The most hurtful and hateful thing anyone can do is to put on a face of false piety and pretend that everything is just fine when in fact it is not.
[This sermon is one of a series entitled "Sermon on the Mount, Concentrating on the Beatitudes," which is being preached on Sunday mornings by Pastor Tim Senter.]
Thinking about the current situation, I am glad that this section of scripture comes on the heels of a Thanksgiving message. Last Sunday’s message was interesting in that we found our nation focused upon God and His salvation in the war for independence. Many could say that the 15 proclamations for days of fasting, prayer, repentance, and thanks were simply politically oriented to gain the favor of the people. This is a very cynical view that gives no one hope, and in no way communicates the truth. This type of cynicism gives no comfort and only engenders more of the same. Cynicism is a sad commentary upon itself. One should instead ask what the results were. God delivered our nation from oppression – He gave us freedom.
These cynics would try to say that because the Great Awakening did not take place during the war for independence, then how could God bless the war efforts? The first Great awakening began in the late 1720’s in the New England colonies and spread throughout most of them, extending into the 1750’s. The second extended from the 1790’s into the 19th century. However, this entire discussion misses the point. The leadership of the nation was penitent. The leadership is the focus, and the direction that the nation takes due to its leadership is the concern. This submissive and obedient leadership is what God honors. Conversely, disobedience and ungodliness is something in need of judgment. If things had to be perfect for God to give grace, no one would be saved. God gives grace, then; through faith we are saved. God gave grace to our nation in providing our wonderful founders. It is better to look at these blessings in light of the centurion servant’s salvation. Just as the centurion had faith that saved the servant in Matthew 8:10-13, our forefathers’ faith bore our nation to victory. The cynic can find fault with anything. The facts bear themselves out. We fought, seeking God’s protection. Our leaders regularly implored the nation to repentance, and then to thanks for God’s blessings. Through their steadfast faith, we were awarded victory. It is that simple. We did not have to be perfect, and our leaders did not have to be perfect. However, all believers had to be sincere just as the centurion was. All the leaders had to submit wholly to God’s power for deliverance just as the centurion did. All our leaders had to give up their personal desires and recognize their unworthy position before God, as the centurion did.
We should note here that the centurion was a pagan, yet he came to faith. No, it is not because our national leaders were perfect that God delivered us from the hand of England (“Pharaoh” according to the Journal of the Continental Congress Saturday, March 20, 1779). It is because they were not perfect, but had the intestinal fortitude to admit it, and bow to the only being capable of delivering them. It was, then, due to their imperfection and ability to humble themselves to God, seek the Son, and accept the Holy Spirit – these things made our nation possible.
Today we look at the reason, moreover, why God answered these early petitions. Our text is Matthew 6, verses one through eight. Another aspect of our message today is that it is another overview. There are five messages in this section the way I count them, and this will serve as an overview for those five messages.
Once again, we turn our attention to our regular Sunday morning study on the Sermon on the Mount. I pray you have gathered from these expositions that the people of the Kingdom of God are special people. They certainly are different than anyone in the world. God, through His word here, is exhorting you to be that different Kingdom person. These tenets change lives for God. Today we consider, again, principles and examples of principles that tell us how we should better worship and serve God.
I have friends that street preach. A gentleman that did our teen outreach (Cola Wars– link here) this year is street preaching right now. I also know people who hand out tracts and literature. I know men and women who serve the Lord by witnessing in public. I have told you how Chris and I make it a point to pray for everyone publicly that we can find that would desire prayer. All of these efforts are worthless though, if we do them not for God, but for our own piety. If we are preaching, handing out tracts, witnessing, or praying with selfish motives, or so others will notice us – this is a false testimony.
There are people who speak publicly about being a Christian, while in private they do not pray, they do not read God’s word, and they would not attest to the authority of scripture. These folks often find themselves choosing between what they consider the lesser of two evils, and bow to one pleasure over another. With no base to work from, they eventually choose a path leading to sin which is too wicked to conceal any longer. Their actions reveal their false testimony.
There are people all around the globe that daily choose between what people might think of them, and what God might think of them. These choices for the Christian are determined both by the letter and the spirit of the law of God in His word. Christians make choices based upon God’s conviction in their heart – this is the spirit of the law. The letter of the law in this conviction is sought in the Word of God and prayer which is communion with God that enlightens the believer in the truths therein. False testimonials are always revealed as a product in the life of the self-promoter. Either there is no real effect in the ministerial effort, or there is sure character failure in the ministry that leads to destruction. One way or another, false piety and testimony will destroy, hurt, hinder, and in all ways injure those it touches.
Here we find the Savior’s description of false piety and a few examples of activities people endeavor in this false piety. These falsely pious people are all about the look of it, but seek nothing of substance in their testimony. People seek the approval of or perform for others in their piety, however they do not look at themselves and their true heart. People try to appear to be Christian, in order to show others how Christian they are, instead of being Christians seeking to change people into Christians. Here we have the first century description of existentialism.
Existentialism is all show, no substance. We have seen many with this attribute. Existentialism floats with the wind and takes flight at the earliest inconvenience in order to seek that which appears more religious. If it appears religious, do it. Existentialism seeks that which looks good on the outside and guesses that it is probably good on the inside. If it looks good, it must be good. Existentialism seeks to do what pleases it most as long as it fits the mold. If it feels good do it. Further, existentialism seeks only to see good things and does nothing to address bad things. If it troubles me, I do not want it. The problem is that none of this fits with Christianity.
If all Christians operated in this fashion, they would never please God. God does not appear religious; He is a person, God the Father. Religion killed His Son. Religion looks good to man because it is man made and appeases him. God does not look good to man and never has, because God is not religion and He is not interested in appeasing man. God has always asked man to change to become like Him – which is the opposite of man. God is confrontational, not passive. God does not always please man and rarely makes him feel good, especially about himself. God convicts man’s heart and is not partial to one over another. Therefore, God always troubles man and only the true Christian wants this trouble, because the true Christian knows he or she needs it.
The truth is that “Righteousness is not of self, but of God.” We think if we try very hard, we will be what God wants us to be – like His Son. “Man tries to be religious but God wants loving submission and obedience, not visible religiosity.”
Existentialism is the mark of the Pharisee that Jesus is discussing here. These pious Pharisees thought they were above any counsel, any instruction, or any type of corrective input except by their superiors. They were very haughty and arrogant. Everywhere they went, they went to teach and not to learn. They were pious and they knew it. I have seen a number of people who sought counsel for any number of addictions in the past. What I have learned is that no one will actually begin down a road to recovery from any addiction if they do not first come to terms with their inability to manage the problem. Frankly, if the one suffering could fix it, it would not be a problem. Marriages fail regularly because of this as well. I call it the “holier than thou” syndrome. These folks seek help, and then try desperately to dictate the assistance, and prescribe the solutions. All the while, they say they are seeking God’s assistance to get through the issue. What they want is someone to agree with them and support their sorrow. This is not worship, this is not submission, and this is not seeking God’s help. This is saying, “Look at me, I’m religious. Never mind the problems I have with arrogance, piety, or false worship. I know what I need, so I know what you need. Look at me.”
I. Righteous Worship (Verse 1)
The first word in this verse is very interesting. It is in the present active imperative and means, “to be in a continuous state of readiness to learn of any future danger, need, or error, and to respond appropriately — to pay attention to, to keep on the lookout for, to be alert for, to be on one’s guard against.”[1] If we did a very literal Tim’s translation of this verse it could be rendered
“Be continuously alert to foresee any dangers and be ready to respond appropriately that you not make your righteousness before men to be seen for them; if now surely you will have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.”
What are we to be alert to? What dangers are we to foresee? What should our response to these be? The answers to these questions actually come in the second phrase, “that you not make your righteousness before men to be seen for them.”
We are to be alert to our own evil, deceitful hearts that can put on a good show for everyone to see. “I am okay, you are okay.” That is what the world wants us all to be like. The most hurtful and hateful thing anyone can do is to put on a face of false piety and pretend that everything is just fine when in fact it is not. It gets 100 times worse when that person putting on that false face wants to encourage others to follow them. They are not only dishonest in their outward appearance to others, and dishonest to themselves, but they drag others into the cloud of deception and teach them that as long as you appear to be religious and pious, you can be. What a bunch of hooey. People pretend to be religious all day, every day but would not be caught dead in a fellowship that actually convicted their heart to change. That is what this scripture tells us – change for Christ, do not just appear to change for Christ.
The danger we are to look for is the deceitful heart that attempts to change true Christian living into some legalistic, automatic, pious, or simply outwardly visible endeavor. Folks, legalism is not all bad. We should be separate and distinct from the world. It is not existential to be different; it is only existential if only the appearance is different. The opposite is when we do not try to look or act different, but think that really, inside, we are different. Neither of these is healthy, both are dangerous and destructive. The Christian is truly different from the world both externally and internally, not just one or the other. Our deceitful heart will rationalize whatever we can to get whatever we think we need or want. That is a huge danger that we must be alert to see in our own hearts.
Our response, then, is to seek God and His word alone. If someone reaches out to you in love, or if you hear from the pulpit, that you need to change, do not assume you are being attacked. Assume you might need to learn something. This preacher hopes that it is for that reason that you come and attend services – to seek those things in your life you must change for God. Now, the preacher is not always right, but the word of God is. If there is a dispute, discuss it at length and seek reconciliation not antagonization. The absolute worst thing you can do is just vaporize. Disappearing such that we have no idea what happens to you will not help you, and will not help us. Both need to become Christlike. Equally, demanding from a ministry things that you believe are supposed to be here is not an answer. If you think you have the ability to assist the ministry, volunteer but be prepared to submit yourself to the ministry to help, instead of demanding the ministry to submit itself to you for you to help it.
What we find in righteous worship then, is worship that does not seek what we want, but what we need – conviction in our hearts for the Holy Spirit’s indwelling love. It is from this conviction of the heart; from this submission to a right and just God; from the heartfelt love and change that the Holy Spirit works through a person and true worship is developed.
Worship is not what we make it; true worship makes us. We are not supposed to look at worship and change it to our liking. We are to change because we like to worship – because worship is important to our souls. We are not to display to others a “Look at me and my worship” attitude. We are to live a life of humility before God that can change and witness to others out of love. Our witness to others can be convicting for God, but it is only so when we truly belong to God to begin with. If we witness for our own devices be it personal desire, want, a passion to impress others, or just self-satisfaction, we witness for Satan. If we witness for our own devices, we witness for our own self-approbation. True worship is given to God, not given to ourselves for ourselves. Coming here to worship, we should not seek to impress your brother or sister in Christ in the pew. We should come because we seek to please only God.
Let us consider righteous worship then. It is righteous in that it submits to God and His word. This means we submit to everything in His word, which means we must recognize our own empty hearts first. We must be poor in spirit. To stand and pray and say you are Christian, then act and react like the world when there is stress or strife simply means you are worldly and acting like the world at best, and not Christian at worst. This same principle applies to giving and praying which we turn our attention to now.
II. Giving Worshipfully (Verse 2-4)
We see a very literal translation of these scriptures in the King James Version that says “when thou doest.” Other versions say, “when you give to the poor.” The word used in the Greek text is actually the word for “make” or “do.” I believe this is an important distinction. Giving indicates you already possess it to give. Making indicates you are doing something special in order to give. We can understand why newer versions might want to translate this dynamically. The latter part of the sentence talks about those in the synagogue and in the open market in the streets that are essentially sounding a trumpet with their efforts – they announce to everyone why they are doing what they are doing and make sure others know their sacrifice. When we combine this with the word translated “alms” which is also specific and indicates a giving to those as an act of mercy or charity, we clearly see the attempt at dynamically translating this passage. However, the word is “make” or “do,” not “give.” In addition, reading the sentence clearly indicates that these hypocrites were announcing that whatever wares they were making or constructing, they were doing it while announcing and making sure everyone knew that their efforts were for the poor. The point is, even working for the sake of those in need is done for God, not for you or your own personal profit. This personal profit is that you make sure others know how good you really are –it is all about your ego.
In the times while Christ was on earth, the temple would sound horns that indicated all those who desired to give to the poor should assemble. People, in seeking recognition for righteousness, would run and show great zeal in their giving. Whether these people were doing so for the Pharisees to see, or for others to notice around them is irrelevant. They rushed to the sound of the trump for the purpose of self-promotion not service to God. They are not even going for the purpose supposedly understood – giving to the poor. They are only going for themselves and giving for themselves regardless of the purpose. The point is to give in secret that God might see your true heart and be glorified in your activity. Whether you are striving to make, or seeking to just give, you should do all for God’s glory and not your own. If you seek the witness or approval of men on earth, you receive just that, and nothing more.
Worship can be given to God by simply taking care of His children. In doing so though, you look to please only God. If you need help to accomplish this task, that is one thing. However, announcing this prospect for the sake of recognition is a sinful and empty effort. Chris and I have to consider carefully how and why we serve, give, produce, and do for others. We weigh carefully how we can offer opportunities to others to be of service without crossing the line into self-appreciation and promotion. It is not an easy thing to do. Our Christmas burden to feed the needy was especially hard because we want to do this, but we know that without some assistance it would be overwhelming. We have a very loving and giving church because of Christ in your hearts. Never let Satan interfere. As it says in verse one – be always on the lookout for an inappropriate giving attitude. We are just as susceptible to sin in our hearts as anyone else. Be careful you too do not fall into this trap.
Another way the people of Israel worked to impress people, and especially those attempting to please the Pharisees and Scribes with their piety, was through prayer. This, is another thing that is very close to my heart that we make a point to do in public, but not for the public. It is a careful balance.
III. Praying worshipfully (Verse 5-8)
Just as Islam does today, Israel used to regularly sound trumpets as a call to prayer in the temple. Those who answered the call were seen as properly pious Jews. If they could not answer the call but wanted to be seen as pious, they prayed aloud on the street corner. Either way, they made sure others knew they were recognized. Jesus tells those who will listen to Him, do not worry about impressing others with your piety. Seek to impress only God.
When you pray to the Father, go to Him privately and do not regard your prayer to be a testimony of you, but to Him for you. For Chris and I, this is close to our hearts for a few reasons, but chiefly because we pray in public at every venue possible for the people around us. It is especially true, as we have told you, when we ask our servers in restaurants if there is anything we can pray about for them. I am mindful of a public display of prayer being hypocritical.
Many of you may know that the word “hypocrite” comes from a transliteration of the Greek word “hupokritês” which means to pretend – one who pretends to be something they are not, or one who acts hypocritically. We are regularly accused of this activity as Christians for many reasons. Chief among these reasons is, honestly, there are very few real Christians. Another reason is because the world controlled by Satan always wants to tell us we are never good enough. If we have a rather steadfast testimony for Christ and falter even once, we are labeled hypocritical. When we do make a mistake, or sin, or fall into a sinful behavior by making a poor choice, we are labeled as a hypocritical Christian. There is no account in our defense for the truth that all men are sinners. Those who do not know Christ cannot be labeled as hypocritical because there are no expectations levied against them. If they commit adultery – that is just a pattern in society today. If young people lost in the world are promiscuous, that is only because all teens want to experiment with sex. There is no expectation for purity, and no one actually wants to work to teach purity to these young people. In actuality, they do not really care if the young people are pure or not because after all, if we have no standards, there is nothing to hold adults to either. This is hypocritical in itself because parents – even parents that are worldly – do not want their children to sin too much and their line is different from others. In addition, their line is defined by their own experiences – what is “good for the goose” is not actually “good for the gander” then, is it? This lack of standards then is in itself hypocritical because those who claim to have morals will judge those whom they see as immoral. The lesson here is that Christians are supposed to be seen as godly – not moral, not good, not acceptable, and certainly not without any type of guidepost to purity. We are to be seen as people who pray and submit ourselves to God because of God and who He is. We do not make up the rules; we follow them. God makes up the rules.
True hypocrites teach that there are no rules in life except what they make up for themselves. Then these same lawless people will attempt to force their misguided rules upon Christians. Christians sometimes do this with misapplied legalism. However, the Christian is working from a baseline that is applicable to all people. The worldly operate from a shifting line drawn in the sands of time. These sands shift so frequently that quite often the line is obliterated and has to be redrawn. It is always redrawn closer to where the drawer wants it to be, but is too afraid to go all the way to the point desired. Even the worldly, then, actually know that they are operating hypocritically. It is a sad commentary on man, but a true one.
Worship in righteousness and be on guard for your own heart’s sin interfering with this righteousness. It can happen very quickly and easily. Man is evil. If you think that you are sinless because you sit here, or listen to the Word of God exposited, or even have accepted Jesus Christ – you have fallen into the trap about which I have spoken.
Give in righteous worship to God. Give, as you would have people give to you. More often than not, there should be a sort of secrecy about giving and receiving. Some may wish to receive a certain gift privately, not wanting others to know of their problems. God desires a sort of anonymity as well. He wishes our giving to be done privately so that the focus is upon Him, in worship to Him, to glorify Him. Of course, you might never intend to glorify God with your gifts. If this is the case, then be as public as you desire to message your own ego. Your bloated ego is your reward.
Pray in righteous worship to God. Pray to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit regularly and frequently. Pray for others, pray for yourself, pray for your loved ones, pray to God privately as well as publicly – but all prayer has to be in direct submission and adoration of God’s greatness. Do not get complacent or repetitious. Be always mindful of the God you serve and His great grace in the provision of prayer to Him through His Son.
Ladies and gentlemen, we must be mindful of who we are really worshiping when we do these things. Do we worship God, or do we do them to worship self or impress others? It is your true heart that God sees; not the façade you use to fake-out everyone else. Ask yourself then, what God sees when God looks at you – for His view is the only one that matters.
[1] Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains 2nd ed. United Bible Societies: New York, 1988, 1989. OakTree Software, Inc. Version 3.6, search on “prosecw” (prosechō).
