We're still in the Sermon on the Mount, we're in the gospel of Matthew in 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 your giving may be in secret and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the street corners that they may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. And when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words, do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. Pray then like this, our Father in heaven, howl would be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others, their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. If you do not forgive others, their trespasses neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you, the Word of the Lord. Heavenly Father, as we approach your teaching this morning through the lips of your Son, our Savior, we ask the Lord that your Spirit will work in our hearts, that you will open our blind eyes to see that which we need to see. Father, I pray for the one here who is most in need of this Word from you. Help me, O Lord, to convey this Word as well as I possibly can. The Lord, I know that great shortcoming and only you can sink it into the heart of these that hear. Be with us now through these few precious minutes as we begin this new week in Christ's name. We pray. Amen. Jesus, of course, is teaching His disciples on the mountain, hence the sermon on the mountain. But there's a large audience beyond just His disciples, no doubt, that are auditing this lesson from the rabbi Himself. And Jesus has said in chapter 5, verse 20, and we've pointed it out each and every time we've looked at all subsequent paragraphs, a thesis. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven, unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. That's important enough, and provocative enough, and sobering enough that Jesus must expand what He means. And that's what He's doing. In fact, He is talking first of all about the teaching of the scribes, and we've seen the examples, the example of anger and murder, the example of lust, the example of divorce and oaths, retaliation and love of enemies. He's taken the teaching of the scribes, and then said, you've heard it said by them, but I say unto you, and then He has expanded in rich and deepened the law of God for those who would enter the kingdom. That's the teaching of the scribes. Now He comes to the practice of righteousness by the Pharisees, the teaching of righteousness by the scribes, He's told us the difference, and now He's going to tell us the difference between the practicing of righteousness by the Pharisees and what He expects His people, His disciples, to practice in righteousness. Now the practice of the Pharisees was well known in that particular day. They were a very strong sect of Judaism. They were versed in the Scriptures. In fact, their very word meant separated. They took very seriously the holiness code of the Old Testament, especially the book of Leviticus, which over and over the Lord said to His people, be holy for I am holy. Come out from among them and be separate set, the Lord had touched not the unclean thing. And the Pharisees had made it their business to be separate, to be holy, to make sure that they were holy and make sure everyone understood that they were holy and to make sure that their holiness, their righteousness, was evident to everyone. And so they had adopted certain practices that perhaps we might think of as a bit ostentatious and something that they would be identified as a Pharisee. It was easy to see who the Pharisees were. They even had a little bit different wardrobe. They insisted upon the long flowing garments as opposed to the shorter tunics, which was popular in the Greco-Roman world of the first century. They made sure. In fact, even in our day, we have a sect of Judaism, which sort of follows their way of behaving. It's the Hasidim, which also means the Holy. And you see, you can tell by the way they wear their hair and the garments they wear and the head gear and all. You can see they're Jews, but they're special Jews. They make sure that you know that they're not like these other Jews. They are separated and they are visible in their separation. Now the Lord is going to call upon His disciples to be separated from the world, to be separated from ungodliness, to be separated from an unholy life. He's calling His people to close walk discipleship. He's going to be calling His people to cross bearing discipleship. He's going to be calling His people to sacrificial discipleship. And one that is to be a disciple of Christ is going to be different in every way. In fact, He has just finished pointing out in the other. He said, if you do certain things, how's that different between you and the Gentiles? The very last paragraph of chapter 5 talks about this distinction that needs to be there. But Jesus wants to caution against the ostentatious show. He uses the word in the text, hypocrites, hypocrites. The word hypocrit is one who wears a mask, plays a role, and performs in the theater. He could not have found a more perfect metaphor, a more perfect example of what He was speaking against. In the theater, seen by all, putting on a show, putting on a demonstration, a pageant, making sure that all eyes are focused upon them. But then they have on a mask hiding their true character, and they're playing a role. They're playing a role. There's a certain inauthenticity to it. There's a certain hypocrisy to it. That's the word wearing a mask, playing a role in the theater. I think if we would let just the word that the Lord selected to be thought about a while by us, the conviction would come to our hearts and we lack a lot in service to the Lord. It is so easy, especially in our church culture, to put on a mask, to play a role, and to step into an arena on a stage in the theater to be seen by men. Jesus is warning them, he says, beware of practicing your righteousness, and that's literally the words that are there. It's the word for practice, the word to do and to perform. Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. It's pretty clear, Jesus is calling us to a life of discipleship to be sure that He is calling us to an authentic inward reality, not superficial, not ostentatious, not showy, and that is one of the things that we will see about all religions, if we look at them very carefully. It's about the costume, it's about the temple. It's about the ritual, you don't have to think very widely of world religions to see how all of them emphasize some measure of outward show, from the Buddhist monk with his shaved head to the Islam devotee ostentatiously praying five times a day, no matter what else. Jesus says this is not for his disciples, your righteousness has to exceed those that do those kinds of things, and so he begins to talk to us. Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people, in fact that is what is going to be emphasized. He's going to mention three kinds, three ways of practicing righteousness in alms giving, we'll look at that this morning, in prayer, we'll look at that next week, and then the third Sunday we'll, Patrick will be bringing the message and he will talk about the third one of these, the fasting, three, just like he's given six examples of the teaching of the scribes, he now gives three examples of the practice of righteousness, outward righteousness by the Pharisees, and so he begins, thus when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, and here's the thing that the theme that will go through all three of these, you're doing it to be seen of men, you're doing it to be praised of men, you're doing it to please men, you're doing it to draw attention to the fact that you are doing a good work, as opposed to doing it before the face of God and before the face of God only, in all three of these practices, alms giving, prayer and fasting, the emphasis is upon the doing it, but doing it without the show, without the mask, without the role, without the theater stage, and he cautions, it's interesting word, beware, beware, beware, beware of even doing it and trying to make a big show how you don't want people to know that you're doing it, see how insidious and our heart sometimes the pride can be, sometimes the biggest deal is made about an anonymous donor, I'm meddling now, I need to get back to the text, when you give to the needy, and this is of course the, it says the giving of alms in the old text, and that's exactly what it is, it's actually in the Greek word, the Greek word is ilimasadine, which means we got our word ilimasanari, and that's the word we use every day in conversation, ilimasanari is that, which is helping those that need help, in the broadest sense, it's the giving of alms, it's the helping of the needy, it's providing aid, it's the uplift that we give, it has, it has more to do than just dropping money into the poor plate, or the poor offering, it's that for sure, but it also has to do with our whole scope of what we do to help others, and then he points out the example of what the hypocrites do, they love to stand, I'm sorry I slipped there with, they love the hypocrites in the synagogues and in the streets, they sound the trumpet, now it's interesting, on my life I've heard preachers preach on this, and they talk about what the Pharisees did by way of ostentatious display when they would put the, and man I followed the old school Alfred Edder Schein and JB Lightfoot and some of the old classic English scholars, the Oxford and Cambridge boys that I study more than anybody, says there's no evidence of this in Christian and in Judaism anywhere that this took place, it might have been a practice in the temple, but probably not, and it certainly did not take place in the synagogue, there was no place in the synagogue worship for this kind of trumpet sounding, what the reference is here, the Lord is using the exaggerated metaphor which he often uses because it was used in Greek and Roman culture in that day, especially when there was a parade, when there was a parade whether it be for a festival, whether it be a religious event, whether it be just a party or a social event, or more importantly a military or political event, there would be a failings of herald trumpets, you've seen the trumpets, the one that are long, they have no valves on them, it's just a single long brass tube flaring out at the end with the banner hanging on it and they're a whole row marching at the very front, the blasting of the trumpet. It's the most ostentatious show in the ancient world because it not only has banners flying and large people, a number of people participating, but it has the loud blast of the herald trumpet, heralding, announcing either the parade is beginning or the king is coming or something is happening of great moment, and so Jesus uses that particular metaphor to say this is how the hypocrites do their good works. Do good works indeed, but they do it with trumpets, blaring, with manners, waving, with all the audience lining the street, seeing and applauding, and Jesus says that is not the way we are to do our illiomocenary good works. They're doing it that they may be praised by others, this theme is an all three, two, others are impressed with what you do, and then he uses the formula, but I say to you just like he did in the teaching he contrasted his teaching of the law to the teaching of the scribes, now he is contrasting his practice of righteousness with that of the Pharisees, and so he says, I say to you, when the Lord says I say to you, that's when his disciples' ears should perk up just like that of a bunny rabbit in the briar who hears the jackal come, we need to know his voice, hear his voice, his sheep, hear his voice, so when he says something to us, we need to listen, he says I say to you they have received their reward, why because their whole motive, their whole point was to be seen and praised by others, and so with the ostentatious show guess what, they are seen and praised by others, and that's it, that's all they've sought, and they've gotten it, they have been seen by others, but the Lord calls to us, he says when you, and in each of these the word you is positioned in the phrase in such a way that it's a little bit, some emphasis put upon it, it's emphatic, but when you, you say here's the practice of the Pharisees, this is the way they practice righteousness, your righteousness has to exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees, so here's what you do, he says but when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that's a beautiful picture and it's made its way into our language pretty intensely, so much so that it's received a perversion of meaning, the denotation of it, we'll talk about today, the connotation sometimes the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, it means that sometimes we use that meaning that people don't know what's going on in an organization, over here one group of people are doing one thing and over here another group and there's kind of a disconnect and an inconsistency, and a lot of times it's used like that, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing as though there is a discombobulation within the organization, and I suppose we can stretch it to mean that, but really what it's talking about is the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, it's the picture of the man walking by the needy, maybe the collection plate, maybe the person in need, and perform in such a way that the left hand never sees what the right hand does because it is so quiet, it is so untrusive, it is so silent, it is so humbly performed that the left hand never knows that the right hand has done it, that's a far cry from the blast of the trumpet, that's a far cry from the wave of the manner, that's the far cry from the listing in the bulletin or the alumni record or any number of other places, that's a far cry from the plaque being appalling something, here's what the Lord wants us to do I think, I think He wants us to just work from the motives that are deep within our hearts, and He wants those motives to be good and pure, and He wants us with all of our hearts to look past others and look to God the way they are alone, to please Him alone, the Father knows He sees, and that's all that matters, that's all that matters, is it whatever we do, we do for the praise and the glory of God alone and not for the praise of men, and here He gives this beautiful promise that your giving may be in secret and your Father who sees in secret will reward you, a heavenly reward, a divine reward, a reward from the Father, I don't know what these rewards are exactly, I did a little study trying to get a handle on the biblical teaching of rewards, the trial by fire and the awards that come and the various crowns that are received and all of that, but if nothing else might we hear one singular plot it, well done, thy good and faithful servant, what? Enter into the joys of heaven, that's what the Lord wants us to do, He said, accept your righteousness, exceed doubt of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom, the Lord wants us to come in, to enter, and He gives us our way to operate, the way to practice righteousness, your Father who sees in secret will reward you, your reward comes from the One, the only one that you sought to please in the first place, your reward comes from the One, the only one that saw what you did, your reward comes from the One, the only one that you seek to glorify and please and that is your Father in heaven.