As we come now to chapter 6 of Matthew’s gospel, and continue in our study of this sermon, I want to address just a couple of peripheral issues that may or may not arise in the mind of the hearer/reader, but should be broached just on the chance that they might.
First, there is the question of the documentation of the words of Jesus here.
There are those who are of the opinion that the Sermon on the Mount is really a compilation of things that Jesus taught in various places and times. They argue that Matthew was a mathematician and liked things put in an orderly fashion, so he gathered all of these teachings together and put them in an easy-to-read format.
I personally disagree with that assessment. Indeed, Matthew was a good note taker, which would correspond with being a detailed and orderly person. But as we have already noted, there is a progression in this sermon that, once observed, remains very apparent. When we cannot see the purposeful flow of His teaching throughout these three chapters it may be because we’re looking too much on the surface, zooming in on the details of each of His illustrations and the individual items He addresses, and not backing up to get the larger picture.
Now there is certainly a place for doing that more detailed type of study. It’s done all the time. Every word of scripture is valuable and indispensable and every word Jesus chose to use was from the lips of God Himself.
The commentators, when they come to these chapters, have a great deal to teach from each and every verse. Lloyd-Jones, for example, takes one hundred pages in his commentary to cover verses 21-48 of chapter 5.
You may remember that when we went through Ephesians we took almost two years. I wrote a total of 69 sermons in that series.
And when pastors decide to teach through the Sermon on the Mount they invariably do the same thing. That is good and needful, and it is also the very reason why I am not going to approach it in that same way.
My goal in this is to stay at a higher altitude, looking down at the whole and seeing the whole lake, as it were, instead of trying to count the fish. I hope that by so doing we will get a whole new but equally valid panoramic view of what Jesus was conveying in this Sermon on the Mount.
That is what we’re going to continue to look at today, first by glancing backward and remembering where we have been.
First though, let me finish stating my case for this being one sermon delivered to one large multitude in the hour of a certain day. Very simply, Matthew says in 5:1-2 that Jesus saw the multitudes, sat down, opened His mouth and began to teach, and chapter 7 ends saying that the ‘result’ of Jesus’ words was that the multitudes were amazed at His authoritative teaching.
If I said, “Last week I was barbequing in my back yard and the neighbors began to be drawn by the smell of mesquite and cooking steak. So one by one they came to my yard and I handed them Styrofoam plates and they dished up and ate and we had a great time, chatting, playing badminton and drinking iced tea, then one by one they left until I was alone to clean up the mess by myself”, wouldn’t it sound a little absurd for one of you to ask, “Well then, did this take place over a period of months”?
When a preacher sets to work preparing a sermon his primary intention in each and every case needs to be to have a point, state his point, build his argument in clear and understandable and reasonable terms, and bring his point home by sound application of biblical truth that is undeniable and significantly applicable to the lives of his hearers.
That is the method demonstrated for us by Jesus, and the Sermon on the Mount is the ultimate demonstration of the perfect sermon.
GLANCING BACK
So as I said, we glance back to get a view of our backtrail and what we see will, I think, support the claims I have just made as we witness the progressive nature of His words to this point.
First Jesus describes the Christian and in the course of it describes the way one becomes a Christian, as He talks about humility and repentance and a desire for righteousness and so forth.
Once He has done that, He basically says that being a Christian is not fulfilling the Law, it is having the Law fulfilled in and through the Christian as he walks in righteousness in the power of the Spirit.
No, that is not expressly said, but we determined that if we were to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect it wasn’t going to be by any Herculean effort of our own to obey the letter. That is what the Pharisees strained to do and Jesus made it pretty clear that it wasn’t enough when He declared that our righteousness would have to exceed theirs or heaven could not be ours.
So what has He said in a nutshell?
Here is the kind of person who comes to God and belongs to God. Now that you have been given a description of the man of God, you need some things corrected in your thinking because you’ve been led astray by your so-called teachers. They say this, but the truth is really much deeper and of a spiritual nature. In short, you can stop trying to emulate them because by their efforts and the things they have been teaching you, you won’t get to heaven and neither will they. If you have any hope of seeing heaven you have to be perfectly holy and perfectly righteous in your very nature, not only in your religious exercise.
So we remind ourselves once again that the writers of scripture included no chapter or verse divisions and we continue on in the progression from the exposing of the error of the Pharisees and the declaration of the futility of empty, works-based religion, and go on to be taught what true religion is.
THE CONTRAST CONTINUES
Look at the last verse of chapter 5 and the first verse of chapter 6 together, so we do not miss the continuity.
“Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.”
From the events of Genesis chapter 3 till now mankind through the eyes of his fallen nature has only seen false religion. The natural man thinks religion is something that can be seen and felt through its rituals and regulations but that is not true religion. The natural man will never understand what the born again believer means when he talks about his religion because it is in no way related to what the natural man thinks religion is.
The thing that amazed the multitudes so much about the teaching of Jesus was not simply the fact that He spoke with the authority of one who knows His topic but that He spoke with the authority of one who wrote the book.
Statements like ‘your righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees’ and ‘be perfect even as your heavenly Father is perfect’ took them in an instant far beyond the thought of being saved through attention to religious duty and let them know that He was speaking of something they had never seen before; something the Pharisees and Scribes could never show them.
In the previous chapter Jesus contrasted true religion with false by exposing the error of the Pharisees. “You have been told…but I say to you”.
Now in chapter 6 He continues that contrast by pointing out their hypocrisy and indeed the hypocrisy of all religious exercise that is done for the wrong reason and with the wrong motive and goal.
Verses 2 through 18 can be broken down into three basic sections; each of which if done for the right motive and goal will actually be a secret. The very act of doing them publicly invalidates them as true acts of worship.
The first, verse 2 – 4 has to do with alms giving. Now the word ‘alms’ does not just refer to money. It can mean the showing of mercy to the downtrodden. Any reaching out to supply the one in need, whether it be monetarily or with emotional support, comfort in time of grief and so forth is alms-giving.
The second section, verse 5 – 15 has to do with prayer and the need of right relationship not only with God but with our brethren in the faith in order for prayer to be effectual. In this portion we find what we now refer to as the Lord’s prayer; the instruction of Jesus for the simple structure of proper praying.
The third section, verse 16-18 has to do with fasting. Now quite a teaching could be done on the subject of fasting. For instance, the people of the Old Testament approached fasting with a different purpose than those of the New. In the Old Testament examples that we are given, fasting was done for mourning. It was because of sin and to show repentance primarily.
In the New Testament however, since believers need not mourn their sins after they are confessed and put away by the atoning blood of Christ, fasting is done for other reasons. In preparation for a special time of prayer, usually with a very specific focus such as an up-coming organized prayer walk or outreach program could be one example.
Because of a pressing need in the life of the believer or the life of someone close to him is another.
Someone might be led to a time of fasting just because they’ve felt conviction in their heart that their daily routine has begun to focus on too many things that are not of God and too little on the spiritual side of their life, so they commit themselves to a time of fasting to refocus and be more spiritually sensitive.
I wanted to spend just a few moments clarifying just the fundamental idea of fasting in case anyone might be in more confusion on that topic than those of prayer and charity.
Getting back on track with our main focus today though, we note that in each of these three sections three things are happening.
1. We are told that the wrong motive and goal is to be seen of men doing them. By that He means doing them to get the applause and approval of men.
One commentator expressed doubt that the Pharisees actually had someone blowing a trumpet to get people’s attention while they dropped their offerings in the box. He said it was probably a tongue-in-cheek method used by Jesus to symbolize their desire to be seen in their false charity.
But I am not sure where he gets that. Jesus seems to be just saying straightforwardly that they blew trumpets. I don’t find that so far-fetched.
I jokingly told Lynn once that I could be as much a hero as Indiana Jones if I had that great music following me everywhere I went.
Then one day I saw a commercial where some guy was strutting down the street looking extremely proud of himself, and another guy was following him with a boombox on his shoulder which was playing marching music. Two other people stood at the side and one asked “What is that?” and the other answered, “Oh, that’s just a guy with his own theme music”.
Then in the second example Jesus talks about the hypocrites standing in very public places, praying loudly for all to see and hear.
In the third they are deliberately dirtying their faces and going around looking very piously glum so everyone will know how much they are suffering under the great sacrifice they are making by going without food for a while. Being hypocrites they probably had “Pharisee Oats” trail mix bars in their pockets for when no one was looking.
2. The second thing common to all three scenarios is that Jesus is admonishing His hearers to do those things in secret. Don’t even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. That’s pretty descriptive, isn’t it?
But hey, that’s tough! You mean I have to give sacrificially to meet the needs of others and never tell anyone? What satisfaction is there in that?
In one episode of the comedy series “Friends”, Joey and Phoebe picked up a debate about doing good deeds. Joey cynically told Phoebe that there was no such thing as a good deed done solely for others, but that the doer always got something out of it.
Phoebe took up the challenge and, humorously of course, spent the rest of the show trying to prove that she could do good deeds and receive nothing out of the doing.
Because it was a sitcom of course, everything she did ‘backfired’ into her getting something out of it. Finally in the end she was on the phone with Joey and when she received the news that one of the friends had come upon a stroke of good fortune she expressed her happiness for him, then she thought she had won because she felt happy for him and got nothing out of it herself; until Joey reminded her that her friend’s happiness made her happy, which meant she got something out of it.
I think this may be a little bit like the thinking of the Pharisees and Scribes that got them into such a spider web of trying to be as religious as they could be.
Jesus said give in secret, pray in private, keep your fasting to yourself. Only the person doing these things for the right motive and goal is going to be able to obey that mandate.
Because if you’re doing it for God and because of your right relationship of love for Him, you’re going to know that none of it is really a secret at all, but that all of it is known by the only One whose knowing will ultimately benefit you.
3. The third commonality to these three sections is the assurance from Jesus that true religious expression will not go unnoticed by the Father but that in fact there will be a reward from Him in it.
Verse 4. “…and your Father who sees in secret will repay you”.
Verse 6 “…and your Father who sees in secret will repay you”.
Verse 18 “…and your Father who sees in secret will repay you”.
TRUE RELIGION
By the term ‘true religion’ I mean a real relationship with a living God that manifests itself as a relationship in the way that any relationship does.
When a husband and wife truly love one another they show it in ways that most people never see.
They don’t blow a trumpet in the Mall and yell, ‘Watch this’ and then kiss.
A man standing in a jewelry shop doesn’t yell, ‘I’m purchasing an expensive diamond broach for my wife because I love her’.
When he whispers sweet nothings in her ear it is usually in the context of the bedroom, not the table nearest the ordering counter at Wendy’s.
But when a couple is really in love people know it anyway, don’t they?
Jesus said, don’t blow your trumpet. Don’t pray like hypocrites. Don’t draw attention to your false piety and expect that you have somehow fooled everyone, including God.
His point in this entire portion of His sermon, from 5:17 through 6:18 is that true religion is a love relationship between the individual and the Father in heaven that is demonstrated in the way one person loves another.
Hypocrisy has no place there.
Do you see why I said no unsaved person has ever seen true religion? True religion by its very nature is secret. It is as invisible as God Himself. It is as unseen as the love that floods my heart for my wife and its demonstration is spirit to Spirit to spirit and only manifests through the flesh properly when Spirit-inspired.
REWARDED
In closing I want to say a word or two about the translations that add the word ‘openly’ to the promise of the Father’s reward.
I do not stumble at this and I don’t want you to. It is a good word that expresses the Father’s desire to lavish spiritual reward on those who love Him.
I only want you to understand that this is not some promise that for true spiritual worship there is some physical monetary reward that the believer should be looking for here.
Jesus did not teach a ‘Frederick Price’ kind of Christianity where if you’re really right with God you’ll know it because you’ll have Rolex watches and Cadillacs and bungalows in the Caribbean.
But you can be assured with the assurance that comes with settled conviction that your Father in heaven knows and sees all and rewards justly and graciously.
When you leave this temporary place and step into His heavenly home He will then lavish upon you all the treasures He has stored up and waiting to give you.
And I end today pointing you once more to the deliberate progression of this sermon, because our heavenly treasures are exactly what Jesus is now going to go on and talk about.
Do you sometimes feel alone, Christian? Inadequate? Sinful and wondering how a holy God could ever accept you? Just a little depressed? Uncertain of the future?
Remind yourself that the very One who shed His own blood willingly to purchase you back to the Father is the One who said that not one secret measure of true religion from your spirit to the Spirit of God will go unnoticed or be forgotten, but that a reward awaits you that is full to overflowing and the Father who sees in secret waits with a smile to lavish it on you openly.
