Sermon Tone Analysis

In Matthew 5:1-11 Jesus discussed our Christian Character.

In Matthew 5:12-48 Jesus discusses our Christian Conduct (how we are to act).

And in Matthew 6:1-8:1 Jesus explains our the Christian Culture that should be displayed.

Matthew 6:1 is an intro to verses 2-18.

WE MUST UNDERSTAND OUR IDENTITY TO UNDERSTAND THESE VERSES

I want to start with the most basic question we could ask in this world.

What is our purpose here?

In simple, it is to glorify God.

The harder question is, what does it look like to glorify God?

The first part in glorifying God is knowing that we are His and to praise and worship Him.

We are also glorifying God when we live in relationship and faithful service to Him.

In the basics of this principle we need to realize that apart from God, we can not fulfill our purpose.

In our fallen state, sin separated us from that relationship with God but through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, our relationship with God was reconciled.

Our sin was and is forgiven and no longer creates a barrier between us and God.

We are able to glorify God because He first gave us glory.

The more we get to know God, the more we understand our purpose and identity.

And the more we love Him.

We were created to bring Him glory through our lives.

On a personal level you may feel inadequate and insecure, if you do good.

Turn that over to the Lord so He can use you in that humble state for His glory and His purposes.

He has a purpose and unique plan for each one of you.

As a pastor we have the privilege to get a front row seat to see what God does in people’s lives.

It has been a complete joy and reward to see so many of you grow in their faith over the past few weeks, months and almost 10 years that I’ve been here.

The cool part?

God continues to work in us.

He is not done with us or this church and I’m excited for the road ahead!

So let’s get into our passage for today:

REWARDS

I want to start with the reward part and then work our way around these verses.

Before we go into the meaning I need to make a statement that may be part of the conclusion but.

“Contentment should be the crown of life to us.”

In this world and in this day in age we always want more.

But what do we do with what we currently have, before we received the “more of something”?

That’s what matters to God.

Three rewards for the Christian

Satisfaction- When we do the right thing, when we are following the Lord and obedient to Christ it leads to a satisfied, but not perfect life.

Still more work to do- Christian reward is different than the worlds.

The world says to retire and rest.

Fo the Christian, you are not done until you’re dead and there is always work that God has for you.

The vision of God

To a worldly person to be confronted by God would be a terror, not a joy.

But to the Christian it is the ultimate joy.

One day we will see God face to face and be in His physical presence for all eternity.

In Verse 6:1 Jesus agreed with the Jews that the three great pillars were giving, prayer and fasting but He didn’t agree with the motive in which they were performed by most people.

The title today is “Right things, wrong motives” because this is exactly Jesus’ point.

HOW NOT TO GIVE

Jesus is already assuming that His disciples here already give because he says “when you give”

So we must also assume that if we are followers of Christ giving should be expected of us.

To the common jew giving or almsgiving as it is also called (giving of food or money/possessions) was what gained them merit in God’s sight.

To them it was also a way to gain forgiveness for their past sins.

We can often do this in our lives.

We occasionally feel bad that we aren’t tithing so we throw God a few dollars in the offering box, but not really in comparison to what we truly have to give.

We often latch on to our material possessions and never give or loan them to a friend or family member who is in need.

We certainly wouldn’t go in to the community and do something radical like give of our time, possessions or money to those in need.

But some are and some do.

Sometimes people do this but do it for a reward or recognition and this is where Jesus is going with all of this.

Most of the jews would not argue that giving was imperative but at the same time many of them did it for show.

They were called hypocrites.

Did you know that the greek word hupokrites meant actor?

These individuals who seemed to be giving, but were really giving for show, only would seek to glorify themselves.

Not God.

When we give like the hypocrites, Jesus says our reward is in full.

The reward is men’s praise but there will be no reward from God in heaven, which should be what we want.

MOTIVE OF GIVING

Here are two reasons not to give:

When we give from a sense of duty.

We must not give because we feel obligated or forced to give in order to earn God’s favor.

This is because we can give, but we can not give ourselves which is what God wants first.

We should not give from a motive of prestige.

God is not impressed with how much or how little we give when we give for recognition of ourselves.

We should not give to receive glory, praise or a reward from others.

We should not determine whether we give based on if we will be noticed by it or not.

Here is one reason to give:

1. Give out of love and kindness that flows from God’s love

When we experience the love of God our heart forces us to give out of that over flow.

If someone is in need we can’t ignore it.

Jesus first showed us the type of giving

2 Corinthians 8:9

We were broke in our sin.

We are not only made alive in Christ but made rich.

This is not in monetary value like the world knows, this is eternal richness and satisfaction on this earth that is crazy to the world!

In Matthew 6:2-4 Jesus is urging His followers to not give for recognition or show like the people of the day but to do it in secrecy.

He says to do this to the illustration that our left hand should not know what the right is doing.

OK, IT’S SUPER BOWL SUNDAY AND MY PATRIOTS WILL MOST LIKELY GET ONE MORE CHAMPIONSHIP.

SO IN HONOR OF THAT I NEED A VOLUNTEER!

Illustration showing how important and hard it is to picture our other hand wouldn’t know what it was doing.

But it is the principle of it.

What Jesus is saying with the hands?

Don’t give with strings attached.

Give in complete trust through the spirit of love for the good of the experience instead of personal benefit from the gift.

We should discern our gifts to certain individuals that have a track record of abusing those gifts, because that is enabling, but we should always keep in our minds that Christ first gave to us and we should have that same heart and love for others.

Even when we don’t have the means to give food or financially we can still give physically or spiritually through service and prayer.

There is a parable that explains that motive for giving that I believe will give us better insight.

READ MATTHEW 25:14-30

The Journey (Verses 14-15)

Property owner is about to leave on a long journey and entrusts his possessions to his servants.

In this case, it’s money.

Talents was a measure of weight or a measure of coinage

We are talking about bags of gold here which is not a small amount of money.

The business man’s expectation is not to let the money sit idle when he is gone but for it to gain a profit.