Okay, if you'll turn with me
now to Matthew 6, we'll read our text this morning, beginning
with verse 1. 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 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 Now, more than even the profane
sins of men, the Lord and His messengers
deal more with the sin of self-righteousness. People who think that our self-righteous
practice of thinking that we somehow can commend ourselves
by our doing. Self-righteous practice is the
result of self-righteous doctrine. Now, in the chapter before this,
the Lord dealt specifically with doctrine. Those of old time took
the doctrine of God. And they brought the law of God
down to a low, low level to make man imagine he could earn a righteousness by obeying
the law. And it resulted in fleshly ambition. That's what corrupt doctrine
always results in, is fleshly ambition. Ambition creates religious
competition. competition between self-righteous
men and women. To achieve the goal, to get the
reward in this competition, you have to be the most esteemed
by others. That itself is the reward, to
be the most highly esteemed by other men. That's the reward. Now, in order to be esteemed,
others have to see what you do. If they're going to know that
you're so good in your deed, they've got to see them. And
the ones who are truly successful in this world's religion are
those who have mastered the disguise of false humility, so that they
make others see what they're doing, but they appear like they
don't want you to see what they're doing. Those are the true winners. of this worldly competition.
Now, in the last chapter, the Lord dealt with false doctrine.
Now he deals with this practice of self-righteous ambition. And
he uses three examples in this chapter, alms, prayer, and fasting. The point, the principle he's
teaching applies to all three, and in fact applies to everything
we do in religion. But tonight, or this morning,
we're going to take just this thing of alms. And here's the
principle. Whatsoever you do, do not do
it to be seen of men. Now, first thing here is he says,
take heed that you do not your alms. What is alms? This is the act of providing
for the poor. There's various translations,
they have various words put here for alms. Some say charitable
deeds, some say piety, some say good actions, some say kindness. But alms is translated from a
root word that agrees with the context of how sinners are saved. And the word is elehos, it's
mercy. That's what it means. In fact,
it's mercy put into action. That's how sinners are saved.
The Pharisees called this act of almsgiving righteousness. And indeed, it is right to provide
for the poor. And it is not right not to provide
for the poor. We read of the mammon of unrighteousness. It's not goods that are gotten in an unright way, it's goods
that are gotten and kept from the poor. That's what's unrighteous
about it. Our God deals in mercy. Here's
what Titus 3.5 says, Not by works of righteousness which we have
done. We didn't give to God. We didn't do something for God.
But according to His mercy. Same word. according to His mercy,
not righteous acts by us, by God's mercy, by God's giving
to desperately poor sinners. Sinners too poor for a garment
of righteousness, He robed in the righteousness of His Son. Sinners too poor for bread, who
He gave the bread from heaven, His Son. Sinners too poor to
to have a house to dwell in. And He's given us a dwelling
place in His Son eternally. He made us kings and priests
under our God. So the Lord warns the believer
here, first of all, of what we should never do. Here's the first
thing. This is what we should never do. Verse 1, take heed
that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them, otherwise
you have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Now, what
you do is done for the purpose of gaining the applause of men.
What I do is done for the purpose of gaining the praise of men,
for the purpose of building up a good name for myself. It's
for the glory of self. It's not for the glory of God.
Now, the heart we have by nature wants nothing but self to be
glorified. That's all we want by nature
is for ourselves to be glorified. If you don't believe it, just
the next time you see somebody that's down and sad and just
looks like they're on their lowest limb, Go up and start bragging
on them. Go up and tell them how good
they are, and you'll see how quickly all our sorrows disappear
if we're just exalted a little bit. We like to be exalted. We
like to be lifted up. That's what we want by nature.
So this is something that the self-righteous, this is natural
to the self-righteous man, to the religious man in this world's
religion. It's what he thinks religion is, is to be seen of
others. I had two fellas come into the
house one time when we were at Thompson Station. These poor
little Mormon boys came over there and they said, you know
how when you give to somebody, just that good feeling you get
because you've done that and how you've given to them? That's
righteousness. No, no, no, that's not righteousness. To feel good, to be proud, to
walk around As if we've done something? The grace of God is
that we're nothing. It's humility, it's a contrite
spirit that's where grace is reigning, not that spirit of
pride that we're to be seen. But it says here, otherwise you
have no reward over your Father. If a person acts, performs acts
of mercy, or a whole assembly, if we all together perform an
act of mercy, And we haven't done it by the power of God's
grace. From the beginning, we're going to be operating from a
view of glorying in self. That's what we'll be doing. And
when that's our motive, from the very beginning, it's not
a good work. It's not a work God will regard.
A good work's done by the power of God's free grace. He works
it in us. And it's done for two things,
for the glory of God. We want His name to be honored. We want Him to be glorified.
And it's for the good of His brethren, those that He laid
down His life for. But when it's performed to be
seen of men, and men praise you for it, the flesh gets so puffed
up because of it. that we can't see anything but
self. Self's all we saw going into
it. We thought about it before we ever did it. You know, if
I do this, this is going to be a good thing. This is going to
really help them out. And we do it. We go about making
sure somebody sees us do it. And then we hear that praise
because we did it. And now we're puffed up to where
we just see more of ourselves. So all that was involved was
self, self, and self. We saw ourselves in the beginning,
we saw ourselves doing it, we heard ourselves praised, and
we puffed up in ourselves and see ourselves. And if that's
the case, brethren, we have no reward of our Father in heaven.
Therefore, verse 2, 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. That's the reward. The reward is the praise of men. It's all self-wanted. It's all
self-gifts. God is very generous to give
us exactly what we want. And that's what He does. He gives
us exactly what we want. Before grace comes, we want self
to be exalted. He'll give it to us. But when
grace comes, He makes us willing that we want to see Christ. And
He gives it to us. That's what He gives us. Next,
the Lord tells the believer what we should do. Verse 3. But when
thou doest thine 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. Keep your almsgiving a private
matter between you and God. If you could perform an act of
mercy in such secrecy that your own left hand didn't know what
your own right hand had done, that would be utmost secrecy,
wouldn't it? That's the utmost secrecy that
the Lord is exhorting us to. He's teaching us, you don't even
think on it. You don't even dwell on it. The
heart's deceitful. It's desperately wicked. The
old fleshly nature is desperately wicked. The more we dwell on
it, the sooner we'll be puffed up in pride about it. So it's
done in such secrecy that not only do you not know about it,
our brethren not know about it, but I myself don't dwell on it.
Move on, move past it. The Father seeth in secret just
because no one else sees it. Nobody else knows it's performed.
God sees it. God knows the heart. He looks
on the heart. He put the grace there for you
to perform it. He knows the amount you've given
because He put that in your hand. He knows the deed because He
gave you the grace to do it. He knows. Thy Father which seeth
in secret shall reward thee openly. What's the reward? The reward is the Lord Jesus
Christ. The grace which God gives so that a believer willingly
acts in mercy to the needy is grace that's given in Christ,
by Christ, to the praise of Christ. The way it works is like this.
God gives a believer grace to give and the grace to behold We behold
in the act of providing for the needy. He gives us grace to behold
in that act what He's done for us. And He gives others grace to
behold what He's done for them and for us. And when He does
that, then we don't glory in ourselves, but we glory in His
unspeakable gift, Christ Jesus the Lord. So, in other words,
He gives us grace to have it, grace to do it, and
more grace to see Christ and what Christ did for us. And that's
the reward. That's the reward the believer
longs for. That's the reward the believer wants. Now, look
at Psalm 112. I quoted this to you Thursday
night, but I want you to turn to both these Scriptures with
me. Psalm 112. I'd encourage you to read this
whole psalm sometime. And when you read it, remember
that this is the Lord Jesus Christ. This is who this is speaking
of. This is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the man that feareth the
Lord. He's the man that delighteth greatly in His commandments.
His seed shall be mighty upon the earth. Look down here in
verse 9. He hath dispersed He hath given
to the poor." When you read about mercy, when you read about the
Lord saying, commanding through Isaiah, as we see in the book
of Isaiah, for the people to do righteousness, you hear Him
so often define that. And He says, take the oppressive
yoke off of the people. Give to the poor. Provide for
the needy. Be dealing mercy towards others. This is what he's talking about.
He, Christ Jesus the Lord, hath dispersed, he hath given to the
poor. This is what our God has done. Are you poor? Spiritually, were
you poor? destitute. We didn't have anything.
Depraved of any goodness. And he dispersed to the poor.
His righteousness endureth forever. His righteousness. His giving. That which he's given endures
forever. His horn shall be exalted with
honor. He will be exalted with honor.
But when he came to do this, you know what the scripture says
about him? He made himself of no reputation. He didn't do what
He did to be seen of men. He came and did what He did because
they were poor and needy, because they had nothing. Now, turn over
with me to 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians chapter 9. And
I'm going to show you here this open reward. This open reward. 2 Corinthians 9 verse 7. every man According as he purposeth
in his heart So let him give Not grudgingly or of necessity
for God loveth a cheerful giver Now watch this verse 8 and God
is able to make all grace abound toward ye that ye, always having
all sufficiency in all things. You've got something to give.
But more than that, you've got a heart to give. That you may abound to every
good work. Now read it again without the parentheses in there.
God is able to make all grace abound toward you that ye may
abound to every good work. Now, here's the parentheses and
here's what we just read. How is it that he's able to do
that? As it is written, he, the Lord
Jesus Christ, hath dispersed. He hath given to the poor. His
righteousness remaineth forever. Now, he that ministereth seed
to the sower, both minister bread for your food and multiply your
seeds on and increase the fruits of your righteousness. In other
words, if he's given you all spiritual blessings in Christ
Jesus and has made you accepted in Christ Jesus, has justified
you in the beloved, made you holy and without blame before
him, he said, how shall he with him, how shall he not with him
freely give you all things? because He's dispersed. And the
same One that's done the dispersing in spiritual matters does the
dispersing in temporal matters. And He says, therefore, by His
grace, He's able to make you abound in all things that you
may abound in this thing. Look, verse 11, being enriched
in everything to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving
to God. Here's the reward. For the administration
of this service not only supplies the want of the saints, it does
that. It supplies the need of poor,
of the needy, but is abundant. It results in many thanking God. Whilst by the experiments of
this administration, your service in doing this, they glorify God
for your professed subjection unto the gospel of Christ. They
don't glorify you, they glorify God. Who dispersed? He did. Who gave to the poor?
He did. Who was the poor? We were. He
gave everything. Who needed everything? We did.
And that's why we had the grace to do it. And so when it's given,
those to whom it's given, who do they glorify? the one that
dispersed. And for your liberal distribution
unto them and unto all, and by their prayer for you, which long
after you for the exceeding grace of God in you. And Paul ends
there with thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. Christ
Jesus, His Son, who came and dispersed to these poor, whose
righteousness remains forever, in whose righteousness we've
been made rich beyond measure. That's the unspeakable gift. And also that through this grace,
He's given us hearts to love Him and to have a desire to do
that which honors Him. That's an unspeakable gift, in
the unspeakable gift, from the unspeakable gift, Christ Jesus.
So we glory, not in ourselves, but in Him who did these things,
and those to whom the gift is given. Somebody knows that gift
was given. If they're going to pray for
you and thank God for you, there's a big difference between somebody
knowing that we as a family here did something for them and that
they know I individually did it. That gingers towards me poking
out the chest a little bit. But we as a family that did it,
together did it help somebody. They thank you. That's how it
was the church at Macedonia and Achaia. that had done this for
the poor saints of Jerusalem. But then in Luke 14, verse 4,
He says, And thou shalt be blessed, for they, the poor, they can't
recompense thee. They can't pay you back. But
thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.
So does that mean that when the Lord resurrects me, then He's
going to give me something, a great reward then? and so that I'll
have something that somebody else don't have? If you had that
in heaven, what would be the purpose of it? To say, look what I got and you
didn't get? Look what I earned that you didn't
earn? Wouldn't that just be more selfish ambition? You know what
he said right after that in Luke? That's the passage where somebody
said, blessed is he that eats bread in the kingdom of heaven.
And then he gave that parable. And he said, it's not blessed
he that eats bread in the kingdom of heaven. The blessing is you'll
sit down at my table and I'll do the serving, he said. That's
the reward. We have our Redeemer. We have
this One who came and dispersed to us and gave to us. We have
Him. That's the reward. And that's the reward the believer
longs for. Therefore, we don't have to do things to be seen
of men. You remember this right here. Men who want to be seen. do not want to be with God, they
want to be God. The believer's reward is God
our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. That's the difference. That's all the difference.