31 How to Give, Pray, and Fast Without Being a Hypocrite (Matthew 6:1-6; 6:16-18)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to the Wednesday in the Word Podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. This is the 31st talk in our series on the Gospel of Matthew. Today we'll study Matthew chapter 6, verses 1 through 6, and verses 16 through 18. The lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below the podcast. They contain links to everything mentioned in the talk and an outline of the main points. You can also find those lecture notes by going to wednesdayintheword.com slash Matthew 3.1. On that website, wednesdayintheword.com, you can find all previous episodes in this series, as your podcast feed may be limited to the last 20 or so. I'm so glad you joined us today. We're continuing our study of the Gospel of Matthew in this podcast. We're still in the Sermon on the Mount. We have finished the first major section of the sermon, which was the Beatitudes, and the second major section, the Antitheses, and we are now starting the third major section of the sermon. The unit of section three that we're going to cover today includes the Lord's Prayer, but I'm going to skip the Lord's Prayer for now. We will talk about it in detail over the next several podcasts. Today I want to look at the statements that bracket the Lord's Prayer because I think you'll see there's a pattern. This is Matthew chapter six verses one through six. 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. 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. And when you pray, you must not pray 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 then skipping the Lord's prayer we're going to pick back up in six sixteen. 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 the 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. So what we have in this opening section is three very similar patterns. In six one through four he talks about giving to the needy. In six four through six he talks about praying, and then there's an extended discussion of prayer which includes the Lord's Prayer. And then in six sixteen through eighteen he talks about fasting. And now as I said, we're going to look at the Lord's Prayer in detail over the next several podcasts. Right now I want to look at these three very similar examples. I think they have the same sort of logic in each of them. We're going to start with six one. 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. Now I would argue that this is the theme of this whole third major section. Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward in heaven. The underlying assumption of this statement is that there is a reward for righteousness. But if you practice your righteousness in a certain way, you're not going to receive that reward. So our first step is to figure out what that means. Because at face value, that's a statement that's going to ruffle the feathers of many Protestants. How can Jesus say that we are rewarded for righteousness? In what sense can we even describe ourselves as righteous? Other places in Scripture clearly talk about salvation as a gift of God, a gift we didn't earn, and so in what sense are we sinners rewarded? Let me just give you a couple of examples. There are a lot of passages we could look at, but for example, Paul writes in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is a gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Similarly, he says in Romans 3, 23 and 24, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Now, as modern Protestants, we're used to thinking in Paul's terms. No one is righteous, we are all sinners, no one earns their justification. Salvation is a gift of God based on the blood of Jesus Christ. No one is rewarded in the sense that no one is saved because they deserve it. They have not earned salvation. Everyone who is saved receives their salvation as a gift from God because God is profoundly merciful and gracious. So how do we resolve that with this statement here by Jesus? Well, one way to resolve this tension is to say that Paul got it wrong, and a surprising number of scholars take that option. Now, obviously, I don't go that way. Like many other scholars, I'm going to argue that Jesus is using reward and righteousness in a different sense in this sermon than Paul is using it in his letters. Jesus is speaking in a different context and he's using these words with a different nuance. In other words, Jesus is answering a different question than the question Paul was answering. Now we use words this way all the time. Take the word run for example. I can talk about running for office, running a marathon, running a fever, and running away from a problem. I have used the same word run, but I am not running a marathon in the same way I am running a fever. I'm using a different nuance, but I'm still using the same word. I think that's the kind of thing that's going on here. And as I've studied, I think the way Jesus is using these words in this sermon is actually the more common way in Scripture than the way Paul uses them. But most of us today are much more familiar with Paul's letters than we are with the rest of the New Testament or the Old Testament, and so we think of his way first. Let me explain what I'm talking about. Generally speaking, Scripture uses the term righteous or the word dechias to answer one of three questions. And I have a word study resource on my website for this word if you want to look it up. I'll put a link to that in the lecture notes. So Scripture uses this term righteous to answer one of three questions. The first one is, Am I forgiven or am I condemned? And Paul typically uses righteousness this way. I think that's the use we just saw in Romans and Ephesians. A synonym for this is Am I justified? He's speaking to the question, will God forgive me or will he justly condemn me? Am I right with God because my sins are forgiven? Am I righteous in that sense? Am I justified? The second way we could be using this term righteous is we could be talking about the question, am I morally perfect or am I morally corrupt? Am I righteous in the sense of am I holy? And I would argue that only Jesus is righteous in this sense. We believers long to be righteous in that sense. We long to be holy, but we are not. And this is the nuance we saw in the Beatitudes. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. I think in that context, Jesus was talking about holiness. Those who long, they hunger and thirst and long to be made holy. The third way this word is used, and I believe this is the way we have here in Matthew 6, is to answer the question, am I open to God or am I spiritually blind? And this is the way we see it most commonly in the Old Testament, particularly in the Psalms. Those who seek to follow God are often called the righteous, in the Psalms in particular, and they are contrasted with those who are hostile and rebellious to God who are called the wicked. And we see this quite frequently in the Old Testament. It's probably the most common way we find the use of this word in Scripture. To be righteous is to be one who seeks to follow God. So to be righteous is not necessarily to be morally perfect. It can be, depending on the context, but it might be referring to a person who genuinely seeks to follow God. Our three main uses then, we could be talking about the question, am I forgiven? And a synonym for that would be, am I justified? We could be talking about the question, am I morally perfect? And a synonym for this would be holy. Or we could be talking about the question, am I open to God? Am I seeking to follow Him? And a synonym for this would be saved. I can be righteous in any one of these three senses. I can be justified, I can be becoming holy, or I can be saved. And we see this Greek word in different contexts referring to all three of those meanings, depending on the context. So when we encounter this word righteous, we have to look at the context and figure out which of these broad senses of the word is the author talking about. Well, here in this context, I think Jesus is talking about what I've called the third option, being open to God. Paul, on the other hand, in his letters most frequently is talking about being justified. So I would argue Jesus and Paul do not disagree. Paul is answering the question, am I forgiven? Am I justified? And Jesus is answering the question, Am I a child of God? Am I a person of saving faith and one who truly seeks him? They both use the same word, but they're using it with a different nuance. Likewise, the word reward, as it's often used in Scripture, has different nuances. A reward is not necessarily something that we have earned through our own achievement. It can be, but it can also just be the desired goal, the outcome of an action. For example, why do we confess our sins to God? Because we hope that God will forgive us and accept us. We seek the reward of being forgiven. That doesn't mean we've earned the right to be forgiven. It means we're seeking the outcome or the goal, the reward of being forgiven. Being forgiven is the desired outcome. We confess our sins hoping that we will be rewarded with forgiveness. That's our goal. In this section, when Jesus talks about being rewarded for our righteousness, I think he's talking about the desired outcome for following God. And if you stop and think about it, you can see that the entire Sermon on the Mount has really been about that topic. One way to describe what Jesus has said so far in this sermon is he has been asking the question what kind of righteousness will receive God's reward? Now in the Beatitudes, Jesus told us who the blessed or the fortunate ones are. Who are the ones who will receive the reward of a place in the kingdom of God? The poor in spirit, those who mourn, the non presumptuous who wait for God, those who hunger and thirst for holiness, those who are merciful, the peacemakers, and the persecuted. These people are fortunate, they are blessed, because the outcome of their kind of righteousness, the way they are following God, is a place in the kingdom of heaven. The reward, the goal of their being poor in spirit, and so forth is being a child of God. They shall be comforted, they shall see God, they shall receive mercy, and they shall inherit the kingdom of God. So the Beatitudes tell us the qualities of saving faith that a person must have to inherit a place in the kingdom of God, and we could summarize them by saying, Blessed are those whose righteousness has these sorts of qualities because their reward is in the kingdom of heaven. Now that's not the language Jesus used in that part of the sermon, but we could make his point using that same language. Then Jesus introduced the next section, the antithesis, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. In other words, if you want the reward of entering the kingdom of heaven, your righteousness must be a different kind than the kind of righteousness the Pharisees have. And I think he's saying, You must seek God in a different way than the Pharisees are seeking him if you want to enter the kingdom of heaven. So in this third section, Jesus is now coming at the same question from a new angle. 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. What kind of righteousness, what kind of seeking God will receive the reward in heaven? That's what he's asking. Which people who claim to follow God will receive salvation as the outcome of their seeking? And this time he says, Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. The reward, the goal, the outcome goes to those whose righteousness is more than a show put on for others. So far then this sermon has really been about one point, and we can state that point in a number of ways. We could summarize it as what does genuine saving faith look like, which we did in the Beatitudes, we could summarize it as who will inherit eternal life, or we could summarize it as what characterizes the children of God. All those are ways of stating the same point. In this third section, Jesus examines the same question from another angle. Beware of seeking God in a way that is merely a show for other people. And then he gives three examples with an extended description of the second one. Now each of these three examples is a traditional Jewish religious practice. The three are giving to the poor, praying, and fasting. If New Testament Jews wanted to practice their religion in a way that reflects their true devotion to God, they would do these sorts of things, and everyone listening would have recognized these activities as the kind of activities a religious person would do. So let's look at the first one Matthew six verses one through four. 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. Thus when you give to the needy, sound no trumpets 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. So Jesus warns his listeners, don't do what the hypocrites do. This is a theme that we have seen so far in the sermon, and it's not hard to see that Jesus has the Pharisees in mind again. The average New Testament Jew looked up to the Pharisees as a religious role model. The Pharisees were the pious people. They were the religious ones who were devoted to the law. And this entire sermon has been proposing an alternate picture of what a righteous person looks like and what a person who is seeking God looks like. The Beatitudes point us away from self-righteousness and self-satisfaction and toward humility. The antitheses tell us that our righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees, and there Jesus mentions them specifically by name. And now he says, You must not practice your religion in the same way as the hypocrites do. And I would argue he's aiming this at the Pharisees. He's describing an alternative to the model they've been given by their religious leaders. And here's the first example of the hypocrites, giving to the poor as a religious practice. Now giving to the poor does not have to be a religious act. It can simply be an act of kindness or generosity, just helping someone who's in trouble. But here in this context, I think Jesus is talking about giving to the poor as an act of obedience to God. And this probably has its roots in the Old Testament. For example, we find this in Deuteronomy fifteen seven through eleven. If among you one of your brothers should become poor in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be. Take care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart, and you say, The seventh year, the year of release is near, and your eye look grudgingly on your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the Lord against you, and you be guilty of sin. Let me stop for a minute and explain what's going on there. Under Old Testament law every seventh year debts were forgiven, and Moses is warning against refraining from giving because the seventh year is close. So the picture he's painting is I see a need and I think ooh, if I loan you money now, next month it will be the seventh year, and you'll never have to pay me back. So I'll just wait two months, and if you're still in need, then I'll give you the money because then you'll be bound by law to pay me back over the next seven years. And Moses would warn me, if you do that, he may cry out to the Lord, and God will find you guilty of sin. Finishing up then with verses ten and eleven, you shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake, for there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, you shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor in your land. So helping the poor is part of obedience to the law. God is commanding the children of Israel to take care of their poorer brothers. To fail to care for them is not just being unkind, it is also being disobedient to the law. The poor man that you do not help will cry out to God, and God will find the ungenerous person guilty of sin. It's an act of lawbreaking to withhold from those in need. Helping the poor then is part of obedience to the law, and God says if they are faithful and obey God in taking care of the poor, God will bless them. Now that causes a lot of us to get confused, and I don't want to get caught up in a tangent on the theology of generosity or old covenant law. Let me just say, remember this is all part of the covenant that God made with the children of Israel. He made an agreement that if they keep this covenant, he would bless them materially in the land. And I would argue, without going into a lot of detail on this, that many of the promises made to the children of Israel are not necessarily made to Gentile New Testament believers. And that this is one of those. This is a promise that God made to the nation of Israel. If they would keep God's covenant, God would bless them, and part of keeping the covenant was helping the poor. Now, as I said, I don't want to get lost in a tangent. I'm bringing that up to explain. Explain how giving to the poor could be seen and understood as an act of obedience to God. It could be understood as a religious obligation because it is in the law. Blessing is promised to the one who does it, and the ones who don't are considered sinners. Now Deuteronomy isn't the only place we see giving to the poor. Psalm one twelve tells us that the righteous man is generous to the poor, and here I think this is righteous in the sense of those who seek God. I'm going to start in verse one. Praise the Lord. Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments. His offspring will be mighty in the land, the generation of the upright will be blessed. Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever. Light dawns in the darkness for the upright, he is gracious, merciful, and righteous. It is well with the man who deals generously and lins, who conducts his affairs with justice, for the righteous will never be moved, he will be remembered forever. He is not afraid of bad news, his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. His heart is steady, he will not be afraid until he looks in triumph on his adversaries. He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor. His righteousness endures forever, his horn is exalted in honor. The wicked man sees it and is angry, he gnashes his teeth and melts away. The desire of the wicked will perish. So again, this is something every Jew listening to Jesus would have understood. Giving to the poor is one of the marks of a righteous person. The wicked are going to be judged and condemned, but the righteous will be blessed, and part of the signs or the marks of being a righteous person is distributing freely, as he says, giving freely to the poor. Back in the Sermon on the Mount, I think giving to the poor in this context is a religious act. Ultimately, it is about their obedience to and relationship with God. Now, what does Jesus say about the hypocrites? In 6.2, he says, 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. Jesus uses this language of sounding a trumpet, and what is he talking about there? Did they actually physically sound a trumpet? Well, as far as I can tell, we don't actually know for sure. There was a trumpet that was sounded at certain public feasts, and it's possible that giving to the poor became associated with those feasts at the moment the trumpet sounded, but there's no real solid evidence either way. It could be that sounding a trumpet was an actual historical practice, or it could be that Jesus is speaking metaphorically. We have the expression today, don't blow your own horn, and that may actually come from this passage, I don't know. But you can see that Jesus might be speaking metaphorically, something like don't blow your own horn, like the hypocrites do. I just don't think we have enough evidence to know whether there was any kind of actual practice of blowing the trumpet literally or this is just metaphor. But in either case, his point is obvious, the hypocrites are not just giving to the poor, they're giving to the poor in a way that ensures everyone else knows about it. Whether there's a literal trumpet involved or not, their goal is to make sure everyone else knows they're giving to the poor. And Jesus says, these people have received their reward in full. And from my perspective, that's a very important phrase in this little section, and he's going to repeat it in each example. Broadly and categorically speaking, there are two ways to be religious. We can be religious because we genuinely love God and want to follow Him, or we can be religious because we want something in this life. There are certain rewards in this life for being religious, or at least there used to be, maybe not so much in modern America anymore. But it used to be that religious people were admired and trusted and held in high esteem. Religious people were actually portrayed as the good guys in films and television. So why would a New Testament Jew give alms to the poor? Well, it could be because he takes God seriously, because God's commanded it, because God has called him to love his neighbor as himself. It could be that he has come to understand that he himself is dependent on the mercy and compassion and generosity of God and he wants to be merciful and compassionate in return. He knows he cannot save himself by hoarding his money, but rather God has promised to bless him if he follows God faithfully. He understands that the one and only way to arrive at true blessing is to follow God and wait on his promises, and he is looking for the reward that God alone can give, which will be found in the coming kingdom of God. So one reason faithful Jews might perform this religious practice of giving to the poor is because they are looking for the promised reward from God. But there's another reason religious Jews of the New Testament era might perform this practice of giving to the poor, and that is because it can pay to be seen by others as a pious religious person. In their culture, religious people were respected, admired, and treated very well. They were rewarded with the approval of their peers and those around them. This is what Jesus is talking about when he says they have their reward in full. They are doing what they do in order to be seen and approved of by others, and they get that approval. That's the reward they're seeking, and they get it. In contrast to the faithful who is given to the poor now, but their blessing is yet to come, it will come in the kingdom of heaven when God fulfills his promises. The hypocrites are giving in order to receive approval now, and they have that approval. The hypocrites already have what they're looking for. Now the hypocrites may not be consciously aware that they're seeking the approval of others, they may be deceiving themselves, they may not know what their primary motivation is, but we can tell what it is because they're giving in a way that makes sure everyone else knows that they're giving. And on that day when the blessings of the kingdom of God arrive, the hypocrites are not going to receive anything. They already got the reward they were looking for. Now what's the alternative? He tells us in six three and four. 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. Now as modern Christians, we have become so familiar with this language that we often miss the impact of what Jesus is saying. This is a metaphor. It's not possible to keep your left hand from knowing what your right hand is doing, but it paints a really vivid picture of the idea. When you give to the poor, don't blow a trumpet. The folks at the synagogue don't need to know. The people on the street don't need to know. In fact, even your left hand doesn't need to know. You should have so little interest in having an audience that you yourself don't even know that you did it. Jesus is exaggerating to make his point. He's exaggerating to show how important it is that your motivation not be self-serving. His language makes us realize that not only might we be showing off for others, we might be showing off for ourselves. I may be my own approving audience. I may enjoy proving myself to be righteous. I might enjoy thinking of myself as generous and merciful and kind. And it's nice to be able to pat myself on the back and say, hey, I did good there. God, did you notice how good I did there? And this picture of not letting your left hand know what your right hand is doing adds to this picture that not only should I avoid seeking the approval of my peers, I should avoid seeking my own approval and self-promotion. Well, what's the result of not being hypocritical? Your father who sees in secret will reward you. We are not looking for the reward of the approval of our peers. We are not even looking to bolster our own self-satisfied approval. We are looking for the reward that comes from faithfully following God. And in context, I think that reward is clear. The Beatitudes talked about inheriting the kingdom of God, the antithesis talked about entering the kingdom of God, and the reward that we're still talking about is finding eternal life in the kingdom of God. Now in six five, Jesus turns to another important religious practice of the day, prayer. This is Matthew six, five and six. 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. Now prayer is a fairly obvious religious practice. Prayer by its very nature is supposed to be directed toward God. The whole point of praying is to talk to God. And yet prayer can be done in such a way that it is not really about God at all. It can be another way of winning the approval of my friends and peers. I can pray in such a way that I want others to recognize how pious and religious and perfect I am. And that's what the religious hypocrites of Jesus' day were doing. They stood in the street corners, they stood up in the synagogues, and they used prayer as a means of proving to others that they were pious. They used public prayer to gain the approval of their fellow Jews. And Jesus says once again they have their reward in full. If you're looking for the approval of your peers, then it doesn't really matter how God responds to your prayer because you're not praying to him anyway, you're praying for your peers. What matters is how those peers respond. And the hypocrites win the approval of the crowd, and that's the reward they were looking for by praying. Once again, Jesus gives an alternative. Instead of praying in the synagogue or on the street corners, go into the most private room of your house and shut the door. Now, as we've seen throughout this sermon, I would say that Jesus again is using exaggeration and provocative language to make a point. He's trying to contrast two ways of praying, and he wants to make a stark, clear, black and white line between them. I don't think he's giving a command that the only legitimate way to pray is privately in your room by yourself. He is not proposing an end to public prayer or corporate prayer. Jesus himself prayed in public. His apostles prayed in public, the apostles write prayers in their letters. He is not giving a command. He's setting up a contrast to make his point. He's calling on his listeners to stop and think, when you pray, who is your audience? Are you really talking to God or are you talking to your peers? Are you really trusting God and seeking communication with him or are you seeking the approval of your friends? Well, here's one way to tell. Or has prayer lost its appeal? If prayer no longer appeals to you because now you're in private and no one can hear you but God, then you know that your primary motivation was being seen by others. Prayer is supposed to be between us and God. It's about thanking him, acknowledging him, crying out to him, and so forth. Prayer should really only be about me and God. Now, I may be making requests for other people, praying about situations that others are involved in, but I am talking to my God about things that are on my heart. It's only meaningful if we recognize that God is our creator, our source of life, and we are looking to follow Him to know Him and to value what He values. No one else needs to know what we've said. Now there's a lot more we could say about prayer, and in fact, Jesus does go on to say a lot more about prayer in this context. He goes on to give us the Lord's Prayer, but we're going to save that for later podcasts. The particular point he's highlighting right now is this idea of practicing your righteousness before your peers, and the reward you're seeking is their approval. So he's talking about the way you practice your religion, the way you seek to follow God, is doing that in a public way before your peers, seeking their approval or not. So skipping the Lord's Prayer then, let's go on to his third example because he goes on to make this same point using fasting. This is Matthew six, verses sixteen through eighteen. 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. Well, at this point I probably don't even need to explain this to you. It's exactly the same point we saw in the two previous examples. Do not fast like the hypocrites do in order to be seen by other people. They have their reward in full. They are doing what they're doing in order to be seen and approved by others, and they have that approval. Rather, fast in such a way that no one knows your fasting except you and God, and then you will have your reward from God. Now let me just say a couple of things about fasting in New Testament Jewish life. I'm not an expert on this subject, but here's what I know about it. The Jews were commanded to fast once per year on the Day of Atonement. Otherwise, the fasting we see in the Old Testament was not a regular scheduled kind of fasting. Rather, fasting was a response to a specific situation, usually a bad situation. Fasting often went along with repentance. An individual or the entire community would realize they'd broken the covenant in some way, they were threatened by a neighbor in some way, and as part of their repentance and calling on God, they would fast. So fasting often accompanied calling on God in times of trouble. Rather than being a habitual practice, it was a response to the circumstances they were facing. Now in New Testament times, the evidence we have suggests that fasting had become a regularly scheduled event, at least for the Pharisees. In one of the parables of Jesus, one of the Pharisees describes himself as fasting twice per week. That's in Luke 18, 12. And presumably fasting twice a week was something that Pharisees typically did. We also know that John the Baptist instructed his disciples to fast, and we know that John's disciples criticized Jesus for not fasting. This is Matthew 9 14. Then the disciples of John came to him saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? And in Mark, the parallel account, he gives us a little more detail. This is Mark 2.18. Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, and people came and said to him, Why did John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? So we know by the New Testament time it had become a kind of habitual practice, a sign of religious devotion in some way. But I don't think here Jesus is commanding us to fast. He's looking at these three traditional religious practices, giving to the poor, praying, and fasting, and he's saying, What's the true spirit in which you should do these things? Now fasting is the choice to restrict one's diet for the purpose of paying attention to God. But I think we take that too lightly today. In the ancient world, meals were not like ours. We could have a sandwich with us or grab something to eat and be talking on the phone and typing and answering email all at the same time so that we don't even know that we were eating. But in Jesus' time, meals were communal events. The whole family would gather together. Preparation took a lot longer time, and it was expected that you would enter into extended conversation and be part of the social network. So to fast was a deliberate attempt not just to stop eating, but to withdraw from that social network, to stop listening to all those other voices so that you could pay attention to God. So you were stepping away from your responsibilities in order to call on God and seek Him. As I understand it, fasting was stepping away from all the entanglements of your daily life in order to spend time with God. The idea was to make space in your life so that others did not have the same access or claim on your time. Skipping lunch today is just not the same thing. I think the equivalent in our culture might be closer to shutting down your cell phone, turning off your computer, refusing to open your email, and not getting on the internet. As I understand it, the spirit behind fasting is to step away from the things that claim your time and your attention and your daily responsibilities in the world in order to seek God, either in response to a circumstance or to thank Him or to cry out to Him for some need. For most of us, skipping meals is just not going to accomplish that goal. Meals just don't make that much demand on our time, not like cell phones, smartphones, driving the carpool and the internet. If I'm right about that, and the point is to devote more of your time to God, clearly the point is not to make sure everyone around you knows that you're doing it. Like prayer, fasting ought to be between you and God. You shouldn't need the approval of others or their attention in order to do it. So he's saying do not fast like the hypocrites do in order to be seen by other people. They have that reward of their peers' approval in full, rather fast in such a way that no one knows it but you and God, and then you will have your reward from God. Now to close, I want to compare what Jesus says here with what he said earlier in the conclusion of the Beatitudes, because some critics have pointed to these two verses and charged Jesus with contradicting himself. So earlier in chapter 516, Jesus said, In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Then here in six one he says, Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. Some critics have pointed to these verses and said, Look, here Jesus says, Display your good works, and then he turns around and says, Don't let anyone else see your good works. See, that just proves that the Bible's unreliable and Jesus is contradicting himself. Well, if you isolate these verses and you pull them out of context and juxtapose them next to each other, they could appear contradictory. But if we stop and think about the sermon as a whole and the point Jesus has been making, I think we can see that together they complete the picture of the point he's making. In chapter five, Jesus was talking about persecution. Blessed are you when you're reviled and persecuted because you follow Jesus. The context there was the kind of hostility you might face for following Jesus in a world that rejects Jesus. And he was urging us to live our lives as he describes people who are poor in spirit, mourning, peacemakers, and so forth, following. Following the example of our Lord Jesus Christ. And when we do that, people are not going to like that. They may take advantage of us, they may hate us for following a different path, and they may persecute us. In that section, Jesus was urging his followers not to abandon the faith in order to escape the hostility of the world. In that sense, we are to let our light shine. We are not to hide our light, as he says, in order to avoid being rejected and persecuted because we follow Jesus. As he said, a city on a hill can't be hidden, so don't try. Follow God and trust him for the result. The result may be persecution, or the result could be that some people will turn from their sinful path and glorify God with you. Either way, hold fast to the faith. That's the sort of thing Jesus was saying in chapter five. In chapter six, he's speaking to a different issue. Now Jesus is talking about the motivation you might have for doing various religious practices, giving to the poor, praying, and fasting. And he's asking, stop and ask yourself why you're doing these things. Are you giving, praying, and fasting because you sincerely want to follow God? Or because you want your neighbors to think highly of you? Are you trying to be obedient to God or are you trying to win the approval of your peers? Are you looking for the reward of God's blessing in his kingdom tomorrow? Or are you looking for the approval of your friends today? And it's in this context, then he says, Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. There's an interesting use of this word glorify in these passages. In 516, Jesus says that some may see your good works and give glory to God. People might look at you and how you follow Jesus and praise God, not praise you, but praise God. You might be persecuted. And in six two, he says the hypocrites sound the trumpet so that they may be praised or glorified by men. It's the same word that we saw in 516. And we have basically the same phrase, but the hypocrites are the ones being glorified in 6.2, not God. Now together those two uses give us this full picture. Normal human behavior is often motivated by the reaction of others. We all want to fit in. We all want other people to like us and accept us. We want to be the kind of people who are popular, respected, and admired, and the approval of our peers is a very powerful motivating force. But the approval of our peers can play out differently. In some situations, we may be tempted to hide our religion in order to gain the approval of others and avoid the rejection. In other situations, we may be tempted to display and promote our religion in order to gain the approval of others and avoid the rejection. And Jesus is calling on the genuine believer to resist both of those temptations. My goal should not be to avoid the disapproval of other people, and neither should my goal be to gain the approval of other people. I'm called to follow God whether others approve or not. His approval is the only approval I should care about, and his reward is the only reward worth pursuing. I want to make one last comment on this phrase, they have their reward in full, because as I said, I think that's a very important phrase and the key to this section. And I want to stop and think about that a minute. This phrase captures what I think the Bible means by worldliness. It's common for us today to associate the idea of being worldly with being materialistic, being too involved with the things of this world. And the argument goes that to work for a Fortune 500 company is worldly because you're involved in the things of this world. You're just out for capitalism and making money and so forth. But to work for a nonprofit, say involved in bringing clean water to the poor in Africa, well that's not worldly because you're seeking to help your fellow human beings and you're not motivated by the things of this world like getting rich. And that's a very common perspective, but I think that perspective misses the heart of what the Bible means by worldliness. Rather, I think the examples we've just seen here are really good descriptions of what it means to be worldly. Every human being is looking for a reward of some kind. We are all looking for a desirable outcome. Everyone has a goal, everyone has a picture of what it means to have a good life, and everyone is hoping for positive outcomes or rewards. You might start a business that makes millions of dollars and is listed in the Fortune 500, or you might sell all your possessions and live in a mud hut helping the poor somewhere. Whichever path you take, Fortune 500 or nonprofit, you're doing this because you're seeking some desirable reward. You're seeking an outcome. There is something motivating your actions. I would argue that we are worldly if we are seeking our reward in this world. We are doing what we're doing in this life because we want the rewards this life has to offer, like the approval of others. And I might start a Fortune 500 company with that motivation. I might sell my possessions and live in a mud hut with that motivation. The true follower of God is seeking the rewards only God can give. Ultimately, we're seeking to be rescued from sin and death, forgiven by the blood of Christ, and granted eternal life in the kingdom of God. And whatever we do, whatever path we take, that's our motivation. I can have that motivation and start a Fortune 500 company. I can lack that motivation and work on a clean water project in a poor country. I can have that motivation and work in full-time ministry. I can lack that motivation and be in full-time ministry. Just like I can give to the poor, pray and fast with the right motivation, or I can give to the poor, pray and fast with the wrong motivation. I heard a talk once that made a distinction between, quote, kingdom work and all that gritty capitalism stuff. The speaker described and defined kingdom work as basically all the social justice causes that are currently in vogue. Everything else was worldly. Well, that's a false dichotomy. There are all kinds of ways to serve God. And there are all kinds of ways we can look like we're serving God when in fact we're really serving ourselves. You are not safe from being worldly because you serve the poor or work for a nonprofit, as we saw in these examples. You're not condemned because you work in a company that makes a profit. Remember, Jesus was speaking to the religious people of his day here. He's speaking to the Pharisees and the people who see the Pharisees as their role models, and he's saying, Beware of self-deception. They are claiming to seek me, but they're seeking me in a way that is very self-serving. Basically, his point is being religious is no guarantee that you are genuinely following God. However, you define obedience to God, whether it's full-time ministry work, going to church weekly, praying, fasting, giving to the poor, adopting social justice causes, working in a nonprofit, however you want to define obedience, Jesus is saying, stop and ask yourself, why are you doing it and who are you doing it for? What reward are you hoping to gain? Whose approval are you looking for? Are you looking for the approval of your peers or are you looking for the approval of God? Where do you hope to find life? I would argue that one of the implications or applications of this passage is that the worldly who come in all shapes, sizes, and professions are seeking their reward in this life. That's the significance of this phrase. They have their reward in full. The faithful, who also come in all shapes, sizes, and professions, are seeking the reward that only God can give and will ultimately be found in the kingdom of heaven. In the end, it all comes down to do I truly long for the reward found only in the kingdom of God? If I am, then I can be doing kingdom work regardless of whether I work for a profit or non-profit company or I'm a stay-at-home parent. The Bible tells me what I truly need. I need to escape the coming judgment of God. I need to be rescued from my own evil, sin, and selfishness. I need to be giving eternal life in the kingdom of God. If I really truly understand my situation, that's what I need. God will keep his promises. One day his patience will end and his judgment will come. Some will find life in his kingdom and some will not. And Jesus is telling us who will find life in his kingdom and who will not. If I want to be in his kingdom, that will be the reward, the desirable outcome that I am longing for now. That will be the goal I am living my life to obtain. If I don't think that there is any kind of eternal life coming, then I have no other option but to look for the rewards of today. And that's what it means to be warming. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word, the podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but also seeks to show you how to figure it out. You can hear all previous episodes in this series on my website, wednesdayintheword.com. There is no charge, no spam, and no ads. If you've been blessed by this podcast, please subscribe, leave a positive rating or review wherever you listen, but most importantly, tell a friend what you learned. Our theme music is graciously provided by my friend and favorite musician, Reggie Coates. You can listen to all his music and find his CDs on heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.