6:1 “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.
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.3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,4 so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
The Lord’s Prayer
5 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.6 But 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.
7 “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.8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.9 Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.1 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done,2 on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread,3 12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.4
14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you,15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Fasting
16 “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.17 But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face,18 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.
Footnotes
[1]6:9Or Let your name be kept holy, or Let your name be treated with reverence [2]6:10Or Let your kingdom come, let your will be done [3]6:11Or our bread for tomorrow [4]6:13Or the evil one; some manuscripts add For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen
6:1 “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.
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.3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,4 so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
The Lord’s Prayer
5 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.6 But 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.
7 “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.8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.9 Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.1 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done,2 on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread,3 12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.4
14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you,15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Fasting
16 “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.17 But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face,18 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.
Footnotes
[1]6:9Or Let your name be kept holy, or Let your name be treated with reverence [2]6:10Or Let your kingdom come, let your will be done [3]6:11Or our bread for tomorrow [4]6:13Or the evil one; some manuscripts add For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:
Well, good morning. Good morning. So glad to be with you guys today. My name is Dwight Castle. I'm one of the pastors here at Redeemer.
Speaker 1:
And today we're gonna be opening up God's word in Matthew chapter 6 as we continue to look at this Sermon on the Mount of Jesus. So if you will go ahead and open up your Bibles right now or look in your worship guide, we're gonna dig into God's word together. Matthew 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.
Speaker 1:
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 at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward.
Speaker 1:
But 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. 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. Skip to verse 16. And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites do.
Speaker 1:
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. This is the word of the Lord.
Speaker 1:
It is to your heart. Pray with me. Our father, we come to you right now, weak and needy and desperate to hear a word from you. Lord, we know that apart from you, we can do nothing. We can't even understand this word that you have for us today.
Speaker 1:
So we ask that by your spirit, you will help us. You will open up your words to us. You'll open up our hearts. You'll loose my tongue. Lord, we ask that we will hear from you this morning, that our hearts and our lives will be made to be more and more into the image of Christ, to the glory of the father.
Speaker 1:
So, lord, we ask you, speak to us now. In your name. Amen. So as I mentioned, we have been digging into this famous sermon of Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount for several weeks. And I think it'd be helpful to do a really quick recap to see where we have been so far.
Speaker 1:
Now we've seen that the primary goal of the Sermon on the Mount is that Jesus is spelling out very clearly for us what the kingdom of God is like. And Jesus, he's he's shocking people by the things that he's saying, by what he's describing. It's becoming clearer and clearer with each topic that he teaches about, that this kingdom of God is nothing like the prevailing culture, either of the original audience or of ours. Jesus begins in the beatitudes. He begins by telling us who we are.
Speaker 1:
We're poor in spirit. We're needy. We need him. And then he pronounces that those who recognize this, those who receive him in this way, receive him in their weakness, they belong to the kingdom. They belong to the father.
Speaker 1:
From here, Jesus begins to teach about how those who belong to his kingdom should live according to the principles of his kingdom. Now today, in this passage, as Jesus continues to teach about kingdom righteousness, he shifts gears. Because in chapter 5, the previous sip 6 topics that we have seen Jesus address, they deal with the realm of a life that pleases God with our decisions and our patterns of ethical living as they play out in community. But today, Jesus focuses on the topics of what we can call personal piety. This is how we individually, personally relate to God.
Speaker 1:
Our devotion to God himself. And Jesus chooses to focus on 3 particular subjects, acts of service, prayer, and fasting. Now these three topics were acutely relevant in the life importance of each of these three topics. These things were viewed as the base standard of devotion to God. The acts of personal devotion that he's describing, they seem to be pretty understandable, pretty basic.
Speaker 1:
They thought they had a grasp on what these meant, but Jesus shakes things up. He sheds new light on this. So let's look again here at verse 1, how Jesus begins. 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.
Speaker 1:
Now this verse acts as a thesis statement that describes the entire section. And in this statement, Jesus he taps into his central question for us. Are you living for the praise of man or for the praise of God? Are you living for the praise of man or for the praise of God? That's our question today to consider.
Speaker 1:
Now this made me think because I was reflecting about a personal, a personal illustration of my own life. Maybe some of you guys can relate to this. But at home, we have kids. We put the kids down at the end of the day. Everyone's tired.
Speaker 1:
And sometimes there's an awful lot to clean up in our house. There's toys everywhere, the sink is full of dishes. And I find myself sometimes thinking, usually, out of an initial good desire, I wanna help clean up. And my wife is putting the kids down right now maybe or doing something else. I'm gonna clean up the kitchen.
Speaker 1:
So I work busily. I put all the dishes away. I decide to wipe down the counters. I light a candle so it smells good. I'm going the whole 9 yards.
Speaker 1:
And then she comes, and I kinda just sit there, and I'm kinda you know? Just waiting. Waiting. She's gone and doing her thing. Okay.
Speaker 1:
So, do you see the, the sink? It's empty. There's no dishes in there. Suddenly, I'm confronted with the reality that I was not doing the dishes for my wife. Out of love for my wife, out of obedience to the lord, I was doing it out of the desire for praise.
Speaker 1:
It wasn't because I know that Jesus said, you should love your wife as yourself. You should lay down your life for your wife. That these were God's words to me, and so I'm being obedient to him and I'm wanting to do the right thing. I'm doing it because I want the praise. And this is what Jesus is beginning to tackle in our topic today, with this thesis statement.
Speaker 1:
Now it's interesting that Jesus, he doesn't approach these acts of devotion by explaining their importance, or by trying to convince people to participate in them. He doesn't say, husbands, do the dishes for your wives. He doesn't say this. He doesn't even begin by calling out those who aren't participating in these good things, Like his approach on ethical teaching in chapter 5, Jesus begins at the root, our motivation for our devotion. He speaks to those who are doing these things, but he addresses, what is your motivation for doing them?
Speaker 1:
In chapter 5, Jesus warns about the dangers of evil works, things like anger and hatred and murder, lust, and adultery, these evil works. But in chapter 6, Jesus warns about the danger of good works. We see that it is actually possible to participate in good things outwardly, but for the wrong reasons. And in so doing, these acts of devotion are actually acts of self righteousness. And Jesus has nothing kind to say about this.
Speaker 1:
Now 500 years ago, the great reformer Martin Luther, he said this, our righteousness is more dangerous than our sin. By this, he means that there is a particular, often unnoticed danger in the human condition that can make us rely in self righteousness, on our acts of devotion to God, our pious religiosity, it's something that he warns can be subtle. It's easy to look at your sin and to realize you can't be proud of that. But it's easy also to realize that you're patting yourself on your back for your good deeds, and you're not depending on the lord anymore. Jesus says the main point is our heart.
Speaker 1:
Now the first thing that struck me as I read this passage, it may have struck you, it's it's repetition. Jesus follows the exact same pattern for each of these three topics, even the exact same wording. This is how he does it. 1st, he gives a negative example followed by a negative result. And then, he gives a positive example followed by a positive result.
Speaker 1:
So the negative example, he points to the Pharisees. That's who these hypocrites are that Jesus is addressing. Now if you've heard many stories from the bible at all, you probably have a pretty negative view of a Pharisee. For me, it's hard to actually hear the word Pharisee and think anything positive. But for the original audience, that would not have been their view.
Speaker 1:
The Pharisees represented the very pinnacle of what it meant to serve God, particularly in these three areas that Jesus is addressing. No one was more noticeably devoted and consistent than a Pharisee. So Jesus's accusation against the Pharisees would have been pretty shocking for your average person to hear. I mean, Jesus describes them as hypocrites. Now that word, hypocrite, actually comes from the Greek word that refers to an actor in a theatrical production.
Speaker 1:
A a hypocrite was someone who literally put on a mask and pretended that they were someone else in front of an audience to elicit a response. They were performers in a mask, pretending. And this is how Jesus describes the Pharisees and what it is they're doing. He doesn't even leave us to have to connect the dots. He spells out the problem with their motive in each of these examples.
Speaker 1:
In verse 2, he says that they perform their acts of devotion, that they may be praised by others. In verses 5 and 16, that they may be seen by others. Jesus is saying what they are doing is not genuine. It's a show for an audience to elicit a reaction. They aren't doing these acts of devotion to honor God and to give him worship.
Speaker 1:
It's out of a desire to receive honor and receive worship. Now let's contrast this with the teaching that Jesus gives in the affirmative. In each instance, he instructs a private, even secret obedience that is before an audience of 1, God. He teaches complete focus on bringing this worshipful act before God as the sole recipient, even the sole observer. So let's dive into each of these 3.
Speaker 1:
Each example gives some particular truth that Jesus is going to draw out, and we're gonna dive really deeply into this first one, and we'll see some of those same principles and patterns played out for the others. So first, giving to the needy, or more broadly, acts of service. Jesus begins by saying, when you give to the needy. So there's an assumption here, an assumption that as people of God's kingdom, we will be doing this. Scripture is jam packed with evidences of God's heart for the poor, the needy, the marginalized, the forgotten.
Speaker 1:
You don't have to read very far in scripture to see that God wants his heart reflected in the heart of his people. Now if we ever come to a point where we recognize that this is not the case in our lives, this is a place for repentance and a recalibration of our priorities. Jesus says, when you give to the needy, don't do it like the hypocrites. Don't sound a trumpet before you. Now most commentators here agree that Jesus is using hyperbole.
Speaker 1:
As we've discussed many times throughout the Sermon on the Mount, this is something that Jesus does regularly. He uses figures of speech and literary tools to help us really get the point that he's trying to make. He says things like, pluck out your eye, or cut off your hand, or take the log out of your own eye. He's demonstrating his point with a provoking visual. So it's not likely that the Pharisees had trumpeters going before them as they're doing these acts of service.
Speaker 1:
It's supposed to be a comedic picture of the reality that is at hand. Jesus says they may as well have had trumpeters, because that was their intended desire. They wanted everyone to see them and to praise them for what they're doing. And Jesus is saying, hey. There is a certain reward that they're gonna get from that.
Speaker 1:
It's the praise of man. And it might make them feel good for a minute, but it will leave them empty and unfulfilled. They will be left, and we will be left with no praise given to the father, and no reward from the father. So when I hear this, I'm gonna be honest with you guys, I'm a little surprised by that. That seems pretty harsh.
Speaker 1:
They are doing these acts of devotion. There's no reward from the father? 0? Not, like, a partial credit, because they partially got it right? Jesus says, no.
Speaker 1:
They've completely missed the mark. So what's going on here? We're getting a picture into the heart of man, into our human condition, our own hearts, that we crave attention. We crave the praise of others. So I have 3 kids, and it seems that all I hear these days is, look at me, or daddy, watch this.
Speaker 1:
And they're just constantly competing for my attention, one upping each other all the time, doing more and more when my oldest son, Mac, was about 1a half. This story stands out in my mind. We had some friends over. We're in the living room, hanging out with them, just sitting there. And then all of a sudden, we hear those dreaded dangerous words.
Speaker 1:
Look at me. So we look over, and my little one and a half year old son is on his rocking horse. But instead of sitting on the rocking horse this time as he'd always done prior to that point, He's standing on it. And at first, he's holding on to the handles, and then he goes like this, and he says, look at me. I guess he wasn't getting enough attention from us in that moment.
Speaker 1:
Isn't this what we all do? Aren't we all basically like little children, desperate for attention, willing to do almost anything to get someone to just see us. Now if we ask God's spirit to shed light on our hearts, and if we're honest with ourselves, I think that we'll find this is exactly what motivates so much of what we do in all arenas in life. I mean, this is why we crave followers and likes and comments and views and kudos and all the acclaim that we can get on social media and occasionally in real life too. We are doing anything that we can to get praise.
Speaker 1:
We are essentially like my son, constantly yelling, look at me. And at the heart of this look at me is the desperate cry, love me. But here's the twist. This isn't all bad. We are actually created with this God given impulse, but the fall and sin distort it.
Speaker 1:
We are made to live our lives before the gaze of someone, seeking his pleasure and his loving eyes upon us. But just as my son doesn't have to do ridiculous gymnastic feats to get my love and attention, neither do we. This passage reminds us that God is our father, and it is before him alone that we should live our lives and pursue holiness, not before others, and not in an effort to earn his love. Sin takes what is meant to be a beautiful act of love, a response to our contentedness with God as our father, and us as his children, and it twists it. We find ourselves wanting to do these right things, but our motive shifts to a quicker, easier form of praise, one that we can see and hear and feel around us immediately.
Speaker 1:
And then we find ourselves in the place of the Pharisee. And Jesus says, no. This is not how it's supposed to be. So what do we do? This is a tricky place that we find ourselves in.
Speaker 1:
Well, Jesus gives us some practical help. He uses this picture of your left hand not even knowing what your right hand is doing. Jesus seems to be saying that not only will we have to go to great lengths to avoid parading our acts of righteousness before others, but we also have to guard against flaunting our acts of service before ourselves. Now it's entirely possible to do something without anyone else knowing, but to still feel a self righteousness that makes the act more about us than about God. Now maybe you can relate.
Speaker 1:
I know that I can. Jesus says do this thing before God alone, in secret. Don't even dwell on it yourself. Don't give your pride an opportunity to rise. Let it go up as a fragrant offering to the Lord, and then you will receive the reward from him.
Speaker 1:
So here's a question. How does giving to the needy To answer this, I turned to the masterpiece of Pride and Prejudice. The movie, not the book. And the newer movie, to be honest. I haven't even actually seen the old movie.
Speaker 1:
It was too long, and I haven't read the book, so I can't even vouch that this is in the original. But in this particular cinematic masterpiece with Keira Knightley, towards the end, the dreary character of mister Darcy, or as some people say, the dreamy character of mister Darcy, he's falling for Elizabeth, the Keira Knightley character. Now he goes at the end, out of his love, he goes to great and costly lengths to secretly save one of Elizabeth's sisters from a shameful marriage. He also goes to great and costly lengths to reunite another one of her sisters to her admirer, despite the distance and the miscommunications between them. And at the end, when this is revealed that he has done these great acts of love and service towards these other women, he clarifies to Elizabeth.
Speaker 1:
He says, surely you know it was all for you. Tissues, please. This is how an act of service can be intended for God and not for others. An act of service towards other people can still be to the Lord. So now that we've dug deeply into this first topic, let's jump into the second, and we'll see many of the same patterns and principles repeated.
Speaker 1:
Look at verses 5 through 8. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door. Pray to your father who is in secret, and your father who sees in secret will reward you.
Speaker 1:
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. So here again, we see that Jesus assumes that as members of his kingdom, prayer will be an integral part of our lives. So Jesus helps us to evaluate how and why we pray. The hypocrite, Jesus points out, makes a show of his prayers, gaining an audience by doing it in public places where they will surely be seen.
Speaker 1:
Their intent is isn't even for their prayers to be heard by God as much as it is for their prayers to be heard by others. Now this provoked in me a very basic but challenging question, one that I've been wrestling with this week. When I pray, who am I praying to? It's a question that I want to linger for a moment on and for each of us to contend with. Because if I'm honest, sometimes I realize I am praying with others in mind just as much or more than God.
Speaker 1:
For a pastor, this is an especially devious trap. I mean, there's an inherent pressure to use prayer as a tool, A tool that I can use to control or manipulate rather than coming before my father in intimate conversation. I mean, I can end up thinking more about how my words affect those around me than them as coming before my father, Or I can use prayer as a tool to help me at the end of a sermon. Maybe I haven't hit that point home quite as good as I want, and so prayer is the opportunity to put a nice bow on it. Or even more blatantly, I can simply desire to appear like I've got this thing nailed down, like I'm an awesome prayer.
Speaker 1:
Is that a word? But Jesus calls all of this out for what it is. Whether it's really obvious or it's really sneaky, he says that that is not what prayer is intended to be and that God wants no part of it. Simply put, prayer is communing directly with God, the father. And if we, in any way, distort this, if this motivation includes anyone else as the object or the recipient, then we've gone awry.
Speaker 1:
So what does Jesus' redirect here, his correction of how we should pray? Go into your room, or better translated, your closet, and pray in secret. Now what we're seeing here is similar to the question earlier. Well, how do you fight lust? Well, you should pluck out your eye.
Speaker 1:
Cut off your hand. How do you avoid seeking the praise of others in prayer? Go into your closet where no one else is if you need to. Do whatever it takes to purge yourself of sinful, improper motives in prayer. Now I wanna be clear that Jesus is in no way prohibiting public or group prayer.
Speaker 1:
The bible is full of examples and commands to pray in the presence of and with other believers. If Jesus were making a commandment here that we could never pray in public, that would actually be easier for us to keep. That would be really clear cut and manageable. But what he does instead is much harder. He encourages us to constantly check the motives of our heart in public and in private, to never make prayer into something other than communing with God.
Speaker 1:
Now Jesus adds a sidebar here about prayer that we're not gonna get into. In verses 7 through 15, Jesus teaches us how to pray leading into the famous Lord's Prayer. But the one thing that I do want to draw out from this section is another warning about prayer. This time against praying like the pagans. Jesus says, they come to prayer thinking that they can manipulate God by their many words.
Speaker 1:
They mindlessly repeat empty phrases and think that a sheer volume or repetition will earn them a hearing, and then God will have to grant them their requests. Jesus says, that's not how God works. He cannot be manipulated or coerced or talked over in prayer. And furthermore, you don't need to try to. You can present your request before God without all of that.
Speaker 1:
He's our father, and he already knows what we need. Now when my children come to me, they don't have to make a case as to why I should hear them or care. I already do. They just come and they say, daddy, I'm hungry. Daddy, I'm scared.
Speaker 1:
This should be so freeing and encouraging for us in prayer. Already, this week, as I have marinated on this, this has changed the way that I've prayed. Let me ask you a question here. Has anyone had a difficult week? Be brave.
Speaker 1:
Has anyone had a difficult week this week? A few hands. Yeah. Probably a lot more than raised their hands. I have had an exceptionally difficult week, and there have been moments where I could not muster the strength to do anything but to come before the Lord and say, Jesus, help me.
Speaker 1:
Father, help me. Save me. Be with me. And that is honoring to the lord. I don't have to feel the pressure, or as one commentator put it, the anxiety in prayer that many of us feel.
Speaker 1:
We're worried about what to say, how to say it, how often to say it. Jesus says, the father doesn't heed or not heed our prayers based off of the quality or even the quantity of our words. He's your father. Come to him with a childlike simplicity. I hope that encourages your hearts as it has mine this week.
Speaker 1:
Let's look at verse 16, this third topic here. As with the others, Jesus seems to assume that fasting is happening. Now for us as a modern audience, this is surely the least understood of the 3 topics and probably the least observed. What really is fasting, and what does the Bible even say about it? Now we see throughout scripture plenty of examples of both Jesus and other believers fasting.
Speaker 1:
The main point of a fast is to purposefully abstain from something that you value in life for a defined period of time, typically food or drink, but it could be anything, with the purpose of seeking God with a renewed hunger and desire. Now when we want that thing from which we're abstaining, instead of indulging, we come to God and we say that he is our truest desire, and that he alone can satisfy us. But Jesus offers caution about the traps of fasting in which you could easily fall. The looks of admiration and the words of surprised approval will leave you empty if this is all that you seek. Even the simple and subtle, oh, no.
Speaker 1:
No. I'm not getting anything today. I'm fasting. Or the less sub the the less subtle, man. My head really hurts today, Waiting for them to ask, oh no.
Speaker 1:
Why? Oh, you know, some fasting. No big deal. Jesus is not pleased with these. The father is not pleased with these, and we don't get the reward of what fasting is intended to be.
Speaker 1:
God's words to his people in Joel 2 who misunderstood this should ring in our ears. Rend your hearts, not your garments. When we fast, we come broken before God. On the outside, Jesus said, others don't need to know. Rather, you should show all the common signs of health and joy.
Speaker 1:
Though you are internally hungry and desperate, that's before God. Before others, you should show the joy that you're receiving from worshiping God in this way. So each of these 3 have the same purpose of drawing out that initial question that we began with. Are you living for the praise of man or the praise of God? Now you may have noticed that we haven't yet addressed Jesus's promise of a reward from the father for any of these, so let's talk about these rewards.
Speaker 1:
What exactly is the nature of the reward that the father is offering? In his work, The Weight of Glory, c s Lewis discusses this topic of Christian rewards. He explains that rewards, as they should be, have a natural connection to the deed. So he says this. Money is not the natural reward of love.
Speaker 1:
Marriage is the proper reward for a real lover, and he is not a mercenary for desiring it. Similarly, we might say that a silver cup is not a very suitable reward for a schoolboy who worked hard, whereas a scholarship at the university would be. The proper rewards are not simply tacked on to the activity for which they are given, but they are the activity itself in consummation. What is Lewis saying here? He's saying that the reward is the fulfillment, the end desire, the end result of the desire.
Speaker 1:
So Jesus is saying, live like the children of God that you are before me as your father, and you will receive your reward, the gaze and the affection of the father, as it is meant to be. Your reward will be intimacy with God. In serving the needy, when we do this as unto him and not for others, we will receive the reward of knowing him more and loving him more. Our desires match his desires, and he grows the heart of the father in us. In prayer, the reward is direct and obvious.
Speaker 1:
When we come before the father seeking to commune with him in prayer, he grants us that request. We meet with him. We know him more. We love him more. We fix our attention on him, and we find that we are actually satisfied with his love and his acceptance.
Speaker 1:
Your reward for fasting is that you feast with the father. When you come before him and you deny the desires of the flesh, especially the desire for the praise of man, you will receive the fullness and the satisfaction of knowing how your father in heaven provides for every need. As we were created to do, we should desire the attention of our creator, of our father, and he offers his gaze and his satisfaction in a way that simply no one else can. Now this isn't another law to keep. This is an invitation, an invitation to come to your father through these acts of devotion.
Speaker 1:
Now all we have to do is to look at the life of Jesus to see this played out as it should be. Jesus lived the entirety of his life before his father, in total submission to his father's will, seeking his father's praise and glory alone. Now Jesus could have easily absorbed the praise of man for any of his acts of righteousness, for his teaching, for his miracles, but instead, he made it his goal to please his father. On the cross, he yearned for his father's gaze. He cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Speaker 1:
He gave up the attention and the intimacy of the father, so that on that cross, we now he he gave that up so that we can experience it. On the cross, he desired his father's eye upon him. And now, because Jesus emptied himself in submission to his father's will, we will never have to know what it feels like to feel the absence of the father's approval. Jesus imparts his righteousness to us and calls us blessed in him. He not only showed us the example, he opened the way to the father.
Speaker 1:
Now the father is always before us, and he is desiring that we live our lives before him, seeking His acceptance and His love alone. Pray with me. Father, we come to you and we are thankful that you see in secret, that you are always there, that you created us with an innate desire to have your gaze upon us. And, Lord, we praise you that we don't have to fall into all the traps that we can so easily fall into. We don't have to seek the praise of others.
Speaker 1:
We don't have to try to prove ourselves. We don't have to work harder. We don't have to give in to our pride. Jesus, you love us. You accept us.
Speaker 1:
You made a way to the father. God, we confess that it's hard to care only what you have to say about us and not what others have to say. It's hard even in this very prayer for me. Lord, we want to worship you, to come to you as the sole recipient of our worship and our devotion. Help us to feel the freedom of this, to know that you are always waiting for us, your children, to come and present our request to you.
Speaker 1:
Father, we love you, and we thank you that you give us all that we need for this. In your name, amen.