Good morning. We are in the book of Matthew
chapter 6. I'm going to read verses one
through 4. That's our verses for today.
So I'm going to get I'm going to read it.
Then we're going to pray, and then we will hear what God has
to say about this, starting in verse one of chapter 6.
Beware of practicing your righteousness before other
people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no
reward from your Father who is in heaven.
Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before
you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets,
that they may be praised by others.
Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know
what your right hand is doing so that you're giving may be in
secret, and your Father who sees in secret, will reward you.
This is the word of the Lord, Amen.
Would you pray with me? Father, we come to you this
morning so thankful for your faithfulness to us.
We do get caught up in needing to use technology and all kinds
of different things to go about our lives as normal.
And yet we can worship you in simplicity.
We don't need anything but our our hearts and minds and the
scriptures, your your word. And we can.
We could worship you in a shack on the mountain anywhere in the
world. But you do call your people the
Saints to gather together on the Lord's Day to do this as
corporate worship. And even here, we don't need all
of the technology. We still just need our hearts
and it together and your word to be prayed and sung and read and
preached. And so we will continue to do
that by your grace until you come back to get us.
We thank you for keeping us here safely.
I pray that you would speak through me.
Lord, help me to get out of the way of the words that you want
to deliver to your people. And I pray God that you would
bless us through the preaching of your word today.
And it's in Jesus name, I pray. Amen.
You guys can have a seat. All right, so today I have
entitled this message worship God and not man through giving.
Worship God and not man through giving.
And we'll be in Matthew chapter 6 verses one through 4.
Now, not to put any shade on today's message at all, but just
so you know, being transparent, talking about giving or, or
money is probably one of my my least favorite topics to talk
about or preach about. We're certainly not a church
that's going to do, you know, a four week giving series to try
to get our funds up. It's obvious that in God's word,
God talks about money a lot. Jesus talks about money because
it can so easily become an idol and we can use it for sin, but
we can also use it for God's glory.
And in fact, the Bible says that God owns everything.
He owns the cattle on 1000 hills.
All the silver and the gold in the world is God's and.
And he does call us to glorify him with what he has given us.
Everything that we have is only by his grace and mercy.
Last week we talked about this idea of common grace, how God's
the sun rises on the just and the unjust, and he causes the
rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
And God has given this common grace to all people to have the
ability to provide for their families and to have food and
clothing and shelter. And he also uses it to get the
message around the world and so that his people can gather to
keep the lights on. And so something's wrong here.
We need to step it up. I'm just kidding.
I'm totally joking. But it's today.
The message, you know, about giving is probably not going to
be one that's a normal one that maybe you've heard before.
And so enough setting it up. Let's just get into this.
We've been in this Sermon on the Mount.
Matthew chapter 5 through 7 is Jesus's famous Sermon on the
Mount where he takes time to start teaching the new
principles of the Kingdom that has come on earth.
And we've set up that Matthew. The whole theme of Matthew is
that Jesus is the king. He is the king of the universe
and he is now stepped down on earth 2000 years ago and he is
declaring and proclaiming his rule, and now people are going
to follow him. And that is the church, which
starts later in the book of Acts, but he's preparing the
church to start by telling his disciples what it looks like to
live in the Kingdom in, in his Kingdom on earth.
And we are separate from the Kingdom of the world, yes, but
we're not called out of the world.
We're in the world, not of the world.
And, and so, but we are going to look different.
And one of the things Jesus does in this Sermon on the mount kind
of the the main theme of it I would say is a a summary of the
10 commandments which is the 2 greatest commands in the Bible.
Jesus summarizes the 10 commandments in the Old
Testament law of God in Matthew 2237.
He says you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, with all your mind.
This is the great and 1st commandment and the second is
like it you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
And on these two commandments depend all the law and prophets.
So later in the book of Matthew, when Jesus says these summarize
all of God's law in the Old Testament, it actually, it's not
going away, the law of God, it's going to be clarified.
And that's what Jesus has been doing in the Sermon on the
Mount. And each piece of the sermon
has, you know, different things it focuses on.
And the whole thing is focused on those two commandments
though. And what we call the 10
commandments are the 2 tables of the law which summarize what
Jesus is saying. The 1st 4 are about loving God
with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
And the last 6 are about loving your neighbor as yourself.
That's the 10 commandments and how they're laid out and why
it's called the two tables of the law is because when Moses
went up the on the mountain to get this law that was physically
written by the finger of God into tablets of stone.
It's it, it records this in Exodus 2412.
It says the Lord said to Moses, come up to me on the mountain
and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone with
the law and the commandment, which I have written for their
instruction. And then later in verse 3215 and
16, it says, then Moses turned and went down from the mountain
with the 2 tablets of the testimony in his hands, tablets
that were written on both sides, on the front and on the back
they were written. The tablets were the work of God
and the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets.
We call these the 2 tables in the King James Version.
It doesn't use the word tablet. It uses the word table.
Now a table holds something, right?
That's what a tables meant to do.
And these are the 2 tables of the law that hold very
important, the most important information, God's own written
word written on both sides, by the way.
And you can, instead of calling a tablet, you could call it a
table at right, like a table. It's not a full table.
It's a small piece of stone that he could carry in his hands,
right? Like you've heard the same word
about you have a kitchen, a full kitchen upstairs.
But if you have a mother-in-law kitchen in the basement, it's
usually called a kitchenette, right?
Or I like to call 25 minute sermons A sermonette, you know,
not a full sermon, the sermonette.
But these are tables containing the law of God holding and
upholding something that will never go away.
Christians live by these commandments, not for our
salvation, but as disciples, as Christians following the King.
He has a standard, a rule by which we will live and what he's
done in chapter 5 has said all of this stuff will come out of
you because you're a Christian. This isn't a law for you to
follow so that you can reach me, like climbing a ladder.
This is something that will happen because I put my spirit
in you because of faith alone. This will mark you out as a
Christian. You will look at these commands
that I have said. You will want to do them, not
perfectly, but you will do them. And so that's what we walked
through in Chapter 5. But then when we get to Chapter
6, it focuses on the first table, which is our relationship
to God, and it kind of zeroes in on this.
In Chapter 7, it's going to focus on the second table, our
relationship to man. In this first section of chapter
6, it talks about a focused sincerity of religion or
devotion of a heart towards God and it's expressed in these
three practices that are mentioned in this chapter and
chapter 6, giving prayer and fasting.
And so all of these these practices, you could call it
part of your religion. Now what is religion?
Religion? The word religion has gotten a
bad rap over the years. What it really just means is
practicing your faith. Now there are bad religions out
there that are works based religions that say I have to do
this in order to be right with God.
Christianity is the the the one stand alone religion that has
that order opposite. It's I get right with God by
faith alone. He makes me right with him.
And now he causes me to want to do things for him to practice my
faith so that I can grow closer to him, express my love toward
him. And so religion, a good religion
is practicing and expressing your love to God and to others.
The two tables of the law. Now in this section, Jesus in in
chapter 5, he was pretty harsh with the Pharisees, the
religious teachers of the day. They were standing around his
disciples hearing a lot of the challenges that Jesus was having
against false religion. And he hasn't forgot about them
in chapter 6. Actually, he's not only just
calling out their bad theology, which he did in chapter 5.
They had bad theology, a bad interpretation of the Old
Testament, which he corrected. Now in chapter 6, he's going to
correct their bad practices of religion.
They were not only false teachers, but they were
hypocrites as well. They didn't live out their own
teachings, they just made-up their own laws and rules to get
out of them. And when they did try to
practice their religion, it was wasn't firstly to the Lord, but
it was for others to see so as to obtain praise and favor from
the people. So from verses one through 18,
in each of these teachings about giving prayer and fasting, Jesus
used the word don't be like the hypocrites who do this this way.
Instead do it this way. Almost very similar to the
antithesis of Jesus in chapter 5.
You've heard that it was said, but I say to you now he's saying
you've seen them act like this, but I say act like this.
You've seen them have a hypocrite heart, and I'm saying
have a sincere heart. But before we're too hard on
them, maybe we ought to use this to look at our own heart
motivations and allow the Word of God to correct us on how the
God of the universe deserves for us to be wholly devoted to Him
and sincere in our love for Him and for others.
He sees right through our religiosity, our going through
the motions, and even our hypocrisy.
So my first point is we get into these verses is that sincere
worship is for God alone. God alone deserves a fully
devoted heart. That's what it means when it
says love Him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
It must be sincerity, not hypocrisy, outward action, but
not inward sacrifice and motivation.
So verse one says in chapter 6, Beware of practicing your
righteousness before other people in order to be seen them,
for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in
heaven. Beware of practicing your
righteousness before other people in order to be seen by
them. So let's break this down.
What is this righteousness that he's talking about?
Beware of practicing righteousness.
That word there means adherence to what is required according to
a standard, for example, a moral standard.
So righteousness is not only a positional thing of being holy,
but also it works its way out in our hands and our feet, in our
actions, what we do. And So what he's talking about
here is not our positional righteousness.
What we need to understand is Christ has made us righteous by
his sacrifice. The Bible says he, he swapped
places with us when he went to the cross.
We deserve to go to the cross for the sins, but God made him
sin, who knew no sin, so that we could be the righteousness of
God. Second Corinthians 521 We now
have the righteousness of Jesus. The sinlessness of Jesus applied
to those who believe. And so positionally, when God
looks at us as believers, we are right before him.
That's what righteousness is. But now it starts to work its
way out. And righteousness in this form
is the practice of what it looks like to have a righteous heart.
Ephesians 424 says put on the new self created after the
likeness of God and true righteousness and holiness.
Not only are we positionally righteous, we're called to do
righteous deeds. Nothing wrong with trying to be
righteous, striving to be righteous.
God commands us to do that. And in fact, if we go back to
chapter 5 verse 16, the verse says in the same way let your
light shine before others so that they may see your good
works and give glory to the Father, your Father who is in
heaven. Are these two verses in
contention with one another. Don't practice just right your
righteousness before when men but then it says let let people
see your good deeds. Here's the difference here.
This one says so that your Father in heaven is glorified in
verse 16 of chapter 5, give glory to your father who is in
heaven versus in our verse it says in order to be seen by
them. So the difference in works based
religion versus faith-based religion is that one says I'm
righteous because of Christ alone and what he's done.
But because that miraculous work has happened in my heart and has
turned a dead, Stony, stubborn, sinful heart into a tender,
responsive heart that wants to do his will.
Now my acts of righteousness can be seen before other people and
and people are like, how did that person start to be a
religious person and be a good moral person?
Well, the only possible way is through the power of God.
If people can look at you and say, wow, give glory to God.
And if that's your motivation, then that's a righteous
motivation. But if our motivation is to go
do these things right, we wait. We wait until people are
actually around watching and then we're like, OK, I really
want people to see how good I am.
That is self worship, that is really not wanting to give God
glory, but to give yourself glory.
And and our point here is sincere worship is for God
alone. God is to be worshipped alone.
As the first commandment said, you shall have no other gods be
for me, including yourself. And so then if we're doing
things so that people will see us and give us some kind of a
praise, then we're trying to get worship from other people.
We're not giving any glory to God.
We want to be noticed. And that is exactly what a
hypocrite is. It's a person who professes
beliefs and opinions that he or she does not hold.
And in order to conceal his or her real feelings and motives.
So someone can act like a Christian, they can act like a
follower of God, but yet all along they're wanting people to
look at them and give them the praise, the glory, and the
honor. In the Greek, the word it, it
literally means an actor in a play with a mask.
He's a pretender, someone who loves the spotlight, being under
the spotlight. And everybody can see me and
look at all this wonderful stuff that I do, the serving that I
do, the charity that I give to look at people or or let people
see me pray and be so pious. And yet, when he gets off the
stage, out from under the spotlight, his life is full of
greediness and wickedness and darkness and.
Hypocrisy hypocrites like others to see them for the accolades
and the praise. Now we can all be like this.
I want you to know that even myself, I once I'm going to be a
little transparent here. I had talking with a mentor a
long time ago and you know, I, I asked him this question
sincerely. I was like, why is it easier to
serve at church than it is at home?
Like for years before I ever became a good servant at home to
my wife and kids. And I wouldn't say I'm, I'm not
praising myself. I don't think I'm that good at
all. But before I ever learned how to
do that, for some odd reason, I could do it at church.
I could be serving in every position and setting up the
chairs and tearing them down and stay at church all day long.
And you know what he said to me? He said, well, at home you don't
get any of the accolades. At church, people are like,
thank you, God bless you. We we, we appreciate you so
much. And there's nothing wrong with
appreciating people for serving. And I'm not saying you can't
serve with right motives. You can.
And it's OK to do that in front of other people.
But what I am saying to you is, is that we're all hypocrites in
the sense that if we can't go serve in all the areas of life
where nobody sees and you're not going to get the accolades in
the praise, there's something wrong.
There is hypocrisy there. And I'm willing to bet that we
all have a little bit of that. Which leads me then to my second
point in the context of our scriptures.
Now hypocritical giving is self worship.
Verse 2. Thus, when you give to the
needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the
synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by
others. Truly, I say to you, they have
received their reward. So let's break this verse down.
He says when you give. So first of all, I want to point
out that Jesus is saying here that he does expect Christians
to give, to be generous as an act of worship.
He's saying when you are going to go about your Christian life
and you are going to be a generous person, and why are we
generous people? Why do we give?
Because God is the best giver who gave everything right?
He John 316 for God so love the world that he gave his one and
only son his most prized possession, the person and the
thing that is the most valuable to him in all of the universe.
God says I'm going to give. And if we're going to be
Christians, the word means little Christ.
We're being like Christ. We're we're trying to be in
righteousness and holiness like God.
Then we do give. We give to the church, we give
to the needy, we give to the poor.
I'm going to get into some practical things about what that
means later in this message, but it is implied here that
Christians are givers and they should give.
And that is first an act of worship.
Although giving to the poor or giving to your church to keep
the lights on or to to take care of the benevolence fund or or
whatever it is, is helping other people first and foremost.
In this context, our giving is an act of worship.
We are saying God, OK, I don't trust in this more than I trust
in you. I don't find my security in the
things that I own more than I find my security in the
sovereign Lord of the universe. You deserve for me to prove it
to you that I don't worship money.
So Matthew 624 says no one can serve 2 masters, for either he
will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to
the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
Part of our giving away the things that we have, our
finances to the church and to those in need comes from a place
of saying, I'm not going to make my money an idol to me.
I'm going to give because you gave everything.
You own everything. And as we talked about last
week, there's an ordered, ordered love that we should
have. And God's our first love.
You know, if you think about our second love or third loves in
our lives as our spouses and our children or those closest to us,
and we think, you know, we're, we're going to be generous with
them. We're going to buy everything
that they need. We're going to provide for them.
You know, when, when birthdays come up, we want to surprise
them with something amazing. Christmas is coming up.
We want to get them some, some big gifts, right?
And, and hopefully we're not doing it to get praise from
them, but it's because we love them.
We want to, we want to experience the joy of just
seeing them, feel the love and excitement of our generosity.
OK, well then if God is our first, top, first priority, then
do we do that with him also? Do we give gifts as an act of
love? And giving to other people also
is an act of worship to God and it's commanded by God.
Actually in the Old Testament, Leviticus 1910, God has always
said you should take care of those who are in needy, in need,
who are poor, who need your support.
It says, and you shall strip your vineyard bare.
Neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard.
You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner.
I am the Lord your God. There are certain things that
God put into the society and the the the the the structure, the
civil structure of his chosen people that they would they
wouldn't have pour among them that if they were that their
hearts would would cause them to say, look, my God's a giving and
generous God. Therefore I don't want to see
people in need like God's people first and foremost should be
provided for. And then even people outside of
that, the sojourner, the people outside of us, outside of our
very close context. All right.
So then it says sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do
in the synagogues and in the streets.
Apparently in the synagogues and in certain places where the poor
were assembled, there would be announcements as to who gave
what. It would be like, OK, so and so
gave this, you know, if you've ever been to like a charity
banquet or something, right? They're always there like, hey,
if you put give $1000, we'll give you this table and we'll
put your name on a placard that says you're a silver, silver
level giver or a gold level giver, a platinum level giver, a
partner. You know, apparently they were
doing this in, in churches, you know, like plaques or, or making
announcements. And so and so did this and so
and so did that. And sometimes the motivation of
giving was, oh, announcement time's coming up.
I can't wait to hear my name. And people are going to be like,
wow, that person is generous. And even in the temple court
itself, not just in the synagogues, but in the temple
court where people would come and bring their tithes and
offerings, there were these giving boxes that the, the top
of it was shaped like a trumpet. Actually, it was like a big
funnel. And you dropped money in and
often times it was coins. And so the more coins you threw
into the thing, the more noise it would make.
Ching, ching, ching, ching, Ching.
You ever been to, you know, Vegas or Wendover or whatever,
you know the Ching Ching, Ching Ching and, and, and the poor
person would give a little little tinkle down the trumpet
and however loud the noise was when you were giving, apparently
determined how holy you were. At least this is how the
Pharisees were acting. If you Fast forward to the story
about the woman who gave only two copper coins, she gave all
that she had to live on. Jesus praises her for her
sacrifice and her her right heart in giving.
While the Pharisees gave an an abundance dropping much coins,
it wasn't about the amount it was about the heart while doing
it. And so again, going back to my
point, hypocritical giving is self worship when I'm giving to
make a big noise or a, a name for myself.
And I'm not saying it's wrong to, you know, go to these
banquets, you know, where like the probably the most recent one
was the pregnancy care center. And they do do those things
where you can buy a whole table and, and the money goes towards
a, a meal, but a lot goes to supporting their ministry and,
and, and you in your own conscience need to make
decisions about these things. And if you have the right heart,
you, you have the freedom to do things like that.
The main point here is that it's not about self worship, it's not
about getting the accolades, it's about the generous heart
towards giving. That's what Jesus is getting at
here. And the problem is Pharisees
worship themselves. Works based religions create
little Pharisees that want to show all of their works to
everybody around so that they can get other people's approval
'cause they not only worship themselves, but they worship the
approval of others. They want others to worship
them. They want others to like them.
Again, these are idols church and I know that we can all be a
little bit Pharisaical sometimes when we when we want the
approval of other people, often times I use this word and it
seems to just keep coming up people pleasing.
When we are people, please, we're doing the same thing.
We are worshipping other people's approval.
And when you have to be a people pleaser over telling the truth
or being genuine or being sincere, there might be an idol
problem or a sin problem there. We've got to be having our
priorities right, pleasing God above man and all things.
Satan desires worship. That's why he was kicked out of
heaven earlier. If we go back to Matthew chapter
4, verse 10, when he was tempting Jesus in the
wilderness, Jesus tried to get or Satan tried to get Jesus to
worship him. He said, I'll give you all these
kingdoms and everything you see, all these cities, if you'll just
bow down and worship me. Satan said, and Jesus said, be
gone Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your
God and him only shall you serve.
And he was quoting the first of the 10 commandments there again,
when we give with the wrong heart, it is self worship.
It is idolatry. It is we are worshipping
someone, something other people's approval or ourselves
above God and God's always watching.
We can't fool him. Why are we trying to Why are we
trying to, to play or put the mask on when we are
hypocritical, when we are doing our our righteous works before
people coming to church with a, a pretend mask on.
Didn't you know that this is the place, as the Bible says, for
the sick, like it's the sick who need a physician, not those who
are well. And, and let me just illuminate
you to the truth that all of us are sick and this is the place
where we don't have to come with the mask on.
We can come and we can come and have a lot in common.
Actually, I was having a, a conversation with a brother as
we were going to get the generator and I said, you know,
I was always living in, in, in shame and Guild and, and that's
probably why I self medicated and was, you know, struggling
with addiction early on in my life.
And when I started reading the Bible, what I found out was all
these people are really messed up and God still loved them and
used them. And I'm like, OK, I think I can
fit in with this, these people. And then I started realizing my
heart was broken. For the people that don't
actually know the truth of what's in these words, they
could have freedom from their shame and guilt, knowing that
their God accepts them for who they are.
He sees everything. We our hearts should be
repentant. That should be truthful.
Like I am a Sinner, I am a hypocrite.
I don't need to put on a show. I don't care what other people
thinks more than what God thinks.
That is what it looks like to be a Christian.
And when you and I or any religious person are doing
religious works to be seen by others, we're sinning.
And then those works actually don't count towards pleasing
God. They don't count.
Now, of course, you know, it's funny, like you probably don't
hear a lot of sermons that say, you know, another title I was
going to give for this point was was something along the lines of
when you give hypocritically, you actually in debt to God.
You think you're gaining something from God by giving and
doing this good work. You do it the wrong heart.
You're actually falling into debt.
The Bible says that sin is a debt that we owe to God.
Actually, you go to the his prayer later on and in Matthew
chapter 6, it says forgive us our debts in other translations,
sins, transgressions, trespasses.
We're in debt to God if we give hypocritically, if we do works
hypocritically. That's why I look out at all the
works based religions and I'm like, man, you guys are sinning.
And again in this conversation we are having there, what we
what we find out is that there are two types of sinners in the
world. It's the ones that you just, you
can look at and be like, yeah, I know you're, you're in complete
rebellion to God and it's obvious through the way you live
and you just don't care. But then there are the other
Sinner that Jesus probably challenges more than this side
is the the religious ones, the hypocrites, the ones that are
doing all these outward works. Isaiah 113 God says to the
nation of Israel, Bring no more vain offerings, incenses of
abomination to me, new moon and Sabbath and the calling of
convocations. I cannot endure iniquity and
solemn assembly. Your new moons and your
appointed feast my soul hates. They have become a burden to me,
and I am weary of burying them. Religion, false religion,
workspace religion becomes idolatry to God and he can't
stand it, even though maybe on the outside it might look like
faith. He's looking at our hearts.
And then it says there's no reward from your father.
If you've if you're looking for the praises of man, there will
be no reward from your father. There's no reward.
You've already got your reward, which was a quick little good
job. You know what?
That doesn't last for very long. When people look at you and say
good job, that was great. Why?
Because they'll keep expecting more and more and more from you.
And when you fail, they won't be praising you then.
No man, no pastor, no Pope is worthy of worship.
No person walking to the giving box and wanting people to see
we. We just need to accept that God
is God and we are not. We are his servants.
We are humbly saved by his grace alone, by nothing that we can do
or have done. And it's only through Him can we
even do good works in the first place.
You know, in light of it being Reformation month, October, the
end, October 31st is Reformation Day.
In the 1500s, Martin Luther, you know, started the Reformation
process of, of, of nailing his 95 theses to the door of the
church in Germany. And what he was talking about
was their hypocritical use of money.
They were building these huge buildings and they were going
around telling people you can earn your way out of purgatory
the more you give. And they were teaching this
religious, hypocritical giving. And I'll tell you what, I'm
afraid there's one man on earth I'm probably afraid for more
than most would be the Pope himself, who is called the vicar
of Christ, which means, by the way, the substituted one or the
delegated 1 vicor comes from the word vicarious.
He's basically playing the role of Christ on earth, saying that
he has the same power and authority of Christ over the
church and he's being worshipped and by so many people he doesn't
stop it. He might point to Jesus and talk
about Jesus and talk about the Bible, but these are people that
we need to steer clear from hypocrites, false teachers, and
false religions that are based on works.
Again, when we do righteous acts with the wrong heart, it is sin.
Sin equals debt, and we're in debt to God when we do it with
hypocrisy. When you give for your glory,
you're actually stealing from God.
So we need humility and not the praise of men.
So with all that, my last point, I want to try to get as
practical, practical as I can on how to give for God's glory and
not your own. Verse 3 and 4, when you give to
the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand
is doing. So that you're giving may be in
secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Again in the New Testament, not just in the old, Paul was told
to remember the poor. In James 127, he says religion
that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this to
visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep one
unstained from the world. And so it's still good.
Again, he says it again when you give, and then he uses this
proverbial expression, don't let your left hand know what your
right hand is doing. Rather than doing it so
everybody can see, wanting people to see.
He's saying do it in such a way that part of you knows what you
gave, but part of you doesn't. Like you basically give and then
you forget what you gave. You go and you give and you're
not. Now, it's not wrong to keep
track of it for your tax purposes in your budget, which
I'll get to, But in the sense of not keeping a tally, saying to
God, wow, I'm a good giver, aren't I?
God, I did it again. Are you going to reward me this
time? No.
Instead of patting ourselves on the back and hoping someone else
is watching, we privately tell God how worthy He is and not be
concerned with man's attention and praise for a righteous act.
This pleases the Father and it says in in our verses and your
Father who sees in secret. The point there is that when you
give out of pure love and generosity, as I said, God is
sovereign. He's everywhere all at once.
He sees everything. We can't fool Him with our
hypocrisy, but He also sees when we do things from the right
heart and there are rewards. Maybe it's not in this life.
Maybe you're not going to, you know, give and get a ton back
and God's going to give you a completely different social
status in life. Maybe that's not what's going to
happen. But what is going to happen is
when you get to heaven and you're going to hear well done,
good and faithful servant, you don't need that from people on
earth. Proverbs 1917 says whoever is
generous to the poor lends to the Lord and he will repay him
for his deed. So what does it mean to give to
the needy? Give to the poor that that word
give to the needy. Actually in its original
language, it's it's merciful giving, charitable giving
donations. And so does this mean that every
time I see somebody on the corner holding up a sign, I need
to give them money? No, I don't think so.
You have, again, discernment. You can decide.
First of all, the Bible says take care of your own people
first, your family first, things like that.
God first, then family, then church, then others going back
to our ordered loves. And by the way, historically in
the churches and in the synagogues, the giving was
collected and then distributed by the churches.
So when it talks about the this giving, Jesus is talking about
when you're going to give, even generally, when you give
generally to your churches and they distribute it or use it for
certain means, do it with the right heart.
In Acts chapter 2, when the church first started, it talks
about they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching the
fellowship, the breaking the bread and prayers.
Mike did a sermon, stand alone sermon on this and our one year
anniversary talking about what a healthy church is.
And you can see why we do what we do at church based on those
things in there. But later on it talks about how
the church is growing and it says and they were selling their
possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all
as any had need in the early church.
And and it got more organized in the New Testament that people's
giving was collected at church. Actually in First Corinthians
16, one it says now concerning the collection for the Saints,
as I directed the churches of Galatia.
So you also are to do on the first day of every week.
Each of you is to put something aside and stored up as he may
prosper so that there will be no collecting when I come.
He's talking about Sunday, you know, So giving on Sunday is a
good thing and it does keep the lights on and pay pastors
salaries and go towards benevolence funds and help with
rent and and missions, global missions around the world.
Taking care of people not just locally but globally and giving
to the church helps the message get to the spiritually poor.
When we're giving, like I said before, we're being like God,
sacrificial and merciful. 2nd Corinthians 8-9 For you know the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for
your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might
become rich. Jesus, God who was in heaven,
had everything in his possession, decided to empty
himself, as Philippians says, come down, be born like a baby
in a Manger in the middle of nowhere, where he got no praise
other than by the angels and the shepherds.
That's what that's talking about.
He made himself poor all the way to be the enemy of the state and
crucified on the cross so that you could be spiritually rich.
We're spiritually poor in our sin, but now we have the
abundance of blessing and grace and faith in Jesus Christ.
So here's what I'll say. I'll end with these practical
things. Give sacrificially.
Give and forget what you gave. Don't have buyer's remorse when
you give. I've heard people say I've been
giving, you know, to the mission of God for a long time and I
have never missed one single dollar, one single cent.
And I hope that that's true. Give regularly, not
sporadically. Again, we're trying to be with
the heart of Christ in this, that it's a regular act as
Scripture says. Now, it doesn't have to be every
week. It can be, you know, once a
month or whatever it is, but a regular, a regularity to it, as
Scripture says, make a high priority on your budget, as you
would with other things that are very high on your priority list
in your life. And don't brag about your
giving. Yes, write your name on the
envelope so that you can get tax deductions, but you just don't
need to brag about it, even to yourself.
And then there's this idea of this tie.
The word means 10 tenth or 10%, and I personally believe that
you can make a case for it in Scripture that 10% is not a
religious have to, but it is a a goal and it is biblical is what
I'd say. So I would make that a goal one
day. If you can't get there, start
with a few percent, which would make you regular.
At least you're putting it in your budget.
But Matthew 2323 when he talks to the scribes and Pharisees
again calls them hypocrites, says woe to you scribes and
Pharisees hypocrites. You tithe mint and deal and
cumin and have been neglected the way to your matters of the
law, justice and mercy and faithfulness.
These you ought to have done without neglecting the others.
So right there Jesus says, these you ought to have done.
If Jesus says you ought to do something, then I'm, I should
probably desire to do it as a Christian.
But again, they were doing it neglecting the real more
weightier matters of the faith. Giving isn't, you know, some
religions, Again, these workspace religions, they're
keeping track of what you give. They're saying you're not worthy
to go to the temple if you don't have your tithe up.
I mean, you may not. And then that makes it so you
can't to go to what they believe their highest level of heaven.
I mean, we're talking about hypocrisy here and false
teaching. Be aware of that.
You could never give a dime. God doesn't need your money.
God doesn't need my money. He owns everything and He's
going to provide and make his plans happen no matter what.
He doesn't need it. It's an act of worship from us.
2nd Corinthians 9 says each one must give as he's decided in a
in his heart. Again, it comes from a matter of
the heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a
cheerful giver. So start making some goals to
grow in your faith with the Lord in some of these practical
things and we'll get into prayer and and other things.
But make sure that all the religious and think practicing
of our faith that we do do is that we give it to the glory of
God and not ourselves. The glory of God is the number
one purpose of every believer's life.
Let's pray. Father, thank you for your
generosity to us. Thank you for providing for us.
Thank you for our careers. Thank you for our homes.
Thank you for the cars that got us here, the clothes that we
have on our back, the food that we get to eat.
And often times we forget because of the work that and the
stress and the toil that we do out there, that it's ultimately
you that provides that possibility in the first place.
Father, forgive us for our hypocrisy and religion and a
wrong heart. Lord, you know that we are
battling this, our old nature versus this new nature that you
gave us. But thank you, Father, that You
are so gracious and kind that we are righteous before You without
a single work by faith alone. Now You deserve us to worship
you in every way you've made possible and made clear in Your
Word. So help us to worship you,
because we cannot do it on our own.
And we ask these things in Jesus name, Amen.
Amen. Would you stand and sing in
response with us?