Audience of One (Sermon on the Mount)

Tom Shrader walks through Matthew 6:1-18, examining Jesus' warnings against practicing righteousness—giving, prayer, and fasting—as public performance designed to win human admiration. He grounds the lesson in a call to self-examination, urging believers to test their motives honestly and ensure these disciplines flow from a genuine heart toward God rather than religious habit or social reward. Drawing on the Lord's Prayer as a model, Shrader emphasizes that authentic communion with God produces real satisfaction and draws the believer closer to the Father, while externally motivated religion yields no eternal reward.

“What God's asking us to do is the right thing, the right way, for the right reason, which is always to glorify God, not ourselves.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Standalone Teachings

Recorded: 2016 at East Valley Bible Church

Duration: 35 min

Themes: motives, prayer, fasting, giving, hypocrisy, authenticity, seeking approval, worship, struggling with pride, seeking human approval, going through the motions, new believer, long-time churchgoer, person doubting their faith, young adult, parent modeling faith

Scripture: Matthew 5:3-11, Matthew 5:21-48, Matthew 6:1-18, 2 Corinthians 13:5, Luke 11, Ephesians 4:32, Psalm 23

Theological Themes: spiritual disciplines, sermon on the mount, sanctification, lordship prayer, piety, heart religion, works righteousness, communion with god

Full Transcript

Introduction: The Sermon on the Mount

As you open your Bibles to the Gospel of Matthew, turn to where we were last week, and I'll use it as introduction. This is about the time in a study when we need to be reminded of what we are looking at. We are looking at Matthew 5, 6, and 7 — the Sermon on the Mount. It is referred to in many different ways: the Magna Carta of the Kingdom, the Manifesto of the King. Most scholars agree that it was not likely one sermon, but rather the essence of Jesus' teaching taken and put together, in this case by Matthew.

One author writes: "The Sermon on the Mount is the best known and most extensively studied discourse in the world. It has been the subject of thousands of books and articles" — so many, and I love this sentence — "that there are now books about the books, volumes written merely to survey the material so a student can get a handle on the various approaches to the sermon."

It is Jesus' teaching, and He is coming into a world, speaking primarily to Jews, and He is shattering their world. It is a bombshell. He is coming and saying: here is what is most important — what is internal, not what is external. They had become deeply religious, and God hates religion. If by religion we mean what much of their almsgiving and praying and fasting had become — this ritualistic, formalized, systematized, automatic kind of movement — God hates that. God is looking for that tender heart.

Five Key Themes of the Sermon on the Mount

As John MacArthur writes his introduction to the Sermon on the Mount, he lists five things of importance in looking at it. Number one is the necessity of a new birth. Remember, that is where we started — Matthew 5:3: "Blessed are the poor in spirit." That is where a relationship with Christ starts: with an accurate view of ourselves.

A spiritual beggar — and even that word has been hijacked in our culture. You might think of a beggar as somebody saying, "Hey, you got any spare change?" — somebody hassling you. No, this beggar would be somebody crouched in a corner, totally at the mercy of the people passing by, who would not even look up or make eye contact. That is where we start. We start a relationship with Christ understanding that we are spiritually bankrupt, that we bring nothing to that relationship except our sin.

The second thing is this: the sermon intends to drive the listener to Christ as man's only hope in meeting God's standards. There are whole groups of people who place their hope in a political candidate, in none of the above, in something else entirely. But we know that humanly our hope is in Jesus. And when He speaks of meeting God's standard, He is saying that my only hope of coming into a relationship with God is through the righteousness of Christ. He died in our place. As the song says, it was my sin that nailed Him to that cross. The Sermon on the Mount always drives that home.

Number three: God's pattern for happiness and success. I get hung up on the word "happy" — does God care if you are happy? The word "blessed," as we saw in week one, appears in Matthew 5:3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11. It means happy, though not in some frivolous way. Perhaps what He is talking about more importantly than happiness is joy. Life goes circumstantially up and down — there is no exception to that, you cannot take that out of life. But in a relationship with God, you are not subject to those circumstances. In a relationship with Christ, my happiness is not circumstantial; it is relational. In the midst of a hospital room, I can still find happiness and joy.

The fourth thing is that the sermon is perhaps the greatest spiritual resource for witnessing to others. As we begin to live these principles, we begin to become — as Tim talked about in week two — salt and light. We begin to infect and affect the world around us as we live out this transformed life. I frequently use this idea: as a Christian, I want a transformed heart and an informed mind that leads to a radical life. That is exactly what the Sermon on the Mount is. My heart is transformed, I am a new creature, and now I am an ambassador for Christ, taking the hope of a transformed life and the hope of Jesus to the world around us.

The World's Desperate Need

We live in a needy, desperate world. I was speaking somewhere, and as part of the introductions I was explaining that I have lupus and other health issues. People asked what lupus is, and I explained that it is an autoimmune disease that strikes primarily women — 90% of cases are women between 18 and 35. I always say that when I heard that and discovered I had it, I could not wait for my first support group meeting.

When I finished speaking, a line of people formed — not to talk to me about Jesus, but to offer me a vitamin or a juicer. I am not putting that down; if that is you, go for it. But I am stunned that there are people who do not even know me who want to give me a juicer, knowing that at best it will postpone the lupus while something else will eventually be what gets me. That was confirmed this past summer when the doctor said, "You have prostate cancer, but I think something else is probably going to get

The Heart Behind Religious Practice

My fundamental problem is not my lupus. My fundamental problem is my sin. And the Sermon on the Mount gives us that to bring to the world. We live in an obedient way, and it is the only way that we can please God.

Now, I had you turn to Matthew chapter five, beginning in verse 21. That is the section Tyler taught last week, and there was a pattern there, a rhythm. I was only at the eleven o'clock service, so I am not sure if he said this, but he said what we are really looking at here is a revelation of the heart. That is exactly where I am going today, and he really teased it up well.

There are six instances of this pattern in chapter five. Verse 21: "You have heard." Verse 22: "But I say to you." Verse 27: "You have heard." Verse 28: "But I say to you." Verse 31: "It is written." Verse 32: "But I say to you." Verse 33: "Again, you have heard." Verse 34: "But I say to you." Verse 38: "You have heard." Verse 39: "But I say to you." And finally, verse 43: "You have heard." "But I say to you."

What Jesus is doing there is upping the ante. He is taking it deeper. He says, you have heard this law, and you think that because you line up under the law you are okay — but He is going deeper than the law. You have heard it said you should not commit murder, but if you call your brother "Raka" — Nuthead — you have committed character assassination. He is not saying that because you have called your brother Raka, go ahead and kill him. What He is saying is: I want to take this deeper. I want you to see that your fundamental problem is a heart problem, not just the action.

We focus easily on the action. That is what Jesus addressed in chapter five, verses 21 through 48. Now in chapter six He is fleshing out the practice of it, speaking to a group that would be very religious — including the super-religious of the day.

Four Religious Groups Then and Now

There were the Pharisees, who said they would keep every minutia of the law. The Sadducees were a little more liberal and wanted to be more pragmatic about it. The Essenes were separatists — the monks, essentially — who withdrew to remote, barren land. And then there were the Zealots, the nationalists, who believed that true religion centered on radical political activism. If you step back and look broadly at today, we probably have all four of those groups represented in this room.

A Call to Self-Examination

I am going to ask you — in fact, I am going to plead with you — to do something today. I want you to be judgmental. You have been waiting for this, haven't you? Not only that, be critical. Hypercritical. Supercritical. But the judgment I am calling for is judgment directed at yourself, and that is a hard thing to do.

In Second Corinthians chapter 13, verse five, Paul writes, "Test yourself to see if you are in the faith." Some translations render it "examine." It is present tense — continuous action. Constantly be looking at your life, soberly looking at your life.

Now look at Matthew chapter six, verse one. The first word is "Beware." Other translations render it: "Watch out." "Make certain." "Be especially careful." Jesus wants you to be very careful. And He is going to talk about three activities that were at the heart of the Jewish faith: giving, prayer, and fasting.

Just as there was a rhythm in chapter five, there is a rhythm here. Verse two: "When you give to the poor, do not." Verse three: "But when you give, do this." Verse five: "When you pray, do not." Verse six: "But when you pray, do this." Verse 16: "When you fast, do not." Verse 17: "But when you fast, do." In each case, it is essentially the same structure — a warning, and then a guard against performing the activity in some super-religious way for the specific purpose of drawing attention to yourself.

The Danger of Performing Righteousness for an Audience

You see it right there in verse one: "Beware of practicing your righteousness before men." Why? To be noticed by them. If you do that, you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. Now, He introduces the idea of rewards, and we might think of that the way we think about MasterCard miles or American Express points. Should a Christian really be thinking about rewards? Does that somehow obscure our motive?

Here is what He is saying. There is a reward for you and me. But if your motive in verse one is to be seen by people, then there is no reward from God — you have already received your reward. The people noticed you. That is it.

He says in verse two, "When you give to the poor, do not sound the trumpet." We learn from history and tradition that —

Giving in Secret

In some instances, when they would give, they would literally have somebody blow a trumpet — bum, bum, bum, bum — and then you would come up and give. Or in some cases, they would come and say, "I just want to anonymously — everybody be quiet — I want to anonymously give this large gift right here, right now." That is the origin of the phrase "blow your own trumpet," "blow your own horn." Jesus says, don't give that way.

William Barclay tells us that to the Jew, almsgiving was the most sacred of all religious duties. To give alms is to be righteous — they are one and the same. To give alms was to gain merit in the sight of God. But all of that — the prayer, the almsgiving, the fasting — all of that has been distorted.

Don't give in front of men. But when you give, verse three: "When you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving will be in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you." The right hand was the dominant hand, and so what Jesus is saying here is that giving should be so spontaneous that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

We are told that in a certain part of the temple there was an out-of-the-way place where one could give. As they would give, they would not even see who received it. The gift would be left there, and those receiving the alms would come and pick them up, and the one would never see the other.

The Motive Behind Giving

What God is saying to you in the area of giving is: why are you doing this? He wants you to give — that should be a normal part of the Christian life. To understand that everything you have is a gift from God, and to respond to that, is right. That giving should be systematic in that we are to give here on Sunday, and it is also case by case, as everybody will give in certain ways and be touched by certain things in the course of life.

You are going to meet individuals and groups, people who have needs, and you are to give to them. I met with a lady this week who is involved in a ministry I had never heard of. She had called and wanted to meet, so we met. I had gone online and checked it out beforehand and was really impressed, so I said to her, "Tell me about this." She started talking and got so excited, and I asked how she got into it. She said, "There was this girl, and I started volunteering, and then I got into this, and now I'm on the board — I'm the chairman of the board." I was just drawn in by the story, by the mission.

So I said to her, "What is your greatest need?" I was expecting her to say money, but it was more of an automotive need — though I suppose money could solve that. I have never had one of those ministries say they have no needs. They are all around us. Your mailbox and my mailbox are going to get filled between now and the end of the year with those needs.

God says He wants you to be involved in that, but when you do it, He wants you to do it secretly. That raises all sorts of questions, because Jesus has already told us that our good works should shine in such a way that people see them and glorify our Father in heaven. So is He saying it is wrong to give in some public way? I don't think so. He is saying: what is your motive? If you are giving in such a way that people look at you and say, "Aren't you something special," then He says that is the end of it — you got what you wanted in your heart.

Prayer and Its Motives

He comes to prayer, and it is essentially the same thing. When you pray, don't pray like the hypocrites do, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners. The word translated "street" there speaks of a wide, heavily trafficked thoroughfare. Prayer had become ritualistic and formalized. There were certain times and certain prayers — a prayer for light, for darkness, for the delivery of furniture, for literally everything.

There were people who would time their journey so that right at prayer time they just happened to be at a busy intersection. They would stand and say, "Stop the traffic so I can pray" — in a long, formalized, ritualistic way in which everyone would think better of them. He says, if that is your motive, just as with giving, you have got your reward.

So how do you pray? Verse six: "When you pray, go into your inner room, close the door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father will see what you have done in secret." Is He forbidding public prayer? No — we have seen Jesus go away to pray, and we have seen Jesus pray in public. But certainly, if your motive is to be seen by others, praying in secret cures that.

Avoiding Meaningless Repetition

I have been thinking about this so much that I got myself confused, because I realized I have to close the service in prayer. What do I say? Well, Jesus says in verse seven: He does not want us to use meaningless repetition.

One of my girls — Sarah or Haley, I don't remember which one — was sitting on my lap one day, maybe five years old. I said, "All right, honey, it's time to go to bed. You pray." And she said, "Hit the button." I had no idea what she was talking about. I said, "Go ahead and pray." She kept saying, "Hit the button, hit the button, hit the button," and she was pointing at something. So I pressed it, and she said, "Father, thank you for mom, thank you for dad." That is meaningless repetition — like a Chatty Cathy doll, pull the string. Isn't that what prayer can feel like sometimes? The inertia of prayer, the inertia of giving, can take us right there.

Sandy and I eat together, I would say six nights a week, and I don't think that is any great thing — except not —

Praying from the Heart

When all the food is out, my wife will reach over and I'm supposed to take her hand and pray. It sounds so silly, but if I don't think about it, what comes out is, "Oh God, thank you so much for Sandy. Thank you so much for this food." What I'm saying is hit the button, hit the button, hit the button. Jesus said He wants us to pray from the heart. That's what prayer is — it's communion with God. Literally, let this stuff pour out of you, not to be seen by men, but to be seen by God.

In the cross-reference to this, in Luke 11, the disciples asked Jesus how they should pray, and He says, "Here you go" — what we identify in many circles as the Lord's Prayer. It's ironic that He just said not to do meaningless repetition, because maybe nothing has become more meaningless repetition than the Lord's Prayer. He doesn't say this is what we're supposed to do or this is what to pray, but this is how to pray.

The First Three Petitions: Focusing on God

The first three petitions focus on God. "Our Father, who art in heaven" — our God, a personal God. When Brian was leading into communion, he said, "If you know Christ in a personal way." We use that language and we're comfortable with it, but if you're not part of the tribe, that's a pretty strange conversation. We don't naturally think of a personal God. When we studied Psalm 23, "The Lord is my shepherd" — singular, personal pronoun. My God. Our Father.

"How deep the Father's love for you, for me, for us" — the grace that He sheds on us is what makes biblical Christianity unique from every other religion in the world. "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name." Glory and reverence to His name. His name encompasses all that He has and all that He is.

"Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." First, that means my submission to His will, and then I become His instrument for bringing that will to the culture and to the world. How does that happen? It becomes obvious: by being salt and light — not merely by praying, giving, and fasting, but by being filled with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. So when you walk into the room in the middle of a homeowner's association meeting, you aren't the one stirring things up — you become the instrument of peace in that. Thy will be done.

Daily Bread and Dependence on God

"Give us this day our daily bread." There is a huge advantage to living paycheck to paycheck in that it keeps us dependent upon God. I don't want to live that way — but give us today our daily bread. Don't give me a week or a month, because if you give me a month's worth, you're not going to see me until the end of the month.

I was flipping through channels the other day and came across an infomercial with a guy who looked like somebody who couldn't sell me anything, but he was going to make me rich. He was in his office and I actually stopped because I thought, "Did I see that right?" I backed it up. There was a big plaque behind him that talked about a self-made man. And I thought — if I don't need my daily bread, I start to think I'm self-made. Bread here represents food, shelter, health — everything that I need. "Give us this day our daily bread."

Forgiveness Given and Received

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." He's not saying that because we forgive, He forgives. He's saying that because we're forgiven, we want to take that instrument to the world. Ephesians 4:32 puts it exactly that way: "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other just as God in Christ has forgiven you." We are the instruments of that forgiveness in the world.

My wife Sandy and I were walking the other day and ran into a man whose wife has left him and has her own place. His side of the story — and I've been at this long enough to know there are two sides — was that she's the villain. There are also two young boys, and he was talking about how the youngest is struggling and asking questions about his mom. He was giving answers that threw mom under the bus, gently, but under the bus.

Sandy called him right out on it and said, "You have to protect her with this young man." She said, "We talk about turning the other cheek — it's not just that if you hit me, I turn the other cheek. Even if everything you said is true, you still have to turn the other cheek and protect her with this young boy. She's his mom." The world needs forgiveness — not necessarily because people deserve it, but because they need it. You and I are to forgive. Why? Because we have been the recipients of it. If there's anybody who should understand forgiveness, it's someone who was spiritually bankrupt, a sinner, and is now a saint.

Fasting Without a Public Display

He goes on, and in chapter 6, verse 16, makes the point: "When you fast, do not put on gloomy faces as the hypocrites do. They neglect their appearance." What they would do when fasting — because that's the hard one. You can give in a somewhat public way, you can pray in a public way, but how are you going to go without eating and have people notice? They simply wouldn't take care of themselves. They wouldn't do their hair, wouldn't put on makeup, they would stay disheveled — so you'd come up and go...

Examining Our Motives

"Are you alright? Are you okay?" "Oh, I'm fine. I'm just fasting unto the Lord." Jesus said, if you fast, clean yourself up. It's like when somebody says, "Are you having your quiet time?" They don't really care about you — they want you to say, "Are you having yours?" so they can say, "Oh yes, it's just that time between me and Jesus." And I always want to say, well, let's keep it that way.

I'm not putting any of those things down. I'm simply asking: what is my motive? What God is asking us to do is the right thing, the right way, for the right reason. He said, when you fast, don't do it — in verse 18 — to be noticed by men. It's the same pattern, the same one: don't be a hypocrite about this.

You are a man or woman of God. You are to give, to fast, to pray. He does not say don't do these things. He says there is a way to do them, and the question is: what is your motive for doing them? We started with judging yourself — is there any chance this thing has just become ritualistic? Or has it become, "Look at me, I'm going to do this for me"?

Because what Jesus is saying is, if that is your motive, then there is no reward in this. Don't look for any eternal benefit.

The Reward of Drawing Near

I was thinking about what that reward actually is. One part of it is simply satisfaction. In a world where we cannot find satisfaction, He said, "I am going to give you satisfaction." James says, draw near to God and He will draw near to you. How do I draw near to Him? Through those disciplines — through prayer, through giving, through fasting. I draw near to Him, and all of a sudden that reward in this life is a sense of satisfaction and contentment.

Now, one of the challenging sides of that is, the more I do that, it's not like that's the end of the deal. The more He gives me to do. If I am faithful in the little things, He will give me more. But He has given us here a big warning — a warning to those of us who are in a right relationship with Christ — that we need to be very careful that this does not become mechanical, ritualistic, or formal. That I am just doing it to be seen by people.

The Wrong Motive in Plain Sight

I was talking to a man one time and I said, "Where do you go to church?" He told me the church, and I said, "How did you end up there?" He said, "The chairman of the planning and zoning department goes there, and I'm in his Sunday school class. I have a project coming up in about six months that I'm going to need some help on." I'm sensing that is the wrong motive — to be in that class for that reason. So you examine your heart. You take a look at your life.

Closing Prayer

Now, as we have worked all the way through the Sermon on the Mount, we could stop every week, freeze frame, to be continued next week. God gives us three examples here, one after another after another. We must be really vulnerable in this area.

Father, help us see that truth. Help us see our own lives. You give us three examples, and it seems to me they come one after another after another — we must be really vulnerable here. God, open our lives, and tenderize our hearts, and draw us close to You. In these disciplines of giving and prayer and fasting, have us come to You in the right way for the right reason, which is always to glorify You and not ourselves. We pray that in Jesus' name, amen.