We are continuing in our sermon series this morning in the
Sermon on the Mount. Our title this morning is Do
Good for the Right Reasons and it's based on Matthew chapter 6,
the 1st 4 verses. I will say at the outset, this
is one of those passages where a lot of people get their toes
stepped on and their feelings hurt because giving is such an
extremely sensitive and delicate and fragile issue in the hearts
of so many people. Nobody needs to tell me what to
give, how much to give, when to give, and so on and on and on it
goes. The, the sermon series that we
we're on is the Gospel of Mark in the Matthew, the Sermon on
the Mount, Matthew 5-6 and seven.
And the first part, chapter 5. Actually, commentators say that
this deals more with the outward stuff.
For instance, Jesus elevated anger to the category of murder.
So if you're angry at somebody, you're yelling at him and anger
and you're, you're angry at somebody.
Well, Jesus puts that in the same pile as he puts murder and
this idea of lusting for someone, he puts that in the
same category as actually committing adultery and the
swearing of oath. He puts that in the same
category as saying something beyond yes and no.
And last Sunday, Joel preached on love and action.
And we're called to do more than just be good to those who are
good to us and do good to those who do good to us.
We're called to be more. We're called to actually love
those who do not only do nothing to us, but those who do bad to
us. And today, this morning in
chapter 6, we see a shift in this this Sermon on the Mount.
Here Jesus focuses more from the outward, shifted inward.
Richard Gardner in his commentary puts it this way.
He writes, Jesus continues to talk about a righteousness which
exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees.
Up to this point, the focus has been on acting rightly in
relationships with fellow humans.
Now the focus shifts to write actions in relationship to God,
to pious deeds and practices. And these specific practices
that Jesus points out here are almsgiving, charity, prayer, and
fasting. And these three there were
customary expressions of piety and Judaism.
So this morning we'll not talk about doing wrong things like
hating enemies or yelling at people, things like that, but
it's more of the heart. It is possible to do good things
without a right heart and do good things with actually sinful
motives. Two people can do the exact same
good deed, but for very opposite reasons.
The deed may be may be a very good and noble deed, but the
heart may be very different. We can do good for right
reasons, which we should, but we can also do good for wrong
reasons. This becomes very, very
precarious in terms of how do we identify giving has been around
for thousands of years. Charity is not a new thing.
In the nation of Israel. There were different ways in
which God commanded his people to practice charity, to give
alms to the poor or to to give gifts to the church or to the to
the temple. One form of charity that was
practiced in the Old Testament was the gleaning of the fields.
They would cut the wheat, they would bind the sheaves, or
they'd pick the grapes and take them off to the wine VAT or take
the olives and bring them to the press and so on.
But what we find in the Old Testament, I'll just read some
of these just kind of to paint a backdrop for what they're
understanding and their perception was in those days of
giving and so on. Deuteronomy chapter 14, we read
the the book of the law says at the end of every 3rd year you
should bring the tithe, bring out the tithe of your produce of
that you can store it up within your gates and the Levite
because he has no portion or inheritance with you.
And the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are
within your gates may come and eat and be satisfied that the
Lord your God may bless you and all the work of your hand which
you do. It was kind of a social network
for those who didn't have enough or couldn't make ends meet, so
to speak. It was kind of a measure of
social services in terms of food and so on.
And then as far as their work was concerned, Deuteronomy 2419,
we read When you reap your harvest in the field and forget
a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it.
It shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow,
that the Lord your God may bless you and all the work of your
hands. When you beat your olive brows,
you shall not go over the bows again.
It should be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow.
The same for the vineyards. When you gather the grapes of
your vineyard, you shall not clean it afterward.
It shall be for the stranger, the fathers and the widow, and
you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt.
Therefore, I command you to do this thing.
It's interesting how they were very well familiar with giving
and doing charity and the purpose of it.
This did not need to be explained, not clarified,
nothing like that. The instructions were clear.
Be generous and because of who God is.
Further, in the book of Proverbs we have a verse in Proverbs
1917. He who has pity in the poor
lends to the Lord, and he will pay back what he has given.
The gift of generosity and willingness to share runs
through the whole Old Testament. There are always and there have
always been and always will be needy people, beggars.
People are down on their luck, the elderly who can't provide
for themselves anymore or sick who can't because of their
health. It goes on in the world today
has many poor people in our time.
This thing applies as well. Not in those specific details.
Generosity is a biblical principle that runs right
through the core of the whole Scripture.
So Jesus taught this, but what Jesus did with the teaching on
giving was not just do it and that's it.
Why? Why are you doing it?
So that's where we want to go to Matthew chapter 6-1 to four.
Let's read Matthew chapter 6-1 to four.
Take heed. What that you do not do your
charitable deeds before men to be seen by them, otherwise
you've no reward from your Father in heaven.
Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a
trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues
and in the streets, that they may have glory from men assured.
They say to you they have their reward.
But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your hand, left
hand know what the right hand is doing, that your charitable deed
may be in secret and your Father who sees in secret will himself
reward you openly. It is interesting how Jesus does
this shift and how he now changes the the message.
Jesus is not asking if you give. That's not the question.
He said when you give how to do it, it's not a question of if,
it's a question of when. And one writer that I was
reading as I was preparing this sermon pointed out something
that I had not seen before. And he's asking the question.
He said, did Jesus contradict himself from Matthew 516 where
he said let your light so shine before men that they may see
your good works and glorify your Father in heaven to today to
take heed that you do not do your charitabilities before men
to be seen by them, otherwise you have no reward from your
Father in heaven. Is that a contradiction or
what's going on here? Here's here's the take.
Jesus is not so much worried if someone will see you doing a
good deed. The question is, are you seeing
it? Good deeds can't be hidden, they
come out. That's not the point of the
passage. Later on we'll get into that a
bit more, but what was Jesus focus?
Jesus does not want our heart, our attitude, our mind, our
heart and soul to be contaminated with wrong motives
when we do good deeds. Satan may not prevent us from
charity, from helping the poor, but if he can contaminate the
motive, that's all he needs. Then He still has us on the
wrong track. When a person gives, there are
basically two ways to give. Let's go over this verse a bit
more closely. Take heed that you do not do
your deeds. It's a negative statement.
Take think of that Stock mentions in his commentary.
It's a negative statement. Do not do your deeds before
meant to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward
from your Father in heaven. He's looking at the negative
here, then he goes to the positive.
Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a
trumpet before you as a hypocrite doing the synagogues
in the streets, that they may have glory.
For men are sure they say to you to have the reward.
In other words, do not give for earthly rewards.
In other words, keep your motives pure.
Do people sometimes give to get give with strings attached or
give because I want to feel good?
It makes me feel so good. It's not wrong to feel good when
we give, but if that's the motive for giving, has God-given
the honor? The expectations are so subtle.
They're so, they're so delicate. The thing it's, it's sometimes
we have strings attached when we don't even know it.
Just wait until somebody forgets to say thank you.
We have this need for acknowledgement, for
recognition, even self congratulation for people who
give with ulterior motives. Their question is not who, Who
will benefit from my gift is what advantage will it bring me?
When self focused people give, their question is what will my
reward be? How much will I get in return?
Somebody made a comment very wisely many years ago and I read
it and he said that's not a gift, that's a transaction
because it's an expectation. If I seek to benefit when it
helped another person, that's a transaction.
God site. The idea is how can I leverage
my giving to edge my way up and maybe get my foot in the door or
be be recognized, be acknowledged and so on.
When people give selfishly wanting recognition, God is
robbed, not as it now God's any poorer than he was before, but
God is robbed of the glory and the honor and we're taking it
for ourselves which where it doesn't belong.
Does it happen our time? Of course it doesn't happens a
lot. There's a story in the Bible
where we want to turn our attention to this morning and
spend a good chunk of our time here.
The story in the book of Acts, and I won't ask you to turn to,
but I'll just tell the story. The church had just started
recently and the apostles had preached, the Holy Spirit had
come, the church was growing, thousands were joining, and big
things were happening. They were selling their stuff
and they're selling lands and houses and properties, and they
were giving it to the apostles and they were distributing among
the poor and so on. There's a lot we could infer
from this story in terms of what happened to the church later on,
the persecution that came, which was good if they didn't own the
houses at the time anymore, but we'll go into that this morning.
But anyway, so they were being generous and people were just
giving, and the church was good, doing well.
The church was growing, the Spirit was adding new people,
and this generosity was just overflowing.
Things were good. The church was young, it was
strong, it was new, it was healthy, and so on.
And just by way of explanation, when we read a story, a book
like Acts, it's a storybook, it's a story of the church.
Not everything is prescriptive in the sense all we all got to
sell everything. Now, that's not why it's written
there, but just what they did in their circumstances, in their
context. And so we can learn from that.
So people were selling lands and houses, giving the money to the
church, and the church was giving to the poor and
distributing it. One couple in Ananias and
Sapphira, they were part of this.
They too had land. They saw it was going on and
they thought, you know what, we too want to participate.
We too want to join in on this generosity thing.
They decided to sell a field as well.
But there was a kink in the plans, a bent in their ideas.
We don't want to give all the money.
We'll just keep some of it for ourselves and then just let the
church believe we did, like everybody else does.
Owning the land was not sin. Selling the land was not sin.
Giving it part of the money was not sin.
None of that was sin. It was what, the reason, the
motive, why and how that was sin.
Well, Ananias comes to Peter with a portion of the money.
I don't know why he didn't just come together, why he didn't
bring all of it. Whatever those motives were,
we're not told Ananias comes to Peter.
We want to bring a donation. Peter instantly senses
something's wrong here. Hey, Ananias, is this how much
you sold the land for? Yes, sold for so and so much.
And Peter says, why have you conspired to lie against the
Holy Spirit? You haven't lied to people,
you've lied to God. That very moment Ananias
collapsed, fell down, was dead. The young men come in to see
Ananias lying on the floor there, and they come in, take
him out and they bury him. Three hours go by and Ananias's
wife comes along. She too brings money and not
knowing that her husband has just died and he's he's gone.
And Peter asks for the same question.
Did he sell the land for so much?
She said yes. She too wanted to appear as
generous when in fact she and her husband had agreed to keep
back a part of the money from the sale of the land.
He, she too, wanted to be viewed as more generous than they were.
Peter confronted her. She too died on the spot.
The result was a great fear. Him and all the people.
And they took God very seriously.
What happened? God had protected His church
from the contamination of pride and greed.
As I was reading this and meditating on this and going
over this, the question that ran through my mind was this.
What if God today would deal thus with all the Ananiasis and
Sapphira in the world today? What if they were exposed like
this and then and written about like this?
We don't know why God chose to deal that way with Ananias and
Sapphira, but what we do know is God knows the heart and we
don't. He dealt swiftly and harshly
with this couple. They had tried to collect praise
and glory for themselves at the expense of honesty and
integrity, making it look like hey, we're generous.
Meanwhile, they were greedy for recognition and acknowledgement.
They gave a good thing that some of the proceeds from their money
and Peter told him it wasn't. It was yours to keep and yours
to give. Why are you lying about it?
And God punished them. There are people today who give
plenty to the poor and the poor are benefiting from it.
But they lose the reward when it's because if we want to show
off or want to be seen as good and or look how much I gave and
so on. And then there are those who
when they give later on, they say, you know what isn't going?
My wish. I'm going to stop giving as
using that as leverage. Everything we have is from God.
Everything thing we have belongs to God.
The question I must ask myself regularly is what am I giving
for? What is my motive?
And this does not just apply to giving.
It's giving what we're talking about here today.
But what's my motive? Whether I'm serving anything,
any kind of giving to the church, my time, my energy, my
finances. I'm happy to say I know a lot of
people who give because they're generous.
I've personally met some very wealthy rich givers in my
lifetime and some people who are very poor.
And then they, and then when I find out they're giving, how,
how are they doing that? The principle here is not the
size of the gift, the amount of the money, but the heart out of
which it comes. So we need to ask ourselves,
what kind of heart am I giving out of pressure?
Guilt because the law says so? Or do we give out of a
relationship with Jesus driven by love and generosity?
Some people have never discovered the joy of giving.
They may be well off or not well off, but it's the fear.
Oh, I can't, I don't have anything or the the flip side of
it is then, OK, I have and then I'm going to give to be
recognized. God is a God of generosity and
he blesses A generous heart. And Jesus says here, this will
be honored. And he says here how to do it.
He says, when you do a charitable deed, verse 3, do not
let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.
I'll just put it in your pocket. It's not what it means that your
charitable need may be in secret and your Father who sees in
secret will Himself reward you openly.
This is an interesting thing that Jesus says here.
If the right hand is not to know what the left hand is doing,
what is he saying? He does not mean we should just
close our eyes and grab some money in our pocket and put an
offering box. It's not what it means.
It's not the case. He's simply saying this is a
second point. Give out of His spiritually
transformed heart. There are people who give
because they have an opportunity cheerfully, no regard of any
benefit or even consequence to them.
Hey, I can and I will. True givers cannot be bought
with a temptation of recognition and applause, acknowledgement.
True givers give out of the heart of compassion, out of the
heart of goodwill, out of the heart of stewardship, because
that's their nature. That's what disciples of Jesus
do. They have a longing to share
what they have been given, not because they have a lot, but
because what they have comes from God.
They want to give back. Their giving comes from deep
within, a desire to worship with whatever they have to give.
There's a story also in Acts chapter 4, a guy named Barnabas.
Let me read that a little bit. And Joseph who was also named
Barnabas by the Apostles, which is translated Son of
Encouragement, a Levite of the country of Cyprus having land,
sold it and brought the money at the apostles feet.
Just verse 36. The writer acts here in this
verse in verse 36, he gives a lot of detail about who the
giver is and quite a lot of detail and that he gives.
The giving is not in secret, it's actually recorded.
We don't know how much it was, but what he did.
A little side note in the story hears that this man was a
Levite. Now you know who the Levites
were. They were not supposed to have
land. They were the priestly tribe of
Israel. They were not supposed to own
land. They were chosen by God to serve
in the priestly ministry. He was a man of Levite who did
own land. He's from the country of Cyprus,
not from Israel. Cyprus was a small island
country in the Mediterranean many hundreds of years earlier.
When the people of Israel lost their homeland, they were taking
captive and scattered and so on. And of course everything else
fell by the wayside too, in terms of the Levites being taken
care of and so on. And so this Levite, a Jew.
Man from Cyprus had land, he sold it and it's mentioned that
he gave the money to the apostles and it's recorded.
Looking at the story, does this now mean that something was done
wrong here because it's recorded?
Did he write? Draw attention?
Should it have been kept hush? No, the point is not secrecy or
no one knowing. The point is the focus.
Jesus does tell his audience to give in secret.
He is communicating that a person's giving should not be
tied to any form of wanting, awareness or public
acknowledgement if the desires to be known.
If that is there, then the reward has been cashed in.
John Stott in his commentary in the Sermon on the Mount writes
this. He says it is easy for us to
poke fun at those Jewish Pharisees of the 1st century.
Our Christian Phariseeism is not so amusing.
We may not employ a troop of trumpeters to blow a fanfare
each time we give to a church or charity.
Yet, to use the similar familiar metaphor, we like to blow our
own trumpet. It boosts our ego to see our
name as subscribers to charities and supporters of good causes.
We fall to the very same temptation.
We draw attention to our giving in order to be praised by men.
Stott mented that Jesus uses 2 negatives to teach in the
dangers of wanting recognition. We went over those.
It is only in keeping our hearts aligned with God that we will
not fall into these extremes of wanting attention in the left
hand, knowing what the right hand is doing.
Stock continues. We're not to be self-conscious
in our giving, for self consciousness will readily
deteriorate into self righteousness.
So subtle is the sinfulness of the heart that it is possible to
take deliberate steps to keep our secret by giving secret from
men while simultaneously dwelling on it in our own minds
in the spirit of self. Self congratulation.
It would be hard to exaggerate the perversity of this.
Forgiving is a real activity involving real people in real
need. Its purpose is to alleviate the
distress of the needy. It's possible to turn an act of
mercy into an act of vanity, so that our principal motive and
giving is not the benefit of the person receiving the gift, but
our benefit of ourselves for those who give it.
Christian giving is to be marked by self sacrifice and self
forgetfulness, not by self congratulation.
That's what John Stott At this point some of you may be
wondering, OK, so how much should I now give?
It's not really the point of the sermon today, but I'll just make
a few observations. You can't really pinpoint that
number because your income fluctuates.
It's not safe to have a hard and fast rule.
Instead, ask, Lord, what of this wealth you've blessed me with,
this income I've received? What is?
What would honor you? CS Lewis once mentioned wisely,
he says. I do not believe one can settle
how much we ought to give. I'm afraid the only safe rule is
to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our
expenditure and comforts and luxuries and amusements, and so
on is up to the standard common among those with the same income
as our own, we're probably giving away too little.
If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say
they're too small. There ought to be things we
should like to do and cannot do because our charitable
expenditure excludes them. Here's the rub.
As long as we have not died to ourselves, have not taken up a
cross to follow Jesus, this is going to be very hard.
It's going to be obligatory. It's going to be drudgery.
It's going to be about rules. And that's not the point.
But once we're saved, once we're surrendered, once we're
surrendered to Jesus, this becomes an opportunity and
doesn't matter anymore. The left hand doesn't need to
know what the right hand is doing.
It doesn't need to the obvious. It doesn't need to be hidden, it
just needs to happen. We know in Matthew chapter 25,
the the in the Gospel Matthew chapter 25, Jesus talks about
how it will be toward the end of time.
What's going to happen on the judgment seat?
When Jesus comes, he says, and he will set the sheep on his
right, but the goats on the left.
Then the King will say to those on his right, Come, and you,
blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world.
For I was hungry, and you gave me food.
I was thirsty, and you gave me drink.
I was a stranger, and you took me, and I was naked, and you
clothed me. I was sick and you visited me.
I was in prison. You came to me.
Then the righteous will answer him, saying, Lord, when did we
see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink?
When did we see you a stranger and take you in, or naked and
clothe you? Or when did we see you sick or
in prison, and come to you? And the King will answer and say
to them assuredly say to you, in as much as you did it to one of
the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.
All the service, all the giving, all the sacrifices.
Oh, we did those things, did we? Well, we weren't aware.
In their case, the left hand was not knowing what the right hand
was doing. They didn't do it for attention.
These people served out of relationship with Jesus.
They gave out of that capacity. And Jesus has a welcoming party
waiting for those who've served him.
But there'll also be the other side.
Matthew Chapter 2541 Then he will also say to those on the
left, Depart from me You cursed into the everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels.
For I was hungry, and you gave me no food.
I was thirsty, You gave me no drink.
I was a stranger. You did not take me in naked,
and you did not clothe me sick, and in prison you did not visit
me. They also will answer, saying,
Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or
naked or sick in prison did not minister to you?
He will answer them saying assuredly I say to you, in as
much as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did
not do it to me. And these will go away into
everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
You see these people pull out their charts and their
spreadsheets and their records. Look here, this is how much I
donated. This is how many years I served.
There's how many classes I taught, there's how many sermons
I preached Jesus, I don't know about that.
I never registered on with me. I don't even know you.
You have no part with me. You see, the heart was self
focused. The deeds were not wrong, but
all in vain. Their hearts were like the
Pharisees who wanted the praise of men who wanted to be
recognized and acknowledged and honored.
Matthew 7 verse 21. Jesus says, not everyone who
says to me, Lord, Lord shall enter the Kingdom of heaven, but
he who does the will of my Father in heaven.
Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not
prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name and done
many wonders in your name? And then I'll declare to them, I
never knew you depart from me, You who practice lawlessness.
They did a lot of stuff, busy schedules, all in, all out, but
not for Jesus. They gave with wrong motives.
It was for themselves. A sobering truth to think about.
It's not just that we don't do bad things.
The good things we do, we have to still do them with Christ and
mine, because Satan doesn't care if he can get us to do bad
things, Great for his, for the Kingdom of the arts, great,
great. He gets us down with him if he
can. He's going to do good things.
Well, then I'd better get behind him and make sure He does the
good things for himself, for human acknowledgement.
My prayer is that as a church, as individuals, we will not
allow the things of this world to get between US and our Lord
Jesus. Not the sinful lifestyle, but
also the good lifestyle. Do it for the right reasons.
So let's do our works of service, our gifts of giving,
our resources. Let's do it for Christ.
And when we give, let's give out of a relationship with Him and
not keep track and not keep count.
Let's pray or thank you for your spirit.
Without you we could never live out your commands in our lives
or forgive us where we fall short so many times.
Thank you for reminding us and helping us to walk in your way,
to walk in relations with you. May we be a church that is a
light on a hill. Maybe be salt in our community.
Maybe you live in obedience to you.
Thank you, Jesus. Amen.