Transcript

More Than the External

We’re going to approach this passage, Jesus’ teaching, together from a position of humility. As we continue in this awesome series called The Mount, looking at the Sermon on the Mount, we’re going to be in chapter 6. This is the other side of the coin from last week.

If you were with us last week, Scott preached a list of do-nots. Jesus said, “You’ve heard it said, do not do this, do not murder.” Pretty good. Do not do that. Then he adds to it. He says, “But I’m telling you, if you’re angry with someone in your heart, you’re guilty of murder.”

Do not commit adultery: another good do-not, right? But if you lust in your heart, you’re guilty of the same. Jesus gives this list of do-nots but says it’s actually deeper than just the external.

This week, it’s the flip side of the coin: a list of when-yous. When you do this, he gives us something more. That something more is always so important for us.

As Scott was preaching, he quoted my childhood favorite band, DC Talk. I still have too much memory in my head of their songs and raps, and if you get me going, I cannot stop.

They quoted Gandhi from a concert, saying, “The reason most of the world isn’t Christian is because they know one.” Gandhi said, “Jesus, I like your Jesus. It’s your Christians I don’t like. They don’t look much like your Jesus.”

Recently, a Franciscan priest said, “If most of America is Christian, I don’t know if I want to be.” All these quotes are getting after something more, something deeper. Jesus spoke to the religious elite, saying the same thing.

As we unpack these Scriptures today, this list of when-yous, the practices of a Christian, there are three things we’re talking about: generosity, prayer, and fasting. He says they’re something different than what you think they are, something different than the way they’re being practiced now.

Jesus, thank you for your words, this sermon that you preached to us thousands of years ago, and it’s still being preached to us today. As we open your Word to hear what you have to say, I pray it wouldn’t be me who says it, but you. I pray it wouldn’t be my words coming out; it’d be your heart. Talk to each of us as we need. It’s in your good name we pray. Amen.

Matthew 6, verse 1. We’re going to make it. We have 18 verses and not a lot of time, so this is not an exhaustive sermon. It’s three mini-sermons combined into one.

We’re going to frame these three practices in this idea: when we practice generosity, prayer, and fasting, it is not a performance.

When we practice generosity, prayer, and fasting, it is not a performance.

Dallas Willard wrote a book called Renovation of the Heart. Fantastic book. He claimed this: “Performance is when we try to make an impression rather than just be who we are.” Jesus, framing these next three things, says, “Beware. Don’t be a performer. Don’t do it for other people. Don’t do it to make an impression.”

When you do these things, it’s got to be for a different reason. There are a couple of assumptions hidden in here. First, this is not behavior modification. Behavior modification is training a dog. You can get any dog to shake for a treat, or any man for a treat too. Food is problematic. Powerful, we’ll say that.

It’s not simply, “I’m doing these things, and that’s enough.” The second assumption is that we are practicing these things. Each of these three sections starts with, “When you do this thing.” It’s an assumption that we’re doing those things.

Then he says the hypocrites do it this way, tells us how we should do it, and talks about our Father who sees in secret. Each of these things hits on those three little elements. The thing he’s going to say is very countercultural to the practice at the time.

Generosity Without Performance

First: generosity. And not when Batman’s around.

Generosity in our daily lives has to look different. I loathe getting a gift that comes with strings attached.

I have four siblings. I’m one of five. My older siblings went to college, and then I turned 16. On my 16th birthday, I had a 102-degree fever, sick as a dog. My mom came to pick me up from school and immediately said, “Hey, we’re going to go get your license. It’s right now.”

We went and did it, and then they gave me a car. The expectation was that that car became a vehicle to transport my two younger brothers. That’s not necessarily wrong. My oldest is turning 15 next month, and she’s going to be transporting her siblings if she ever drives. I’m still not—I don’t know. Parents who have older kids, how do you do that? It feels like a betrayal. How dare you grow up?

The string was attached to that gift. Jesus is saying, when you give a gift, when you see the needs around you, don’t do it in a way that’s going to bring attention to yourself.

One practice at the time was that anytime someone gave a gift, they sounded trumpets, gongs, and cymbals and presented that gift. It was a ceremony, a giant ceremony. The giant check comes out, and they’re like, “Here you go. Look how great I am.” Jesus says that is not the generosity we’re after. The only reward those people are getting is giving that check. It has to be something deeper.

I started a new job recently, from selling fake wood to selling real wood. That’s a big step in a career, in case you’re wondering. It’s no longer fake; it’s now real. We bake it in an oven first, but it’s real.

My boss and I were meeting, driving around this territory and visiting customers. We drove by a thrift store. I said, “I love going to thrift stores in different towns and cities. You get a cultural glimpse into that area.” He said, “I have PTSD from thrifting.”

Last Christmas, he told me, they donated a tree, a Christmas tree. They’re a blended family and had four—I don’t know how that works—but they donated a Christmas tree. The next day, their neighbor, who’s a social worker, came and said, “Hey, there’s a single-parent family who could really use that tree. Do you still have it?”

He goes to say, “No, we gave it away,” and his wife gives him the elbow and the look. If you’re married, you know the look. I’ve never experienced it.

His wife said, “Yeah, we’ll bring it by next week.” They immediately went to the thrift store, bought the tree they donated, and brought it to the social worker. He said, “I can’t stand them.” Meanwhile, I’m thinking, “Wow, how generous of your wife.”

That’s the kind of generosity where your right hand doesn’t know what your left hand is doing, or your husband doesn’t know what the wife is doing: giving something so simple as a tree because it’s meeting a need. They see it and meet it.

In Acts chapter 1, we get a description of what the early church was doing. At that time, they had all things in common, and each was selling possessions and giving as anyone had need. If you want to look at the most holistic version of what a church looks like, it’s pure and simple: we see the need; we meet the need.

You guys, as a church, are fantastic at this. This isn’t me condemning; this is me encouraging. Look at how many needs have been met through this church.

As a church, we’re walking through a hard season. The elders were up here saying we’re in the middle of a pastor transition, but guess what? Giving was up through the summer. That’s so real.

Over a decade in ministry, I can tell you, having seen way too many budgets for churches—I don’t like that much paperwork—that is not common. There’s typically one time a year you can count on giving being down, and it’s when Batman’s gone.

There’s this old British politician—his name is unclear in the recording—who said, “No one can persist in generosity unless he is drawing from the fountain of our Lord.” Jesus asks us to give not so that others notice, but to give because he’s given us much.

Prayer From the Heart

If I start talking quickly, it’s because there’s a timer in the back and I’m well aware of it.

Just following the same rhythm here: when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites. Here’s that word hypocrites, and I’m going to talk about it for a second because it’s my favorite. Hypocrites was the word most often used for masked performers on the stage.

Every time he calls someone a hypocrite, he’s calling them a masked performer. Yeah, that’s who you pretend to be, but who are you really?

Jesus is speaking into two different groups here: the religious elite and the Gentiles. It’s two different versions of prayer that he gives examples of.

First, the religious elite. In the Jewish practice of the Shema, prayer in the morning and evening, sunrise and sunset, you practice that in your home. If you’re out for whatever reason, you practice that where you are at the time. The habit for those religious elite was to schedule themselves to be out during prayer time so everyone could see how pious they were.

They would prostrate themselves on the ground and pray loudly so everyone around them knew what they were doing and how holy and wonderful they were. Jesus says, “Why? Why are we doing this? Who’s that prayer for?”

Then he addresses the Gentiles. The Gentiles at that time were making prayers assuming they were some sort of magic formula or business transaction.

I have five kids, and a couple of them could be lawyers one day. It drives me nuts when one of my kids comes up to ask for something and starts like this: “Hey, Dad, so because sibling A and sibling B had this thing, and I did the chores that I was supposed to do earlier, and I haven’t been fighting with anyone, and I’m going to eat dinner really well…” They start listing all their qualifications and reasons why I should say yes, and they haven’t even asked for the thing.

I’m sitting there saying, “Every word that comes out of your mouth right now is getting you closer to no. Just ask the question.”

That’s what the Gentiles were doing. They were coming to God with different reasons and persuasions, as if it was a magic formula and business transaction. Jesus says he already knows. If we’re coming to God in that way, it’s as if we think he doesn’t already know, like we can trick him: a little bait-and-switch action. He already knows what’s going on. He already knows what you need.

Instead, he gives us a prescription. He makes it simple and gives us the Lord’s Prayer, which has been quoted and recited for a very long time. You know why? Because he meant it that way.

There’s a New Testament scholar who translated this. It follows some laws of poetry that were around. There are seven different literary devices Jesus uses in here, and I can pronounce one of them.

Instead, I’m going to take his translation and show it to you. He put it like this: “Our Father in the heavens, holy song be the name that is yours. Come by the reign that is yours. Done by the aim that is yours, as in heaven, so too on earth. Grant that we may receive this day the bread that we have the coming day, and grant that we be forgiven our debts as even we have forgiven our debtors. Grant that we be seen not into trial, but rather that we be freed from evil.”

I always want to say “evile” there for the rhyme.

He lays it out. There are three things this prayer starts with. This could be a four-week sermon in and of itself, a little mini-series, so we’re going to hit it really quick and then move on. If you have any questions, feel free to come and talk to Allison after. Sorry.

First, it starts with three things completely focused on the nature and character of God. His name is holy. His kingdom is coming, and his will is going to be done. It’s pure and simple. It starts with reframing our focus.

Those three things are powerful in and of themselves. If you look throughout the whole Bible, it’s leading up to this idea of the name of God being powerful, his kingdom having come already and yet not yet come, and the fact that his will is always going to be done.

Then he gives us four things that focus down here. I think it’s important that we look at the words Jesus uses, because he does not use the words I, my, or me. He uses us and we. He focuses on us, a community of people.

He asks for three things: daily provision, forgiveness and the ability to forgive in the same measure, and that we wouldn’t be led into temptation or trial. The fourth one is debated. Some people say it’s a carry-on of the third, but it’s not: that we would be delivered from evil.

How often do we struggle to pray in our lives? I’ll be really honest: I’m terrible at it.

When my wife Natalie and I were first married, we used to pray together at night. She would start, and she’s always just prayed. A lot going on. She prays for family and friends. She remembers. She’s really eloquent when she talks to the Lord.

I would fall asleep on her. She did not like that. She’d elbow me. It got really bad when it was my turn to pray and I would fall asleep in the middle of my own prayer.

Some of us just struggle in that way, and Jesus knows our heart. He knows us in that secret place. He sees, answers, and is there. He gives us something so simple: when you pray, pray like this.

Prayer is the position of our heart coming to the Father, saying not, “Hey, I need this, I want this,” but, “Your will be done. Let me examine my heart. Forgive me for the sins against you, and forgive me for not forgiving those around me the way I should, because I’m not very good at that.”

This is meant to be done communally, collectively, and personally.

We’re going to leave that because we don’t have time to fully unpack it, but know it’s important. Forgiveness and prayer go hand in hand.

Fasting in Secret

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.

But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others, but your Father who is in secret. Your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

The practice of fasting is abstaining from something, most often food, for a period of time. It is meant to be a personal sign of mourning, repentance, or seeking God—sometimes all three.

Fasting is one of those things that feels external but is truly internal. At that time, the common practice in mourning, repentance, or intense seeking of the Lord was to tear your clothes, put on sackcloth, wipe ashes on your head and face, look disheveled, disgruntled, absolutely pitiful, so everyone around you knew how awful you felt internally and looked at you as if you were holy.

This inward thing became so external. Jesus is saying, “No, it’s the opposite.” When you’re practicing these things, wash your face. Look presentable. Don’t announce it to everyone you meet. It’s countercultural in your visible demeanor, grooming habits, primary audience, and spiritual reward.

Fasting is hard to do in general. It’s really hard when you consider giving up something that feels like it should not be given up. Maybe some of us haven’t practiced that before. The way to start may not be with food. Maybe the way to start is with social media. Maybe it is with your phone. Maybe it is giving up something getting in the way.

One of my favorite cultural phenomena, especially on social media, is seeing someone announce on social media that they’re giving up social media. It just feels a little—I don’t know.

Drawing From the Well

All these things Jesus is talking about—generosity, prayer, and fasting—are practices of his disciples. The assumption is that we should be doing them. Some of us do them really well, and to that I say continue. Some of us do some of them really well, and some of us maybe don’t.

The important thing in each section is when Jesus says, “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” Jesus is after that secret place. In this day and age, there’s one secret place each of us has: it’s our heart. Jesus is chasing that secret place. He is after our heart.

Jesus is after that secret place.

Even as we were here this morning, we sang, “Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin left this crimson stain, and he washed it white as snow.” All this should be a response to that good news. All this is our heart condition pouring out in an overflow.

We get it so backwards. When we get it backwards, we have people like DC Talk, Gandhi, and this Franciscan priest saying, “I don’t know what is wrong with Christians,” because we like to look really good on the outside.

Let me tell you, this has been the thing for thousands of years. This is what Jesus spent most of his time talking to: the religious people. He wasn’t talking to the people far from him. He was talking to the people near, saying, “If you would only get the heart of what I’m trying to communicate, that it’s not just about what you say and do.”

If I crack this egg and it’s rotten inside, I can’t use it. It’s like [the old British politician] saying we can’t be generous unless we’re drawing from that well.

Are you drawing from the well of grace?

My question for us today, church, as we look at these practices: are you drawing from the well of grace? Are you drawing from the well of Jesus’ provision? Are you drawing from the well that says he’s paid it, he’s done it, he’s already accomplished it? I’m not earning it anymore. I’m just living it.

Jesus, thank you for moving powerfully. Thank you for speaking to us and pursuing our hearts as we fix our eyes on you, considering the things you have done and the grace you’ve shown.

I pray that we would be changed and formed and shaped and reshaped. That the very core of who we are, in that secret place in our heart, would draw from the well of your grace, would know your presence deeply, and that all these things would flow from that spot.

Jesus, we love you. We need you. We can’t live without you. It’s in your name we pray. Amen.