Practicing Christianity

Have you ever heard someone use the term “practicing” in regards to their faith?

It usually means that they are a follower of whatever it is they are practicing, right?

For me, practicing reminds me of high school…when I was a world class athlete at a 2A Christian School in Texas, doing big things…my sports were basketball, track, and soccer (because we didn’t have football). I worked very hard in practice…like really hard. To the point that it would make some of my teammates upset. (Indian drills and horses) - but that was 30 years and 100 lbs ago…the good old days (maybe have a photo)

YOUR PRACTICES PREPARE YOU FOR SOMETHING

In HS I was preparing to do my part to win the game.

So far in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has told us the defining characteristics of every believer, the Beattitudes, and it’s important to remember those because they become our status check for life -

Then Jesus talked to us about the Law and the Spirit of the Law - He made Himself the ultimate authority in a phrase He used repeatedly, “You have heard that it was said…But I say to you.” Let me change your understanding of that.

All of those things were things He knew we were incapable of doing apart from Him but He has given us His word and His Holy Spirit to conform us to His image.

Then He started talking about things we do have the ability to do but are hard - letting our yes be yes and our no be no, and loving our enemies. Tough stuff

I know that I can be weak in both of those areas at times.

Today, He is going to continue with some things we have the ability to do but it is focused more on those practices that set us apart…our practices as believers.

We are going to focus on:

4 PRACTICES and OUR MOTIVES BEHIND THEM

I’ve always taught these 4 things as separate things but I noticed a pattern Jesus uses similar to the “You have heard that it was said…but I say to you pattern,” that led me to teaching them together to capture the overall message for you…I could very easily teach them as 4 separate topics but we’d be in this series til June :)

You know what’s amazing about the Sermon on the Mount…Jesus taught this all in one sitting. I would have loved to be there to hear Him speak and to process the words He spoke as a member of His culture.

Here we go…4 Practices.

Turn with me to Matthew 6.

Where do I get this idea of “practices and motives” from...

Matthew 6:1 ““Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.”

Jesus hits it in the very beginning…beware of…in order to be seen by them...

PRACTICE ONE: GENEROSITY

Matthew 6:2–4 ““Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 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. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

This is where the pattern starts…WHEN YOU XYZ, DON’T DO THAT, INSTEAD DO THIS...

- Don’t sound the trumpet…don’t post it on social media…don’t call up everyone you know and say...

- if you do, your reward is the likes and shares you get.

- we’ve wrestled with this as a church…the balance between letting people know we are here for them and drawing attention to make us look good. For a long time we did not share 90% of what was happening at our church because its not about us. We value generosity and we always want to do it in a way that honors God. We do, also, want people to know we are here for them and the best way to do that in this day and age is social media. So we share stuff but the focus should never be on us…it should primarily point people to Christ - this is happening because of His love for you, and secondarily it should be about the people we are serving - you matter to God therefore you matter to us and He has put us here to be a beacon of light for you.

We have two such things coming up

1. LightHouse Halloween - slide

2. Coat Drive - slide

Add planning team registration

Our generosity should always come from a place of I want to guide you to life in Christ. This is not about me but it is for His glory.

Practice One - Generosity

PRACTICE TWO & THREE - PRAYER & FORGIVENESS

Combined these two because they are two distinct practices but they are also connected.

Matthew 6:5–15 ““And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their tresp…”

WHEN YOU PRAY - DON’T BE LIKE HYPOCRITES - Again, the motive was they wanted to be seen…they wanted to be recognized.

I hate it when these people give thanks for the food…you know who you are...

That’s your chance to throw out every seminary level word you can thank of …I WANT TO EAT!!!

Interesting thing about prayer…we’ve so complicated something that Jesus makes so simple…we even try to derive formulas from His prayer here.

And I’m not saying that’s bad. I’ve used one at times that has helped me when I couldn’t figure out what to pray…the Acts model

Adoration

Confession

Thanksgiving

Supplication

But prayer really is simple. If we believe that God is sovereign and in control then our prayer life should reflect that.

Jesus acknowledged who He was praying to…who He was calling on.

Then He immediately went to the Father’s will.

And this is hard for us because sometimes our will and the Father’s will are not in alignment...

We want to pray our will be done, but the purpose of proper prayer is to do three things:

Pull our will into alignment with His.

Pull our focus off of our problems and onto His purpose

Pull us from a place of self-reliance into a place of relying solely on the Father

And if you read through the prayer Jesus gives us, it does all 3 things:

You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.

—John Bunyan

John Bunyan

Jesus adds in a little piece on forgiveness, Matthew 6:14–15 “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” that points back to Matthew 6:12 “and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”

Jesus is emphasizing the importance of having an attitude of forgiveness. Having a lifestyle of forgiveness.

One of my favorite teachers/authors is a man named Chuck Swindoll…this is what he says about this passage:

“If we withhold forgiveness, grace, and mercy from people in our horizontal relationships, God will withhold the same in our vertical relationship with Him. This is not about our eternal salvation and right standing with God before the court of heaven. It refers to our day-to-day fellowship and communion with God.”

Some of you are practicing Christianity but wonder why you don’t seem to experience the grace and mercy of God on a regular basis - the mercies that His word says are new every morning - I would challenge you to see if you are withholding mercy from someone, if you are withholding forgiveness and grace from someone. It could be that your lack of those things in your horizontal relationship with other people is causing you to experience a lack of them in your vertical relationship with Him.

Practice one - generosity

practices two and three - prayer and forgiveness

PRACTICE FOUR - FASTING

Matthew 6:16–18 ““And 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 by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

νηστεία -ας, ἡ; (nēsteia) - Noun Usage

1. hunger† — a physiological need for food; whether regular or the result of deprivation.

2. fast (religious)† — abstaining from food for a certain time period for religious reasons.

In a biblical sense - fasting is always connected to food in some way because it is denying your body something that it is programmed to need and not go without.

And - I’m about to upset the apple cart a bit. We skirt around this by saying I’m fasting social media…I’ve done that. It’s not fasting. It may be good for you to give up social media for a while so you can loosen the grip it has on you, but in the biblical sense, it’s not fasting.

Fasting accomplishes two things in us -

It builds the spiritual fruit of self-control in us. It causes us to subdue our flesh and focus on God instead of food.

It teaches us to rely on God more fully. Our goal in fasting is to grow closer to Him and that does not involve anyone other than me and Him, you and Him.

That second part is what Jesus is really speaking on…the people would do a bunch of unusual things when they were fasting so people would know they were fasting.

I’ve heard jokes about the way people dress to go to Walmart…You go to work, you are business casual. You go to walmart, you have on sweat pants that are two sizes too small, hair not done, food stains all over your shirt, mismatch socks and old crocs.

And everyone knows you are going to walmart and not work, right...

That’s how they would go out when fasting…it was saying look at me!

And that’s really what was happening with all of the practices Jesus addressed in this portion of the Sermon on the Mount. All of the religious people were doing it to say, LOOK AT ME, but we are called to live our lives in such a way that they cream out, LOOK AT CHRIST!!!

The Sermon on the Mount started out by exposing our need for a Savior, now it is exposing our need to check our motives.

All of the things we talked about today, someone was walking around doing them but there was no impact

- Generosity with no impact

- Prayer with no impact

- Relationships with no impact

- Fasting with no impact

And going forward, Jesus is going to give more instances of people doing things with no impact because their hearts were wrong, their motives were wrong

And there’s a lesson in there for us church - we can practice right things with wrong motives and have no impact

We can do that in our personal lives and we can do it in our congregational lives.

YOUR SPIRITUAL PRACTICES PREPARE YOU FOR SOMETHING

they prepare you to rely on you and the world or to rely on God.

But here’s the BIG IDEA for the day:

THE WAY YOU PRACTICE WILL REVEAL WHAT YOU ARE COMMITTED TO.

Again, we see this in sports all the time. A person who is half-committed…you know they are out there for fun or a check. But you also know that dedicated person. The Kobe Bryant’s and Steph Curry’s of the world who’s commitment is on full display…and they practice in a way that no one questions their commitment.

“The most miserable person in the world is the half committed Christian. You are just enough into God that you are miserable in the world and just enough into the world that you are miserable in the presence of God.” - Charles Spurgeon.

Have a proper perspective of the purpose of your practices. Why are you doing what you do? This is about the motives behind your practices.

Proper motives move me from the center and puts God and others before me.

What does the way you practice Christianity reveal about you and what you are really committed to? That’s your challenge for the day.

Action Steps:

Be Generous because Christ has been so Generous to you.

give to others

give to the church

give of your time, talent, treasure, and testimony.

Pray in a way that you are aligning your heart with God’s will, moving your focus from your problems to His provision, and that demonstrates that you are choosing to rely on Him instead of yourself.

Implement fasting into your spiritual disciplines.

The early church from all accounts had a habit of fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays. They would fast from sundown on Tuesday til sundown on Wednesday. and the same from Thursday to Friday. I’m not telling you to do that specifically, but I am saying to find a way to incorporate fasting into your spiritual disciplines. Maybe start by fasting breakfast one day a week or twice a month or whatever works for you as a way to add that practice into your life properly because it will draw you closer to the Father and conform you more to the image of Christ as it builds the spiritual fruit of self-control in your life.