2023-03-14 The Humble Character of the Kingdom

In this sermon, Jesus warns against practicing righteousness to be seen by others. He advises giving to the needy and praying in secret, rather than seeking recognition. Jesus teaches the Lord's Prayer as a model for prayer, emphasizing the relationship with God as a loving father. He also cautions against fasting for show, but rather to focus on God. The main idea is that we should follow Jesus to bring glory to God, not ourselves, and that our actions should be motivated by love and humility rather than seeking attention or approval from others. Well, welcome back. We're continuing on in a series tonight on the Sermon on the Mount, which is a sermon that Jesus preached that we have recorded in the book of Matthew. Now, don't worry if you weren't here previously. When I say series, you don't need any prior experience to be able to jump in and get something out of this. So, we are going to pick up where we left off, though, in Matthew chapter 6. I'll have it up on the screen in verse 1 there. So, be careful, this is Jesus speaking, be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So, when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets to be honored by others. Truly, I tell you, they have received the reward in full. 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. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. This, then, is how you should pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. Our big idea, the big idea that I want you to kind of take away from tonight is that we follow Jesus to bring glory or recognition or focus to him, to God, not to ourselves. My first point for that for you tonight is that you can't just go to church and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray and pray thank you okay so can you stand right here okay i'm not going to do anything weird it's fine okay who can you see easier right now right okay you can thank you you can go ahead sit down great job good job so similar the way that when michelle was standing in front of me it's easiest to see her not me right similarly it's hard for people to see god when we are standing in the way in the first four verses that we read jesus warns us not to do the kind and generous things we do in a way that draws attention to ourselves and these days it's almost hard to imagine someone doing something kind or being generous without going viral online or going out of their way to show others how generous they are and maybe they're you know doing it to create awareness about an issue of importance maybe they want to be seen so that others will be inspired to be more but it's hard for us to it's hard in our culture today for people to even do those things in secret and you know here at the salvation army we love all of the wonderful people in businesses that donate yearly to things like our toy drive and stuff for example but i'm going to be perfectly transparent with you today i'm going to be doing a lot of things that are not part of the salvation army but i'm going to be doing a lot of things that are but i'm going to be perfectly transparent with you here it's a little bit of a different feeling when someone just brings a donation by without drawing a lot of attention to themselves versus when maybe uh you know a business comes in and they bring a donation and they take a selfie with their donation and i'm not saying that i'm not saying that they have um ill intentions but it is a different feeling is what i'm trying to say you know and uh i i i distinctly remember from our toy drive this past time around i'm not gonna name any names or anything like that but i distinctly remember individuals that came in with like big like donations and they're just they just came in they didn't they want a lot of attention they just kind of came to bring the toy drive donations and they left it wasn't a big thing but i distinctly remember a business coming with a very small donation and we're happy for that too please don't misunderstand what i'm trying to say here we're happy for that too and it was a big thing like they're like i say taking the selfies and all that kind of thing and there was kind of a different feeling to it you know and like i say i'm not saying that's necessarily disingenuous but uh there's just something about doing something purely for the purpose of doing the right thing and being a blessing uh without being seen for it there's something really uh precious about that and it's something that's almost unheard of but it does happen now i remember when i was a kid and we went through some lean times uh financially i remember groceries showing up on our doorstep nobody like rung the doorbell nobody like knocked nobody left a note saying you know i'm from the this organization or anything like that he just left left it they didn't announce themselves the next time we opened the door boom it was there right never saw the people and because of this my parents emphasized how this was god watching over us and of course they told me that a person dropped these off not that just that god just made the groceries appear or something like that he could if he wanted to but god uses people to bring about his will and partake in his generous characters that we can learn to become like him and my parents and god taught us that by example as people gave us groceries but they never announced that presence and i think uh because of that instead of me remembering the generosity of a single person and attributing them to just being a one in a million kind of nice person i remember the generosity of god in that and that you know god got the glory instead of the person you know so today i'm still filled with faith knowing that god will always provide for me and yes he often uses people but it's all credit to him and i think the other part of that is that people are imperfect right anybody here uh perfect okay michelle well i mean besides michelle but we already knew that you know people are imperfect so you know imagine what might have happened had i known who did drop the groceries off but later i found out inevitably of some something in their own life right some some way that there was a failing or that i perceived as a failing or something like that you know would i started to lose hope in in like well i put my faith in humanity and humanity failed me and then i started to lose hope maybe the idea of generosity and my concept of provision in my life would have been tainted instead of a solid faith in god's provision that i have now my second point is that the character of god's kingdom that jesus is talking about in it in this sermon that he preached that we're called to aspire to is one that is greater than religious traditions or false piety we talked about that a little bit last week but jesus criticized was criticizing how people were praying or giving as a form of showing off how spiritual and how religious they were like look at me i'm something super special right you know and i i don't know if you've ever been in a group setting where you've prayed with other people out loud and you know you've got all these different types of personalities in a group like that and different people you know you've got the one person he he only prays like he's reading the king james bible out loud like shakespeare english kind of thing right and you've got the other person who just kind of you know they're very quiet and maybe said three words and then they're just like nobody look at me right and that kind of thing right and uh you know you've got the one person who goes on and on you had one thing to pray about and they went on and on and covered everything and nobody else has anything left to say you know there's all the different personalities in that and sometimes there can be some you know showing off in that but also that can also happen in our own private prayer life right are we trying to use flowery or biblical or religious language to impress god or uh you know so that he'll acknowledge us or to make us feel like uh you know we're too nervous to approach god because he's so holy and so i have to use these specific language and kind of thing and make it all exactly right uh for for him to listen to me or are we sticking to the focus on him right not on ourselves and how we're wording just just on him and just talking to him you know jesus said in verses seven and eight that we read there when you pray do not keep on babbling like pagans for they think they'll be heard because of their many words do not be like them for your father knows what you need before you ask him i'm going to be honest this one's a struggle for me if i ever had a conversation with me you know that i can talk and talk and talk and talk you know and hannah and i and you know that people have sort of the opposites attract kind of thing hannah is somebody who can say things succinctly and clearly and always make a point right me it's it's not that i have something smarter to say kind of thing it just takes me longer to get there you know hannah's already ready so when she's got something to say it's like okay i gotta i gotta listen up you know but the thing is like truth doesn't take many words i guess i could have just said that and that would have been the whole sermon we would have gone home right you know that would have been really proving the point but it doesn't take many words and it says god already knows what you need even before you ask right so you don't need to win him over with your long eloquent prose he already knows we don't need to worry about getting every little detail right or being religious enough for god he loves us he doesn't have us pray because he needs our holy words but rather because he's our loving father who wants to hear from his children consider the verbiage that jesus chose in a famous lord's prayer in the next section that we just read there our father who is in heaven our father right the lord's prayer is found in a couple of different places in the new testament that slight variations on it's not because one was correct and one was incorrect it's because two people heard jesus tell this prayer and they wrote it down if you've done anything with anybody and you were both at the same event you're going to describe it slightly differently and um in one of the other accounts where he says it not in this one in matthew but he it starts with one of the disciples asking jesus how should we pray like you know the well these other groups their leaders taught them how to pray how are we supposed to pray so jesus this is how you are to pray our father so he didn't say my father he didn't say uh you know you know my father who is in heaven pray onto my thing you're our this is your father as well right god is our father and if we believe in jesus christ as our lord and savior you know i don't know what your father was like or if he was present in your life but our father is not one who we come to with fear of failure right but he's one we come to knowing his absolute and unconditional love for us as we've been fully forgiven in christ jesus so that we can say as hebrews 4 16 says we can come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need you and i can come boldly and confidently without fear in our prayer to our father we don't need to impress him or others right we just need to come humbly in our heart posture knowing god is holy but boldly knowing that we have been made heirs with christ jesus and a love by our father and we might think like if god already knows what we need what's the point why why am i even praying like he can just take care of it right but anyone here who is a parent knows that when you love your kids you know i'm sure you may have had an experience whether you're a parent or not maybe somebody younger came along and they are really excited because they learned something new to them that you learned like well like more than twice their age ago right you already know this but they are so excited to tell you that you just let them tell you you don't correct sit there and correct them or say like oh yeah i already know this kind of thing right like i'm not interested right you let them tell you because they're excited because you care about them because you have a relationship with them and they matter to you and it's the same thing for our father in heaven it isn't as though he needs to tell us because he doesn't know it's because he wants us to get to know him so the last point from the passage that we read that i want to make is that we need to give up the grind and give in to god trying alliteration is a bit corny this is another challenging one something i see in the people fasting that jesus describes is showing off how worn out they are right fasting within a christian or jewish context is the act of forgoing something traditionally food to focus more on god it's a way of sacrificing something for god and making more time to pray or think about god and scripture and these days there's a lot of people who do it for non-spiritual reasons too you know scientific community has found health benefits to giving up food for a brief period of time it doesn't have to be food though i actually used to years ago do a tech fast because for me i was like i don't know like i was like maybe you're similar if you have a busy schedule it's kind of almost easy to skip food sometimes like that's almost easier to skip food sometimes right but it's like messed up as this is about society let's just be honest if i told you to go to skip a meal not eat for like four hours or not use this for four hours i think you'd have a harder time not using this than not eating for four hours if we're perfectly honest right and so i did this thing where so for me as it was more of a challenge to my spiritual walk to put aside the technology for a day right and so you know i didn't use you know no computers no ipad no no phone no just whatever you know any of those things no watching tv none of that kind of stuff and and just trying to take some time to you know to read to pray all that kind of stuff now this passage to be clear isn't saying that fasting is a bad thing it's a good thing jesus was addressing how people who were fasting would be going out of their way to look worn down and underfed during their fasting so that people would be able to tell that they were fasting you know they're going around like oh yeah i'm fasting just in case you didn't know you know i'm fasting it's like crypto bros like the people with the bitcoins they just have to tell everybody that they meet you know what i mean or crossfit or whatever you know they're always going to tell everybody so they were letting everybody know they're going out of their way to look worn down so people would know that how much more holy they were and now whether or not you fasted before i'm sure we've all said these words i'm just so busy right it's like the common thing that we it's like the common greeting now you know it's like how are you how are things all just so busy so busy yeah so busy and then we go on to tell people all the ways that we're so busy with with work with family with chores projects church etc and i think that our our culture celebrates wearing ourselves out with busyness as something virtuous to aspire to we call it hustle culture or hitting the grind or powering through but essentially we're celebrating burnout that's what it is we've just given it a cool word so that we feel better about it but we're celebrating burnout now i understand of course that there's context in life where we need to work especially hard but these people were going out of their way to make sure that everyone saw how hard it was for them to be fasting and i wonder how often we work as hard in our lives or as busy as we are because we seek the approval of others whether we have specific people in mind that we're seeking approval of or we're simply doing it to gain the approval of perceived cultural expectations we often do things consciously or unconsciously to get approval to fit in maybe it's just everyone else you know is that busy so you feel lazy if you're not that busy if you ever had this phenomenon it's your you've been working so hard right you finally get your day off you've been telling yourself the whole time can't wait for that day off when that day comes i'm just going to relax and as soon as it comes you can't relax your brain is just feel you feel guilty you're like i'm supposed to be doing something there's something i'm supposed to be doing i've got to be doing something and then before you know it your day off was more tiring than your actual work and you can't wait to go back to work where you can actually rest a little bit right we can't live our lives for other people or to draw attention to ourselves yeah and you know even even even in what i'm doing now even what i'm preaching right i don't preach for you guys that maybe sounds weird but i i actually don't i don't preach what i think you want to hear i preach what i believe god wants me to preach no yeah no that's true let me check my notes but i preach what i believe god wants me to preach which ultimately sometimes means i have to say things that i don't think you or even i will want to hear maybe even more for me because i have to wrestle with what this message even longer right it has to be about god not our preferences not about us getting attention when i'm as the salvation army likes to say when i'm promoted to glory one day when i pass on right i don't want to have a legacy of my own remaining i actually don't i don't i don't want to be remembered i want jesus to be remembered and his impact to go forth in the lives of the people i have an opportunity to reach because here's the thing there's plenty of people that maybe you can think of that were heroes when you were a kid historically in history for impactful things that they did that now are not because maybe there's additional things that we learned about them or things that were swept under the rug about them at the time and now we're kind of like with the benefit time maybe they weren't so good right your legacy a legacy can't even last unless it comes unless it's god's legacy and i think that should be the aim of us all to point people to someone whose legacy can outlast our memory so in conclusion the character of the kingdom calls us to live in genuine humility that amplifies attention towards god pride is in direct opposition to god's heart and character pride puts the focus on self the character of any kingdom must focus on the king you know in the olden days there would be town criers right who would bring the news to various towns they would shout something like hear ye hear ye and they'd ring a bell you know and some towns have town criers today some smaller towns and stuff like that for more like symbolic reasons and that sort of thing but there was a time when their service was the only way to hear the news and if a town crier was bringing news from a king or a dignitary they were doing their best to bring attention to the king and deliver the king's words with precision and clarity the character of the kingdom calls us to live in genuine humility that amplifies attention towards god we're like those town criers you know we're not coming and being at the end of that and being did you all like my voice you know i delivered the message of the king but how is my voice did you like my outfit today this bell is new i just imported it you know it's not about us so as you go about this week as you go about the various spiritual practices in your life as you're trying to grow closer to god as you're praying and all that i just want to encourage you all to shift your focus in those times of prayer to him don't worry about having all the right words you know we talked about those group prayer settings and so often i'll see in group prayer settings maybe you'll ask somebody to pray and they don't want to pray and sometimes it's just the shy personality and i totally understand that but then there's another type of it where there's just too much pressure there's too much pressure because you're like well i don't know the people around me there may be more like more spiritual than me and they can pray better than i can and i'm just going to sound silly and that kind of thing i guarantee you if you feel that way your prayer is probably going to be more genuine than anybody else's in the room just talk to god from your heart don't make it about anybody else don't make it about someone else's expectations or your own god just wants to be with you well and let's pray on that note heavenly father we thank you so much that this is all about you lord and that your legacy can outlive ours lord that the focus is meant to be on you lord i pray lord that lord we're we're sorry for the ways that we take our eyes off of you lord and put it on ourselves lord or that we're you know trying to seem more spiritual to people around us lord or or seem more busy or more important lord we know that you are what is most important and that you love us whether we're busy whether we're not whether we have the right words or whether we don't you love us already lord so i just pray for each and every person here lord that they will know that they are loved as they are lord and that you want to hear from them lord and i just pray that you would you would help us to just open up and just speak honestly with you lord in our prayer life in jesus name amen