The War for Your Why

Greeneville Seventh-day Adventist Church: Because he lives, we have so many blessings. Everything is purchased by the blood. All right, as you guys know, we've been going through the book of Matthew, and today we're in Matthew chapter six. So before we get into it, I'm gonna have a quick word of prayer, and we will dig in. Father, I just ask, Lord, that you would speak, that your word. would be clear to us in its meaning and its import that your spirit would be present in each one of our hearts and minds and through my words, Lord, that the truth will be impressed. And I ask ultimately that you would be glorified and we would be drawn closer in Jesus' name, amen. So, in Matthew chapter five, we talked about the Beatitudes, we talked about how We need righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees. And how that is not necessarily being more holy than the Pharisees, it's a righteousness that goes deeper than the externals. The Pharisees did all sorts of good things, but in their hearts, they were still filthy. And so we see that in Matthew chapter five, and in Matthew chapter six, it's the same concept, but it kind of switches And so my sermon today is called The War for Your Why. Matthew. seems to indicate this shift here. By verse 48 of chapter five he says, you shall be perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect. It's the close of chapter five. And then chapter six, we have two words that start off the chapter that I wanna highlight first. Take heed. What does take heed mean? That's not super modern English. In our modern English we might say, Be careful, pay attention, watch out. Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men to be seen by them. Otherwise, you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Is God against charitable deeds? No. As a child, I'm sure most of you have been there, I saw this boy do something nice. and I think this was like probably preschool, kindergarten, first grade, somewhere. I was really young. I don't even remember when, but I remember this boy did a kind act and the teacher acknowledged him. ⁓ good boy. That was very kind of you. And so I, you know, I was like, man, I should do that too. Not because I cared about the person and actually wanted to do a good act, but so I could get a reward too, right? So the teacher would talk to me and be like, ⁓ good boy, you know? And this is kind of what it's getting at is like, Why do you do what you do? God does not so much care. He cares about what we do. Let's not get that wrong. He cares about what we do, but why we do it is so much more important. It goes on to say, when you do a charitable deed, don't sound the trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your charitable deed may be done in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will himself reward you openly. So there's three categories that we're going to go through today. We have good deeds, alms, we have prayer, and we have fasting. And we're going to see how in each of these things, these are all very good things. We should be regularly doing good deeds. We should be regularly praying and fasting. But more so than just what we do, in each one of these, there's a good way of doing it, a good purpose, a good motive, and there's a polluted, a poisoned motive. And we're going to look into each one of these things. So first, I want to hit on giving. When I read this first when I was a baby Christian, I think I took it a little too literally. And I was like, well man, I can't do any good deeds unless I do it secretly. If they catch me, it doesn't count. If they see me do something, it doesn't count. Do you think that's what God is getting at here? No. It's not so much whether you're seen or whether you're not seen. But I like what it says here, in order to be seen by them. So we don't have to go around, put on a disguise in order to give money to someone, or we don't have to always write anonymous whenever we give. It's not about hiding what we do. Sometimes, you know, in chapter five it says, let your light shine, right? That people may see your good works and glorify your Father. It's not about being seen or not being seen, but why are you giving in the first place? Do you give out of an obligation? Right? Do you give because I'm supposed to give? Because I have to give? Or because they kept begging me, you know? There's a lot of polluted motives. This is only one of them, and I think the message goes deeper than just to be seen. Do we give because we have to, right? Because if I don't give, you know, I'm not a good Christian, or if I don't give, then I'm not going to be blessed. Those are not good motives. We might still be giving. It's pharisaical. It's hypocritical. Or do we give because of love? Do we give because we love the person and because we love God, who is the ultimate giver? Jesus says, freely we have received, freely we should give. And God loves a cheerful giver. God says that he will reward the honest sincere giver. Do you guys believe that? And I think that's crazy, you know, because God doesn't have to reward us for doing good things Technically we're supposed to do the good things, right? That's what's expected. You know, I don't I don't you know Congratulate my wife for getting up in the morning. Well, got up in the morning. Good job You know, I can't let's do this and it's expected that she's gonna get up, right? But God is so sweet, so merciful to us that when we do what we're supposed to do, He rewards us. It's like we have a puppy. I don't know how many of you guys knew that. We have a puppy. And I reward Him with treats for doing things He already should do, you know? But it's because I care about Him and I want Him to remember to do that again. And I think that's what God does with us. He's training us like we train dogs sometimes. Good job. Do that again. It's good to give for the right reason and I'll reward you for that. When we do the right things for the right reasons, we get blessings. Not because it's a work that receives a wage, but because we're doing the right thing and our father wants to encourage that behavior. So we get blessings when we do the right things. Does that mean we should do good things to get blessings? No. See how easy it is to get a polluted motive. And we have to be careful of that. We don't give so that we get blessings. We don't give so that we get glory. We don't give for any other reason than because there's a need and we care and we have love and so we give. And if we give in that motive, God sees and he will reward us. Does that make sense? Let's pray straight forward. Onward to prayer. Prayer, this one's a bit bigger. This one's also, we're probably all more guilty on this one. When you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. They love to pray standing in the synagogues on the corner of the streets that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward. They have their reward. That's heavy, isn't it? Because what is prayer? Prayer is communion with God, is it not? When we pray and we talk to God usually we're asking for blessings. We're asking for things that we need We're praising him. We're thanking him, but we're also petitioning God help me with my temper You know, please provide the food I need but it says here if we're praying to be seen That's all we get You pray so that people think you're holy? There's your reward, they think you're holy. Isn't that kind of scary? So think, God looks at the motives of our prayers, and that's what counts. Not the eloquence of our prayers, not the regularity of our prayers. But why are we praying? What are our motives when we pray to God? Being seen in prayer is not as much of an issue today usually. Some people maybe, but I've noticed nowadays it's more so people don't want to pray in public. It's hard to get people to volunteer to pray. But a lot of times I've noticed one of the formalities, one of the bad motives in prayer is we pray because we're supposed to pray. We pray because we need to pray. God expects us to pray. Read your Bible, pray every day and you'll grow, grow, grow. But I tell you, surely I say to you, You can read your Bible and pray every day and not grow. Why are you reading your Bible? Why are you praying? If you do it for the wrong motives, you're not going to grow. If you pray just because you're supposed to pray, or God expects you to pray, that's all you get. You met the expectation, you prayed. If you read your Bible just because you're supposed to read through your Bible, you want to get through it in a year, that's your reward, you got through it in a year. You might have gained some knowledge. God is merciful. You might have some insights. You might have grown some. But why makes so much of a difference? Do you pray to commune with your father in heaven? Do you pray because you really deeply feel your need of his blessings, your need of his forgiveness? Why do you pray? When you pray, go into your room. When you shut your door, pray to your father who is in the secret place. And your father who sees in secret will reward you openly. And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathens do. for they think that they will be heard for their many words. I've fallen into this trap. You know, sometimes I feel like I have to repeat myself to God multiple, multiple times so that he hears me. Right? The Bible says that he hears us before we even ask. Sometimes I catch myself saying, Lord, please be with us, and then like five minutes later my parent, please be with us, please be with us. And I hit the same thing over and over because I think deep down if I really examine my motives, I'm worried that he's not going to answer, right? Or that he's not going hear me, or maybe that, you know, I don't think that he realizes how much I want this one, and so I'm going to hit it a couple of times. But all of these motives are kind of, I'm kind of twisting God's arm, if think about it. Trying to get God to answer me because of something I'm doing, rather than because of who he is. Right? And Ellen White talks about this. She says, The heathen, talked about here, looked upon prayers as having in themselves merit to atone for sin. Hence, the longer the prayer, the greater the merit. Sometimes we fall into that trap, right? If our prayers are longer, we think they have more weight with God, right? If they could become holy by their own efforts though, they would have something in themselves to rejoice in. Some other ground for boasting. And this idea of prayer is an outworking of the same principle of self-expiation, basically self-forgiveness, self-righteousness, which lies at the foundation of every system of false religion. This idea that something that we can do will help God in His forgiving of our sins or working out of His blessings in our lives. If I can just pray for 10 minutes, right? then God will hear me and I'll have checked it off for the day and I'll be righteous today. Or if you know, if I pray for this specific thing, then I'm good. But that's the whole wrong motive, right? That's totally, you got it all backwards. God doesn't care how long we pray or what words we use when we pray. We don't have to say thou and thee and art, but the simple earnest longings of the soul is what God cares about. She says the most eloquent prayers are just idle words if they do not express the true sentiments of the heart. Right? We can pray for forgiveness, but if we don't really want forgiveness, if that's not the sentiment of the heart, it's idle words. We can pray, you know, for God to bless that person that we're frustrated with. But if we don't really want them to be blessed, it's just idle words. But the prayer that comes from an earnest heart when the simple wants of the soul are expressed, as we would ask an earthly friend for a favor expecting it to be granted, this is the prayer of faith. God does not desire our ceremonial compliments, but the unspoken cry of the heart broken and subdued with a sense of its sin and utter weakness finds its way. the Father of all mercy. Isn't that beautiful? God warns us against these fake prayers because we scam ourselves out of a blessing when we think that this is what God wants or this is what's acceptable. When we give, we're blessed. When we give from the right motive. When we pray, we're blessed. When we pray with the right motives. When we pray to just express our wants to our Father. When we just say, God, I'm really struggling with this and I need help. Amen. God hears that, right? We don't need to fluff it up to make it more acceptable. Jesus and His blood is what makes it acceptable. So when we pray. Pray after this manner. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever. Amen. What is that, like 30 seconds? covered every big area of life. And if we sincerely meant those words, God would hear it just as well as if we prayed a long prayer. We're not gonna dig into the Lord's Prayer, that could be a whole sermon in itself, but I wanna hit the highlights. The model pair that Jesus gives us has a couple of categories. Our Father. God, of all the words that God could use, that Jesus could use to explain God, he uses the word Father. He's an affectionate, tender God. Personal God. He's a Father. And first we say to Him, let Your name be glorified, right? Let Your name be hallowed. Let Your kingdom come and let Your will be done. That teaches us when we're praying, First and foremost, our concern should be for God's glory, God's kingdom, and God's will, not our own, right? we should seek to lift him up, to advance his kingdom, and to do his will in all things. Next, we go on to our wants, our needs. We need our daily bread, both physical and spiritual. We need forgiveness every day, which is in proportion as we forgive. So we need the gift of forgiveness as well for others, because we can't forgive on our own. We need power against temptation and deliverance, right? To be led in straight paths. And ultimately we pray to Him because He owns it all. His is the Kingdom and the power and the glory. Amen. It's pretty simple, right? And that's what's so beautiful about it. When we just pray simply, earnestly, sincerely, that's what God really wants. That's what God really wants. And then... There's a little throw in about the importance of forgiveness. If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. Pretty straightforward. We need to forgive if we want to be forgiven. I've heard the saying, know, harboring resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to get sick. That's true. One of the biggest things that can hinder your life is unforgiveness, bitterness, resentment, will poison your life. And so it's not just for them, it's for you to forgive them. It's a blessing for you. So we see when we give, we need to give out of sincerity, out of love, to truly benefit and bless someone, not to be seen, not because we have to. Good motives. When we pray, We need to pray simply, earnestly to talk with God. Because we need Him, because we love Him. Not to be seen. Not because we have to. We don't need to make our prayers long and repetitive. Just earnest and simple. And then when we fast, this one hits me. You know, this one convicted me when I was preparing. It says, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites with a sad countenance. Not the sad countenance part. what convicted me, but it says when you fast. It doesn't say if you fast, it says when you fast. I haven't fasted in a long time, right? Not in the normal sense of fasting, right? I mean sometimes I set a fast apart for I'm not gonna I'm gonna do a technology fast or a media fast, but like a true fast. It's been a while, but it says when you fast. Don't be like the hypocrites. So first there's kind of this assumption that you're fasting. So we're going to talk about fasting. It says here. And Miss White says this, it's beautiful. I really like how she talks about fasting. She says, Isn't that deep? I think sometimes when it comes to fasting, I know I've done this in the past, like if I stumble and I sin or something like that and I've messed up, then I'm like, ⁓ I need to fast. You know, like... almost like I need to fast, not because I need to draw closer to God and perceive the sinfulness of sin, but because I need to like, I need to strip myself of all this stuff and almost like afflict my body because my soul has sinned, right? I need to punish myself almost. You can't say it like that, right? Because then you're like, ah, you can't punish yourself. But almost that kind of same mindset of like, I need to do something because of what I've done, right? I need to fix what I've caused. But she says that's not the true purpose of fasting. It's not about trying to fix what you've done by your own efforts. Even in fasting, says, the purpose of fasting is not to afflict the body for the sin of the soul, but to help us perceive the grievous character of sin. I'm going say that one more time. The true purpose of fasting is to help us perceive the character of sin. That's one of our biggest needs, right? Miss White says that we will never renounce sin unless we see it sinful. And how do we see the sinfulness of sin? Fasting. The true purpose of fasting is to help us see the sinfulness of sin and to help us humble our hearts before God to receive His pardon and grace. I think that's something that we should all meditate on. I think that's something we all need. I think we all need to fast more. Not to afflict our bodies for the things we've done, but because we all could use a deeper understanding of just how grievous sin is. Because that revelation will be one of the best things in helping us to renounce sin and draw closer to God. So when we fast, Let's not look sad to help other people see that we're fasting and we're holy, right? They just figure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. And truly, I tell you, they have their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face. Basically, get ready like normal, look normal, be normal, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your father who is in the secret place. And your father who sees in secret will reward you openly. So whether we're whether we're praying, whether we're fasting, whatever it may be, these are just a couple examples, not an exhaustive list. Whatever you do, do all for the glory of God. because we love him, because we want to be like him. And the reason I call this the war for your why is because it's hard. It's not easy. We are sinful people. We're like idle factories. We always have some corrupt motive to do a good thing, right? What's in it for me? And you have to have a daily battle with yourself. To truly do this, to truly do good things for the right reason, is hard. And you can't do it yourself. It's kind of the conclusion I come to in all my sermons, right? You can't do it. But Jesus can, and He'll help you. And so, all of these are a call to be honest with ourselves, what are our motives? And whenever we see that our motives aren't where they should be, which will happen, it's inevitable. That's a call to come closer to God, and to say, God, I need your help. Fix my heart. I'm doing these things for the wrong reason. a big part of the Laodicean church, right? We think we're rich and increased with goods. We think we're holy. We think we're ready. But we don't realize we're wretched and miserable, poor, blind and naked because we're not honest with ourselves. We're deceiving ourselves. When we need to dig deeper, look at our motives and say, man, I did the right things, but I did it for the wrong reason. I spent the time with God, but I did it just because I felt like I needed to. I didn't really want to connect with God. You know, I came to church. But I didn't really want to worship God, I just did it because I usually come, and if I don't come they're going to be like, where were you today? You know? Whatever we do, we need to question our motives. And something really hit me the other day. I've been reading through, it's a compilation called Pastoral Ministry. Man, she's got some hard hitting stuff. And one of them, one of them really stuck out to me. She says, I'm paraphrasing. She says that we need to have daily time for self-examination to examine our motives and that this is necessary. You guys know what that word means, right? Needful, ⁓ a prerequisite is necessary for anyone who would come to attain a perfect Christian character. If you want to be like Jesus, she says it's necessary to spend daily time in self-examination, to examine our motives, to become acquainted with ourselves and why we do what we do. And that hit me hard. It's like, man, I don't do that. To look at the end of my day and be like, I did this today, I did this today, but this I did for the wrong reason. And yeah, I smiled at this person, but just to be polite, I didn't really want to see them. Or this, you know, I ate too much food because I just wanted to indulge my stomach, right? Little things, we need to be honest with ourselves. Now's the time to do it. And this is basically the point of this message we see here in Matthew 6 is God looks at our motives and God cares about our motives and God's blessings and rewards are contingent upon our motives. God answers the sincere prayer, not the formal prayer, not the idle words. God blesses the sincere acts of charity, not the careless giving. God blesses the contrite soul that's fasting. And so we need to see that in everything. Because not only does God bless it, but we ourselves are only truly blessed when we're sincere and honest with ourselves. And others are only truly blessed when we're sincere and honest in what we do. People can tell. Deep down, there's like a subconscious connection between us all or something. I don't know how it works. But we can tell when someone's being genuine. The difference between someone doing a kind thing because it's, you know, expected versus when someone truly comes near in love to support you. can tell. And that's what's going to make the difference in these last days when we're witnessing, when we're living life with people is, do we really love them? And can they tell? Are our motives right? And so I want to encourage you guys, through it all, sincerity, integrity, genuine love is what we need. And that's not something that you have. So we need to go to God for it. And we need to be intentional about it. It takes diligence. It takes intentionality. But that's what God wants from us, and that's what we should want from ourselves, is to be men and women of sincerity, whose motives are in line with their actions. So it's a war for your why. But we can win it. Because Jesus went through these same struggles and he gives us the power. His divine power has given us all things pertaining to life and godliness through a knowledge of him who's called us to glory and virtue. And by this knowledge he's given us exceedingly great and precious promises. So that through these we may be partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that's in the world through life. So my appeal to you guys, find some time each day, you can start small, find a little time each day to examine your motives on some of the biggest things in your day. Why did I do that today? And it's really revealing. Sometimes it's kind of hard. I've been doing it off and on. I'm not fully consistent yet. But when I do it and I sit there, I'm like, man, I thought I did that for a good reason. But when I look at it, I'm like, you know, is that really a good reason? And you pray about it and God's like, we need to work on that. And that's okay, let's work on it. So I want to encourage you to find some time, spend it in self-examination, and I would encourage you. To give sincerely, to pray earnestly, simply, and let's fast. Let's spend some time in fasting so that we can all see the sinfulness of sin and draw closer to God. Let's pray. Father, thank you. Thank you for being so good to us, so patient. And I thank you that you are a God who can see deep inside because only you truly know what we need and how to fix us and who we are. And I pray that you would make that manifest to each one of us as we can bear it. Change us, mold us, make us more like you. Help us to fall in love with you more and more each day. To spend time with you because we love you, because we want you in our lives. Not just because we're supposed to. And please bless us as we work towards that end. Give us the diligence that we need. In Jesus' name, amen. I have an announcement as she's coming up to do the benediction, I mean the closing hymn. We have 25 people that we've been doing Bible studies with through correspondence. And they've received lessons one through six, but they haven't responded saying that they want more or not. We haven't heard from them. And so I'm supposed to follow up with each one of them and see, or someone's supposed to. And 25 is a lot. And I don't know if you've tried visiting people before, but it's not always easy. Sometimes they're not home, and you try again and they're not home, and you have to work it out. And so I have an appeal for each one of you guys. We have books outside in the lobby. They're going to be on a table. My wife will help passing them out. We have books there, thoughts from the Mount of Blessings, and there's a little letter in there for each of these people. talking about how we hope they enjoyed the lessons that they received and that this is a gift for them. And if they're interested in more, if they want to keep studying, to contact us, get contact information, all that kind of stuff. So the purpose is to give them this book as a gift and try to make a personal connection. Because statistically speaking, the number one thing that brings people into church is personal connections. So if you're willing to do that, please go there after the service. There's 25 of them. So each person just take one. If you think you can do two, take two. But don't overwhelm yourself. Sometime this next week, whenever you have a little free time, the address is there, the name is there. Don't give it to them. Take it out. But just go give them this book. Tell them it's from the church, that we care about them. Because if they don't respond, this is our last effort before we mark them as uninterested and archive them. Which is sad. Because these people had been interested, and now they're not responding. I'm helping us bear the burden together of 25 souls who said they were interested in studying the Bible but now aren't responding. And you can be a blessing to them by going to their house to see if they are still interested and hugging on their heartstrings. So, especially now is a good time because the holiday is coming up. A lot more people are open to spiritual things during Thanksgiving and Christmas. please. Thank you.