Matthew chapter six, and we're
going to read from verse one through to verse 18. Matthew
chapter six and verse one. By the way, the title of my sermon
this evening is Take Heed. And these are the first two words
that we have in this chapter. Take heed that ye do not your
alms before men to be seen of them, otherwise ye have no reward
of your father which is in heaven. Therefore, when thou doest thine
alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites
do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory
of men. Verily I say unto you, they have
their reward. But when thou doest alms, let
not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thine
alms may be in secret, and thy father which seeth in secret
himself shall reward thee openly. And 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 streets, that
they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have
their reward. But thou, when thou prayest,
enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray
to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in
secret shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain
repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall
be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto
them, for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of,
before ye ask him. After this manner, therefore,
pray ye, Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be
done, in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead
us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the
kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. For if ye forgive men their trespasses,
your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive
not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your
trespasses. Moreover, when ye 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 unto you,
they have their reward. But thou, when thou fastest,
anoint thine head and wash thy face, that thou appear not unto
men to fast, but unto thy father which is in secret, and thy father
which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. Amen. May God be pleased to bless to
us this reading from his word. You know, our Lord Jesus Christ
left his church, left his people with some truly wonderful sayings,
truly amazing statements. And that's one of the things
about the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have statements
today that we use in common currency. that first fell from the lips
of the Lord thousands of years ago. And this one that I have
in my mind this evening, these two little words are a statement
that the Lord Jesus Christ has left to us, his people. He says, take heed. Take heed, so simple, take heed. You know that the Savior tells
his people over a dozen times to take heed? Take heed, be careful. And I don't want to miss this
because there's a lot that we could say in Matthew chapter
six. And we very often run into these
passages looking for, as it were, the meat of the message. And
we fail to take note of these simple little introductory remarks
that the Lord Jesus Christ took the time and the trouble to leave
us with. So let's not be like those who
run ahead of themselves. Let's remind ourselves that our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, this Creator of all things, this
transcendent God who rules and reigns in this universe, whose
habitation is the eternal glories of heaven, Took time to say to
you and me, take heed, take heed. I fear we miss far, far too much
of what the Lord Jesus Christ tells his people because we read
these things too casually. And very often we only hear and
read what we want to hear and read or what we expect to hear
or read. The Lord says, take heed. Give attention. Give attention
to what I'm about to say to you. Take heed to what I'm about to
say. Think about this. Take heed to
what I'm about to say to you. Think about it. Don't let this
pass you by. This is important. Indeed, when
we say take heed, we are saying beware. We are saying take caution
in this matter. There is also a sense in the
phrase of be on your guard. Be on your guard. Does that sound
a little dramatic coming from the Lord? Actually, I like it. I like,
be on your guard, for take heed. Because I think that what we're
about to read in Matthew chapter six, The Lord is saying exactly
that because he knows his church and he knows his people and he
knows the nature of our hearts and he says to us, take heed,
be on your guard about these things that we're about to speak
about. He who knows all things says,
now be careful about this, Listen to what I have to say. Before I came to Montana, I had
no idea that this place was so dangerous. And I'm surprised
that some of you have made it this long. I'm full of admiration for you
old guys. Respect. You've made it in a
dangerous, dangerous environment to this grand old age. People tell me, watch out for the bears. Be careful for the cougars. Don't step on the snakes. Have you heard about our black
widow spiders? Take heed when you're driving
on ice or walking on ice. Don't go ice fishing above 37
degrees Fahrenheit. Don't walk out in the cold weather. Don't breathe the smoke in summer. Watch out for the mosquitoes.
And don't ever, ever drink the water in Bute. Or in Power. Now, I think Why do these people tell me this? Is it to scare me? Do they think
I'm stupid? And then it dawned on me, no.
It's because they care about me. It's because they know that
there's a risk. And they don't want me to get
eaten. or poisoned, or drowned, or asphyxiated. So they say to me, be on your
guard. There's danger here. They say
to me, be aware of what's going on around about you. They say
to me, take heed, take heed. And that's what the Lord Jesus
Christ is saying to all of us tonight. He's saying, take heed
because there's danger out there. There's danger. There's a need
for you to be careful. He's saying more than that. He's
saying, be on your guard because there's a risk. And if the Lord
takes the time and trouble to warn us of these things, then
let us be warned. Because he loves his people like
no other love. He cares for his own. He calls
us his children. He speaks to us as his little
flock. And he knows the risks that we
face in this world. He knows the risks from the world. He knows the risks that we have
in our own flesh. And he knows that the devil is
a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. And he knows that
we will save ourselves heart and headache and heartache and
humiliation if we take heed to what he says. Now, I'm going
to suggest this evening that our Lord's take heed in this
opening verse extends beyond the almsgiving that he speaks
about in the first couple of verses, right down through the
whole of this passage that we have read together. Indeed, there's
a thread that reaches right through this section of scripture to
warn his people about how we should act, what we should do,
and what we should say. And furthermore, we are warned
Because the Lord Jesus Christ knows us and he knows that we
are prone to error. He knows that we are prone to
make mistakes, especially on these kinds of issues. When we give alms, when we pray,
when we fast, We are fulfilling three, as it were, distinct aspects
of our spiritual lives. The almsgiving is like the way
in which we interact with the people around about us. Our prayer
life is how we interact with God. And our fasting is how we deal
with ourselves. And so these three examples that
the Lord Jesus Christ gives us here in Matthew chapter six,
they transcend the immediate example. that is given and they
speak about the way in which we deal with others, the way
in which we deal with God in our approaches to him and our
worship, and also the way in which we deal with ourselves,
our own spiritual lives. Because fasting speaks of personal
needs, self-control, self-discipline. And we have to take heed in our
dealings with others, and we have to take heed in our dealing
with God, and we have to take heed, we have to be on our guard,
even dealing with ourselves. Because there's a danger, and
because there's a risk, and because we are prone to errors and mistakes. What is this danger that the
Lord has in mind that he so warns his people to be on their guard? Well, I think that it's very
straightforward, very easy to see what the Lord is addressing
in this passage. He is addressing the danger of
obvious religion. Okay? obvious religion. Religion for appearances sake. Showing outward display of goodness. So I'm going to coin a little
phrase here. And I'm going to say that what
the Lord is talking about here, and I trust that I'll get away
with using a more modern term, is he's talking about religious
showboating. You know what that means? Religious showboating. And what
he says is, you take heed about religious showboating. Almsgiving was a crucial element
of the Jewish religious faith, religious practice. It was given
much more of an emphasis, an importance, because it was perceived
as being, as it were, the standard by which a man's acceptance with God, standing with God, could be measured. If a man gave much, it was because
the Lord had blessed him much. And if the Lord blessed him much,
it was because he was a good guy. And so those who made a
show of their almsgiving were making a show of God's pleasure
towards them. God had prospered them because
they were good people. Do you remember the rich young
ruler? The disciples said of the rich young ruler, if he can't
be saved, who then can? The significance of that statement,
the Lord went on to speak about the camel passing through the
eye of the needle. The significance of that statement
was that the disciples were of that mindset which said, this
man has everything. He clearly has been prospered
by God. If he's not going to be saved,
how can anyone be saved? Almsgiving. was that way by which
men could show how much God thought of them. It was a tangible evidence of
man's righteousness. As another example of the widow's
might, the Lord was able to probe these things in the way
in which he discerned them and gave us these as examples. The
widow's mite. The men were coming along with
their big fat wads of currency, of notes, and putting them in
the treasury. It was pretty obvious what was
happening. The treasury was an open place
where people could be seen for what they were doing. And the
little lady comes up with her mites and she puts them in and
the Lord commended her. Because even such a little, what
the Lord doesn't need is our money. He doesn't need it. But the Lord is pleased with
the heart that gives willingly. But here's what the point is. These men were saying, look at
my generosity. Look at my charitable giving.
Look at me. Look at me. They even went to the extent
of employing trumpets in the street. Can you imagine the ritual
and the pomp and the ceremony that's involved in this? Trumpets
in the street. And men thought that that looked
good. But the Lord Jesus Christ didn't
think that looked good. Now perhaps that doesn't apply
to us today because I don't imagine for a moment that any of you
people here have given alms to anyone in the last forever. But you see, we're not talking
about alms. We're not talking about almsgiving.
We're talking about the principle here of religious showboating. We're talking about the fact
that in all manner of things, we have to take heed about anything
that makes us stand out in our religion. Absolutely anything
that we do, the way we speak, the way we dress. The things
we eat, the things we don't eat, the things we drink and the things
that we don't drink. The way we act and the way we
interact with the world around about us. Be very careful that
you don't succumb to the risk of religious showboating in that
thing, because that's what the Lord is speaking about. And I'm
not saying don't do it. I'm not saying you need to do
this or you need to do that. The Lord's people are free. We
have liberty in the things that we do and the way that we act.
But the Lord is saying, take heed how you do it. Be cautious
because man's heart will run to pride. Man's heart will seek
opportunity to, as it were, polish up his badges, to increase his
luster, to boost his reputation, his self-esteem. And even if
it's just one or two people that notice what we're doing. That
will be sufficient for most of us to feel better about ourselves
than we would have done had this action been done under the counter
and no one had actually known anything about it. The sad fact is that as far as
the heart of man is concerned, and even the Lord's people in
the church are not immune from it, as far as the heart of man
is concerned, what even appears to be good, can very quickly
be a source and a cause of hypocrisy in our lives. So much for almsgiving. What about prayer? Surely praying
to God is a good thing to do. Well, are you praying to God
or are you praying to yourself? Remember that God didn't hear
that Pharisee that went up to the temple and opened up about
how good he was, especially in comparison to this public and
this sinner. Did you know that men can showboat
in their prayers too? Hypocrites. Men praying to God
hypocritically. Is there anything more fatuous
or futile in the whole of this world than someone praying to
God hypocritically? going to God and praying and
not meaning what they say, or at least even if they mean it,
doing it in such a way as makes them look good. The Lord gives us an example
of prayer and in this passage we See in verse 9 through to
verse 13, the Lord giving us this example. He says, He's not
saying that this is to be the prayer that we always pray. He's looking to this After this
manner, in this pattern, by this form, let this be your approach
to God in prayer. We don't repeat this parrot-like
or chant it like some rosary bead mantra. There's no blessing, says the
Lord, in vain repetitions, even of the most sublime words, vocabulary
and language. Vain repetition is useless. It doesn't do anything for God
and it doesn't do anything for man. Prayer has to be personal
and it has to be real. Your father knows exactly what
you have need of before you ask for it. And the Lord is not saying
you don't need to bother asking. But you need to know that when
you go to your father with your petitions, that it's not to do
with how eloquent you are. It's not to do with how much
you appear before men to be serious and earnest and emphatic in your
prayers. It has to do entirely with you
going with an earnestness of spirit and a seriousness and
an awareness of who it is you're speaking to and what it is that
you require. The Lord's Prayer, so called
here, is a pattern for us approaching God. Let's read it. Our Father,
which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as
it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread
and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. and lead
us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the
kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Here are three essays, three
essays that speak about this pattern, this manner of prayer. It's short. It's simple and it's
sincere. Let our prayers be short, simple
and sincere. The Lord says it all in these
five little verses. There's less than 75 words here
in this prayer. I counted them and they're all
easy words. They're short words. They're
easy words. They're words that everybody knows. But let our
prayer be from the heart. Let it be genuine. Let it be
honest. Let it be real. Let it be meaningful. Let us approach the Lord with
sincerity. One wonders what kind of foolish
person tries to kid God on. The Bible tells us that our Heavenly
Father will not be mocked. And yet I fear that much of the
prayer that ascends from religion today is a mere mockery of God. It is not done for the right
reason, it is not done in the right way, it is not done in
order to approach God, but those who have a sense of who He is,
an awareness of what they are, and recognise in God the only
way of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ ought to be
circumspect about the way in which we go before Him in prayer.
So let us all because principally we're talking here about private
prayer and public prayer, I would say, has certain different parameters
that need to be applied when we're speaking about public prayer.
But in the sense of private prayer, let us all be aware when we say
our prayers that this is an important aspect of our approach to God
in the way in which we go about it. Short, Simple, sincere. Fasting sometimes confuses the
Lord's people. Do we or don't we? Let me say this, dieting isn't
fasting. And nor is fasting for health
reasons pleasing to God. But fasting doesn't even have
to involve food and drink, although that's an obvious way for it
to be manifested. What it does appear to involve
when we see it spoken of is some form of abstinence or some form
of self-denial, while perhaps seeking God's help over a particular
issue or through a period of trouble or for some spiritual
need or testing. But like our giving and like
our praying, our fasting should have no public face. Showboat religion is repulsive
to God and it is condemned by the Lord Jesus Christ as hypocritical. true child of God knows that
his standing with the Father is not based on what he eats
or what he drinks, not based on the food or the drink or the
dress or the ceremony or the ritual or the self-denial, Our
standing with God is based upon the Lord Jesus Christ's work
on our behalf, that sacrifice that he made. that fasting that
he entered into, that self-denial that he exhibited. This is the
fasting that we look to. The fact that the Lord Jesus
Christ underwent all of the trials, all of the trauma, all of that
distaste of sin being placed upon him. and yet willingly,
voluntarily subjecting himself to it when he could have called
10,000 angels, the hymn writer says, and destroyed the world
and set himself free. He didn't have to die on the
cross. He was God. And yet willingly,
voluntarily, He took our place and He died there for us. Those who know the Gospel know
where in our righteousness stands, know where our acceptance is
to be found. Not in our food or our drink,
not in our dress or our ceremony, not in these external, these
peripheral matters. But we come with a humbled spirit,
recognising ourselves as sinners, prone to all manner of confusions
and doubts and problems and issues and hypocrisies against which
we must take heed. And we remind ourselves every
time we get the opportunity, some people say, you just keep
speaking about the same things all the time. Well, yes, we do,
because we know that it goes in one ear and out the other.
And we need to be constantly reminded, not of all these showboating
things, but of what really matters, what's really important. Lord
Jesus Christ, he says that we are to take heed because he knows
that naturally and physically and in our flesh, we will make
anything, literally anything, even our worship, into an occasion
of self-righteous comparison with one another. in order to
make ourselves feel better. What do we learn then from the
Lord's warning? Well, we learn this. Avoid religious
showboating. Avoid the way in which we deal
with others being showy, of our goodness and our charity. Avoid
being pretentious when we come with our prayers or our worship,
our very singing, our playing, our building can all show signs
of, you see, I shouldn't use big words, but ostentatious. decor and majesty and scale and
size in order to impress on what the Lord is looking for is just
a simplicity of heart and an earnest and sincere approach
to Him in our prayers and in our worship. There's no place for this showiness
in church or in worship, in our dealing with others in the way
that we live. The Lord says it's sheer hypocrisy. Let our worship rather be humble. Let it be simple and let it be
true. Let us feel our faults and our
failures. Let us feel them. and let those
faults and failures provoke us to true repentance before God
and dependence upon that righteousness which comes alone from Him. Let us learn that our only hope
Our only confidence lies in the person of Jesus Christ and what
he accomplished on the cross. The significance of the blood,
the precious blood that was shed. The way in which he took upon
himself all that sin that was ours and willingly and voluntarily
went to his death. My friends, we know the truth
of this and yet It's good that we repeat it and rehearse it
in our hearing time and time again. Salvation is not what
I do or what I don't do. It is what the Lord Jesus Christ
has done. Psalm 34 verse 18 says, The Lord
is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart. He saveth such
as be of a contrite spirit. A broken heart and a contrite
spirit is not to be found in the showboating of religion. It is to be found in those who
humbly and quietly seek the face of their God as they come into
his presence week by week, day by day, endeavouring to honour
the Lord Jesus Christ in everything that they do and say. Remember
what John the Baptist said, He must increase and I must decrease. Oh, for that theme to be the
theme of all that we say and do. Earlier in this passage,
on this sermon on the Mount, which the Lord Jesus was preaching. He had said in verse six of Matthew
five, blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness,
for they shall be filled. God grant that we may hunger
after the blessed privileges of grace, freely granted, freely
granted by God upon the merits of Christ's broken body. God grant that we may thirst
for the cleansing power of the precious blood of Jesus Christ. That's the hungering and thirsting
that we need to do, not for the plaudits of man, not for the
applause of the religious world, but for those things that tend
to righteousness and peace with God and comfort and hope in our
hearts. Not our alms, not our prayers,
not our abstinences or our self-denials. That's not what secures this
righteousness that we hunger and thirst after. The Apostle
Paul writes in Romans chapter 14, verse 17, the kingdom of
God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy
in the Holy Ghost. So, child of God, what a privilege
we have today here in this place right now, what a privilege is
ours to know the righteousness of God in Christ and to know
that it has been imputed to us, that we are looked upon by God
himself and all the holy angels round about him as being as righteous
as Christ is. You can't get any more righteous
than the righteousness of God. And it is liberally, freely bestowed
gratuitously out of grace and mercy and love upon the people
of his choice and favour. We have the preciousness of a
heavenly peace that passes understanding. Now I know that some of your
lives are fraught at the moment. I know that some of you are chewing
on your sleeves because of issues that are going on in your lives
at the moment and trials and problems come. But never forget
how blessed you are. Never forget that what has been
given to you is worth more than all of the relief and ease of
problems that you think you would wish upon yourselves if you had
the power to give it. Our Lord has given us a peace
that passeth understanding way down deep in the depths of our
souls, and we are privileged for that. And we have joy. We have the joy of the Lord day
by day. through the comforting presence
of God the Holy Spirit. And if it doesn't always feel
like that, then take heed, take heed. Be on your guard that it's
not because the world is endeavouring to rob you of that joy, that
your flesh is denying it. or that the devil is coming to
tempt it away from you. This is our portion, brothers
and sisters, in Christ. We have the joy of the Lord. And let us take heed to discern
in all of these ways where our true blessedness lies, not in
these externals, but in that which has been committed to us,
the very righteousness of God, through the Lord Jesus Christ,
our Saviour. Amen.