Rewards

That there will be people who think that they are close with God, that their eternal destinies are secure, who will discover at the final judgment that they are, in fact, strangers to God and that God wants nothing to do with them. You can be a person who is outrageously generous, who fasts twice a week. Fasting is an ancient practice of going without food so that you could focus on God. You could never miss a Sunday service. You make several Facebook and Instagram posts every single day about Christianity. You can have read the Bible cover to cover 27 times and still be a stranger to God. So with that as a preface, let me read from Matthew chapter 6.

I'm gonna start in the first verse. We're gonna read all the way to verse 18. This is the Lord Jesus speaking at the Sermon on the Mount. He says, Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. For 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 in the streets so that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. Just by the way, whenever in the Bible you hear Jesus say, truly, I say to you, that's a way of Jesus saying, listen up because this is really important. So he says, 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. He continues in verse five. 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 so that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, Jesus saying, listen to what I'm about to say, they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners so 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, 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 even ask Him. Pray then like this. And this is one of the most famous passages in the Bible.

He says, 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 also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Then he says, For if you forgive others their trespasses, or their wrongs against you, that's what trespasses is. It's an old word to describe that, wrongs committed.

If you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your Father who is in secret.

And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. In our passage this morning, Jesus has a serious warning for His followers. If you're His follower this morning, if you call yourself a Christian, Jesus' warning is for you. If you're not a Christian and you're visiting us this morning, this passage ought to be really helpful for you to understand what true Christianity actually looks like. It will help you to tell the difference between the Christianity of Jesus and the Christianity which sometimes, maybe even often, exists in Australia today.

A broken kind of false Christianity, and it's not just in Australia, but it's around the world and throughout history. There's a reason that Jesus is giving us this warning here, and it's because it's such an easy trap for people to fall into. One which people fell into in His day and one which people have been falling into for the last couple of thousand years. If you consider yourself to be a follower of Jesus, this passage could frighten you.

You might think that you're living like a true Christian, that your life is pleasing to God, but find out as we think about this passage that, as a matter of fact, it might not be as pleasing to God as what you had thought. But the alternative is also true. You might think that you're actually not a very great Christian, that people don't know you as a very spiritual person, but you might find that God is deeply pleased with you. Jesus' words here are only scary if you struggle with hypocrisy. And if you don't, then Jesus' words ought to be exciting to you.

And even if you do struggle with hypocrisy, this passage, in the long run at least, should be a massive blessing to you. It will provide you with a pathway out of the pain and the fear of that lifestyle and into the peace and the joy and the acceptance that God the Father wants each of His children to experience. As mentioned, Jesus, he's in the middle of preaching the most famous sermon ever preached, the Sermon on the Mount. He was on this sort of big hill preaching to tons of people. And in the passage we're looking at, Jesus turns His mind to what it looks like to have an authentic relationship with God.

He actually says that we can be doing all the right actions, but if our motivations are wrong, if our actions are not authentic, they're lacking in integrity. They can be totally worthless in God's sight. And this is so important that He gives us a warning in the first verse. I'm gonna read it in just a second. And then He spends the rest of the passage giving us more or less three different examples to help us to understand the one warning which He gives us in the very first verse.

In Jesus' day, the practices of generosity, prayer, and fasting were considered to be the three key practices which a follower of God would do. So by covering all three of them, Jesus is kind of implicitly saying that anything and everything that we do that kind of looks religious or looks spiritual is at risk of being corrupted by the wrong motives. Now in the passage, Jesus is gonna show us what corrupted religiosity looks like as well as what authentic discipleship looks like. So let me just read the warning in verse one. The whole rest of this passage hangs off of verse one.

So if you listen to nothing else this morning, focus on this first verse. Here's what Jesus says, Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them. For then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. And we're just gonna jump straight into Jesus' first illustration that He gives to hammer home the point that He's making in verse one. He says, Thus, when you give alms, which is, alms is an old way of referring to giving away money to poor people.

When you give alms, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets so that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your alms may be in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. There are just a couple of really valuable things that should immediately jump out at us as we think about Jesus' first example. Firstly, He says, don't be like the hypocrites.

Tragically, painfully for me, as someone who loves God and wants Him to be worshipped and revered in our society, one of the very, very top words, if not the top word, that the average Australian associates with Christianity is hypocrite. This shows us just how relevant Jesus' warning is to us. It wasn't just relevant in His day, two thousand years ago. It's just as relevant for us. Jesus says, don't be like the hypocrites.

Your faith isn't supposed to be a faith that exists only in front of other people and then disappears when you are not being observed. God is inviting us into an authentic transformation of our hearts, and if your heart is transformed, then you won't be a hypocrite when you practice your righteousness because your heart and your actions will be in alignment. You'll be integrated and whole. This is the magnificent invitation of God to us. He's inviting us to be whole.

He says about hypocritical givers, truly they have received their reward. What does He mean by that? Well, Jesus is saying that many people, they're not really being generous because of God, because of some kind of relationship or connection or love that they might have for Him. They might not even be being generous for the sake of the person in need. Instead, these people are being generous because they want everyone to see them and give them respect and honour and praise, to think really highly of them.

They might even be generous in a vain attempt to buy God's favour or even to look good in their own eyes. I know that I can be guilty of this, of doing a good thing not out of love for a person, but so that I can think better of my own self. That's why Jesus goes even further and says that we shouldn't even let our left hand know what our own right hand is doing when we are being generous. He's saying that you shouldn't be keeping track of your generosity so that you can pat yourself on the back. Jesus is saying that when you're generous, you ought to be generous like He is generous.

God is generous because generosity is a core part of His identity. And the ultimate act of His generosity was Jesus Himself giving up His own life for us while we were still His enemies so that we could be reconciled to God, have peace with the Creator of everything. And Jesus is saying that His followers ought to be reflecting the generous character of God in our own lives. And because God's generosity isn't hypocritical, because God's generosity is authentic and genuine and wonderful and pure, our generosity must be the same. We were created at the dawn of time to glorify God by reflecting His glorious character.

And Jesus is telling us not to settle for a fake, superficial, self serving, self exalting kind of generosity, but to pursue the same kind of divine and truly selfless generosity that God has already shown to us. And then a truly scary thing that Jesus says about these hypocrites is that they have received their reward in full. And that's a terrifying statement, because He also ties it together with a wonderful statement. He says, Be generous in secret. Don't be afraid that no one will see you or notice you.

Don't be afraid that you might forget about your own act of generosity in a month, because God the Father sees you. And not only does God see you, but Jesus promises in verse four that you will be rewarded. Jesus is freeing us to pursue authentic generosity. Generosity which is motivated by a genuine love for God and a love for others instead of merely a love for ourselves. This is wonderful news, friends.

And then Jesus is gonna go on to one of His other examples. His example about fasting is kind of similar to His example about generosity. So we're gonna jump forwards in the passage all the way to verse 16, and we're gonna look at it and then we'll come back to the prayer example that Jesus gives us, and we'll kind of look at that last. So Jesus says, starting, I'm gonna read from verse 16, And when you fast, do not look dismal, which is an old way of referring to looking like sad and morose and down and depressed. And when you fast, do not look dismal like the hypocrites.

For they disfigure their faces so that their fasting may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head, wash your face, so that your fasting may not be seen by men, but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Fasting basically meant to go without food for a time, so that a person could, at least in theory, focus on God more fully.

And Jesus highlights for us that it is possible to fast in a hypocritical way, where you're pretending to do it to enable you to focus on God, but really your true desire is to be noticed by the people around you. This would be like if I only ever gave compliments to my wife. God has blessed me unbelievably to my wife. If I only ever gave her compliments on Facebook. There's nothing wrong with giving compliments to my wife on Facebook, but if I only ever gave her compliments on Facebook, she'd probably figure out before long that I wasn't really complimenting her out of love for her, but just because I want everyone to know that I'm a good husband who compliments my wife.

Well, God can see into our hearts. He knows instantly what our motivations are. And He says that if our motivations are pathetic, our reward will be in line with our pathetic motivations. We will have no reward from Him. Fasting means to go without something for the sake of focusing on God, but we can so easily apply that to so many other things that are part of the life of a follower of Jesus today.

Are you at church because you truly and authentically love God and desire to spend time with His people? Or are you only here because you want others to honour you and to know you as a super Christian? Do you spend time every day reading God's word because you want to know Him better, glorify Him more, worship Him as you discover His magnificence in the scripture?

Or is it so that you can boast to your friends and family that you're the kind of person who reads their Bible every morning at 6:30? It's not wrong to do that. Jesus didn't say don't fast, but He said fast for the right reasons. And when we read the Bible, we should read it for the right reasons as well. Do you find yourself saying things to your friends like, I don't mean to boast, but I'm a great Christian because I give so much money away, and I spend so much time serving, and on and on.

And those are exaggerated examples, but you can imagine something similar going on in your life. Jesus is not saying, do not do all of these good things. He's calling us to do them but for the right reason. The alternative to hypocrisy which Jesus is calling us to is so much better. So much grander.

He's calling us to pursue authenticity by following His example. He's telling us that putting on a show, it might fool the people around us. We might even, for a time anyway, be able to trick ourselves. But if we're just seeking earthly glory and honour from others or from ourselves, we're not gonna be able to fool God. Might fool those around us, but God will not be fooled, and He will not be mocked either.

That might be scary, but that is also glorious. It means that God wants us to be integrated people. People whose inner lives match our outer lives. I'm just gonna move back to the middle of the passage where Jesus gives us the final example, His example about prayer. He says, and I'm gonna read from verse five, 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, so that they may be seen by men.

Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room, shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. Your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And in praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do. Gentiles is kind of a way to refer to people that didn't and don't know God.

And in praying, 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. There were people in Jesus' day and there are people today who pray by repeating the same words over and over and over. They think that praying is some kind of magic incantation and that if they say the right words in the right order, the right amount of times, they can control God. And Jesus is telling us that God does not work like that.

He isn't some kind of genie that can be manipulated or a computer program that can be hacked. God does not want you to mock Him by speaking at Him instead of to Him. God wants a relationship with you. The Father wants the same kind of family relationship with you that He has with Jesus. Jesus is saying when you pray, you communicate. When you communicate with God, you should be communicating in a genuine way.

And then Jesus says in verse eight, that God is so interested in you, He cares about you so much that He already knows what you need before you even ask it of Him. He isn't a distant God that you have to manipulate into remembering you through the right words or by praying an eloquent prayer in front of other people. Jesus is saying that if you belong to God, He already loves you more than you can imagine. God is interested in you. He wants to hear from you.

That's why He says in verse six, But when you pray, go into your room, shut the door, pray to your Father who's in secret, and your Father who sees what is in secret will reward you. Jesus gives us an idea of what a conversation with the King of the universe might look like and it's really outside the scope of this sermon to focus on it. Plenty of parishes have spent ten weeks preaching through this prayer that example prayer that Jesus gives us and we just don't have time to do that this morning unless we want to be here till six. But I do encourage you this week, listen to a sermon or two about it. It's almost guaranteed to bless you richly.

If you're looking for a resource, one of my favourite resources is a series called Look at the Book from John Piper and he focuses on different passages. I think there's gonna be a QR code that'll come up on the screen. You're welcome to take a photo of it. I really encourage you. Have a listen this week.

It's three ten minute segments and he just goes through the Lord's prayer. It's magnificent. It's so helpful. Make time to delight yourself this week with the Lord's prayer. I'm sure that you won't be disappointed.

But we're not gonna spend more time on it this morning. We will just notice one thing together though. Jesus tells us how to address God. And He tells us to call Him Father. And at the time when Jesus said this, this would have blown away everyone around Him.

They were used to addressing God as the King of the universe or something like that. And Jesus tells them to address their prayers to the Father. It's even more glorious than that. In Romans chapter 8 verse 15, we learn that we are called to address God the Father as Abba, which is Aramaic or Hebrew or one of those ancient languages. The closest translation in our English language would be Dad or Papa.

We have been adopted into the family of God. Abba is the deeply close, familial word for Father. This is what we have been invited into. This is unbelievably generous by the King of the universe. We're being called not to address Him as Abba, but to think about Him in our head as our Dad.

This is why Jesus tells us to reject the hypocrisy of a self serving prayer because there's so much more on offer. It would be like eating the skin of an avocado and totally leaving the flesh of the avocado. It just doesn't make any sense whatsoever when what God has invited us into is so much better than the hypocrisy of a self serving, self exalting prayer. Jesus is saying that we need to be drawing our identity and our honour and our pride and our purpose from the fact that we are adopted into the family of the King of Kings, not from what the people around us think about us. We are in a position to communicate with the King of the universe as adopted children who are deeply loved.

As people who can and should be calling Him Dad. Just wow. This is why it's so wrong to treat prayer as a way to increase our social standing before others. It's insanely disrespectful to the kind of relationship that God is inviting us into with Him. And we're just coming to the end of the sermon, but let me just encourage you.

After the Lord's prayer, He says some words in verse 14, which are very scary but also a wonderful way to finish our time together this morning. Verses 14 and 15, they really should be giving you chills if you're a Christian and you read these verses. It gave me chills. Actual chills as I was reading and preparing. I listened to whole sermons on just these two verses.

I read articles. I read commentaries. These are scary and glorious words which Jesus is about to say, well, which He already said and we're about to read. He means exactly what He says.

He says, For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses. Jesus is saying, If you're truly My disciple, you will be forgiving like I am forgiving. This is what it means to be adopted into the family of God, to have your life transformed by the Holy Spirit, to live in the way that humans were designed to live at the dawn of time. It means to be like God.

And your God, our God, the God of the universe, is forgiving. This verse isn't just scary, friends. This verse is good news. This passage might have weighed you down as we went through it, have made you aware of your two facedness towards God. Might have revealed your own sinfulness to yourself.

It's hard not to. I think most people struggle with hypocrisy and not relating in an authentic and genuine way towards God. But this verse means that when you disobey God, He is so willing to extend forgiveness to you. That is what it means to serve a forgiving God. Even if your sin is that you struggle with unforgiveness, if you've been holding on to unforgiveness for a time, God is even willing to extend forgiveness to you for your lack of forgiveness for others.

He is willing to forgive you for your hypocritical generosity or your hypocritical prayer or your hypocritical fasting if you come to Him in genuine repentance and faith. This is why Jesus came to earth. He came to save broken and sinful people. He came to die so that we can live. He came so that we can escape hypocritical lives filled with fakery and deception and fear and live as integrated and whole sons and daughters of the God who loves us more than we can comprehend.

He died so that we might have the joy of having our inner lives match our outer lives. So we can have confidence and peace and joy and glorify Him as we are intended to do. In a second, we are going to sing again. But first, I invite you to pray with me. Father, the only appropriate thing that seems right to do after reading a passage like this, which I'm sure is convicting not only for me but for most, if not everyone in this room, is to come before You and say, Dad, please forgive us.

We have not loved You as we should. We haven't loved the people around us as we should. We confess that we are broken and sinful. And Father, we just come before You and we wanna say that we are sorry. We are sorry that we haven't loved You with the depth that You call us to love You with.

We are sorry for self serving prayers or generosity or fakery or the different things that we've engaged in, the sin in our lives. And we ask for Your forgiveness. And in the same breath as us asking, we thank You for Your forgiveness. We thank You that You've given us so many promises to assure us over and over and over and over again that despite our brokenness, despite our sin, You do love us and You are willing to forgive us. Thank You.

I mean, it would be hard to believe if You hadn't have sent Your own Son to come and die so that we could be forgiven. Like, extraordinary generosity that You've shown us just proves beyond a doubt that You truly, You really do, You stand willing to forgive us, and we thank You for that. Thank You for Your generosity, Your grace, Your forgiveness, Your kindness, for Your love. Thank You for the invitation to call You our Father. Thank You that You want us to live authentic lives, that our inner lives match our outer lives.

You are so good and You call us not towards badness and darkness and brokenness, but towards magnificence and beauty and wholeness, towards peace and joy. Thank You for that. Thank You that You are so good to us. We worship You. And Father, we pray that You will help us to live as Your sons and daughters.

Help us to be truly generous to the people around us. Help us when we pray to truly speak to You as Your sons and Your daughters. And when we do various things, whether that's fasting or coming to church or reading the Bible or all the different kinds of things that we do in our lives, we pray that You will, through the power of the Holy Spirit, be empowering us to do them out of love for You. The only way that we could ever do it is if the Holy Spirit helps us. And so we ask, please, please help us.

We are broken and sinful, and we need Your help. And when we fall, please remind us that You are a forgiving God. You stand willing to forgive us. We worship You and praise You and thank You. Amen.