Eternal Rewards

INTRO

INTRO: Not for the love of the game. What motivates you.

This afternoon, Jesus takes a look at your motivations. Your desires in your heart. This is the main point of the sermon: It is dangerous to live a life where you are doing all the right things, but for the wrong reasons.

Jesus in Chapter 5 has been dealing with righteousness. What is righteousness? And in Chapter 5 what Jesus does is He deals with people’s understand of the law. Well if I don’t do these things I’m good. As long as I don’t steal, don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, I am right with God. But Jesus says no, He says not just doing them with your actions, but if you have already desired them in your heart, you are4 guilty before God. Largely in Chapter 5 it’s a list of “what should I NOT do”. All of us have this concept of okay if I don’t do these things I am a good person. Jesus shatters that in Chapter 5. Well in Chapter 6, Jesus begins to deal with another issue. The other side of the righteousness coin. In Jesus’ time everyone would have had a picture of what a righteous person DOES do. These are the things the holy people do.

Jesus is going to turn that on its head.

THE DANGER OF HYPOCRISY

He begins in verse 1 be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of other people.

What? People to listening to Jesus would say, wait. What do you mean? Aren’t people supposed to see how good we are? Didn’t you just say in Chapter 5 that we should let people see our good works?

If Jesus simply stopped with “don’t do this” He would be like every other religious teacher. Merely focusing on behavior. Jesus doesn’t just focus on the behavior that we do, but the motivation of why we do it. So He says be careful. Jesus warns us because He knows we will tempted to do this. In Chapter 5, Jesus says let people see good works. Do a lot of good works. That’s where our church name comes from. But the motivation in Chapter 5, is what? So that will people see and give glory to God. Here, Jesus says, be careful where your motivation is not that God would get the glory, but that you would.

And He gives this strong promise. Otherwise you have no reward with your Father in heaven.

And then He gives us an example.

All of us have a picture in our minds of a righteous person. If you had to ask yourself, who is the most spiritual person you know, who would you say? For Jesus’ listeners they had a picture as well.

IT would have been the Pharisees and the scribes. The teachers of the law. These guys on the outside, said all the right things, did all the right things. But here Jesus calls them hypocrites.

“So whenever you give to the poor, don’t sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do In the synagogues, IN the streets, TO be applauded by people. Truly I tell you they have their reward.”

Giving to the poor is a good thing to do. One way we worship God is through our finances. So giving is not the issue here. We are called to give to God’s church and God’s people. But it was the motivation of their giving.

HOW THEY GAVE? Blew trumpets. Drew attention to themselves.

WHEN THEN GAVE? In the synagogues, IN THE STREETS! Most visible. Most people would see them there. This is not a lifestyle of generosity, but they are using giving as a way to make much of themselves. YOUTUBE evangelists. Do we still do the same things while the cameras aren’t rolling?

Many of us reading this text, would think, man if these guys were in our church, we would spot them out. We would see them. We would be able to tell they are arrogant, prideful, people. But notice Jesus brings us to the most frightening part of the text.

WHY did they give? To be applauded by people. The honest truth is that we celebrate this kind of lifestyle. If these guys were in our church, Jesus says we would celebrate them. They are big givers! They are big servers! We celebrate this lifestyle!

When is the last time someone asked you, “what is motivating all the serving that you are doing?” Usually we focus on “what are you doing?” “Are you doing enough?” The church feeds on this kind of lifestyle. We always focus not on the inputs, but on the outputs. What are the results. And these guys brought big results. So Jesus tells us, you could be the most active person in the church, you could be the most serving family in the church, and the dangerous is that you could be fooling yourself, and you could fool those around you.

If that’s our life. If our giving, our serving, is motivated by the praise of man. Jesus says you have your reward. That means, that’s all your gonna get. Those claps, those like on Facebook, those follows on Instagram. That’s your only reward.

I don’t about you, but people listening to Jesus, and me as I read this text this week, are just left stunned. When I look back at my life, I can see how so much of my serving has had mixed impure motives. I have pushed my family, not because I wanted God to get glory, because I want Collin to get glory. I have said yes to things, not just so God would be delighted, but so people would be impressed with how much I serve. In reading this we can feel the weight of our sin. Is this you? Is Jesus describing you right now? I would bet we all would say to some degree. Yes. We’ve all been guilty of doing the right things but for the wrong reasons.

Buddhist piling on 好事善事。 Not good enough.

Dangerous you can look like a good person without actually being one.

So where is the good news?

“But when you give to the poor, don’t 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.”

Jesus says when you give to the poor it’s not about impressing others, He says, it’s not even about impressing yourself. Don’t even let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. It shouldn’t be something you make a big deal about. That shouldn’t be your focus.

Jesus says this: while other people may be fooled by by our good works, there is One who isn’t. God. Jesus says He sees our giving in secret. When you look at this word secret, Jesus uses 6 or 7 times in chapter 6, He is making reference to our hearts. While other people merely fixate on our external behavior, there is One who sees behind it all. Sees behind the mask, and that is God the Father. There is no fooling Him. He knows our motivation. He knows that our serving is more out of concern for own glory rather than His.

Why is that Good News? Why is it Good News that Father alone sees the unseen places of our hearts?

Here is the Good News

Because The God Who Sees The Secret Unseen Place, is the only One who can transform and change the secret place.

THE DELIGHT OF THE FATHER

This is good news church because while people may never be impressed with you, while people may not take notice of the good works you do, there is One, who sees you. There is One who takes notice of everything that we do, and that is the God of the universe! And Jesus is teaching us what we have heard all throughout the Bible, God is after our hearts. That God is not impressed with the things that people are impressed by! This is so counter cultural! We are impressed with actions, God says that doesn’t impress me. You could give 1 million dollars to the church, but if your heart is motivated by personal glory that is offensive to me. What I delight in, is the person who gives 1 NT or any amount, but does it as worship to me!

Transforms our whole life! We don’t have to hide anymore. We can take the masks off, we don’t have to live under the constant pressure to perform for this audience to be applauded by people. We can rest securely in the God who sees our hearts.

“your father in heaven will reward you”. The emphasis of this verse is not on the reward(what is it, what will it be, or what amount!), but on WHO is giving the reward. YOUR FATHER. This passage teaches us that God rewards us not as a judge who gives wages, not as people do with their fleeting applause, but as a generous loving doting Father.

Many years ago I remember my dad saying that he wished he could have given me so much more. That if it was in his power or means to give me more he would have. As a father don’t we all have that desire in us? To bless our kids, to give generously to them? Well if we as earthly fathers have that desire, God the Father has not only that desire but the means and ability infinite times more!

Living for that reward, living for the delight of the Father frees us from the danger of hypocrisy. if you are here and you have never heard the Gospel or have never been a Christian than Jesus today is inviting you into a life that you can not live, but that He alone can live through you. Listen to me. The purpose on the sermon on the mount is not for you to look at this and say okay I’m going to try as hard as I can to live this life! No the point is that Jesus shows us our need for the Gospel.

I want to proclaim to you today that on the cross there is an exchange. On the cross, our impure motives, our sinful, selfish motives, were nailed to the cross once and for all. And through faith in Jesus’ work, we exchange our impure motives, for His perfect 100% pure motives, and that righteousness is given to you and to me. Not by trying to do all the right things for the wrong reason, but by trusting in the only One who did all things right for the right reason!