Introduction
Let me begin with a discipleship question: will we trust and obey Jesus in the real decisions of everyday life? Christ forms us through truth received, repentance practiced, and obedience lived out.
Main Points
Grace and Justification
this morning we start uh the second of three chapters in the sermon on the mount it might be one of my favorite chapters of the bible in fact the very first sermon that i ever preached was in the school of ministry and our assignment was to pick a passage of scripture from the bible anywhere that has touched our heart and share from it and the lord brought me to matthew chapter 6 specifically for this amazing promise of jesus that when you are his disciple and you follow him and you trust him and he put all of your faith into his hands there is nothing to worry about there's no reason to have anxiety there's no reason to fear the future there's no reason to live in worry because jesus in this chapter is going to remind his followers that the father takes care of his creation and the father takes care of his people even more so but before we get to that part of the chapter we actually start with a really a new theme to overlay on the beginning of matthew chapter 5. remember the beginning of the sermon on the mount jesus calls his disciples and then he gives them all of these ways that their life will be blessed we called it the beatitudes you'll be blessed if you're poor in spirit you'll be blessed if you mourn over your sin you'll be blessed if you're merciful you'll be blessed if you're a peacemaker and if you're meek and if you hunger and thirst for righteousness and in all of these ways that jesus is telling his people with me your life is going to be cared for and it's going to be joyful and it's going to be content in my kingdom wherever there is a blessing there is always a beware any time in your life or in the in the history of god's people whenever god brings his people into a place of his protection and provision and blessing that always comes with a cautionary warning because we so easily turn blessings into burdens do we not and so now matthew chapter six in verse one he's going to say instead of blessing he's gonna say be warned or take heed and before we get into the warning of the mount i want to talk about the importance of this warning and it's important because just by way of you being at church this morning you are actually defying the odds of the culture because if you pay attention to the numbers as the church age grows in the country that we live in over the past 10 to 20 years the church has not kept up with the population the growth of our country does not correlate to the growth of the church which means that the church in america is slowly losing ground and i think some of you can probably sense that who have been around the church for long enough and some of you will probably have a reminder of why that is as i share with you what that means for the warning of this morning because if you are aware of the numbers or you're trying to keep your pulse or your finger on the pulse of what's happening to the church one of the number one reasons that people will tell you who have left the church or maybe some of you who are here maybe on your last sunday it's like i'll go one more time but i've had it up to here with church and this is my last sunday i'll give that one more sermon i'll give those people one more try and maybe you are yourself close to becoming one of these statistics what is the exit poll reason that people give for leaving the church and you can find a collection of answers that you can kind of put together and try to figure out but the one that seems to be a reoccurring theme is really found in one word and it is the word that jesus is going to offer as the warning against the blessing of the sermon on the mount and that word is hypocrisy look what he says in chapter 6 verse 1 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 your 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 jesus is going to bring a balance and a warning to all of the blessings that come through following him by giving three examples that paint a picture of hypocrisy he's actually going to use the word as the hypocrites do in three separate examples that have to do with some really good spiritual disciplines some really good ways to experience the blessings of christ but the warning against doing righteous things for the wrong reasons that's what jesus is going to get at and that is something that all of us need to hear because some of you are on the brink of hypocrisy being the reason you leave church some of you are healing from moments of hypocrisy affecting your relationship with god or your pursuit of god through church and most of us are probably in some ways think listening to this thinking about our own life and how sometimes we pursue god in front of people and we put people on a higher pedestal than we do god it just seems to be part of our human nature so today we're gonna look at three things one what hypocrisy isn't because what we don't want to use is do is use the word so broadly that we apply this in a way that anything we could possibly do in pursuit of god has to be filtered through the warning of hypocrisy and we all leave here saying i don't even know why i go to church i'm just a hypocrite what it isn't matters and it'll help us understand the second aspect of this which what is jesus getting at when he uses the word hypocrisy in these three religious ways and then finally we're going to look at why it matters which is an important aspect of this because as we think through our own lives as we sometimes pursue god and we sometimes look for the praise of man we might treat this warning as a spiritual slap on the wrist as though this is something that maybe all of us struggle with but you wouldn't put it in the category of murder or adultery and yet the reason this matters has something to do with the health of your soul and your life as much as anything else so let's begin by saying what it isn't before we get into the examples that jesus will share we kind of have to do some review on what matthew 5 told us about the blessings of god because the very first blessing in matthew chapter 5 he says blessed are the poor in spirit and we spent an entire sunday talking about the reality that all of us before the holiness and the perfection and the goodness of god have reasons to be poor before him to say god i am not perfect you are i am not righteous in myself you are and i am not good enough to consider my own righteousness enough to save me that's poverty and spirit and we remind ourselves of that this morning lest we think hypocrisy or the call and warning against it is to say unless you're living perfectly before god from the time church ends to the time church begins save your pursuit you hypocrite because the reality is there are all sorts of things that god is working out in us he's maturing us in and he's giving us as obedient commands for us to follow that we don't live out perfectly as an example last week the whole sermon was about one simple concept that when we love people the way god loves us we are required to love enemies because god loves us before we call him our lord and savior and friend while we were still sinners he died for us his enemies and so go forth church and love your enemies and some of you with all good intentions to follow god struggled with that command no doubt no doubt there were moments when people did things to let you down or annoy you or cut you off in traffic where you were less than perfectly agape loving your enemies but that does not mean that you now in your pursuits this morning to be refreshed and revived by the word of god and the presence of god to worship him and to trust him with your life you are a hypocrite because you failed so we're not looking for something that would disqualify any pursuit in the struggle to follow god because it is a struggle we live in a fallen world with a fallen flesh and we are being sanctified or cleansed from glory to glory to glory so as many of you set out to pray and failed this week or prayed less than you desired to or in ways that were less than genuine as many of you desire to allow god to revive your heart as a husband or wife or parent or friend and had your moments of flesh walk in grace this morning that this does not mean you're so hypocritical you could not you should not be here you're poor in spirit and the struggle should be real for all of us the challenge as we'll get to with hypocrisy is not to never have a struggle but to try to paint the struggle with an exterior veneer that denies it exists at all so number one is hypocrisy does not mean you don't struggle with the challenge of following christ this is something that we will grow in and mature in for the rest of our lives the second aspect of what it isn't can also be found in another beatitude when jesus says blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy in other words jesus is working into the constitution of his kingdom the way that we should treat one another and because god is merciful to us we are blessed when we show each other mercy and compassion and preference to all of the ways that our lives do not completely align with our preferences and our little idiosyncrasies to where we think we should land in following jesus give you an example some of you in your pursuit of christ have totally forbidden any kind of consumption of alcohol no doubt some of you said you know that was a sin that was so real for me that i am just pouring alcohol down the drain and i don't want to drink it again others of you have found in your christian liberty a balance where it does not cause you to stumble in your worship and pursuit of god so now we have two people living according to the will of god for their specific lives that may find themselves with colliding preferences so what do we do well romans chapter 4 14 paul gives advice in this manner he says when things come up just give preference so some of you celebrate holidays some of you don't some of you eat meat offered to idols some of you don't some of you drink some of you don't and there is a way to come together and for those of us who can love one another by laying down our preferences and christian liberties and sustain at times when we're around other people and some of you who sustain and you're at a wedding and someone gives you a drink and culturally you say okay i will for this instance sustain for my sustaining there's no hypocrisy in that's loving one another that is living what you have to live in following jesus a nuanced life because he is not coming to make all of us rigid robots he's coming to teach us how to live in his grace and learn by his spirit how to love one another in all sorts of preferential ways so that's what hypocrisy isn't unless we leave here burdened by the legality law of avoiding hypocrisy so that we become more hypocritical and trying to fulfill it so what is it and now we'll look at the examples that jesus shares for us first matthew chapter six verse two therefore when you do a charitable deed do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the street key phrase that they may have glory from men assuredly i say to you they have their reward he now teaches them the proper way but when you do a charitable deed don't know don't let your left know what your right hand is doing in other words in a in a hyperbolic way jesus is saying be so private before god that it is so unto god that you give your gifts unto god that you care for the poor unto god that you do your loving good deeds that you yourself are not even impressed that as the right hand drops the alms into the basket in the collection of an offering from the poor the left hand is so unaware that you can't even pat yourself on the back that's what jesus is saying but in the example in the proper good christian discipline of loving through deeds jesus says watch out for this don't do it so that you would receive glory don't do it so that people would see you doing it and praise you now this brings some clarity to unless you thought about it could be almost a contradictory statement that we find in the sermon on the mount because what happens in matthew chapter 5 verse 16. dr john whitaker gave a whole sermon that we are called to be the lights of the world to shine god's light his truth his goodness his love charity into the dark and jesus says let your light so shine before men that they see your good works so it can't simply be so invisible live like a monk and live like a christian ninja that no one ever sees you coming because in the blessing chapter jesus says let people see you why so that when they see your good works they would give glory to the father in heaven so this is a matter of who receives the glory this is a matter of in two ways one the audience that you are giving to and two who receives the glory when the love is on the display because here's the reality there is glory and love you do not have to be a christian to believe that there is glory in caring for the weaker for the least of these for the orphan for the widow there is something that all of us long to be a part of when you move humanity towards good and what jesus is saying do not let that good and glorious moment be something you live for so people attribute to you and i guess this is a good moment for us to be reminded that you do not avoid this problem by avoiding church as some of you are like man this is a hypocritical place and religion is hypocritical i gotta get somewhere where there's no hypocrites this is a human nature condition that we seek approval and we long to do good and we long for that approval and that good to somehow justify who we are let me share a baseline example of this found in the one of the best ways you can do a human case study and that's by studying the life of george costanza from seinfeld because george costanza is maybe the best picture of the human flesh george is a short chubby bald man who wants everyone to love him and that is your flesh and in this particular episode he's frustrated with his friend jerry best friend jerry that he went to give a tip in the tip jar and right when he was dropping it in the shop owner looked away and how annoying is that how often are we giving our alms to the poor among us who are baristas and shop owners and right when we're putting the tip in it's like make sure that they can see plus 18 on the ipad make sure that they can see a five dollar bill going into the tip so it's yes it's about blessing them but it's also about them seeing how kind and generous all of you are and george says to jerry right when i was putting it in he looked away it's like i threw away a dollar and jerry says so you must not make it a habit to give to the blind because they never see to which george says i don't give them bills implying if you drop change you still get credit and there's something that all of us can relate to whether it is before the church crowd before the friend group before the online mob before you that is waiting to see who you are and what you're all about so they can give you their vote of approval through a heart a thumbs up a comment a share a pat on the back a nice job to take the point one step further here's an article from psychology today giving a little bit of commentary on just the social world that we live in and it's interesting what they say lies at the heart of the problems that all of us sense and feel about our social condition in 21st century america where there seems to be division everywhere competition everywhere and this need for approval seems to be something we're all addicted to here's what psychology today says public moral and discourse is toxic one reason it's so bad is that people use their discussions of morality and politics for self-promotion rather than to actually help others you may have heard people accuse those they suspect of abusing moral talk in this way of engaging in moral grounds grandstanding or virtue signaling look at all of my incredible love and care for the least of these because i care about this hashtag in this city in this cause reading this was attached a political cartoon and i'll try to describe to you what it what it said it had an apartment building full of people on their smartphones outside of the apartment building is a night scene with a spotlight on a woman being attacked by a man who's robbing her and she says please help please do something and everyone on their smartphones is rather than helping her and acknowledging her doing anything actionable they're all tweeting and instagraming and facebooking the hashtag do something do something to help one help someone and this is the world we live in where so many people are concerned about being approved that we're more concerned about posturing the acts of love and politics and morality than actually caring about the cause that we're a part of this is the version of hypocrisy that jesus is saying we must be warned against that we must not care more about approval than the actual cause that we are supposed to be representing or taking part in our pursuit of god and so he says charitable deeds don't do it for the glory of men he'll go on to use another very important christian discipline that all of us should be pursuing and working out with the lord on how to grow in the gift of prayer and he says the same thing when you pray verse 5 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 so these religious people in the days of jesus have turned prayer into something they do so publicly and he'll go on to say with such eloquence and many words that the whole point of their prayer is not necessarily to move the heart of god but to be seen by people and this is hypocrisy taking a good and righteous pursuit and living it out for the wrong reasons finally after he goes through how we ought to pray which we'll study all next week the lord's prayer when you pray in this manner he gives one more example in verse 16. moreover when you fast do not be like the hypocrites they have a sad countenance for they disfigure their faces that they may appear to be men to be fasting assuredly i say to reward so the final example again christian discipline a gift of god that he has given us the call to fast it's assumed by jesus he doesn't say if but when it's something that you do in your life to take the blessed is the poor in spirit for those who hunger and thirst for righteousness they'll be comforted and they'll be filled you take that desire for righteousness and you apply it in real time to your life over the course of a day or an afternoon or a few days where you say i'm so hungry for god i forego food and the physical pain i feel will actually be turned into a hunger for the presence of god that is a really good thing to fast and yet jesus says because in fasting you have a reason to show yourself weak with a countenance that is sad you have a temptation to not fast to know god but a fast so that people would see how spiritual you are so if you're fasting you come in from a long day of living like a monk in the foothills of boise idaho and it was hot and you did not eat and you have a little bit of dust that maybe fell on your face maybe you just put it on your face because you're so spiritual and you come home and your pagan roommate or family member is preparing a meal and it smells really good so you have to just interrupt and tell them i have not eaten all day i'm pursuing god right now it's really hard and i'm actually sad about it but if you don't mind taking that food somewhere out of sight so that i can continue down this road of holiness and now we're going to get to the dangers of this because jesus says in that moment when you do that in your pursuit of god there's your reward he said assuredly you do that and there is your reward so as we talk about what it is the main idea is you take a righteous pursuit of god and somehow elevated above god is approval of men in the spiritual sense that is something that jesus says that's what hypocrites do and don't do that in your life and then he says why every time every one of the examples that we read from doing your charitable deeds to praying and fasting the warning always said this they'll have the reward but if you do it right your father will give you a different reward and this is why although it seems like a subtlety in our soul it is so important that we get this right because if you do not have the reward that god wants to give you in your pursuit of him in your attendance of church in your singing of the songs in your prayer in your thanksgiving in your fasting in your charity in your love in your in your consistency in marriage to stay faithful there is a lesser reward and there is the real reward and what we are being cautioned against is the reward that is so vain and so empty and so shallow that it causes all of us to look around and say is this it these hypocrites are living for this or in my own hypocrisy is this the most that we get out of the pursuit of god so we look at each reward first he says therefore when you do a charitable deed don't sound a trumpet before you like all the hypocrites in the synagogues and the streets it's all encompassing it's in church it's in the streets and he uses this word hypocrite if you've heard a sermon preached on hypocrisy then surely you've heard the pastor unpack what he was getting at with this example because this is a word that we really only use as jesus intended it to be understood rather than the context of its day we understand it as someone who says one thing and does another but jesus was really getting at a living parable example of what happened in greek theater in fact when he says you do what you do to be seen by men to be seen by men is the same greek word for theater that's what you do when you get on a stage and you put on your outfit and you put on your mask which is the name for a hypocrite who is play acting and this is what jesus is saying will happen in the world of religion i think of my own example right now the challenge of preparing for this message is that i knew full well before god in my preparation that i was about to stand on a stage to an of the lead pastor of a church and people may or may not applause but they'd nod their heads and afterwards they'd say great job and what i am walking into is the dangerous balance of a tightrope in the pursuit of god to fulfill the call to preach his word but also in front of all of your faces staring right at me i'm walking into the potential for religious theater and so i prayed this week i ask you to pray with me that pastors preachers ministers missionaries they all have this temptation to live in religious theater and if i only live for the theater if i am here and my existence for why i do what i do is the reward of your smiling faces and the pat on the back and the handshake of good sermon all encouragement that i gladly receive but it's the lesser reward the reward of the theater is applause and applause does not last very long i want you to think of it in your terms now you're not a pastor you're not preaching right now but thought experiment let's think through what jesus is saying in his day like don't be like an actor in theater so now consider yourself you just got the role the classic high school play oklahoma every high school drama student probably tried out for oklahoma there were two main characters that you could get it was this americana play about the just the west and westward expansion and love between the dame and the
Conclusion
We return to the opening teaching: discipleship is not just information, it is transformation through faith and obedience to Jesus. If we receive His Word and walk it out, He will shape us into people who endure and bear fruit.
Lord Jesus, help me hear Your Word, obey it with faith, and grow as Your disciple. Amen.
Conclusion
We return to the opening teaching: discipleship is not just information, it is transformation through faith and obedience to Jesus. If we receive His Word and walk it out, He will shape us into people who endure and bear fruit.
Closing Prayer
Lord Jesus, help me hear Your Word, obey it with faith, and grow as Your disciple. Amen.