In Matthew chapter six, the first
18 verses, we have what I recognize and what we
all recognize as three religious activities that are generally
common to all religions, false religions, true religion, are
always engaged in these actions. And what I'm going to do is I
want to give an overview of these 18 verses, and then next week
my plan is to come back and go through the model prayer. You
see here, beginning in verse nine, where Lord, in the book
of Luke, chapter 11, when one of the disciples heard the Lord
praying, and he asked, Lord, teach us to pray. And then he
prayed this prayer, our Father which art in heaven, hallowed
be thy name. And I'll just briefly go over
that today, and then come back next week and we'll go into it
in more depth. That's the model prayer. Some people call it the
Lord's Prayer, but it's really not the Lord's Prayer in the
sense of the Lord praying as our mediator to the Father. And
most of you know that an example of the Lord's prayer would be
John 17, where he prayed unto the Father. But this is the model
prayer. This is where he teaches us to
pray. But here we have these three acts. The first one is
acts of charity in almsgiving. And that's in the first four
verses. The second one is acts in devotion, which is prayer.
Prayer and worship are acts of devotion. And he mentions prayer
here. And then the third one is, represents
acts of self-denial represented in the observation of fasting. That
is, not eating in order to, because of sorrow over sin or whatever,
in a religious way. And he mentions these. And what
the Lord is doing in these verses, he's showing that there's nothing
wrong with these religious activities. Nothing wrong with almsgiving.
Believers are to be givers. And we'll talk about it. Believers
are to pray. True believers are to deny ourselves. Now that doesn't necessarily
have to come in the work of fasting. You know, fasting was never commanded. It was always voluntary. But
if you choose to fast, then that's okay. But all believers are to
deny ourselves in certain ways. And you hear these silly religionists,
they have what they call lint, where they give up something
for a week or a month or whatever. That's not what this is talking
about. But like I said, fasting is an act of self-denial, denying
ourselves something. Well, we certainly, when we're
brought to Christ by the Spirit, we deny ourselves completely,
don't we? Because we know that salvation
cannot be conditioned on us. And that's, we repent of our
dead works. That's denying self, taking up
the cross and denying self. And that can be represented in
the act of fasting. But that is a voluntary thing.
It was a voluntary thing under the old covenant law. There's
no command in the scripture that commands us to fast. But we are
commanded to deny ourselves. And we'll talk about that in
just a moment. But the Lord in these verses, he's teaching his
disciples that we're not to give, to pray, and to fast, as false
religionists do. The way they do it is wrong,
and the reason it's wrong is because they do it to be seen
of men. They do it to get confirmation
or affirmation from people. It's kinda like they do it, and
you'll hear people say this. Like, for example, public prayer.
Now, we pray publicly in our worship service. And there's
nothing wrong with that. I stand up and I pray. And the
men who come and they read, they pray. We have public prayer. There's nothing wrong with that.
This is a worship service. But out in the community, this
thing of praying, a lot of times it's no more than superstition.
I had a man tell me one time, he said he wouldn't touch a bite
of food unless he prayed over it. And they call it blessing
it. We're not blessing the food.
God's already blessed it, you see. And they'll make a show. And then others will think, well,
this is our witness before men. If I pray publicly. Prayer is
not our witness before men. Our witness before men is the
gospel. And whenever we get an opportunity
to tell them the gospel. Now does that mean we shouldn't
pray in Thanksgiving? Always. And you go out into a
restaurant, and I had a fellow tell me one time, he said, aren't
you going to pray over this food? And I told him, I said, I already
have. You just didn't see me. And that's the way this book
here says that we're to pray. I'm not going to pray just so
you can see me pray. I can pray, and you don't even
know I'm praying. And that's what he says to do. So in other
words, put it all in perspective. All right? So we're not to give
to be seen of men, we're not to pray to be seen of men, and
we're not to fast to be seen of men. And if we do that, Christ
says in all three instances, we have our reward. Now what
is our reward? Our reward there is the praise
of men. You already have it. If that's
what you want, you'll get it. But what does that mean? That
means nothing. And then there are those who
think that these acts contribute to their righteousness before
God. They think that God is angry
with them or God rejects them if they don't do these things
in a way that's public, as they say their witness. You know, there are verses in
the scripture that kind of say it all. in the sense of they put everything
in perspective concerning certain issues. And the verse that I
always go to is right here in the Sermon on the Mount back
in Matthew chapter five, verse 16, where he says, let your light
so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify
your Father which is in heaven. Now, as we go throughout life
and we try to be good people, and that's what we should do,
We should try to be obedient people, responsible people. We
should try to treat each other the way we want to be treated.
He deals with that in the Sermon on the Mount here in Matthew
6. You know, do unto others as you would have them do unto you,
that kind of thing. It's impossible not to try to
do those things and not be seen by people to do them. All right? But we want people to know this. Whatever we do, if they see me
do a good act, and of course we know that now this goodness
now is only good before God as it is cleansed and accepted in
the blood of Christ. Now we know that, all right? Because our best efforts to be
good, whether we're giving, praying, or fasting, fall short of the
perfection of righteousness that can only be found in Christ.
And so we know that. Everything we are and everything
we do is accepted with the Father through Christ on the basis of
his merits alone. And when it talks about our reward
in these things, it's talking about the reward of praising
God and glorifying God. When I pray the way I ought to
pray, when I give the way I ought to give, and when I fast the
way I ought to fast or to self-deny, My goal is to glorify God, and
it's accepted on the merits of Christ, and that's our reward.
That's the grace of God, and he rewards us openly. So let's
look at this. We want people to know this,
that whatever you see me doing that men and women call good,
and that may be good, that number one, it's not accepted with God,
except upon the merits of the blood of Christ. And number two,
it is not my righteousness before God. I have one righteousness
before God. And that's the imputed righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that's our testimony. So
let your light shine before men. That's the gospel. That they
may see your good works and do what? Draw attention to you?
No. Glorify your father which is
in heaven. Now you can see in all this why I call Christianity
advanced citizenship. It's not easy, is it? But let's
look at it. Verse one, take heed that you
do not your alms before men. Now some translations translate
the word alms as righteousnesses. But there's, the Greek word for
alms is not righteousnesses. I think what it is is when he
talks about the Pharisees doing these things, they looked upon
it as part of their righteousness. But almsgiving has to do with
giving to the poor. It also has to do with giving
to support the gospel, giving to help one another. And he says,
don't do your alms before men to be seen of men. And the key
there is to be seen of men. To be recognized of men. Otherwise
you have no reward of your father which is in heaven. What does
that mean? That doesn't praise God. If I do this to be seen
of men, that doesn't glorify God. That just, it's like blowing
your own horn. And so don't do it to be seen
of men. The fact that we're to be givers
is clear in scripture. The Bible speaks of believers
who have plenty giving to believers who are in need, genuinely in
need, not welfare, but genuinely in need. And that's love. And that's gratitude to God.
If the Lord's blessed us with plenty, we should be generous. So there's no doubt about that.
And what's the motivation for our giving? Well, what does the
Bible say about us? Sinners saved by grace. Blessed
with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus. And even, as I always like to
remind myself, Even the next breath we take is a gift from
God. Whatever success we've had in
life, who do we thank? We thank God. Because God can
give, God can take away. Look at Job. Job had plenty and
then he went down to nothing. Now God gave back to him again.
We could talk about Joe, but what we have, every good and
perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights with whom
there's no shadow of turning. And that's what we do when we
give to others in need, when we give to support the gospel.
So all of that is understood. And even under the law, generosity
was commanded. I put here that generosity was
demanded by the law, Exodus 23, the prophet spoke of it, Daniel
4. And it's generosity is demanded by the grace of God, not to be
saved, not to earn salvation, but as an act of love and gratitude
to God. When we help one of our brethren,
for example, who's in need, We're showing not only our love to
that brother or that sister, we're showing our love to Christ.
Remember Christ spoke of that in Matthew 25. He said, in that
you have done it to the least of these, my brethren, you've
done it unto me. I can't remember who said this
years ago. He said, if you kick one of his
children, he feels it. We've done that, haven't we?
That's why we need forgiveness. All of that. comes into play,
but look at verse two, he says, therefore when thou doest thine
alms, when you give, don't sound a trumpet. You know, if you put
money in the box back there to support the gospel, somebody
may see it, that's not what he's talking about, but don't go back
there and say, look at me, I'm giving, you know, that kind of
thing. To draw attention to yourself,
don't sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in
the synagogues and in the streets, and this is what they did. They
did it so publicly that they wanted people to know, look at
me, I'm giving. They may not have said it that
way, but that was the attitude, and that was the way they did
it. He said that they may have glory of men. You know what a
lot of people want when they talk about their witness? They
want the confirmation of men to say, look at him, he's a real
Christian. Yeah, but keep in mind this,
the world will not know us. Isn't that what the Bible says?
And it's not our giving and our praying and our fasting that
distinguishes us as Christians. Hindus give, Hindus pray, Hindus
fast. Buddhists, false Christians,
they all do that. But what is it they don't do?
They don't look to Christ alone for all salvation. The gospel
is what distinguishes us, not our doing, not performing acts
of devotion or acts of self-denial or acts of generosity. So think
about this. Don't be like the hypocrites
in doing these things. He says, verily I say unto you,
they have their reward, well what's their reward? The glory
of men. But not from God. He says in verse three, now listen
to this, but when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know
what thy right hand doeth. Now that's a metaphorical way
of just saying, don't, do it secretly, that's what he's saying,
do it privately. And he says, that thine alms
may be in secret, and thy father which seeth in secret, God sees
the heart. Oh, he sees the act, but he goes
beyond the act. His word is sharp and powerful
as a two-edged sword. Goes straight to the motives
and the thoughts. And he sees in secret himself,
he'll reward thee openly. Now what does that mean, he'll
reward thee openly? It doesn't mean that he's gonna
give you a return on your investment. You know these preachers who
say, now if you'll send a gift of $10, he'll give back 100. I mean, there are guys who say
that. That's crazy, that's not what it is. How does he reward
us openly? Because he says openly in his
word, publicly in his word, that he accepts that as a love gift
based upon the blood of Christ. It glorifies him. That's our
reward, did you know that? To glorify God. It praises him. It's an act of a child of God. Think about this. Our worship
this morning, our prayers this morning, they're called sacrifices,
they're called, Let me look over here in 1 Peter. Show you what
I'm talking about. 1 Peter chapter two. I didn't mark this, so. All right, in 1 Peter two he
says, he says in verse five, he says, you also as living stones
are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer
up spiritual sacrifices, and look what he says, acceptable
to God by Jesus Christ. My friend, if God accepts it,
and the only way he can do so is through the blood of Christ,
on the ground of Christ's righteousness imputed, that's the only way
he can do it now. He doesn't accept it because of our pure
motive, because even our motives are tainted with sin. That's
why we have to struggle in these areas. Somebody said, well, I
don't want any glory, but I want a little appreciation. And that's
the way we are. And sometimes we don't realize
how appreciated we are. Maybe we don't tell each other
enough. But here's the thing, it's acceptable to God. Can you
imagine that? God accepting anything from me,
a sinner? But he does. How does he do it? Acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. It praises him, it glorifies
him. Go back to Matthew six now. Now he comes to prayer. Listen
to what he says here in verse five. He says, when thou prayest,
thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray standing
in the synagogues and in the corners of the street. and that
they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have
their reward. Well, it's the same thing. Well, listen, let's go ahead and read
verse six. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet,
when thou hast shut the door, pray to thy father which is in
secret, and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward
thee openly. That's the same thing. It's not that we do it in secret
because we're ashamed. We do it in secret because of
the nature of prayer. And you know, that's the thing
about it is, people don't know what prayer is. If you think
you're praying is your witness before men, you don't know what
prayer is. Now, you go into a restaurant,
if you wanna, just by yourself, privately bow your head and pray.
There's nothing wrong with that. But to sit on everybody else
and make sure people see you and that kind of thing, that's
not right. And if you think that you're
a witness, you don't know what prayer, prayer is the act of
a child of God worshiping God. expressing his or her dependence
upon the Father, and that's the nature of prayer. It's between
you and God. It's not so that you can be seen to be religious
or pious. And I know that goes against
the grain of false religion, doesn't it? Because, man, we've
been taught to stand on our hind legs and let her fly. But that's not the way to do
it. He says it, now look at it. Now I didn't write this, you
all know that, don't you? He says, go into your closet.
Now that doesn't mean that we can't pray publicly here, because
again, this is a worship service. And the Bible talks about meeting
in the house of God with the people of God, praying and singing
hymns, and we do that. But out in the community, what
he's talking about, and he rewards us openly in the sense that God
is praised, God is glorified, God accepts that prayer by the
blood of Christ. Read Hebrews chapter four, you
know, those last three verses. We have a great high priest who
has passed through into the heavens, Jesus Christ, and because of
that we have every right to go boldly to the throne of grace.
Make our wants and our desires known. And then look at this,
look at verse seven. When you pray, use not vain repetitions,
as the heathen do, repeating words. You know what I thought
of when I read this, and I've got it in your lesson. You know,
the priest tells the Catholic, he says, now you go say 50 Hail
Marys. You've heard that, haven't you?
you know, to be exonerated from your sin. You gotta say, hail
Mary, hail Mary, mother of God. That's foolishness, people. A
mantra, you know, like the Hindus staring at their belly button
and going, oh, and all that. That's false religion. God's
not gonna hear it because we keep repeating it. And he tells
us, he says, for they think they shall be heard for their much
speaking, prayer chains. Let's get enough people we can
gang up on God and change his mind. No. That's not gonna happen. People think that they're heard
for their much speaking. He says, be not ye therefore,
verse eight, like unto them, for your father knoweth what
things you have need of before you ask. He knows what you have
need of. He knows what you desire, your
petitions, before you ask. Somebody says, well then why
pray? Prayer is not to change God's
mind. Prayer is not to impress God. Prayer is more for us. It's an
act of faith. You have fathers on earth. You
think you should talk to them every now and then? Well, we have a father which
is in heaven. And we have the privilege of going to the throne
of grace. I love that verse over in Hebrews chapter 10, how we
as priests of God, we can come before him boldly, with liberty,
approaching his throne, because we have that high priest by the
blood of Christ, by Jesus Christ. And it's a privilege. Prayer
is an act of faith. Prayer is an expression of our
total dependence upon God. We know that what we are and
what we have is of God. Prayer is an act of worship. Prayer is an admission of our
sin. Later on, he's gonna talk about
how Lord forgive us our sins. I had a man tell me one time,
he said, well, why should we pray for forgiveness of our sins?
He's already forgiven us. Well, he has. But it's his will
that we acknowledge it. Lord, if thou, Lord, shouldst
mark iniquities, who would stand? And we're praying in thanksgiving
for the forgiveness of sins. Prayer's an act of thanksgiving.
We don't change God's mind, but you know, God blesses us in prayer
because we know that it praises him, it glorifies him, he accepts
it in Christ. Prayer is sometimes a means by
which he blesses us. The keys to prayer. And we'll
talk more about this next week when we go into the model prayer.
But prayer is praying to the Father through the Son, thy will
be done. There's your three keys to prayer.
Express your desires. Unless those desires are contrary
to the revealed will of God, don't be like the guy who says,
Lord, help me and keep me safe while I rob this bank. That's not gonna work. Because
God says you shall not steal. Or Lord, help me as I kill this
person. That's not gonna work. You shall
not kill. So here it is, your keys to prayer.
Pray unto the Father, God is our heavenly Father, Abba Father,
through the Son, the glory of his person, the power of his
finished work, the blood of Christ, our high priest, Thy will be
done. There's your keys. So go on,
he says, he says in verse eight, don't be like them for your father
hath, he says in verse nine. Now, I think the parallel here,
I think I've got listed as Luke 11. And this is where a disciple
heard the Lord pray and he said, Lord, teach us to pray. And he
says, after this manner, therefore pray you. Here's how you pray. And like I said, I'll go over
this more in detail next week, but he says, our Father, which
art in heaven, hallowed, holy, be thy name, thy kingdom come,
thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this
day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive
our debtors. Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and
the power and the glory forever, amen. And what you have here
is seven petitions in this prayer. Let me just go over them, I'm
not gonna elaborate, but number one, our prayer is for God's
glory. Hallowed be thy name. Number
two, God's kingdom, thy kingdom come. Number three, God's will,
thy will be done. Number four, God's provision,
Give us this day our daily bread. Number five, God's forgiveness.
Forgive us our debts as we forgive those. And then number six, God's
leadership and preservation. Lead us not into temptation.
And number seven, God's praise for thine is the kingdom and
the power and the glory. There's the seven petitions of
prayer. But we'll go over those next
week in detail. But look at verse 14, he says,
after he told him how to pray, forgive us our debts as we forgive
others, he says, for if you forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly
Father will forgive you. But if you forgive not men their
trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Now, many people take that verse, and you know what they do with
it, they say, well, that's conditional forgiveness. And it's not teaching
that at all. Because it's like all the scripture
and all the commandments of God, they come upon the foundation
of and under the umbrella of the covenant of grace. Upon what
ground does God forgive us our sins? Well, the Bible says it,
from Genesis to Revelation, the blood of Christ. So don't take
two verses out of context and try to prove otherwise. Well,
all this is saying is this, if you really have a sense of the
unconditional forgiveness that God has given you and me through
the blood of his son, forgiveness that we did not earn and do not
deserve, that will bring forth, as a result, a spirit of forgiveness
in us. That's what he's saying here. If we don't have any, and I'm
not, listen, I'm not saying it's perfect, I'm not saying it's
easy. It's hard. But it's there. The Holy Spirit of forgiveness
that tells me that as reluctant as I am because of my sinful
flesh, I ought to and I should strive to forgive you when you
do something wrong, or you should strive to forgive me when I do
something wrong. And if that is absent, What does
that show you? You haven't been forgiven of
God. And that's what he's saying. Love begets love. Forgiveness
begets forgiveness. And again, let me stress, I know
it's not perfect and I know it's not easy, but it is there. Why? Because God puts it there.
He puts it there. And I know that Even when we
were enemies, God loved us. Christ died for us. Even when
we were enemies. Now I may be mad at you and you
may be mad at you, but we're still not enemies. We're brethren in Christ. So
let's forgive as we've been forgiven. And that desire to forgive like
that is an evidence that we have been forgiven. Well, look at
verse 16. He says, moreover, when you fast,
be not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance, for they disfigure
their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say
to you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou fastest,
anoint thy head, that is, you know, it means wash yourself,
wash thy face, that thou appear not unto men to fast. I'm fasting,
but I don't want you to know it. But unto thy father, which
is in secret, and thy father, which seeth in secret, shall
reward thee openly. Well, it's the same thing here.
In fasting. Fasting's not required, but if
you're gonna do it, if you feel led to do it, Do it so as not
to appear to people to be fasting or you have your reward. I'll
never forget on the internet I had a fellow who texted me
one time or emailed me, I can't remember. But he went on and
on about how he's fasting and wanted me to pray for him. And
I said, well, first thing I'm praying for you is that the Lord
will show you the right way because you shouldn't have told me you
were fasting. And I quoted these verses here. I never heard from
him again. That's the way it is. So in any
of these religious activities, we're to do it to praise God
and to glorify him and not to be seen of men. Okay.