MATTHEW 6:1-8 - You Hypocrite!

Introduction

A few months ago (maybe it was longer, I can’t remember), I had just checked out at a Wal-Mart kiosk and stood there waiting and waiting for it to spit out my receipt. It took me a while to notice that the screen was asking me if I wanted my receipt emailed, printed or texted to me. I remember when the question at checkout was always “paper or plastic” bags—now it is how do I want my receipt (or more often than not, “DO you want your receipt?”)

Most of the time I don’t really need it, but I take it anyway out of force of habit and stick it in my pocket until I change clothes when I get home and then add it to the unruly pile of other receipts that I keep collecting (and don’t really need). Aside from receipts that we collect for our housing allowance records or something like that, I really don’t need to prove to anyone that I paid for my bag of Doritos, crunchy Cheetos and chocolate milk.

The passage we are studying this morning, though, is about the kind of heart that always wants to, as it were, get a receipt for its righteousness. See how many references there are to being noticed by men (vv. 1, 16), being “glorified by men” (v. 2), being “seen by men” (v. 5). The heart that has to make sure everyone knows how good you are, that isn’t satisfied with some good deed unless you get credit for it—always making sure that everyone “gives them their receipts” so they can prove that they are righteous.

Starting this morning are returning to our series on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount—a series we have been calling “A New Way of Being Human”. Jesus has been contrasting the “righteousness of the Pharisees” with the righteousness offered by the New Birth that He came to inaugurate by His death and resurrection:

Matthew 5:20 (LSB)

“For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew chapter 5 focuses a great deal on what kind of person the New Birth makes you; here in Chapter 6 Jesus shows how that New Birth will transform your actions. If Chapter 5 deals with the better righteousness of the New Covenant in Christ, Chapter 6 is Jesus’ teaching on the better righteousness of the New Covenant in practice: this passage is about doing your righteousness:

Matthew 6:1 (LSB)

“Beware of doing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.

Jesus goes on then to address three fundamental pillars of righteous behavior by first century Jews—giving alms to the poor (vv. 2-4), prayer (vv. 5-8), and fasting (vv. 16-18). Jesus pinpointed these same “righteous deeds” in the passage we read earlier in worship of His parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in the Temple in Luke 18--

Luke 18:10–12 (LSB)

“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. “The Pharisee stood and was praying these things to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ‘I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’

The Pharisee was making sure to “collect his receipts”, wasn’t he? “I tithe!” “I fast!” “Look at me pray!” He was doing all of these things to be seen by men. And Jesus says here in our text that doing these good things—praying, giving, sacrificing—so that you get credit for them before men means that there is no reward for you from God.

So this is the point of this passage (and therefore the point of this sermon):

God’s REWARDS for RIGHTEOUSNESS don’t need RECEIPTS

You’ll notice the word reward appears seven times in this passage—the rewards from being noticed by men and the rewards for being noticed by God. It’s important to see here that the same good deed—prayer, for instance—can be done in a way that is rewarded by men and a way that is rewarded by God. Jesus says that His disciples—His people that have experienced the New Birth of regeneration—are free from having to have their righteous deeds noticed by anyone.

Think of that for a moment in light of the world we live in—we live among a people desperate to be recognized for being good, that demand recognition and affirmation of their “virtues”; a frenzied pace of constant self-promotion and virtue-signaling and jostling for attention so that they can make sure everyone knows how worthy they are for their good deeds.

But Christian, through the New Birth that you have through faith in Christ, you are free from having to make sure you have your receipts for your righteousness—God’s rewards for righteousness don’t need receipts.

I. Your GENEROSITY doesn’t need to be GLORIFIED by men (Matthew 6:1-4)

Matthew 6:2 (LSB)

“Therefore, when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be glorified by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.

Throughout this passage, Jesus will create a sharp contrast between the way His disciples do these righteous deeds and the way the “hypocrites” do. The word “hypocrite”, as you may know, was the Greek word for “actor” or “performer” (literally “the one who interprets underneath”, referring to the large masks that Greek actors would wear while delivering their interpretation of their character’s lines.) Think of the old Peter Bergman commercial for Vicks 44: “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV...” Jesus is saying here that there are those who play at generosity for the applause of men, and those who are truly generous who are rewarded by God. In verse 2 He warns us:

Don’t poison MERCY with VANITY (v. 2)

The Greek word translated “give to the poor” (or “needy” in ESV or “alms” in the KJV) carries the idea specifically of “merciful giving”—giving in response to the needs of someone who is helpless. To give in this way is to model the character of God’s mercy.

But Jesus is describing a behavior that has more to do with the giver’s own vanity than with the needy—Jesus says “don’t blow trumpets to announce your giving to the poor”. This is probably a figure of speech; it’s hard to imagine someone disrupting the service at a synagogue with blasting trumpets.

The way we might say it today is “Don’t turn your generosity into a photo-op”—like the politicians who all show up at a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving Day to wear a hair net and ladle mashed potatoes for the homeless for a couple hours. (Or going down to the border and weeping in front of the fence with your white pant suit on to show how pure your motives are…)

A hypocrite will lose sight of the actual immortal soul, made in the image of God, who needs their mercy and make it instead all about them. Jesus says that when you do that, you may get the admiration and applause of everyone watching you make a great show of generosity, but that is all you will get.

Jesus goes on to contrast the hypocrisy of making your vanity the whole point of mercy with what true generosity looks like. He says in verses 3-4

Be self-FORGETFUL, not self-CONGRATULATING (vv. 3-4)

Look at these verses with me:

Matthew 6:3–4 (LSB)

“But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

The idea here is that the right hand is usually the dominant hand; what the right hand does, the left hand coordinates with. It’s instinctive; reflexive. You can close your eyes and touch the back of your right hand with your left forefinger without thinking about it—you just know where it is, right?

So what is Jesus getting at here in this illustration? Surely at least part of what is going on is that Jesus is saying that you should be able to show generosity and then not keep track of it. To give freely and generously and then tell yourself to forget about it.

Because you can be free of the outward vanity of making generosity all about you, but it is much harder not to secretly keep tabs on just how generous you have been over the years. Jesus says that you are to give in such a way that you don’t go on congratulating yourself for your generous track-record. Like your left hand “forgetting” where your right hand is, learn to give freely and self-forgetfully. That is the kind of generosity that your Father in Heaven rewards.

Christian, you are free in Christ that you do not have to “keep receipts” on all your righteous deeds—your Father’s rewards for righteousness are not based on how many people know what you have done; you don’t have to strive for recognition of your good works from anybody but Him. And that is immensely freeing. Your generosity doesn’t need to be glorified by men, and

II. Your SPIRITUALITY doesn’t need to be SEEN by men (Matthew 6:5-7)

Look with me at verse 5:

Matthew 6:5 (LSB)

“And when you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.

One day in grad school I was sitting at a table in the cafeteria eating lunch. A fellow student that I didn’t really know very well, asked if he could join me, and then sat down across from me and started asking me all kinds of questions—what program I was in, what I thought of the class that we were both in that semester, where I was from, and so on. It was a little surprising, because we really didn’t run in the same circles—he was quite a bit younger than me, and had kind of the seminary-version of a “frat boy vibe”, so we really didn’t have much in common. But I was happy to hang out and talk. But as I returned the conversation and asked him questions about himself, he seemed very diffident and distracted, giving me empty, one or two word answers. Then I noticed that he wasn’t really even looking at me—the whole time, his gaze was directed over my left shoulder to a girl who was sitting at the next table behind us. He had no real intention of actually speaking to me; I was just a convenient means to his goal of eavesdropping on a girl so he could make a move. (This was confirmed moments later when he abruptly said, “Well, cool—hey, I gotta go…” as soon as the girl got up from her table!)

He was just making a show of talking to me, when he really couldn’t have cared less what I had to say or who I was. In the same way, beloved, Jesus says here in our text

Don’t make a SHOW of your PRAYERS (vv. 5-6)

The hypocrites Jesus is attacking here were past masters at making public spectacles of their prayers—they would stand up during synagogue worship and recite long, flowery, theologically-dense prayers so that everyone would be impressed with them. And then they would go out into the street corners so that everyone would see them praying.

If you have to set up your prayers for the express purpose of other people seeing you pray, I have a hard time getting away from the rebuke that Jesus issues here. Evangelical events like the National Day of Prayer—designed specifically to go out on the street corners and pray—really need to answer for why they want to do the exact thing that Our Lord rebukes as hypocrisy.

But the hypocrisy follows us into the sanctuary as well, sometimes. If you’ve been a Christian for any length of time, you know the difference between someone who is just “praying” so that everyone else will hear them, and someone who is really talking to their Father. This is what Jesus is getting at in verse 6:

Matthew 6:6 (LSB)

“But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

Once again, see what Jesus is saying—if your Heavenly Father hears your prayers, who cares who else hears them?? Have you ever seen two people in some public place so engaged in a deep conversation that they are oblivious to everyone around them? That is the kind of genuine, hypocrisy-free prayer that Jesus is exhorting here—and that kind of prayer only comes by a deep, continuous, committed, disciplined private prayer life. Authentic public prayer is the fruit of the well-tended garden of secret prayer.

But where there is no habit of regular, rich, private prayer, the result is public prayer that is shallow, repetitive and awkward. Such meager prayer is characterized by the kind of repetition Jesus addresses in verse 7:

Matthew 6:7 (LSB)

“And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.

Now, Jesus’ specific teaching here was against the notion that the Pharisees of his day had picked up from pagan worship; specifically, that repeating prayers over and over made them more pleasing to God (and therefore more powerful.) We see examples of this in the Old Testament, where the prophets of Baal spent the whole day repeating their prayer “O Baal answer us, O Baal answer us, O Baal answer us...” (1 Kings 18:26). Jesus says, “Don’t do that—repeating prayers doesn’t make them more significant.” He says plainly that

You don't need to IMPRESS God (vv. 7-8)

Whether it is the repetition of shallow public prayer that repeats filler phrases like “Lord just help us, and Lord just be with us and Lord just bless us...” or our neighbors in the false church of Rome who toil in bondage to the superstition that they have to repeat Our Fathers and Hail Marys in order to pile up merit before God—God’s Word declares here that you cannot impress your Heavenly Father with mindless repetitions of your words! Your flowery eloquent public prayers don’t impress Him; your constant mindless repetition of words in private prayer doesn’t impress Him; He is already prepared to answer your prayers because you belong to Him through Christ!

The reward that your Heavenly Father bestows for doing righteous deeds does not need receipts—your generosity doesn’t need to be glorified by men; your spirituality doesn’t need to be seen by men, and in verses 16-18 Jesus shows you that

III. Your SACRIFICE doesn’t need to be a SPECTACLE for men (Matthew 6:16-18)

In verses 9-15, Jesus gives specific instruction on how to pray in a way that is not mindlessly repetitive (which, in our typical fashion have been known to turn into a mindlessly repetitive prayer—bless our hearts!) Lord willing, we will look more closely at Jesus’ model prayer next week. But for now let’s examine more closely what Jesus is saying about our sacrifices for our faith—specifically the practice of fasting:

Matthew 6:16 (LSB)

“Now whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.

Now, there is a lot that we can say about the practice of fasting in the Bible—abstaining from food and/or drink for a specific period of time). I believe the Scriptures are clear that fasting is lawful for the Christian, and can be profitably applied to our spiritual lives, provided that it is not done as a means of trying to impress either God or man! This is, after all, the point of Jesus’ teaching in this passage--”do not do your righteousness before men to be noticed by them...”

You’ll note that the Pharisee in our Scripture reading did exactly this in Luke 18—he made it a point to say that he fasted twice a week. And Jesus said that the admiration he got from his fellow Pharisees for his spiritual sacrifice was all the reward he was going to get.

I think that the specific teaching Jesus gives here on fasting can be applied more broadly to our own Christian walk today, in this way: The essential element of fasting is self-denial for the sake of a spiritual end. There are many times in our Christian lives when we are called on to practice self-denial in one way or another; the demands of Christian parenting, the demands of acts of mercy, the demands of evangelism or discipleship or the gathered worship of the saints will routinely put us in a position where we must deny ourselves for the sake of our walk with Christ.

And Jesus says that your demeanor while denying yourself is not a matter of indifference. To put it plainly, Jesus warns you

Don’t play the VICTIM of your own FAITH (v. 16)

Don’t put on the attitude of the weary, put-upon sacrificer. Don’t sigh over the calling of God to lay down your life for your family, don’t pout over following Christ in sacrificing yourself for the sake of the bride He has given you. Don’t live with a demeanor of someone who is constantly being put upon to live in a manner worthy of your calling in Christ. All you are doing is making yourself a spectacle of sacrifice before men instead of making Christ attractive as Savior. You cannot simultaneously demonstrate that you are a poor, put-upon victim of the demands of your Christian faith while simultaneously demonstrating that Christ is worthy of praise! If you deal with the demands and stress of your calling to lay down your life for others by complaining or “demanding receipts” from others by making sure they know just how much your sacrifice has cost you, then you have everything that is coming to you. “You have your reward in full.” So enjoy their murmurs of pity and affirmation; enjoy their realization of “How much you have done for them”, have fun with their guilt-driven expressions of thanks for everything you do, because on the Last Day when you stand before your Savior, He will have nothing to say about any of it.

How much better, Christian, in the face of the demands and hardships of your Christian duty to lay down your life for others, that you can simply

Trust that your FATHER sees and KNOWS (vv. 17-18)

what you have done for His sake.

Matthew 6:17–18 (LSB)

“But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

How much better is it, Christian, to be utterly free from the need to collect receipts for your sacrifices! To be free from worrying that “nobody knows how much I do around here”, to have no anxiety over not being recognized for all you have laid down for the sake of your family, your church, your ministry, your friends! There is no sweetness like the contentment of knowing that God sees all of it, and He is pleased with it! You don’t need the recognition of men, because the recognition that you have from your Father in Heaven is worth more than all of the praise and honor that this whole world could possibly muster! On that Day when you stand before Him and the books are opened and your deeds are judged, and all of the unknown, unremarked, unappreciated labors you have done in His Name finally see the light of glory—things that only you and He knew about, that no one else ever knew that you did. And on that Day, He will tell all of assembled humanity everything that they never knew that you did for His sake—and that reward will be enough!

Christian, God’s rewards for righteousness do not need receipts—you do not have to worry about whether anyone else ever glorifies your generosity. So you are free to give forgetfully. Don’t keep track of everyone you’ve ever been kind to or everyone you’ve ever helped out of a jam or everyone you’ve ever given to in mercy. Certainly don’t be the kind of person who has to make sure you remind someone of something you did for them, holding it over their heads to make sure they appreciate it enough. Be content to know that your Father in Heaven sees and remembers, and be so self-forgetful of your own generosity that when He rewards you on the Last Day you will have the glorious experience of being told “well done, good and faithful servant” for generosity you don’t even remember showing!

Christian, you are free from being bound by others’ opinions of your prayers. Don’t be the kind of Christian who wants to make sure everyone knows how good they are at praying; don’t try to see how much good solid theology you can cram into a prayer—God is familiar with your theology already! That’s a sure sign that you’re trying to impress the other people in the prayer meeting, and not even actually speaking to God. You are free in prayer to simply talk to your Father.

Many Christians are anxious about the thought of praying out loud in front of other believers—and at first, this seems like the opposite of wanting to impress everyone with their prayers. But if you think about it, it’s really just another manifestation of the same pride—one side wants others to think highly of their spiritual prayers, and the other side is afraid that others won’t think highly of their spiritual prayers. Whether you are hoping to impress others with your prayers or whether you are afraid of embarrassing yourself before others in prayer, either way you are worried way to much about the opinion of men!

Jesus shows you here in this passage that you are free from that anxiety over others’ opinions of your prayers—you are free to simply talk to your Heavenly Father in prayer! Never forget that authentic public prayer is the fruit of the well-tended garden of secret prayer. So make it your aim to cultivate such a habit of private prayer before your Father in Heaven that, when you are asked to pray in a gathering of your brothers and sisters in Christ, you will be able to simply turn to your Father and speak to Him with others present just as you do when you are alone.

Christian, God’s rewards for righteousness don’t need receipts from you. You are free to sacrifice willingly and joyfully, because you know that God sees and remembers all of the things you have done in His Name; things that nobody else will ever see; burdens that no one else will ever know that you carry.

And in that contentment; in that freedom that says God is keeping all your receipts for all the thankless tasks you have done, you are free to then BECOME a thankful person towards others! When you are bound up in the need for others to recognize your labors and sacrifices, you become resentful when someone else is told “thank you”. “Hey, wait a minute—they’re being thanked for all the work they did on this project? I DID TWICE AS MUCH!! Where’s my thank-you? Where’s my recognition?” We become like Charlie Brown’s little sister Sally writing her letter to Santa Claus: “All I want is what I have coming to me… All I want is my fair share…”

But you are free from that bondage, Christian! You don’t fall into that trap of resentment and bitterness over not getting your “fair share” of “thank-you’s”—you are free instead to become a grateful person! Because of what Christ has promised you here in these pages, you are able to be a saint who is quick to express your gratitude for all of the sacrifices others have made, whether or not anyone in this world ever recognizes yours! If no one recognizes your sacrifices, then just go ahead and make sure that no one you know will go without the gift of your gratitude! The fruit of gratitude will grow full and sweet out of a heart that has entrusted its “receipts” to its Heavenly Father!

Christian, you have a heart that has been transformed by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ—the New Birth that He has worked in you has opened your eyes to the realization that, apart from His grace in saving you, “what is coming to you” is Hell; that “your fair share” is eternal damnation for your sin. Your gratitude is rooted in the great grace of God towards you that while you were still a sinner, Christ died for you. That because of His sacrifice on the Cross, there is no condemnation for you, and because of His resurrection none of your labor is ever in vain in Him.

But if God’s Word laid before you this morning reveals that there is nothing in your heart but an insatiable hunger for recognition for your spirituality, a lust to be respected and upheld for your godly reputation, that what you want is to be considered holy while at the same time you have no desire for actual holiness before God, then Jesus says that you are a hypocrite. You are a false believer. You have a form of outward godliness that says all the right things and carries out all the right actions—you know when to bow your head, you know when to say “Amen”, you know how to use all the right buzzwords so that everyone else will just accept that you are a Christian.

You may have been doing it for a long time; you may have been playing this role long enough that you’ve heard plenty of sermons calling you out before, and you’ve gotten good at denying that they apply to you. (Usually your best defense is to immediately think of someone else that you think “really ought to be here to hear this...” But the truth is you need to come to repentance.)

This is the invitation before you this morning: Drop the mask. Stop playing the game. Three times in these verses Jesus says of His Father that “He sees what is done in secret”. He sees through your mask. You have the people sitting next to you fooled, you have me fooled, you have your co-workers or classmates or family fooled; but He sees what you do in secret. He sees whether you genuinely desire Him, whether you are really clinging to Christ’s work on your behalf, or whether you are playing a role on Sundays that you have no use for starting tomorrow morning.

The Good News before you this morning is that Jesus Christ died to save hypocrites. He was the truest Man that ever lived, and He died in the eyes of the crowd as a pitiful hypocrite:

Matthew 27:42 (LSB)

“He saved others; He cannot save Himself. He is the King of Israel; let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in Him.

Friend, Jesus didn’t stay on that Cross because He was just playing at being God and really had no power; He stayed on that Cross because He is God; it was because He had the power to stay there and suffer that you have been given the invitation to be free of your hypocrisy! Stop playing the game; drop your lust for recognition and respect; don’t let the shame of your sin prevent you from confessing it and crying out for the forgiveness purchased for you on that Cross. Come talk to me, come talk to one of the elders, let us show you from the Scriptures how you can be free of your guilt and the penalty of your sin when you come—and welcome!—to Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

Jude 24–25 (LSB)

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION: Write down something you learned from this morning’s message that is new to you, or an insight that you had for the first time about the text? ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Write down a question that you have about the passage that you want to study further or ask for help with: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Write down something that you need to do in your life this week in response to what God has shown you from His Word today: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Additional Notes: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________