These, the passages of scripture
that we're starting on here in Matthew chapter six are especially
relevant. Everybody's looking for, all
the Bible's relevant, but they're especially relevant to me and
my experience of the Lord bringing me to a saving knowledge of Christ. I'm like most of you, I was raised
in religion. thinking that I heard and believed
the gospel, thinking I was a Christian, but I wasn't until I learned
the truth as taught by the Holy Spirit through the preaching
of the gospel. But before I was converted, I
spent a lot of time trying to prove the Bible not to be the
word of God, that it was simply a good book, had some good moral
principles. And one of the passages of scripture
that I would use, for example, to prove that there were contradictions
in the Bible is right here. Back in Matthew chapter 5 and
verse 16, listen to this. It says, let your light so shine
before men that they may see your good works and glorify your
Father which is in heaven. And then if you turn over to
Matthew 6 and verse 1, it says, take heed that you do not your
alms, or almsgiving before men to be seen of them, otherwise
you have no reward of your father which is in heaven." So I used
to say, well, which is it? Are we to let them see what we
do or are we not to let them see what we do? It sounds like
a contradiction. But it's not a contradiction
at all. Because the issue there, you
know, whenever we live our lives, as believers, you know, we're
to try to be charitable, we're to try to be prayerful people,
we're to seek to be people who deny self. That's what he's talking
about in Matthew chapter 6. And you can't always hide in
doing those things. You know, you can't always say,
well, I don't want anybody to see me do this or see me do that.
The issue here is the motive and the goal. What's your motive
in doing these things? Is it the glory of God or the
glory of men? What's your goal? Is it to please
God or to be seen of men? That's the issue here. There's
a big difference between letting our light shine before men and
doing things to be seen of men. And of course, as we learned
back in Matthew 5 and verse 16, the light there, and this is
something that a lot of people don't understand today, the light
there is not our works or our acts of obedience or our acts
of worship and devotion. The light there is the gospel.
The gospel that reveals how God can be just to justify the ungodly
through Jesus Christ. And we let our light shine by
witnessing and living by the gospel of God's grace. And as people see what we do
or don't do, we let the light shine forth to show them that,
look, my salvation is not based upon what I do or don't do. Now,
my salvation has a lot to do with what I do and don't do,
but it's not based on that. It's based upon what Christ did.
My righteousness before God, see this is the whole issue as
you look at this sermon. My righteousness before God is
not my charitable giving, not my almsgiving. My righteousness
before God is not my prayers. My righteousness before God is
not my fasting. My righteousness before God is
Christ. Jesus Christ the righteous. I'm
gonna be preaching on that later on. And I have no other righteousness. Somebody says, well, then why
do you pray? Why do you give? All right, it's out of grace,
love, and gratitude. And we'll talk about that, but
that's the issue. What happens here is the gospel
message, the gospel light applied to the hearts of God's people
establishes our hearts with grace and establishes in our hearts
the goal and motive of glorifying our Father which is in heaven.
I don't want to bring attention to myself, that's what I'm saying.
Now, don't get me wrong, I mean, I have a struggle with the flesh
too, you know, and I have to fight my own pride and I have
to fight my own self-righteousness that still resides within me.
But what I want to do is point sinners to Christ. I want to
honor Him. I want you to look to Him, not
to me. And how many times have I told
you, I love that passage where it talks about John the Baptist.
They heard John preach and they followed Jesus. That should be the goal of every
gospel preacher, every gospel witness. We want sinners to look
to Christ, not to us. So what Christ forbids here,
He says in verse one, take heed, that means be careful, This is
something we're to diligently engage ourselves to be careful. That you do not your alms before
men. Now alms there is almsgiving. He's talking about acts of charity. Helping others with money or
food or whatever. Or helping them in any way. He
says to be seen of them. To be seen of men. We'll talk
about that in just a moment. Otherwise you have no reward
from or with or of your father, which is in heaven. So the issue
here is that when you do, he says in verse two, therefore
when thou doest thine alms, when you do an act of charitable giving,
even if it's sacrificial or what, do not sound a trumpet That is,
you know, don't draw attention to yourselves before thee, as
the hypocrites do in the synagogues, that was their religious gatherings,
and in the streets, outside of their religious gatherings, that
they may have glory of men. Now what does that mean? Okay,
hold on. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. So, Christ
tells them to be very careful not to do their almsgiving before
men to be seen of men. Now, the Pharisees, and you remember
what he's doing here in this message, he is correcting the
errors that were taught by the Pharisees under the law. The
Pharisees considered these actions here that are listed in Matthew
6 to be acts of righteousness. Charitable, you know, I give
to charity. Praying. Fasting, they were acts
of righteousness to the Pharisees. You remember in the parable of
the Pharisee and the publican in Luke 18? Remember what the
Pharisee said? And I want you to, Luke 18, nine,
you know, he said he spoke this parable to those who judged themselves
to be righteous and despised others, that is, they rejected
others. In other words, I'm righteous and you're not. And he said,
here's how, and the Pharisees say, well, here's how I prove
it. Remember what the Pharisees said? And you remember the first
three words out of his mouth? He said, I thank God. You remember that? So he wasn't
giving himself credit necessarily. He said, I thank God that I'm
not like other men. I'm not like that old publican
over there. I pray, I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of
all, you know, more than a tithe. All right? That's what they considered
to be their righteousness before God. And they thank God for it. All right? So understand that. And a lot of people today are
like that now, even who call themselves Christian. You know,
they think their righteousness before God is wrapped up in their
works or their obedience or even their faith. And they thank God
for it now. Oh, I'm not taking credit for
myself, but they're no better off than this Pharisee. Now,
another thing you need to understand, that word alms there, verse one,
if you have a center concordance or an end concordance, you might
see the term righteousness. And to be honest with you, I
have studied that for years. and I do not understand why they
would put the word righteousness in there for alms. The word alms
there is always in the Authorized King James Version and in most
other translations translated alms or almsgiving. It is not
the same word that Christ used in Matthew five and verse 20
when he said, accept your righteousness, exceed the righteousness of the
scribes and the pharisees. The word righteousness in Matthew
five and verse 20 has to do with God's justice in the salvation
of his people through the perfection of the law that comes in Christ.
But now the word alms there is, is, is not the same word. It
means almsgiving. So now, maybe there's like two
translations that I've read that say righteousnesses, and then
it's in my concordance here is righteousness. And perhaps the
translators or the commentators or whoever those guys are, perhaps
they did that because the Pharisees considered these acts of righteousness.
When you talk about almsgiving, when you talk about praying,
when you talk about fasting, the Pharisees did consider those
acts of righteousness. But I just wanted to let you
know that in case you read it in your concordance or if you
found a translation that says, take heed that you do not your
righteousnesses. That is not a good translation
of that word. It's alms. That means giving
money, that's what they were doing, giving their tithes and
all of that. So what Christ is doing here,
he's speaking of the goals and the motives for obedience for
a true citizen of the kingdom of heaven. Notice the progression
of thought in the Sermon on the Mount. He started off with the
Beatitudes. That shows the character and
the attitude of true citizens of the kingdom of God. That's
what the Beatitudes are about. This is our character. And all
of that's by the grace of God. None of these characteristics
of those who are blessed of God are natural to men. Now Satan
has a counterfeit of each one. But none of them are natural.
In other words, here's a person who's been born of the Spirit.
And this attitude of being poor in spirit, being mournful, all
of that is related to the gospel. And it's, but it's comes in the
new birth. So there's the character and the attitude of this true
citizens. Second, the next thing he does is he speaks of the righteousness
that must, that we must have in order to enter the kingdom
of heaven and call ourselves true citizens of the kingdom
of heaven. And that's the righteousness
of Christ imputed. He starts off with that by saying,
I came to fulfill the law. I didn't come to help you fulfill
the law. That's what a lot of people think. They think grace is not the righteousness
of Christ imputed. They think grace is just gives
me a leg up if I'll cooperate. And that's not biblical. God just made it available to
me if I do my part. And so that's not the way it
works. Christ said, I came to fulfill the law. Remember when
he was baptized, he said, suffer to be so that for it behooves
us to fulfill all righteousness. That's what he came to do. And
he proves that by showing the perfect standard of God's law
that would equal righteousness, which no sinner can do. because the law reaches to the
thoughts and the motives and the heart. All right. Now here
in chapter six, what he's going to start talking about is the
kind of obedience that a true citizen of the kingdom of heaven
is to be engaged in. And it has to do, it proceeds
from the motive of grace, gratitude, love, and the goal of glorifying
God. And not to be seen of men and
not to gain glory from men. So when the Holy Spirit brings
a sinner to believe in Christ and submit to him as our only
righteousness before God, that's what establishes this godly motive
and godly goal in our hearts. The gratitude, it causes believers
to see that the goal of receiving glory of men is false and evil. Remember what he said in Luke
16, 15? That which is highly esteemed
among men is an abomination to God. Well, men highly esteem
almsgiving. Well, shouldn't we as believers
be charitable? Well, of course we should. But that's not our
righteousness before God. And I want to tell you something
else. That doesn't prove our salvation. It didn't prove us to be Christians. You ever heard of Buddha? Gautama
Buddha, you know what he was before he walked the earth as
a poverty-stricken mystic? He was a prince. He gave it all
up. You see? So he wasn't a Christian. So, I mean, you can give all
you have to the poor, and that does not prove you're a Christian.
Now, again, should we as believers, children of God who have been
graced and have an inheritance that we can't even imagine the
wealth of and is being given to us freely, unconditionally,
should we be charitable? Of course we should. But that
doesn't prove anything as far as this issue is concerned. All
right? Now, should we be people of prayer? Well, the Bible says pray always.
We're going to talk about prayer next week. Pray always. We're to be people of prayer,
an attitude of prayer. But just because somebody hits
their knees doesn't prove they're saved, doesn't prove them to
be a Christian. And then, the fasting issue, we'll talk about
that later on, but what that represents is self-denial. Well,
we live a life of self-denial. What does that mean? well we
should but if somebody you know gives up something for Lent,
well what is that? That's not even in the scripture.
Somebody said, you know I used to tease when I was in high school,
I'd say I'd give up brussel sprouts for Lent. Now I hated brussel
sprouts. You know that's the way it is,
you know people they love that kind of religiosity but it's
not anything to do with salvation. Consider what Christ actually
forbids here, all right? In verse one, he's talking about
alms before men to be seen of them, okay? And then look at
verse five. He talks about prayer here, and
I'm gonna deal with that next week. He says, 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. All right, that's
what he's forbidden. And then look down at verse 16. Here's the fasting issue. Moreover,
when you fast, be not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance,
for they disfigure their faces that they may appear unto men
of faith. See, they want people to know that I'm going through
this religious exercise, and that ought to count for something
to you. You see what I'm saying? That's the issue. Now, first
of all, let me say this. There are people, and we know
this is true, there are people in this world who are so hypocritical,
openly hypocritical, that they consciously make their religion
nothing more than outward shows of piety without heart, without
sincerity, without love. There are people like that. And
they will, they certainly are hypocrites. There's no doubt
about it. They'd be more included as hypocrites. But more commonly, professing
Christians fall into this error that he's forbidding here in
a more subtle way by misunderstanding what a true Christian witness
before men really is. What is your witness? Ever heard anybody say, well,
that's my witness before men. And this misunderstanding I've
got in your lesson here can be summarized in two statements
commonly held by many so-called Christians. All right, have you
ever heard this one? I'd rather see a sermon than hear one. You
ever heard that? Do you know that's not biblical?
There was a poet in the, early 1900s who come up with that.
I'd rather see a sermon than hear one. And then here's another
one that people say, you're the only Bible that some people will
ever read. You ever heard that one? Well,
here's the long and the short of it. No one is going to be saved simply
by looking at your life, period. I don't care how good you try
to be before that. So I'd rather see a sermon than
hear one is not biblical. In fact, the Bible says the gospel
is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believe it.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. All right? If you're the only Bible that
some people ever read, then those some people are doomed for eternal
damnation. Now, what is our witness before
men? It's the preaching of the truth.
That's what it is. It pleased God, 1 Corinthians
1, by the foolishness of preaching to save them that come unto the
Father by Him. God has ordained the witness
of the gospel message as the way of bringing sinners to faith
in Christ, not looking at your life. Now, let me add this, though.
Now, it's true that I don't want bad character and conduct and
disobedience and neglect to hinder my witness. I don't want that.
I don't want people to look at me and say, well, I'm not gonna
listen to him. He don't even live what he preaches. Of course,
some people are gonna say that anyway. They said that about
Paul. Huh, they said it about the Lord. Didn't they? He's a wine bibber. Didn't they? And what's the modern,
some of the modern false religions say? Well, it wasn't wine, it
was grape juice. That's crazy. Well, I saw that preacher out
doing this. Now, your master eats with publicans and sinners.
Why would he associate with such people? He let a prostitute wash
his feet, and anoint him with oil. Really? When they put him on the cross,
one of the accusations that he was a malefactor. You know what
a malefactor is? That's a criminal. And he's the
only person that ever walked this earth in perfection. So, they're going to say things
about you because they hate the message. It exposes their deeds
as being evil, John 3. But the gospel message is our
witness, not our lives of obedience. So people can see us give to
the poor, they can see us pray, or even fast. But if they never
hear the gospel, they'll never be saved. It's the power of God
and the salvation. Now, again, let's be diligent. Should we be charitable people?
Yes. But our charity does not save
us, it doesn't keep us saved, and it's not our righteousness
before God. Christ is. Should we be people of prayer?
Yes, but our prayers don't save us, keep us saved, and it's not
our righteousness before God. Christ is. Should we deny ourselves? Yes, but our self-denying does
not save us, keep us saved, or make us righteous. Christ is
our righteousness. All right? Another common error
in this matter of doing these things to be seen of men is the
attitude, whether it's stated or not, that the judgments of
men mean more or at least equal to the judgments of God in His
Word. Someone may say, well, I do these
things because I want people to see that I'm a Christian.
Well, let me give you two things to consider. Number one, the
Bible tells us that the world doesn't even know what a Christian
is. First John 3, the world does not know us. And secondly, and
as I said, the Lord himself was perfectly righteous inwardly
and outwardly, and the world didn't know him. My former pastor,
he used to say about that hymn, let others see Jesus in you.
And he'd always say, they didn't see Jesus in Jesus. Secondly, some people take the
attitude that if other people judge them to be Christian or
righteous, then that must mean that God does the same. Not necessarily
so. Man's judgments in these areas
of salvation and a right relationship with God mean nothing in comparison
with God's judgment in his word. Some reason in themselves that
if an unbeliever sees them giving or praying or fasting, this may
be used of God to cause the unbeliever to seek the Lord and to seek
salvation. And that sounds reasonable. But
look at what the Lord tells them here. Look at verse three. He
says, but when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what
thy right hand doeth. Now, what does he mean by that?
Well, that's simply a way of charitable giving under the realization
that only God knows the reality. And our standing before him in
Christ and our state and the attitude of our hearts. He says
in verse four that thine alms may be in secret. And thy father
which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly." Now
this issue of reward, if a person does these things desiring that
men and women look at him and say, you're okay, you're a Christian,
you're righteous, if that's what they're wanting, they have their
reward. That's the reward he's talking
about. But those who do it for the glory
of God, it says, The father which seeth in secret, which really
means he knows the heart, shall reward thee openly. What does
it mean, reward thee openly? Well, does that mean if I give
$100, I'll get 1,000 back? No. No. It means that God's judgment
of his people is openly declared in his word that you're washed
in the blood of Christ. You're clothed in his righteousness.
That's the reward, it's the reward of grace. You see, it's not something
you earn by your giving or your praying or your fasting. You
see, if a man's judgment of your salvation on these religious
acts and settles the matter in your mind, then you have glory
of men. If they look at you and give
you the key to the city and say, what a great Christian you are,
if that's what you want, then you have glory of men. Do you know what? The Bible tells
us that when we stand in our witness for Christ, what's the
world gonna do? They gonna give you the key to
the city? They gonna elect you president? Marvel not, John 15,
18, marvel not if the world hate you. It hated me before it hated
you. Now what he says, So if you have
glory of men, what do you have? Not the glory of God. You see
what I'm saying? If men admire you and call you
Christian, and listen, I mean, I know that unbelievers will,
they'll see me preaching on TV and they say, well, he's a real
Christian. I know they'll do that, all right? But here's the
point. That doesn't really matter to
me in that much. What they say doesn't matter. What God says is really what
matters. The Lord will reward thee openly. How does he reward
us openly? By telling us in his word. By
assuring us in his word that if we're looking to Christ, that's
an evidence that you're a true child of God. If we're seeking
him and looking to him and resting in him for all righteousness,
Not in our almsgiving, not in our praying, not in our fasting.
Not for that reason. The motive is what? The goal
is what? It's the glory of God. And so, really, as far as I'm
concerned, I mean, I want to be an obedient person. I wanna
honor God in my character and my conduct, but I'm really not
so concerned whether people see me or not in those areas. In fact, you're gonna learn a
lot about prayer here next time. People who wanna make a great
show of prayer. I know a fellow who told me,
I went to a restaurant with him, have lunch with him, and they
got our food there, and I started eating, and he just looked at
me like I had a third eye, and he said, well, I wouldn't touch
that food without praying. And I said, well, I've already
done that. He said, well, I didn't see you. And I said, exactly. And I'm glad he did. Because
prayer is a matter of the heart, not of insight. If you won't touch a bite of
food without praying, you know what? That's not gospel salvation. That's superstition. I thank God for the very next
breath I take. I mean, I really thank Him. You
didn't see me do that, did you? Well, I don't care if you see
me or not, because that's not the issue here. And you say,
well, how are people going to know you're a Christian? Well,
the only way I can tell them is through the gospel, the preaching
of the gospel, you see. And, you know, it's a lot different
than what people think, isn't it? Look at it again. He says, he says, but when thou
doest your own, when you give to charity, let not thy left
hand know what thy right hand doeth. The, the attitude and frame of
mind, this attitude can only come from one who's been thoroughly
convinced that my friend, we have no righteousness before
God, but Christ. That's, that's, that's the only
one David. In Psalm 130, I've listed this
in your lesson. He said, Lord, if thou, Lord,
shouldest mark iniquities, who would stand? I know I have no righteousness
but Christ, and that I'm forgiven of all my sins, even the sins
of my prayers. Does that make sense to you? You ever determined that you
were going to pray, Maybe at night or something. And you're
just hot and heavy in prayer and all of a sudden some fleeting
thought shoots through your mind that's just useless and worthless,
even sinful. Or you fall asleep or whatever. That tells us that our prayers
are not righteous. You know why God accepts the
prayers of his people? There's a picture of it in the
Old Testament. It's called the the candlestick, and the burning
laver, and all of that, in the holiest of all, not the holiest
of all, but in the holy place. And it was the, what do they
call that? I can't get it in my mind, what's
their, somebody tell me. No, it's the, where they put
the ashes and the odor went up. I'll think of it later, I should've
put it. But anyway, it represented Christ, our advocate, interceding
for us. Huh? But anyway, it represented
Christ as our advocate, interceding for us. In other words, what
I'm saying is our prayers are accepted before God on the basis
of the merits of Christ, blood and righteousness. Not on the
merits of the prayer, you see. And so that, That shows us that
we make no effort to do any of these things in the sight of
men, but we do them in secret. That's what he's saying. Hidden,
you know that word secret means hidden and concealed. And so,
because, and why is it? Because we know that whether
men think highly of us or ill of us, the only judgment that
matters As to salvation, as to a right relationship with God,
is God's judgment. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? And this is the reward openly,
manifestly is what that means. As God openly declares us to
be his child, that we can cry, Abba, Father, and glorify and
honor him. And I'll think of that word later
on. All right.