Matthew 6:1-18 - Audience of One
Tom Shrader examines Jesus' teaching on religious practices in Matthew 6:1-18, specifically addressing giving to the poor, prayer, and fasting. He warns against performing these spiritual disciplines to be seen by others rather than for God alone, emphasizing that true righteousness flows from the heart rather than external religious performance. The message calls believers to examine their motives and practice these disciplines secretly before their Heavenly Father.
“God's looking for that tender heart, not ritualistic, formalized, systematized, automatic kind of movement - God hates that.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Standalone Teachings
Recorded: 2016
Duration: 35 min
Themes: motives, hypocrisy, giving, prayer, fasting, pride, humility, authenticity, struggling with pride, new believer, religious leader, pastor, examining motives, spiritual mentor, church member, mature christian
Scripture: Matthew 5-7, Matthew 6:1-18, Matthew 5:3, 2 Corinthians 13:5, Luke 11, Ephesians 4:32, James, Psalm 23
Theological Themes: righteousness, spiritual disciplines, sanctification, becoming holy, religious legalism, heart transformation, biblical worship, spiritual maturity
Full Transcript
As you open your Bibles to the Gospel of Matthew, I'm going to have you turn to where we were last week, and I'll use it by introduction. This is about the time in a study when we need to be reminded of what we're looking at. We're looking at Matthew 5, 6, and 7, the Sermon on the Mount. It's 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 it was the essence of Jesus' teaching, taken and put together, in this case, by Matthew.
One author writes this: the Sermon on the Mount is the best known and most extensively studied discourse in the world. It's been the subject of thousands of books and articles, so many 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.
Jesus Shatters the Religious World
It's Jesus' teaching, and He's coming into a world, primarily speaking to Jews, and He's shattering their world. It's a bombshell. He is coming and saying, here's what's most important: what's internal, not what's 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's looking for that tender heart.
As John MacArthur's writing his introduction to the Sermon on the Mount, he lists five things that are of importance in looking at this. Number one is the necessity of a new birth. Remember, that's where we started: Matthew 5:3, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." That's where a relationship with Christ starts—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 man, you got any spare change?" Somebody even hassling you. No, this beggar would be somebody crouched in the corner who would be there totally at the mercy of the people passing by, wouldn't even look up, wouldn't even make eye contact.
That's where we start. We start a relationship with Christ understanding that we're spiritually bankrupt, that we bring nothing to that relationship except our sin.
Our Only Hope in Meeting God's Standards
Here's the second thing: the sermon intends to drive the listener to Christ as man's only hope in meeting God's standards. Not only is man's only hope in the world—I mean, tomorrow night it's either MMA or the debate, I don't know which. I think they're the same, and this could be pay-per-view for tomorrow night. One of these two people will be President of the United States, and there's a whole group of people that have their hope in Donald Trump, and a whole group of people have their hope in Hillary Clinton, and a whole group of people will have their hope in none of the above. We know humanly that our hope is in Jesus, but He's going here and He's talking about meeting God's standard.
My only hope to come into a relationship with God is through the righteousness of Christ. He died in our place. You just sang a great song: "It was my sin that nailed Him to that cross."
God's Pattern for True Happiness
The Sermon on the Mount always drives home, number three, that God's pattern for happiness and success—we get hung up, or I do, on this happy. Does God care if you're happy? Well, blessed—we saw it week one as Tim was teaching—that word in chapter five, verses three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven: blessed. It means happy, not in some frivolous way. Maybe what He's talking about more importantly than happiness is joy.
If we were at summer camp, we'd say look up here right now. Your life is going to go circumstantially like this—it just is. There's no exception to that. You can't take that out of life. But you don't, in a relationship with God, or even in your own attitude in life, you're not subject to that. In a relationship with Christ, my happiness is not circumstantial—it's relational. In the midst of that hospital room, I can find happiness, joy.
The Greatest Resource for Witnessing
Here's the fourth thing: the sermon is perhaps the greatest spiritual resource for witnessing to others. We begin to live these principles, we begin to become what Tim talked about week two: salt and light. We begin to infect and affect the world around us as we live out this transformed life. I'll use frequently this idea that as a Christian, I want a transformed heart and an informed mind that leads to a radical life. That's exactly what the Sermon on the Mount is: my heart is transformed, I'm a new creature, and now I'm an ambassador for Christ. I'm taking the hope of a transformed life, the hope of Jesus to the world around us. We live in a needy, needy, desperate world.
I was speaking somewhere, and there's always, "Tell us about you," and I was explaining that I have lupus. So they said, "Well, what is that?" Well, it's an autoimmune disease, strikes primarily women, 90% women eighteen to thirty-five. I always say, when I heard that and discovered I had it, I couldn't wait for my first support group meeting. So when I'm done, I get a line of people—not that want to talk to me about Jesus, but they want to give me a vitamin, or a juicer. I'm not putting that down—if that's you, good, go for it, buddy. But do you have a good doctor? And I'll go, "No, I got a quack that works out of his van." I mean, yes.
But I'm just stunned that there's people that I don't even know who want to give me a juicer, knowing that at best, it'll postpone the lupus, and something else will kill me. That was this summer with the doctor. He said, "Well, you have this cancer, this prostate cancer, but I think something else is probably going to get you first."
You first, I thought, wow, what a great conversation this is. But something is, the point is, something is what I need is what you need—it's Jesus. My fundamental problem is not my lupus; my fundamental problem is my sin. The Sermon on the Mount gives us that to go to the world, and then lastly, we live in obedient way, and it's the only way that we can please God. Now as a follower of Christ, I live this way.
The Pattern of Heart Revelation
Turn to Matthew chapter 5, the section beginning in verse 21. It's the section that Tyler taught last week, and there was a pattern there, there was a rhythm there. I was only at the 11 o'clock service, so I don't know if he said this—it wasn't like a huge point. Maybe I'm super sensitive to it because I knew where I was going this week. He said what we're really looking at here is a revelation of the heart, and I thought, man, that's perfect, that's where I'm going. He really teased it up.
There are six of these. We saw them last week. It's a pattern: Chapter 5 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 then lastly, verse 43, "You have heard," verse 44, "But I say to you."
What Jesus is doing there is upping the ante. He's taking it deeper. He said, "You have heard this law and you think because you line up under the law you're okay, but I'm going deeper than the law." You've heard it said you shouldn't commit murder, but if you call your brother "Raka," "Nuthead," you've committed a character assassination. Now He's not saying because you've called your brother "Raka," go ahead and kill him. What He's saying is, "I want to take this deeper. I want you to see that your fundamental problem is a heart problem. It's not just the action."
From Law to Practice
We focus easily on the action. That's what He did—He focused really on the law in chapter 5 verses 21 through 48. Now He's focusing on fleshing this out, the practice of it. He's speaking to a group that would be very religious and would include the super religious of the day.
There'd be the Pharisees who would say, "We're gonna keep every minutiae of the law." The Sadducees were a little more liberal and they would say, "We want to be more pragmatic about this." The Essenes who would come along—they were separatists. They would say, "We're like the monks. We're gonna go away to this remote barren land." And then there were the Zealots. They were the nationalists. They thought the right religion centered on radical political activism.
It's interesting if you step back today in a broad sense, we probably have all of those four groups represented in this room.
A Plea for Self-Examination
I'm gonna ask you to do something today. In fact, not ask you—I'm gonna plead with you to do something today, and that is to be judgmental. You've been waiting for this, haven't you? Waiting for permission. Not only that, be critical, hypercritical, supercritical—judging yourself. There was an audible moan first hour from a poor lady in the front. She thought she had permission to judge, and I do want you to judge, but I want you to look at yourself, and that's a hard thing to judge.
Second Corinthians chapter 13 verse 5, Paul writes, "Test yourself to see if you're in the faith." Some of the translations will say "examine." It's in the present tense, continuous action. Constantly be looking at your life. Soberly looking at your life.
The Warning: Beware
Look at chapter 6 verse 1. First word: "Beware." Matthew 6:1, "Beware." Watch out. Be on guard. Here's some of the other paraphrases. The New Living starts, "Watch out." The Good News Translation, "Make certain." The Message, "Be especially careful." Jesus said, "I want you to be very careful."
He's going to talk about three activities that were at the heart of the Jewish faith: giving and prayer and fasting. Just like I said last week there was a rhythm, there's a rhythm here. Look at chapter 6 verse 2: "When you give to the poor, do not..." But verse 3: "But when you give, do this." Verse 5: "When you pray, do not..." But verse 6: "When you pray, do this." Verse 16: "When you fast, do not..." Verse 17: "But when you fast, do..."
He said here's what I don't want you to do, and in each case it's essentially the same thing. There's a warning and then there's this guard against performing this activity in some super religious way for the specific purpose of drawing attention to yourself.
The Motive Matters
You see it there in verse 1: "Beware of practicing your righteousness before men." Why? "To be noticed by them." If you do that, you understand that you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.
Now He introduces something—and it could be a giant rabbit trail, it won't be because I'm not going down there—but He introduces the idea of rewards. We kind of think that's great if I've got my MasterCard or Visa or American Express, I want my reward or award miles. But the Christian life—should I really be thinking about rewards? Am I doing this for rewards? Is my motive somehow then obscured?
Here's what He's saying: There is a reward for you and me. But if you—I don't know how you could miss this. Well sure I do, there's always U of A people in the room. But generally I didn't do that first hour consciously because you don't know me, some of you, and I shouldn't do that. I apologize, even if it is true. I apologize. But it seems inappropriate for me to say I'm gonna do this so God gives me something.
It's really clear here. If your motive in verse 1 is to be seen by people, then there's no reward from God. You got your reward—the people noticed you. He says in verse 2, "When you give to the poor, don't sound the trumpet." We learned from history and tradition that in some instances when they would give, they would literally have somebody blow a trumpet and then you would come up and give.
Giving: When the Left Hand Doesn't Know
The phrase "blow your own trumpet, blow your own horn" comes from this practice. 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're 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, and to me it seems natural.
Don't give this way. Don't give in front of men. But when you give, verse 3 says, "When you give to the poor, don't let your left hand know what the right hand is doing, so that your giving will be in secret and your Father who sees what's done in secret will reward you." The right hand was the dominant hand, so what He's saying here is that your giving should be so spontaneous that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
For almsgiving to the poor, we're told that in a certain part of the temple there was an out-of-the-way place where one could give appropriately. They would give and would not even see who received it. It would be left there, and those receiving the alms would come and pick them up, and the giver would never see the receiver.
Why Are You Doing This?
What God says to you in the area of giving is: "Why are you doing this? I want you to give. That should be a normal part of the Christian life." I understand that everything I have is a gift from God. I'm conscious of that, so I want to respond. But that giving should be systematic—I'm to give here on Sunday. It's also case-by-case in the sense that everybody's going to give in a certain way and I'm going to be touched by certain things, but just in the course of life I'm going to meet individuals and groups, people who have needs, and I'm to give to them.
I met with a lady this week involved in a ministry I had never heard of. She had called and wanted to meet about something, so we met. I went online and checked the thing out and was really impressed. I said to her, "Tell me about this," and she started talking and got so excited. I said, "How did you get into this?" She said, "Well, there was this girl and I started volunteering, and then I just got into this and now I'm on the board and I'm the chairman of the board." I was just drawn into this by the story, by the mission.
So I said to her, "What's your greatest need?" I was expecting her to say money, but she said it was more an automotive thing. I guess money could solve that, but I've never had one of those ministries say, "Oh, we don't have any needs." They're all around us. Your mailbox and my mailbox are going to get filled between now and the end of the year with those needs. He says, "I want you to be involved in that. But when you do it, I want you to do it secretly."
Secret Giving and Public Works
That raises all sorts of questions because Jesus has already told us that our good works shine in such a way that people see them and glorify our Father in heaven. So is He saying it's wrong to give in some public way? I don't think so. He's saying, "What's your motive in that?" If I'm giving in such a way that people look at me and say, "Aren't you something special?" then He says, "That's the end of that. You got what you wanted in your heart."
Prayer: Not on Street Corners
He comes to prayer, and it's 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 that's translated "street" there speaks of a wide, heavily trafficked thoroughfare. So prayer had become ritualistic, formalized. There were certain times, certain prayers. There was a prayer for light, for darkness, for 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 24th and Camelback. They would stand and say, "Stop the traffic so I can pray in a long, formalized, ritualistic way in which you all think better of me." He says, if that's your motive, just as He did with giving, you got your reward.
So how do you pray? Verse 6: "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've done in secret."
Public Prayer vs. Secret Prayer
Now, is He forbidding public prayer? No, we've seen Jesus go away to pray. We've seen Jesus pray in public. But He says, certainly, if your motive is to be seen by others, praying in secret cures that. I've been thinking about this so much, I got myself so messed up because I realized I've got to close the service in prayer. And I don't know, what do I say?
Well, Jesus said, "Let me give you some help." Verse 7: "I don't want you to use meaningless repetition." I had one of the girls—I don't remember, Sarah or Haley—she 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 don't know what she's talking about. I said, "Go ahead and pray." "Hit the button." I said, "Pray." "Hit the button." I thought, "Your mom's really got you screwed up here. I don't know what your problem is. Hit the button, hit the button, hit the button." She's pointing, so I hit her knee. She goes, "Father, thank you for mom. Thank you for dad." That's meaningless repetition.
It's like, in my day, Chatty Cathy. Pull the plug. Isn't that what it feels like sometimes? The inertia of prayer, the inertia of giving, will take me there. Sandy and I eat together, I would say, six nights a week. I don't think that's any great thing, except not everybody does that anymore. I enjoy eating with her. She's not here—she's here next hour. So it forces us to talk. But the most intimidating part of the whole thing is right when all the...
When the food's out, she'll 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. He said, I want you to pray from your 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, to be seen by God.
In the cross-reference to this, in Luke 11, the disciples asked Jesus, "How should we pray?" And He says, "Here you go," and gives what we identify in many circles as the Lord's Prayer. Ironic that He just said, "Don't do meaningless repetition." Maybe nothing's become more meaningless repetition than the Lord's Prayer. He doesn't say, "This is what to pray," but "This is how to pray."
A Personal God Who Desires Relationship
Three things: first three, focus on God. "Our Father, who art in heaven"—our God, personal God. When Brian was doing communion and leading into it, he said, "If you know Christ in a personal way." That's language we use and we're comfortable with. But if you're not part of the tribe, that's pretty strange conversation. We don't think of a personal God.
When we did Psalm 23, "The Lord is my shepherd"—singular personal pronoun, my God, our Father. You say, "How deep the Father's love for you, for me, for us." The grace that He sheds on us, which makes Christianity, biblical Christianity, unique from every other religion in the world.
"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." Glory, reverence to your name. Your name encompasses all that you have, all that you are. Hallowed be thy name.
Submission to God's Will and Kingdom
"Your kingdom come, thy will be done on heaven and on earth." God, your will, your kingdom come. How? Well, it means, first of all, me and my submission to your will. And now I'm your instrument of bringing your will to the culture, to the world.
So now, how do I do that? I don't remember if I said this this hour or last hour, but it becomes obvious. I do this by being salt and light, not 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 and you're in the middle of the homeowners association, you aren't one stirring it up. You become the instrument of peace in that. Thy will be done.
Daily Dependence on God
"Give us this day our daily bread." I love that. I said this popped into my mind first hour, and that's always dangerous. But there's a huge advantage living paycheck to paycheck in that it keeps me 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. If you give me a month's worth, you know what happens? You're not going to see me till the end of the month. I'm either going to blow it.
I was watching—I was flipping through the other day, and there was an infomercial, and there was a guy on there who looked like somebody who couldn't sell me anything, but he was going to make me rich. And he was in his office, and I actually stopped it because I thought, "Did I see that right?" Backed it up. There was a big plaque behind him that talked about a self-made man. And I thought, see, if I don't have my daily bread, I kind of think I'm self-made. It represents bread here, represents food, shelter, health, everything that I need. Give us today our daily bread.
Forgiveness as the Foundation for Forgiving Others
"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." He's not saying, "Because we forgive, you forgive." He's saying, "Because we're forgiven, we want to take that instrument to the world." Ephesians chapter 4, verse 32, Paul writes exactly that: "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has forgiven you," that we now take this forgiveness to the world. We're the instruments in that.
Sandy and I are walking the other day, and we run into a guy. These illustrations, I'm afraid, sometimes the minute I say a guy or a pastor, you're trying to figure out who he is. You don't know this guy. And his wife has left him, and she's got her own place. And his side of the story—I've been at it long enough to know there's two—she's a witch, okay? And there's two young boys, and he's talking about how the youngest boy is struggling with this and asking him questions about mom. And he's kind of giving the answer. And he's throwing mom under the bus pretty gently, but under the bus.
And Sandy called him right out on it and said, "You've got to protect her with this young man." And she said, "You know, we talk about turn the other cheek. It's not just, if you hit me, I turn the other cheek, but let's go ahead and say everything you said is true. You still have to turn the other cheek and protect her with this young boy. It's his mom." This forgiving thing, the world needs forgiveness. Not because they deserve it necessarily, but they need it. And you and I are to forgive. Why? Because we've been the recipients of that. If there's anybody that should understand forgiveness, it's somebody who's spiritually bankrupt, who was a sinner and now a saint.
The Hypocrisy of Performance in Fasting
And He goes on, and He just makes the point, in chapter six, verse 16: "When you fast, do not put on gloomy faces, as the hypocrites do. They neglect their appearance." So what they would do when they were fast—because that's pretty hard. I can give in a kind of public way. I can pray in a public way, but how am I going to go without eating and have you notice? Well, they just wouldn't take care of themselves. They wouldn't do their hair. They wouldn't put on makeup. Some of you might be fasting here today, now that I look around. No, I'm kidding. At eight o'clock group, a lot of fasters in it.
But they would stay disheveled. So you'd come up and you'd go, "Are you all right? Are you okay?" "Oh, I'm fine. I'm just fasting unto the Lord." He said, if you're going to fast, clean yourself up. It's like when somebody says, "Are you having your quiet time?" They don't care about you.
I want you to say to them, 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 don't need to come in there.
And I'm not putting any of those things down. I'm just saying, what's my motive? What God's 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 that same pattern. It's the same one.
Don't Be a Hypocrite
Don't be a hypocrite. Don't be a hypocrite about this. You're a man or a woman of God. You're to give, you're to fast, you're to pray. He does not say, don't do these things. He says, not just that there's a way to do them, but what's your motive for doing them?
See, we started with judge yourself. Any chance this thing has just become ritualistic or it's become, just look at me. I'm going to do this for me. Because what Jesus is saying is if that's your motive, then there's no reward in this. Don't look for an eternal benefit.
The Reward of True Discipline
I was trying to think of reward. What is that? One of it's just satisfaction. In a world where I can't get any satisfaction, He said, I'm going to give you satisfaction. James says, draw near to God and He'll draw near to you. How do I draw near to Him? Well, 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 tough 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'm faithful in the little things, He'll give me more.
A Warning Against Wrong Motives
But He's given us here a big warning. He's given us a warning now to those of us who are in a right relationship with Christ that we need to be really careful that this doesn't become mechanical, ritualistic, formal. That I'm just doing it to be seen by people. Good for business.
I was talking to a guy one time and I said, where do you go to church? And he told me the church. I said, how'd you end up there? And he said, the chairman of the planning and zoning department goes there. And I'm in his Sunday school class. And I got a project coming up in about six months that I'm going to need some help on. I'm sensing that's the wrong motive to be in that class.
Examine Your Heart
So you examine your heart. You take a look at your life. Now, here's what would be, because we're going all the way through the Sermon on the Mount and we could do it every week. We stop, freeze frame, to be continued next week.
Father, help us see that truth. Help us see our own life. You give us three examples and it seems to me it's 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. God, 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, not ourselves. We pray that in Jesus' name, amen.