Matthew 11

Issues of the Heart

In this portion of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus calls for us to evaluate our own hearts in several different areas of life. These evaluations that we will be doing are not simply one off evaluations that we do tonight and forget tomorrow, but rather are daily reminders to live with a heart for Christ rather than the world. We again are going to be covering a very large amount of scripture in one sermon so I beg of you to read this passage in its entirety in you own time to get the fullness of Gods message to you as I will not be able to properly delve into every aspect of this evaluation of the heart. So, to begin I would like to go ahead and give you the checklist that we will be evaluating ourselves by:

Evaluate why we are generous.

Evaluate our heart in prayer.

Evaluate what we serve.

Evaluate why we are anxious.

Evaluate why we judge.

Why we are generous

Let’s begin with verse one of chapter six to begin our evaluation.

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.”

First, what is practicing your righteousness? Jesus is talking about good works, helping the needy, helping your church, or any other righteous act that is a selfless deed. We all have opportunities to practice our righteousness every day. Wether it be donating money to those in need, serving at some capacity within a service organization, or maybe it is just ministering to that person that is in need of a shoulder to cry on. All of these actions are charitable deeds and are not only good to be done by us, but we are called to do them.

So what makes these outward deeds a heart issue? I want you to notice here two small words that change the meaning of this text, to be. These words make this statement an issue of the heart. Jesus is not declaring that your righteousness should be done only when you are anonymous. While anonymous righteousness is great, not every time can we be in secret with our actions. What Jesus is teaching us here is the heart in which we serve with. That is what the to be implies here in this passage, why are you serving? Are you helping this person just so others will notice your kindness? Are you hoping for some kind of payoff for this deed? When we act in kindness and act charitably we need to evaluate our actions to determine whether or not we are acting for the right reasons. Our motivation should always be solely the glorification of God through our actions and not the glorification of self.

Evaluate your prayer life

Matthew 6:5–6 ““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.”

Continuing on in this same theme Jesus basically says and by the way while we are talking about avoiding self glorification and dives into prayer. In those days it was very common for public prayers to be filled with extravagant language and deep meanings with passion and tears and the whole nine yards. The problem was that they did not mean any of it. They simply wanted to gain attention from those who were around them and make people think they had a powerful prayer life. I feel like we do the same thing today. Even when I pray in public sometimes I catch myself thinking I hope that was long enough or deep enough when that should not be the concern of prayer. The concern of prayer is the authenticity of the words that you say not the length of them.

So Jesus instructs the crowd to pray alone and spend time with God by yourself. This is not an outright ban on the idea of public prayers just that the bulk of our prayer life should be in private and not in the public domain.

As for what we should pray Jesus gives us a sort of outline for that as well.

Matthew 6:9–13 “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.”

Here Jesus gives us an example and starting point for prayer. Jesus keeps the prayer short and simple using basic terms and vocabulary so that anyone can understand the prayer while at the same time the prayer covers everything you could need to pray about in a general sense. It honors God, asks for provision, repentance, and deliverance. In a broad sense this prayer covers all of your needs here on Earth. I encourage you to memorize this prayer and recite it to God from time to time. I personally have worked reciting the Lords prayer into my personal quiet times and I feel like it helps me to remember all that I need in life and exactly where I get all of it from. Now with reciting a prayer like this it is not to be your only prayer all of the time. I typically have my normal prayer time and then close with the Lords prayer. On top of that it cannot become meaningless reciting. You must be diligent to retain the meaning of every word within the prayer each time you say it.

What do you serve

Matthew 6:24 ““No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

Here on Earth the things we acquire are temporary. No matter how great they seem, they will all pass away eventually. In America we have a major tendency to become materialistic. We have a constant desire for more stuff and more expensive stuff. It is the culture that we live in so all of us are susceptible to it in one regard or another. This is the idea that Jesus preaches leading up to this verse. We should not lay up treasures here on earth where thieves can rob you and the world can destroy it, but instead should lay up treasures in the eternal kingdom of God where they will be secure. We do this by doing Gods will here on earth. Both of the previous passages mention the Father rewarding us based on our obedience to serving and praying with the right heart. What is that reward? I don’t have the slightest clue. Jesus does not tell us exactly what He means by we will be rewarded. The only thing that He does tell us is that the reward is greater than the rewards here in this life and they are eternal.

But, to receive the great eternal rewards we must serve God and not ride the fence. Many people try be between dedication to God and something else whether it be money like this passage says or something else for you such as a relationship, club, job, sport. It could be anything really, the point is that you cannot serve both you must decide if you are all in for God or if you don’t feel like He is worth your full attention.

Why are you anxious.

Matthew 6:25 ““Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”

Jesus builds on this point by discussing anxiety. The people He was talking to at this time would have been worried about finances from a much more serious perspective than if they would have the best looking or newest of whatever it is. These people likely lived mostly paycheck to paycheck as we would say today and stressed about what they would do with their money. Jesus tells us here to stop stressing. Life is about so much more that what we eat and what we wear or where we go. Life is about service to God and glorifying Him and I promise you that through serving Him you will find more joy and fulfillment in your life than anywhere else. Jesus goes on to discuss that God has a great love for each and everyone of us. He states that God takes care of the birds and makes the flowers beautiful so how much more will He take care of us?

Matthew 6:33–34 “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

God will provide so long as we remain faithful to Him. Will we always have everything we ever wanted? No, but we will have exactly what we need.

Why do we judge

Matthew 7:1–2 ““Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.”

As church members we already have a stigma of judgement on us in the world. The common society believes that everyone who goes to church must me a judging hypocrite. Don’t prove them right. We should not judge the lives of those around us unless we are prepared to receive that same level of judgement back at us. We so often unfairly judge people without knowing their situation or what is happening in their lives. We feel as though we would do so much better, when in actuality we are failing worse than them half of the time.

Matthew 7:5 “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

Our lives are filled with sin and failure just like everyone else and a lot of times it is worse than who we are judging, however that does not mean that we sit idely by as our friends and loved ones fall into sin. Jesus here does not say get the log out of your eye and move on, no He says get the log out of your eye so that you can get the speck out of your brothers eye. We are still called to help our friends live better lives but again we need to check our hearts and see why we are doing it. Are we really trying to help or are we just pointing out their flaws to make us feel better about our own?