Fix Your Heart
Matthew 6:1-8
Intro. Father’s Day today. Time to think about our earthly fathers. But also a great time to reflect on our heavenly Father. We have been looking at the Sermon on the Mount and we are moving into a new chapter today. In Matthew 5 Jesus used the phrase Heavenly Father or Father in Heaven only 3 x’s but now in chapter 6 Jesus will use it 12 x’s and chapter six is shorter. There’s a reason for that. In chapter 5 Jesus condemned several actions, but he did it based on the attitude of the heart behind the action. Sure murder is wrong, but the hatred that leads to murder is just as wrong. What Jesus says in chapter 5 is the heart of the problem is a problem of the heart. Now He begins to address our hearts and what we need to do about our heart problems and that involves your relationship to God. That’s why this chapter mentions our Heavenly Father so much. Remember at the end of chapter 5 Jesus challenged us to be perfect as our father in heaven is perfect. Now we learn how to do that better.
Matt 6:1-8
“Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly. "And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.”
I love what one person said about this passage. Jesus is addressing spiritual strippers in this passage. Spiritual exhibitionists. They do their good things so that other people will watch them do it. And Jesus gets very upset with them. If you’re taking notes this morning, and I hope you are, we will have five short points and they will spell the word heart.
H - Humble yourself.
If you want to give your heart to God, you must humble yourself. That means you have to realize that you are not such a great person. You are not “OK.” You have plenty of room for improvement and you should not be happy with yourself. If God is our measuring stick, we are in pretty bad shape. One of the reasons we like other people to know about our good deeds is because we are proud of them. Hey, that was pretty good of me to do, we think. I hope other people notice.
Friday night I caught a couple of catfish at our guys night out. I was kind of proud of those fish and several times that night I took somebody over to the stringer to show them those fish. In fact, I didn’t stay the night but went home about 12:30 in the morning. Heather woke up just enough to say hello to me and what do you think I did? Told her about those fish right then! I was proud of what I’d done.
That’s fine with fish (unless you happen to be married to me and it’s 12:30 in the morning and you want to sleep) but when it comes to our spiritual life, that’s another matter. You see, we don’t ever do something so great that God is impressed. Jesus said, in Luke 17:10
“In the same way, when you obey me you should say, ’We are not worthy of praise. We are servants who have simply done our duty.” In other words, when we do great things for God, it only what we are expected to do. That’s kind of humbling isn’t it? If you are going to try and get ahead with God you will have a difficult time because your best is what he expects. Total commitment is what he asks you for in the beginning. When we realize that our good deeds are just what is expected of us, we will begin to understand why there is no need to brag about them to other people or make sure they see us doing them.
The second thing we must do is Elevate God
When we realize that we are measuring ourselves against God and not others, we won’t worry so much about what other people think.
When I was in marching band, we marched in several parades. I loved it. We always had a set of songs to play and we played the entire parade route. But somewhere on the way, the drum major gave a special call and we launched into a special song that we only played at that spot in the parade and we marched a special formation and usually included a maneuver or two. In others, words, at one spot in the parade, we put on a show. What spot was that? The judges stand. When the judges are watching you are at your best and you do things you wouldn’t normally do.
If we will realize that God is our judge and not other people, we will have a different perspective on our good deeds. One of the reasons that we get into trouble here is that we forget who the judge is. We put people in too high a place and God in too low a place. God is our judge and we must elevate Him back to that place in our lives. If everyone I ever meet hates me but God loves me and judges me as a righteous person, I have been successful in this life. Elevate God to that position in your life.
The third thing we must do is Act Anonymously
It is great to work on our pride and work at humbling ourselves, it is wonderful to strive to put God in the proper place in our lives, but sometime we must actually put those things into practice. If I truly don’t care whether other people know about all the good things I do and if I truly believe that God is the only judge that matters, then acting anonymously is something that should come naturally to me. So try it. Do something good and don’t tell anyone. Not even your spouse if you can help it. Act completely anonymously and don’t reveal yourself for anything. Do something good for someone else without expecting anything in return.
But the other side to that coin is Remain active.
Jesus tells us not to let our left hand know what our right hand is doing. But some people have decided that if the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing, then perhaps the left hand won’t know the right hand isn’t doing anything. Please notice that your activity is assumed in this passage. Jesus doesn’t say “IF you do charitable deeds, be sure not to blow a trumpet,” He says, “WHEN” you do those good deeds. Make sure you are remaining active as a Christian.
That’s what it takes to fix your heart. But there is one problem. The heart belongs to God and only he can fix it. The Psalmist says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” The last thing Jesus encourages us to do is to pray real prayers. Talk Plainly, He says. Tell God what you need and what hurts. Don’t be afraid to express your feelings, whether they are joyful celebrations, angry raves, or tearful confessions. Tell God how it feels and use your own words. And this one applies to public as well as private prayers. When you talk to God, talk to Him as if He were alive and active and could respond to your needs. Too many times we talk to God like we talked in our high school speech class. Remember when you had to make that first speech? You knew nobody out there actually cared what you were, not even the teacher, you just had to go through all the right motions if you wanted to pass the test. Sometimes that’s how we approach prayer. Jesus says that our prayers are a time between us and God and our public prayers are not a time to show off how much we know or how well we can speak, but they are, rather, a time to talk to God. Talk plainly to Him.
Throughout this passage Jesus has spoken of a reward. We need to look to the right place for our reward. We must look to God, not men, for our reward. What are you after? Do you want other people to pat you on the back and tell you what a great job you did or are you working as hard as you can to hear God say well done thou good and faithful servant? Whoever’s praise you are seeking, you will get it, but only one will really matter in the end.
We have talked about fixing our hearts. Jesus says that God really wants hearts that belong to Him. He can make heroes from willing servants and we’ve talked a little this morning about how to give our hearts to God. But ultimately, if your heart is hurting, only God can fix hearts. God says, through Ezekiel, “Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.” Ezek 18:31. Then, later in the book, near the end, God promises His people, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.” Ezek 36:26-27 Are you ready to get a new heart this morning? Maybe you have been trying to walk in God’s commandments without that new heart and found it to be impossible. There is one who can cleanse your heart and make you free. He has told us that if we will believe in Him and confess His son, Jesus Christ, as the Lord of our lives, then we may be washed in a baptism and receive this new heart. We can be new people with new hearts. And he promises to continue to wash our hearts so that even if we stain them again with sin, he can make them white as snow if we will but come back to him. If you need to fix your heart, do it this morning.
