anything, is a disposition of humble gratitude that recognizes this is a good God that I don’t deserve to talk to, but He’s going to listen to me only because He’s good and because I’ve humbled myself. That’s it.

James says it in chapter 4, verse 6, but He gives more grace, therefore it says, God opposes the proud,

but He gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will. It’s not a maybe. He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord. And what does it say? He will exalt you. He will lift you up. That’s a promise of the text.

Prayer is, I believe, the most exhausting spiritual exercise when we forget we don’t have anything to offer to God. Exhausting. We scratch for more beautiful words. Oh, maybe I said it like this. Or if I could say it like that. Or if I spent longer time in deeper prayer. I bet there’s some saint out there who’s so eloquent in the way that he just speaks all these just beautiful words to God. And here I am, this poor sinner. Surely God doesn’t hear me. Let me say to you, those are unnecessary struggles. They’re unnecessary struggles because they stem from a prideful inclination determined to impress God. It cannot be done. Ought we grow in our prayer life in the language of the Scripture to talk to God more about what His Word says and what pleases Him? Yes. Ought we pray longer? Ought we pray harder as time passes? Yes, but you’ll never get there until you rest in the fact I can’t say or do anything of my own accord. It is nothing more than God’s Spirit teaching me what it means to be in the presence of God. It is a disposition of humility and joy that throws off the burden. I can never perform for God. I can never do anything right for God. Let me just come into His presence and enjoy sweet communion. That’s what Jesus is teaching the people about. So long. They had these examples in the religious leaders and it became such a show and who could put on a better show and wow, that guy must be godly because he can say so many beautiful things. And Jesus is saying, God doesn’t hear that.

God says just humble yourself and I’ll draw near and I’ll listen.

Prayer is not a show for others. Prayer is not a show for God. It’s an act of dependence and thereby it’s an act of worship.

The infinitely wise and good God has not forgotten what you need. Hey God, I know you’ve been around a long time. I need to remind you of what’s going on. It’s not the case. Friends, we pray to be reminded ourselves about how God never forgets, how faithful God is. And in that humble place of remembering God’s providential, fatherly love and care, He provides. Rest in His fatherly care. Rest in His grace. You can do nothing. You can do nothing to earn it. You can do nothing to describe how good it is. All we can do in prayer is simply receive it. The Scriptures say when you don’t have words, that’s actually just fine because the Spirit will intercede for you with groans that words couldn’t even express.

So God’s saying plainly in His Word, you just don’t have words. As Charles Spurgeon says, groans that we can’t utter are oftentimes prayers God can’t resist to answer.

Prayer then is our greatest desire. It’s our great duty, and it is a great duty, but it’s also our great delight.

We come to ask for God for those things we need to live well for Him, but we delight to be in His presence, knowing that we’ve been accepted simply because He’s accepted us based on what Jesus has done for us, not what we could ever do or say for ourselves. I want to save you from years of unwarranted shame and guilt. And if only I was more spiritual, if only, if only, friends, if only you could see how good Jesus is in your place. If only.

Richard Sibbes says, God can pick sins out of a confused prayer. These desires cry louder in His ears than your sins. Sometimes a Christian has such confused thoughts that he can say nothing, but as a child cries, Oh Father, not able to express what he needs like Moses at the Red Sea. These stirrings of spirit touch the heart of God and melt Him into compassion. Passion toward us. When they come from the spirit of adoption and from a striving to be better. I don’t know where he’s gotten this, but Dawson started this thing recently where when he does something I like or it makes me laugh or I approve of it. Hey Daddy, so you proud of me? He’s been doing it a lot lately. We were outside the other day and he has this plastic ball and bat and he can hit it now without the tee. Wow, he knocked it across

against the other yard. And I said, Dawson, that was so good. That was so good, buddy. You did it. Dad, are you proud of me now? Are you proud of me? And I just have to stop. And I said, Dawson, I’m proud of you no matter what, just because you’re my son. Like that’s it.

Is God not a better Father than me?

Yet I often think I must do something to please this Father in heaven knowing that He’s given Christ to be pleasing in my place. Friend, you rob yourself of communion with God when you live this life. You rob yourself of joy. You rob yourself of daily satisfaction. Hear me say this to you. You are your greatest obstacle in prayer. Get out of the way.

If you can’t find the words, just sit there and tell God, God, I don’t have the words, but I just want You and I want Your way because I know it’s good. Have mercy. And oh, how He will have mercy. He’ll have mercy.

Friends, the hidden life of righteousness it’s visible and it’s beautiful to the Father. It’s a life He cannot resist to reward.

He can’t resist it because it looks like His Son Jesus.

Jesus, who only ever did good in His Father’s name. Jesus, who served the least of these. Jesus, who is infinitely good and merciful. Merciful and kind to those who didn’t deserve it. Jesus, who spent His life not saying, look at me, the King of the world. He spent His life saying, look at my Father. Look how good and kind He is. Look how I’ve shown up here not to condemn you, but to save you.

And Jesus, Jesus knew His Father in secret prayer. Jesus knew He was accepted of the Father. Jesus drew His strength from His Father in heaven. Jesus never stopped. He sought the praises and approval of man. Jesus just knew His Father was good and He rested in that and He lived according to His Father’s will.

So God is not asking you and I to come up with our own righteousness like Christ. God is saying to us, freely in faith receive the righteousness of my Son Jesus. And friends, when we receive this righteous Christ, the Bible says we will receive the same reward. We’ll receive fellowship with the Father. We’ll receive fellowship with the Son. It’s a reward the world can’t give and it’s a reward the world can’t take away. It’s hidden from the world, but it’s seen by the Father.

And when we come to faith in this righteous Jesus, He saves us from great ruin. He saves us from thinking we can live a life that pleases God, that merits salvation.

And He saves us to eternal joy in Himself. Friends, however much you think you know this merciful God, you haven’t even scratched the surface. Know Him more. Serve Him more. However much you think you’ve spent time in prayer, oh, it’s a scratch at the surface. Let’s go deeper in knowing this God. Knowing Him, becoming like His Son Jesus. In this is true life. In this is our reward alone.

Jesus says this is eternal life. That they know the Father and the Son. So Jesus says, this is His own reward. And He freely offers it to those who would repent of their sins and place their life, place their faith, place their trust in Jesus alone. Is Jesus your righteousness this morning?

Let’s pray.

Father, we just pray You’d have mercy on us for when we are quick to think

that the cross of Christ is not enough.

Lord, we’ve got to do something to please You. We’ve got to do something to make You smile.

Lord, when we think that it’s worth living for the praises and approval of man,

remind us this morning the only thing that’s eternal, the only thing that’s good is knowing and possessing the righteousness of Jesus Christ alone.

Lord, that we may live life of righteous deeds, that we would practice righteousness because it’s the power of Christ within us, that we would feel loved and accepted of You because it is Christ alone who is made a way. Oh Lord, let us be marked by this joy, by this simple rest because of what Jesus has done. And I pray, Father, when we know it, it would come through us and we would shine it and we would share it with the world that needs it also, Lord. So we just pray this word would dig deep roots into our hearts, into our lives, and Jesus would truly be all that we have. Jesus would be our life. So I just pray that over us as a church. I pray that, Lord, over myself. I pray that over our families.

And these things I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.