Sermon on the Mount: Motivations Matter - Matthew 6:1-4 | Pastor Daniel Reese

Matthew chapter 5 this morning. I'm sorry. Scratch

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

that. Matthew chapter 6 this morning. Matthew

Matthew 6 · chapter mention Matthew 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6. If you are new here, we have been

going through Jesus's Sermon on the Mount. Last

week we finished chapter five, and this week

we start a new chapter, so you're here at a great

time. Have you ever seen those videos where a

person has a hidden cameraman sitting across

the street and recording them? And I've seen

a variety of them, but the ones that stick out

to me the most are the ones where a guy dresses

up as a beggar. And maybe he then goes and sits

on a street corner or in front of a store and

he has a sign that says, hungry. And then he

just waits. And he waits for someone to just

kind of show some kind of generosity to him besides

just dropping money in his cup. He's looking

for somebody that's going to take the time to

have a conversation with him or take the time

to maybe go get him a meal or bring him a blanket

or something along those ways. And as you're

watching it, you kind of feel like you're just

kind of eavesdropping on this really sweet moment.

The guy is miked up so you can hear how the conversation

is going. And then when the generous person least

expects it, the supposed beggar surprises them

with a really great, generous gift. Maybe a bunch

of cash, maybe a new phone or a new laptop or

something like that. And then they post the video.

right? And then the comments come in on the video

and talking about how awesome it was for that

pretend beggar to be so generous and how he is

such a great man and we need more people like

him in the world. In our passage this morning,

Jesus is going to step into that and say, yeah,

don't do that. Don't do that stuff. Let's keep

it on the down low. And so that's our text this

morning. I'm going to invite Grace up here this

morning to read the first four verses of chapter

6. If you are willing and able, we'd love for

you to stand and honor the Lord's Word as she

reads it. 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 the 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. Amen. Let's

pray. Father, thank you so much for grace and

just being my friend and how you're growing her

and developing her. And I pray, Father, that

you continue to lead her and guide her in all

that she does. I pray, Father, that as we look

at this text, we will see your heart in it and

we will be more like you. Thank you for Jesus.

In your name we pray. Amen. Good job, girl. Here

in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has just shifted

gears, if you will. In chapter five, Jesus dealt

with the heart. He was dealing with our inner

righteousness. Here in chapter six, He's going

to begin to address our outer righteousness.

And I think we need to stop for a minute and

just recognize this change. Because if you don't

have the right inner righteousness, the outer

righteousness is going to bring a whole lot of

confusion to your life. It's going to confuse

you and it's going to confuse those around you.

John MacArthur tells a story of a time that he

was overseas when he came across this this quote

unquote holy man who was covered in ashes and

he covered himself in ashes every single day

as a sign of humility and then he would regularly

go sit on a prominent street corner in the middle

of the city and occasionally a tourist would

come up to him and ask to take a picture with

him. now they're trying to experience culture

they they want to go back to their home country

or whatever and show that they help the poor

or whatever reason and he would always agree

he would always agree to get his picture taken

but before he would do that he would he would

add some more ashes to his face he'd add some

more ashes to his clothes so that he could give

the best image of poverty and humility If we

don't have the correct inner righteousness, if

we don't have the correct heart when it comes

to our actions, then all that we're doing is

rearranging our spiritual ashes to impress the

world around us so that they will make us feel

good about ourselves. Inner righteousness has

to come before outer righteousness. So for the

last chapter, Matthew chapter five, Jesus has

been addressing the difference between the heart

of a religion and the heart of God. Now we turn

to chapter six, where Jesus, over the next several

weeks, is going to be addressing our outer righteousness.

The Jews were particularly focused on giving

to the knee. They were focused on prayer. They

were focused on fasting. And here Jesus in this

chapter is going to address all of these religious

acts by telling his listeners, by telling us

to focus on the inner motives, not the outward

methods. If I were to give you my thesis statement

for this sermon, so that if anybody asks you

today, what was the sermon about or what did

you learn for in church, it would be this. that

actions done in secret result in rewards. Actions

done in secret result in rewards. And hopefully

we will all take that to heart when we leave

this place here in a little while. So in verse

one, Jesus tells us to control our motives. He

tells us to beware. He's saying to check your

motives and be careful. What is the reason that

you do the things that you do. Is it to be seen

by men? Is it to receive compensation? Is it

so that other people will like you? This is a

warning from the Lord to remind us to make sure

that our hearts are in the right place. He then

mentions righteousness. This would refer to anything

that we do in Christ's name. Anything that we

put Christ's name on, he's referring to as righteousness.

And then he uses the phrase to be seen. That

phrase comes from the word that we get our word

theater from. It's the idea of giving a spectacular

performance. But the reality is it's all just

an act. Every morning, before Adélie gets into

her car to go to school, I give her a hug and

I tell her to be careful. Every morning we sit

around our breakfast table, which is also our

dinner table and lunch table, things you just

pile stuff on table, but breakfast table, and

we sit around and I pray that the Lord will get

us to where we need to be safely. That all of

my kids will make it to school safely. I do that

because I trust the Lord, but also because I've

been to way too many funerals for children that

have died on their way to school. So I'm telling

her to be careful. Not because I think she's

going to intentionally drive into a ditch. Not

because I think she's intentionally going to

run a stop sign. What I'm telling her is to keep

her mind on what she is doing. To not get distracted

by everything else around her. What Jesus is

telling us here in verse one is that there is

going to be a temptation to just go through the

motions and become lazy. There's going to be

a temptation to not keep our minds on our motives

and become distracted by the routine. to forget

why we serve, to forget why we give, why we do

the things we do for the Lord. There's a temptation

that we need to be careful not to ignore. This

is a warning that when it comes to righteousness,

we need to have the right heart that we're trying

to honor the Lord and be careful that we're not

in it for ourselves, but that we are doing things

in such a way that bring honor and glory to him.

If we get no praise for it, if we get no recognition

for it, we need to be okay with that because

we understand that the Lord sees our heart as

best we can. As best we can, we really need to

get our reason for serving straightened down.

It is the Lord God that we serve. We shouldn't

serve to impress others or to try to gain favor

with the Lord. And if you struggle with this,

take some encouragement, because even the apostle

Paul struggled with this. In 1 Corinthians chapter

1 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

4, he writes, My conscience is clear, but that

does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who

judges me. Therefore judge nothing before the

appointed time. Wait till the Lord comes. He

will bring to light what is hidden in darkness

and will expose the motives of men's hearts.

At that time, each will receive his praise from

God. And so as we're talking about serving the

Lord and giving to the Lord, some of you might

probably be wondering because a few weeks ago

we were in Matthew 5 16 and Jesus tells us to

let our light shine before men. These seem to

contradict each other. The issue between those

two verses is one of motive. It's great to let

your light shine in order to put the spotlight

on God. It's not good to let your light shine

so that the spotlight gets put on you. In Isaiah

Isaiah 42:8

42 verse 8, God declares that he will not share

his glory with anybody else. He writes, I am

the Lord. That is my name. I will not give my

glory to another or my praise to idols. It is

unbiblical to equate man's applause with God's

approval. John Ortberg. if you've ever read any

of his books, he jokingly says, I know I'm supposed

to be humble, but what if nobody notices? When

we care more about the applause and recognition

that we get from others more than we care about

the praise and applause we get from heaven, we

have a major problem. Eugene Peterson in his

paraphrase writes this in verse 1 in the message.

I love how he wrote it. He says, We need to remember

to control our motives when it comes to serving

the Lord. Then we get to verse 2 where Jesus

reminds us to be real and not fake. Be real and

not fake. 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. Now, giving

to the hurting, what was an important part of

ancient Judaism, where farmers were actually

told to leave some of their harvest behind so

that the poor would have some food to eat. Now,

I wasn't able to find any verifiable sources

that stated that actual trumpets were blown when

people would give to the synagogue or whatever,

but I'm assuming that it's still possible. Rather,

I think this is an idiom much like the ones that

we use today, like he's tooting his own horn,

you know. I did find that an offering box where

the giving was done was shaped like a trumpet

and probably made quite a bit of noise when a

handful of coins was dropped into it. But when

speaking of the religious leaders, Jesus delivered

a pretty strong indictment in Matthew chapter

Matthew 23 · chapter mention

23. When he's condemning the religious leaders,

he says, everything they do is done for men to

see. Everything they do is done for men to see.

I mean, someone has said, I've heard this quote

so many times throughout my life, maybe you've

heard it too. But someone has said, if you worry

too much about what people think of you, if you

spend so much time worrying about what people

think of you, you will be so disappointed to

discover how seldom they did. They're not looking

at you. Nothing is more objectable. than advertised

charity. It is extremely humiliating to the one

who receives, and it's extremely hurtful to the

soul of the one who gives. When we're faking

our faith and just doing things to be honored

by others, it's as if God says to us, why would

I look at what you've done? Why should I notice

you? It wasn't done for me. It was done for yourself.

Hypocrites are performers and pretenders who

just want to be honored by people. The best definition

I've ever come across as a hypocrite, I came

across this years ago, is a hypocrite is a person

who isn't himself on Sundays. A hypocrite is

a person who isn't himself on Sundays. I read

about this story before Parents Weekend, one

year in Happy Valley, I don't know if there's

any Penn State fans here, but. on a parents'

weekend several years ago, a popular bar ran

an ad in the campus newspaper that says, bring

your parent for lunch on Saturday. We'll pretend

we don't know you. The ad was soon challenged

by the college chaplain who posted a revised

version of the campus of that article or that

advertisement. It read, bring your parents to

chapel Sunday. We'll pretend that we do know

you That reminds me of Mark chapter 7 Jesus said

Mark 7 · chapter mention

Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you

hypocrites as it is written these people honor

me with their lips But their hearts are far from

me. I Also want to point out that Jesus does

not say if you give But he says when you give

it is the expectation of Jesus that we will give

to those in need. It is a reminder to be generous.

It's a reminder to be open -handed with all that

God has given you. And the sole purpose of giving

is because we want to honor the Lord with our

resources, not for any other purpose. When we

give, it shouldn't be for control. It shouldn't

be so that we can tell someone how that money

should be spent. It isn't because we want recognition.

Because remember, we have to go back to Matthew

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

chapter 5. We should remember that Jesus is after

our hearts. And when we give with the right heart,

and we give with the right motives, our reward

will be waiting for us from the Lord. But if

we do it for any other reason, if we do it for

any sort of recognition, so people will like

us. He says your rewards already been given.

It's done. Let's not be fake Let's not be fake.

Let's let's store up rewards as many rewards

as we can while we're still living on this earth

Jesus continues in verse 3 and into 4 He says

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 Jesus is

saying act like a ninja That's the best I could

come up with. That basically means that when

you give, don't draw attention to your giving.

It might be helpful for you to say out loud,

God, this is for your eyes only. To not let our

left hand know what our right hand is doing means

that we are to hide our giving even from ourselves

somehow. Even from ourselves. Not using one of

our hands to pat ourselves on the back. One commentator

adds, if the left hand doesn't know, the left

hand can't get involved. It's very hard to clap

with one hand to applaud yourself. The basic

principle here is do not gloat over your giving.

Do not dwell on what a great person you are,

that you've helped somebody else out. Our prayer

should be something like this. God, as I give,

deliver me from myself. Deliver me from myself.

Help us not ever be a religious spectacle. Now,

almost every week, someone will come to us in

need. And we are able to write a check from our

Deacon Fund in order to meet that need. And I

always get a thank you, as if I'm the one that's

giving away the money. And if I'm not careful,

if I don't guard my heart, that can make me feel

pretty good about myself. But the reality is,

is that I'm just the one that writes the check.

I have to write the check. But the majority of

that money does not come from me. It comes from

you. When we take our Deacon offering each month.

And I was thinking about this because maybe you've

had that basket pass in front of you. And maybe

you were only able to contribute a dollar and

you felt some shame in that. I want to remind

you of Luke 21 where Jesus praises the widow

for giving what she could. not giving out of

her abundance. Jesus is after that type of heart

and not after the type of heart that only gives

when there's an excess. I want you to know that

there's no shame in that whatsoever. Your father

sees your giving and your heart behind that has

been able to bless so many people each and every

month here. Your dollar might be insignificant

to you. But there's no limit to the good that

we can do if we don't care who gets the credit.

If we don't care that we're ever seen by it.

Once again, I love Eugene Peterson's version

of this text. It reads, when you help someone

out, don't think about how it looks. Just do

it quiet and unobtrusively. That should be our

hearts when we give. And I'm very cautious when

it comes to things like this and talking about

things like this Because I don't want to ever

steal the reward Of someone by giving them credit

when their motives are pure and they just want

to honor the Lord But there are so many of you

that serve and give in ways that nobody else

notices That nobody notices and I want you to

know That I want to be more like you because

I see the heart of our Creator in you. Continue

to be careful, and I have no doubt that your

treasure, your reward in heaven will be immense.

It will be better than any applause that you

ever receive here on this earth. Which leads

us to our final verse for this morning, the last

part of chapter, verse four. It says, and our

Father who sees in secret will reward you. Jesus

is saying your rewards will come later. Your

rewards will come later. And here's the deal.

When we give and forget, God remembers and rewards.

When we give and forget, God remembers and rewards.

How you and I do in the area of giving to those

in need determines how we are going to be rewarded.

Now, we don't have time to fully develop this,

but let me be clear. Let me be real clear. We

are saved by grace alone and not by works. But

we'll be rewarded for our works once we are saved.

We are saved by grace, not by works. But we will

be rewarded by our works after we are saved.

God's rewards are worth waiting for. Some rewards

are immediate, like the satisfaction of knowing

we are walking in His will, the joy of seeing

people saved, the encouragement of watching children

being taught the Bible and coming to faith. And

we know that there are more rewards to come for

the Christian who serves with good motives. Check

out Paul's perspective in Second Timothy. He

says, now there is in store for me the crown

of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous

judge will award to me on that day and not only

to me, but also to the to to all who long for

his appearing. As you serve in secret, remember

that your father in heaven sees all that you're

doing. Now, I've learned this the hard way, but

probably the best part of serving the Lord, the

best part of my ministry are when I'm able to

do things that only he sees. It's the most rewarding

part. Mark 9 41 tells us that the supposedly

small things that we do are remembered and will

be rewarded. He says, I tell you the truth, anyone

who gives you a cup of water in my name. because

you belong to Christ will certainly not lose

his reward. When I was reading that text this

week, I was thinking about you moms. You moms.

That should give moms great encouragement because

your days, your days are made up of a steady

stream of simple acts of service and nobody probably

notices it, at least in my household. That should

be a great amount of encouragement to those of

you who faithfully serve behind the scenes that

you have something to look forward to. Now did

you catch that word reward has been used three

times in four verses the first times in verse

one where we read that there will be no reward

if you're just doing things to be seen by others.

I want to be clear that word no literally means

absolutely not any. Absolutely not any. And then

verse 2, we're told that if we do nice things

just to be noticed, the only reward we will receive

will be some fleeting honor by people. And then

in verse 4, it says that that reward will be

remembered by our Father if we serve in secret

to others. Our rewards come from the person we

do it for. If we do them for people, then we're

going to get some recognition. Maybe you'll get

a nice plaque on the wall because you're employee

of the month or athlete of the year or whatever.

If you do it for people, that's going to be your

reward. But if we do it for God, we get so much

more. Hebrews chapter six says, God is not unjust.

He will not forget your work and the love you

have shown him as you have helped his people

and continue to help them. Years ago, I read

about a story of one of my favorite preachers,

Charles Spurgeon. He and his wife were called

closed fisted, penny pinchers, tight wads, whatever

phrase you want to use, because they sold all

the eggs their chickens laid and wouldn't give

any away. They wouldn't just give you a dozen

eggs just for fun. And because they always made

a nice profit, rumors began to circulate that

they were just greedy. They were selfish. The

Spurgeons, however, took the criticism graciously.

The record showed that the, and the truth didn't

come out until Mrs. Spurgeon passed away, but

when they did, they realized that the record

showed that all of the profits that had ever

been made over those eggs were used to support

two needy elderly widows. Charles Spurgeon and

his wife had refused to defend themselves because

they didn't want to call attention to their giving

and they knew that their reward was waiting for

them in heaven. Now here's a fun fact. I have

been cautioned by my wife to not paint anymore.

I'm not very good at it. I really don't like

to take the time to make sure everything is covered

before I do it. I always like to think and I

always have it in my mind that I'm going to be

careful and I'm not going to get any paint on

the ground. I'll carry, you know, the paints,

you know, I'll have my hand over it in case any

drops and I fail every time. The last time I

actually remember painting without any sort of

supervision was before my son River was born.

Sina had been gone for a long weekend and I thought

I'm going to surprise my wife and I'm going to

paint what would have been or what would become

his nursery. So I went to the store, got what

I needed. I put tape on the walls because we're

going to do some vertical lines in different

colors along the wall. So I got that done. But

that was about all the prep work I did. I got

the paint up there. I didn't tape any of the

edges around the wall. I didn't lay any drop

cloth down because I was going to be careful.

So I get all that done. The vertical lines are

straight. The walls are covered. There's no former

paint passing or seeping through. And I was so

excited for when she got home so she could see

the masterpiece that I just created. She's gonna

be so proud of me. And when she got home, her

eyes were drawn to the wall and she was happy.

But then she started to look closer. There was

a roller mark on the ceiling. There were paint

drops all over the floor that I thought furniture

would cover and didn't work. And she's never

told me this, but I'm assuming that part of her

was thinking, I wish you just would have waited

till I got home. This mess wouldn't be here if

you just waited till I got home. And that's what

happens when we're not careful. That's what happens

when we're not careful with our motivations and

words. We might intend to paint something beautiful

like kindness or truth or love, but if our heart

doesn't take the time to be careful, if we're

driven by pride or haste instead of God, it makes

a mess. Proverbs 423 says, guard your heart.

Guard your heart for everything you do flows

from it. Every word, every why. is like paint

in your hands. As we close today, I want you

to pause and feel the weight of this question.

I want you to stop and just feel the weight of

this question. What's driving you? What's driving

you? Now, I don't want the polished answers that

we give on Sunday mornings, but that raw, quiet

truth that hums in your chest when it's just

you and the Lord and you're not distracted by

anything else. What is driving you? Is it love?

Is it fear? Is it to hurt? Is it a hunger for

more, more of God, more of His grace, more of

His goodness, or is it something else? Is it

this nagging itch for approval, for control,

for making sure that your voice is heard, for

a crown that you can't even wear into eternity?

What is driving you? What's your motivation?

When I think about my motivations at times, I

think of Jesus. And I just have this picture

in my head of him kneeling down in the garden,

sweating. drops of blood to the earth, crying

out to his father, not my will, but yours. His

motivation wasn't glory, although that would

come eventually. It wasn't escape. He could have

called legions of angels to come and rescue him.

His motivation in that moment on his knees in

the garden, sweating drops of blood. His whole

motivation was us. It was you and it was me.

A love so fierce that it killed him. But yet

so pure that it changed our lives. And here we

are today, centuries later, removed from that

instance. And here we are still asking ourselves

and wrestling with what is our why. What's our

motivation? But here's the promise that stops

me cold. He sees my motives. He sees every single

one of your motives, every tangled thread. And

he still doesn't turn away. He still doesn't

turn away. He takes that messy heart of ours

and says, hey, let me make that clean. Psalms

51 whispers it. Create in me a clean heart, oh

God. Create in me a clean heart, oh God. I hope

that that is our prayer today. Not for perfection.

but for a fire that burns for Him alone, a motivation

that doesn't flicker when we get applause and

then is extinguished when we haven't heard anything

for a while, but that we will burn with this

flame that burns steady because we have tasted

His mercy, because we understand who He is. So

as we close out our service this morning, don't

just carry that question, what drives me. But

let it carry you dig deep Lay your wise At the

altar and trust him with it. Let your prayer

be God create in me a clean heart Help my motives

be pure Let's pray Father I pray that as we close

out our service That your Holy Spirit will move

powerfully in this place. That you will expose

what motivates us. So Father, I pray that you

will create in me a clean heart, a pure heart.

Renew a right spirit within me. I pray the same

for each and every individual in this place.

That you will restore and you will renew and

you will claim. God give us hearts that pursue

you and all that we do. Not to be seen by others,

not for applause, not for recognition, that you

will create in us a clean heart. Where all of

our motivations are pure. All of our motivations

honor you. Whether we ever get recognition or

not So I pray father that you'll move in this

place we ask all these things in Jesus name Amen

Hey, my name is Daniel Reese and I get to serve

here as lead pastor of cornerstone and Eldridge

and I want to personally invite you to one of

our worship services either at 815 or 1045 on

Sunday mornings But we also want to get to know

you and your family better And so we hope that

you would join us for any of our Bible classes

from birth through high school or even our adult

classes where we'll get into more practical ways

of how to live out our Christian faith. We would

love to meet you and hope you will join us on

a Sunday morning.