Do Good For The Right Reason (Jake Enns)

We are continuing in our sermon series this morning in the

Sermon on the Mount. Our title this morning is Do

Good for the Right Reasons and it's based on Matthew chapter 6,

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

the 1st 4 verses. I will say at the outset, this

is one of those passages where a lot of people get their toes

stepped on and their feelings hurt because giving is such an

extremely sensitive and delicate and fragile issue in the hearts

of so many people. Nobody needs to tell me what to

give, how much to give, when to give, and so on and on and on it

goes. The, the sermon series that we

we're on is the Gospel of Mark in the Matthew, the Sermon on

the Mount, Matthew 5-6 and seven.

And the first part, chapter 5. Actually, commentators say that

this deals more with the outward stuff.

For instance, Jesus elevated anger to the category of murder.

So if you're angry at somebody, you're yelling at him and anger

and you're, you're angry at somebody.

Well, Jesus puts that in the same pile as he puts murder and

this idea of lusting for someone, he puts that in the

same category as actually committing adultery and the

swearing of oath. He puts that in the same

category as saying something beyond yes and no.

And last Sunday, Joel preached on love and action.

And we're called to do more than just be good to those who are

good to us and do good to those who do good to us.

We're called to be more. We're called to actually love

those who do not only do nothing to us, but those who do bad to

us. And today, this morning in

chapter 6, we see a shift in this this Sermon on the Mount.

Here Jesus focuses more from the outward, shifted inward.

Richard Gardner in his commentary puts it this way.

He writes, Jesus continues to talk about a righteousness which

exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees.

Up to this point, the focus has been on acting rightly in

relationships with fellow humans.

Now the focus shifts to write actions in relationship to God,

to pious deeds and practices. And these specific practices

that Jesus points out here are almsgiving, charity, prayer, and

fasting. And these three there were

customary expressions of piety and Judaism.

So this morning we'll not talk about doing wrong things like

hating enemies or yelling at people, things like that, but

it's more of the heart. It is possible to do good things

without a right heart and do good things with actually sinful

motives. Two people can do the exact same

good deed, but for very opposite reasons.

The deed may be may be a very good and noble deed, but the

heart may be very different. We can do good for right

reasons, which we should, but we can also do good for wrong

reasons. This becomes very, very

precarious in terms of how do we identify giving has been around

for thousands of years. Charity is not a new thing.

In the nation of Israel. There were different ways in

which God commanded his people to practice charity, to give

alms to the poor or to to give gifts to the church or to the to

the temple. One form of charity that was

practiced in the Old Testament was the gleaning of the fields.

They would cut the wheat, they would bind the sheaves, or

they'd pick the grapes and take them off to the wine VAT or take

the olives and bring them to the press and so on.

But what we find in the Old Testament, I'll just read some

of these just kind of to paint a backdrop for what they're

understanding and their perception was in those days of

giving and so on. Deuteronomy chapter 14, we read

Deuteronomy 14 · chapter mention

the the book of the law says at the end of every 3rd year you

should bring the tithe, bring out the tithe of your produce of

that you can store it up within your gates and the Levite

because he has no portion or inheritance with you.

And the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are

within your gates may come and eat and be satisfied that the

Lord your God may bless you and all the work of your hand which

you do. It was kind of a social network

for those who didn't have enough or couldn't make ends meet, so

to speak. It was kind of a measure of

social services in terms of food and so on.

And then as far as their work was concerned, Deuteronomy 2419,

we read When you reap your harvest in the field and forget

a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it.

It shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow,

that the Lord your God may bless you and all the work of your

hands. When you beat your olive brows,

you shall not go over the bows again.

It should be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow.

The same for the vineyards. When you gather the grapes of

your vineyard, you shall not clean it afterward.

It shall be for the stranger, the fathers and the widow, and

you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt.

Therefore, I command you to do this thing.

It's interesting how they were very well familiar with giving

and doing charity and the purpose of it.

This did not need to be explained, not clarified,

nothing like that. The instructions were clear.

Be generous and because of who God is.

Further, in the book of Proverbs we have a verse in Proverbs

1917. He who has pity in the poor

lends to the Lord, and he will pay back what he has given.

The gift of generosity and willingness to share runs

through the whole Old Testament. There are always and there have

always been and always will be needy people, beggars.

People are down on their luck, the elderly who can't provide

for themselves anymore or sick who can't because of their

health. It goes on in the world today

has many poor people in our time.

This thing applies as well. Not in those specific details.

Generosity is a biblical principle that runs right

through the core of the whole Scripture.

So Jesus taught this, but what Jesus did with the teaching on

giving was not just do it and that's it.

Why? Why are you doing it?

So that's where we want to go to Matthew chapter 6-1 to four.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

Let's read Matthew chapter 6-1 to four.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

Take heed. What that you do not do your

charitable deeds before men to be seen by them, otherwise

you've no reward from your Father in heaven.

Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a

trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues

and in the streets, that they may have glory from men assured.

They say to you they have their reward.

But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your hand, left

hand know what the right hand is doing, that your charitable deed

may be in secret and your Father who sees in secret will himself

reward you openly. It is interesting how Jesus does

this shift and how he now changes the the message.

Jesus is not asking if you give. That's not the question.

He said when you give how to do it, it's not a question of if,

it's a question of when. And one writer that I was

reading as I was preparing this sermon pointed out something

that I had not seen before. And he's asking the question.

He said, did Jesus contradict himself from Matthew 516 where

he said let your light so shine before men that they may see

your good works and glorify your Father in heaven to today to

take heed that you do not do your charitabilities before men

to be seen by them, otherwise you have no reward from your

Father in heaven. Is that a contradiction or

what's going on here? Here's here's the take.

Jesus is not so much worried if someone will see you doing a

good deed. The question is, are you seeing

it? Good deeds can't be hidden, they

come out. That's not the point of the

passage. Later on we'll get into that a

bit more, but what was Jesus focus?

Jesus does not want our heart, our attitude, our mind, our

heart and soul to be contaminated with wrong motives

when we do good deeds. Satan may not prevent us from

charity, from helping the poor, but if he can contaminate the

motive, that's all he needs. Then He still has us on the

wrong track. When a person gives, there are

basically two ways to give. Let's go over this verse a bit

more closely. Take heed that you do not do

your deeds. It's a negative statement.

Take think of that Stock mentions in his commentary.

It's a negative statement. Do not do your deeds before

meant to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward

from your Father in heaven. He's looking at the negative

here, then he goes to the positive.

Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a

trumpet before you as a hypocrite doing the synagogues

in the streets, that they may have glory.

For men are sure they say to you to have the reward.

In other words, do not give for earthly rewards.

In other words, keep your motives pure.

Do people sometimes give to get give with strings attached or

give because I want to feel good?

It makes me feel so good. It's not wrong to feel good when

we give, but if that's the motive for giving, has God-given

the honor? The expectations are so subtle.

They're so, they're so delicate. The thing it's, it's sometimes

we have strings attached when we don't even know it.

Just wait until somebody forgets to say thank you.

We have this need for acknowledgement, for

recognition, even self congratulation for people who

give with ulterior motives. Their question is not who, Who

will benefit from my gift is what advantage will it bring me?

When self focused people give, their question is what will my

reward be? How much will I get in return?

Somebody made a comment very wisely many years ago and I read

it and he said that's not a gift, that's a transaction

because it's an expectation. If I seek to benefit when it

helped another person, that's a transaction.

God site. The idea is how can I leverage

my giving to edge my way up and maybe get my foot in the door or

be be recognized, be acknowledged and so on.

When people give selfishly wanting recognition, God is

robbed, not as it now God's any poorer than he was before, but

God is robbed of the glory and the honor and we're taking it

for ourselves which where it doesn't belong.

Does it happen our time? Of course it doesn't happens a

lot. There's a story in the Bible

where we want to turn our attention to this morning and

spend a good chunk of our time here.

The story in the book of Acts, and I won't ask you to turn to,

but I'll just tell the story. The church had just started

recently and the apostles had preached, the Holy Spirit had

come, the church was growing, thousands were joining, and big

things were happening. They were selling their stuff

and they're selling lands and houses and properties, and they

were giving it to the apostles and they were distributing among

the poor and so on. There's a lot we could infer

from this story in terms of what happened to the church later on,

the persecution that came, which was good if they didn't own the

houses at the time anymore, but we'll go into that this morning.

But anyway, so they were being generous and people were just

giving, and the church was good, doing well.

The church was growing, the Spirit was adding new people,

and this generosity was just overflowing.

Things were good. The church was young, it was

strong, it was new, it was healthy, and so on.

And just by way of explanation, when we read a story, a book

like Acts, it's a storybook, it's a story of the church.

Not everything is prescriptive in the sense all we all got to

sell everything. Now, that's not why it's written

there, but just what they did in their circumstances, in their

context. And so we can learn from that.

So people were selling lands and houses, giving the money to the

church, and the church was giving to the poor and

distributing it. One couple in Ananias and

Sapphira, they were part of this.

They too had land. They saw it was going on and

they thought, you know what, we too want to participate.

We too want to join in on this generosity thing.

They decided to sell a field as well.

But there was a kink in the plans, a bent in their ideas.

We don't want to give all the money.

We'll just keep some of it for ourselves and then just let the

church believe we did, like everybody else does.

Owning the land was not sin. Selling the land was not sin.

Giving it part of the money was not sin.

None of that was sin. It was what, the reason, the

motive, why and how that was sin.

Well, Ananias comes to Peter with a portion of the money.

I don't know why he didn't just come together, why he didn't

bring all of it. Whatever those motives were,

we're not told Ananias comes to Peter.

We want to bring a donation. Peter instantly senses

something's wrong here. Hey, Ananias, is this how much

you sold the land for? Yes, sold for so and so much.

And Peter says, why have you conspired to lie against the

Holy Spirit? You haven't lied to people,

you've lied to God. That very moment Ananias

collapsed, fell down, was dead. The young men come in to see

Ananias lying on the floor there, and they come in, take

him out and they bury him. Three hours go by and Ananias's

wife comes along. She too brings money and not

knowing that her husband has just died and he's he's gone.

And Peter asks for the same question.

Did he sell the land for so much?

She said yes. She too wanted to appear as

generous when in fact she and her husband had agreed to keep

back a part of the money from the sale of the land.

He, she too, wanted to be viewed as more generous than they were.

Peter confronted her. She too died on the spot.

The result was a great fear. Him and all the people.

And they took God very seriously.

What happened? God had protected His church

from the contamination of pride and greed.

As I was reading this and meditating on this and going

over this, the question that ran through my mind was this.

What if God today would deal thus with all the Ananiasis and

Sapphira in the world today? What if they were exposed like

this and then and written about like this?

We don't know why God chose to deal that way with Ananias and

Sapphira, but what we do know is God knows the heart and we

don't. He dealt swiftly and harshly

with this couple. They had tried to collect praise

and glory for themselves at the expense of honesty and

integrity, making it look like hey, we're generous.

Meanwhile, they were greedy for recognition and acknowledgement.

They gave a good thing that some of the proceeds from their money

and Peter told him it wasn't. It was yours to keep and yours

to give. Why are you lying about it?

And God punished them. There are people today who give

plenty to the poor and the poor are benefiting from it.

But they lose the reward when it's because if we want to show

off or want to be seen as good and or look how much I gave and

so on. And then there are those who

when they give later on, they say, you know what isn't going?

My wish. I'm going to stop giving as

using that as leverage. Everything we have is from God.

Everything thing we have belongs to God.

The question I must ask myself regularly is what am I giving

for? What is my motive?

And this does not just apply to giving.

It's giving what we're talking about here today.

But what's my motive? Whether I'm serving anything,

any kind of giving to the church, my time, my energy, my

finances. I'm happy to say I know a lot of

people who give because they're generous.

I've personally met some very wealthy rich givers in my

lifetime and some people who are very poor.

And then they, and then when I find out they're giving, how,

how are they doing that? The principle here is not the

size of the gift, the amount of the money, but the heart out of

which it comes. So we need to ask ourselves,

what kind of heart am I giving out of pressure?

Guilt because the law says so? Or do we give out of a

relationship with Jesus driven by love and generosity?

Some people have never discovered the joy of giving.

They may be well off or not well off, but it's the fear.

Oh, I can't, I don't have anything or the the flip side of

it is then, OK, I have and then I'm going to give to be

recognized. God is a God of generosity and

he blesses A generous heart. And Jesus says here, this will

be honored. And he says here how to do it.

He says, when you do a charitable deed, verse 3, do not

let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.

I'll just put it in your pocket. It's not what it means that your

charitable need may be in secret and your Father who sees in

secret will Himself reward you openly.

This is an interesting thing that Jesus says here.

If the right hand is not to know what the left hand is doing,

what is he saying? He does not mean we should just

close our eyes and grab some money in our pocket and put an

offering box. It's not what it means.

It's not the case. He's simply saying this is a

second point. Give out of His spiritually

transformed heart. There are people who give

because they have an opportunity cheerfully, no regard of any

benefit or even consequence to them.

Hey, I can and I will. True givers cannot be bought

with a temptation of recognition and applause, acknowledgement.

True givers give out of the heart of compassion, out of the

heart of goodwill, out of the heart of stewardship, because

that's their nature. That's what disciples of Jesus

do. They have a longing to share

what they have been given, not because they have a lot, but

because what they have comes from God.

They want to give back. Their giving comes from deep

within, a desire to worship with whatever they have to give.

There's a story also in Acts chapter 4, a guy named Barnabas.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

Let me read that a little bit. And Joseph who was also named

Barnabas by the Apostles, which is translated Son of

Encouragement, a Levite of the country of Cyprus having land,

sold it and brought the money at the apostles feet.

Just verse 36. The writer acts here in this

verse in verse 36, he gives a lot of detail about who the

giver is and quite a lot of detail and that he gives.

The giving is not in secret, it's actually recorded.

We don't know how much it was, but what he did.

A little side note in the story hears that this man was a

Levite. Now you know who the Levites

were. They were not supposed to have

land. They were the priestly tribe of

Israel. They were not supposed to own

land. They were chosen by God to serve

in the priestly ministry. He was a man of Levite who did

own land. He's from the country of Cyprus,

not from Israel. Cyprus was a small island

country in the Mediterranean many hundreds of years earlier.

When the people of Israel lost their homeland, they were taking

captive and scattered and so on. And of course everything else

fell by the wayside too, in terms of the Levites being taken

care of and so on. And so this Levite, a Jew.

Man from Cyprus had land, he sold it and it's mentioned that

he gave the money to the apostles and it's recorded.

Looking at the story, does this now mean that something was done

wrong here because it's recorded?

Did he write? Draw attention?

Should it have been kept hush? No, the point is not secrecy or

no one knowing. The point is the focus.

Jesus does tell his audience to give in secret.

He is communicating that a person's giving should not be

tied to any form of wanting, awareness or public

acknowledgement if the desires to be known.

If that is there, then the reward has been cashed in.

John Stott in his commentary in the Sermon on the Mount writes

this. He says it is easy for us to

poke fun at those Jewish Pharisees of the 1st century.

Our Christian Phariseeism is not so amusing.

We may not employ a troop of trumpeters to blow a fanfare

each time we give to a church or charity.

Yet, to use the similar familiar metaphor, we like to blow our

own trumpet. It boosts our ego to see our

name as subscribers to charities and supporters of good causes.

We fall to the very same temptation.

We draw attention to our giving in order to be praised by men.

Stott mented that Jesus uses 2 negatives to teach in the

dangers of wanting recognition. We went over those.

It is only in keeping our hearts aligned with God that we will

not fall into these extremes of wanting attention in the left

hand, knowing what the right hand is doing.

Stock continues. We're not to be self-conscious

in our giving, for self consciousness will readily

deteriorate into self righteousness.

So subtle is the sinfulness of the heart that it is possible to

take deliberate steps to keep our secret by giving secret from

men while simultaneously dwelling on it in our own minds

in the spirit of self. Self congratulation.

It would be hard to exaggerate the perversity of this.

Forgiving is a real activity involving real people in real

need. Its purpose is to alleviate the

distress of the needy. It's possible to turn an act of

mercy into an act of vanity, so that our principal motive and

giving is not the benefit of the person receiving the gift, but

our benefit of ourselves for those who give it.

Christian giving is to be marked by self sacrifice and self

forgetfulness, not by self congratulation.

That's what John Stott At this point some of you may be

wondering, OK, so how much should I now give?

It's not really the point of the sermon today, but I'll just make

a few observations. You can't really pinpoint that

number because your income fluctuates.

It's not safe to have a hard and fast rule.

Instead, ask, Lord, what of this wealth you've blessed me with,

this income I've received? What is?

What would honor you? CS Lewis once mentioned wisely,

he says. I do not believe one can settle

how much we ought to give. I'm afraid the only safe rule is

to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our

expenditure and comforts and luxuries and amusements, and so

on is up to the standard common among those with the same income

as our own, we're probably giving away too little.

If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say

they're too small. There ought to be things we

should like to do and cannot do because our charitable

expenditure excludes them. Here's the rub.

As long as we have not died to ourselves, have not taken up a

cross to follow Jesus, this is going to be very hard.

It's going to be obligatory. It's going to be drudgery.

It's going to be about rules. And that's not the point.

But once we're saved, once we're surrendered, once we're

surrendered to Jesus, this becomes an opportunity and

doesn't matter anymore. The left hand doesn't need to

know what the right hand is doing.

It doesn't need to the obvious. It doesn't need to be hidden, it

just needs to happen. We know in Matthew chapter 25,

Matthew 25 · chapter mention

the the in the Gospel Matthew chapter 25, Jesus talks about

Matthew 25 · chapter mention

how it will be toward the end of time.

What's going to happen on the judgment seat?

When Jesus comes, he says, and he will set the sheep on his

right, but the goats on the left.

Then the King will say to those on his right, Come, and you,

blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you

from the foundation of the world.

For I was hungry, and you gave me food.

I was thirsty, and you gave me drink.

I was a stranger, and you took me, and I was naked, and you

clothed me. I was sick and you visited me.

I was in prison. You came to me.

Then the righteous will answer him, saying, Lord, when did we

see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink?

When did we see you a stranger and take you in, or naked and

clothe you? Or when did we see you sick or

in prison, and come to you? And the King will answer and say

to them assuredly say to you, in as much as you did it to one of

the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.

All the service, all the giving, all the sacrifices.

Oh, we did those things, did we? Well, we weren't aware.

In their case, the left hand was not knowing what the right hand

was doing. They didn't do it for attention.

These people served out of relationship with Jesus.

They gave out of that capacity. And Jesus has a welcoming party

waiting for those who've served him.

But there'll also be the other side.

Matthew Chapter 2541 Then he will also say to those on the

left, Depart from me You cursed into the everlasting fire,

prepared for the devil and his angels.

For I was hungry, and you gave me no food.

I was thirsty, You gave me no drink.

I was a stranger. You did not take me in naked,

and you did not clothe me sick, and in prison you did not visit

me. They also will answer, saying,

Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or

naked or sick in prison did not minister to you?

He will answer them saying assuredly I say to you, in as

much as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did

not do it to me. And these will go away into

everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

You see these people pull out their charts and their

spreadsheets and their records. Look here, this is how much I

donated. This is how many years I served.

There's how many classes I taught, there's how many sermons

I preached Jesus, I don't know about that.

I never registered on with me. I don't even know you.

You have no part with me. You see, the heart was self

focused. The deeds were not wrong, but

all in vain. Their hearts were like the

Pharisees who wanted the praise of men who wanted to be

recognized and acknowledged and honored.

Matthew 7 verse 21. Jesus says, not everyone who

Matthew 7:21

says to me, Lord, Lord shall enter the Kingdom of heaven, but

he who does the will of my Father in heaven.

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not

prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name and done

many wonders in your name? And then I'll declare to them, I

never knew you depart from me, You who practice lawlessness.

They did a lot of stuff, busy schedules, all in, all out, but

not for Jesus. They gave with wrong motives.

It was for themselves. A sobering truth to think about.

It's not just that we don't do bad things.

The good things we do, we have to still do them with Christ and

mine, because Satan doesn't care if he can get us to do bad

things, Great for his, for the Kingdom of the arts, great,

great. He gets us down with him if he

can. He's going to do good things.

Well, then I'd better get behind him and make sure He does the

good things for himself, for human acknowledgement.

My prayer is that as a church, as individuals, we will not

allow the things of this world to get between US and our Lord

Jesus. Not the sinful lifestyle, but

also the good lifestyle. Do it for the right reasons.

So let's do our works of service, our gifts of giving,

our resources. Let's do it for Christ.

And when we give, let's give out of a relationship with Him and

not keep track and not keep count.

Let's pray or thank you for your spirit.

Without you we could never live out your commands in our lives

or forgive us where we fall short so many times.

Thank you for reminding us and helping us to walk in your way,

to walk in relations with you. May we be a church that is a

light on a hill. Maybe be salt in our community.

Maybe you live in obedience to you.

Thank you, Jesus. Amen.