Your Father Will Reward You

If you've got a Bible, let's open up to Matthew chapter 6.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

Matthew 6.

And early on when I had first come to Kaaba Park, I had several of the officers here, some elders, some deacons say, Hey, Owen, we think we'd like to have a series on giving at some point.

Maybe October, that seems the perfect month, but we'll trust you and you decide.

And as I thought and prayed, I really wanted it to come up naturally in the Gospel of Mark.

And I don't always know where I'm going next week, but whether I'm going to preach on the next four verses, the next 40.

And so, lo and behold, the first Sunday in October was the Rich Young Ruler, which is clearly about money and wealth and giving.

But it's such a powerful passage.

I really wanted to address it more broadly as about lordship and any idol that might be in our life, whatever that may be.

But I started to have the idea maybe, maybe this is it.

It should be a series on giving.

And then I was going to be out of town the next week.

Hurricane ruined that.

But I'd asked Say Young to come and preach, and as we talked back and forth, he said, I'll do whatever you want.

I said, Well, I am thinking about doing a series on giving.

He's like, Great, I'll preach on gripping.

And um so this is gonna be our second sermon on giving.

We're kind of in the middle, and then next week will be our third and final.

We're gonna go back to the Lord's uh the rich young ruler and Mark and look at it more specifically just for the idea of money.

So we're gonna look at uh a very short passage in the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus teaches.

And I want you to think about this as we dive in.

When you start to think about giving, whether that's charitable giving to the poor or giving to the church, what are the first questions that come to your mind?

And here are the questions that probably come to my mind.

How much should I give?

I mean, the amount, the percentage, who exactly should I give it to them, when, how, all those type questions.

Good questions, important questions, but not the most important questions, because Jesus doesn't address really any of those questions in this little short passage.

Okay?

He talks about seeking a reward from heaven and not from earth.

So let's read the passage.

Matthew chapter 6, verse 1.

Matthew 6:1

Beware of practicing your righteousness before their 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.

So, Jesus starts out and says, Listen, when you're doing good deeds, when you're practicing your righteousness, don't do it publicly with the intention to get human praise.

And then he's gonna talk about giving specifically.

And listen, he assumes that everybody that was listening to this sermon was giving.

He's not like, hey, you gotta be giving.

He's assuming they're already giving.

But it was about how they gave, why they gave.

And he said, Don't do this.

Don't go to the synagogue and make a big theatrical production so that everybody sees how much you're giving.

They probably didn't literally blow a trumpet, but maybe what was talking about, sometimes before they had a public prayer time or a public time of worship or a public day of fasting, there would be a trumpet that was blown.

And there were probably some of the Pharisees and hypocrites that especially like to give during those very public worship services so they could be seen.

David Jeremiah said he thinks that maybe part of what's going on here is that some of the hypocrites would literally take their money and exchange it into as many coins as they could, like if a little kid wanted to give a dollar, go to the bank and try to get a hundred pennies so that when they put it into the money box, it made the most noise.

Again, to draw attention to themselves.

Or they might go to a busy street corner where the beggars would be and try to give a very large gift so the beggar would cheer, everybody would see them.

But the point was, why were they doing it?

They were doing it to get human praise, and Jesus is saying, don't do this, this is not right, it's not gonna help you.

He says, Listen, when you give in your money, it should be almost hidden, almost secretive.

You you would keep it from yourself if you could.

You're giving it some homeless guy, it's like the$5 handshake, so nobody can even see what you did.

It's subtle, it's secretive.

And there was in the temple in Jerusalem, there was a place called the Chamber of Secrets.

I'm not a Harry Potter fan, but I've heard that might excite some of you.

But there was a place in the Jewish temple called the Chamber of Secrets, where if you were wanting to give to the poor, you could go leave your donation there so it would be anonymous.

And later the poor could collect it and you wouldn't get any of the credit.

And that may have been part of what Jesus had in mind.

Give in secret, as secretly as you can, because God will know and he'll reward you.

Now, three or four points to take from this.

The first is this main motives matter most.

Typically, when we do any action in life, we have multiple motives.

We're complicated human beings.

Your main motive matters most.

Why you do what you do.

Notice Jesus doesn't give any instructions here about how much to give, how often to give, even exactly where to direct your gift.

He's like, some people are giving regularly at the synagogue, like going to church.

Some people are out there just giving it out to people in the streets, and he doesn't pit one against the other.

He just goes for the heart.

He says, it's like all that secondary, not that those aren't important, but the main thing is why are you giving?

Why are you doing it?

That's what really matters.

It's an issue of the heart much more than it's an issue of amounts and percentages.

The second thing.

If your main motive is man's praise, you'll get it.

And that's all you'll get.

Matthew Poole, an old Puritan commentator, said this God rewards no action of which he is not the end.

So if in your heart of hearts you're doing some good deed externally, but you're not doing it to serve God, to love God, to honor God, then God's not going to reward that action.

Listen to what Jesus had to say in John chapter 12.

John 12 · chapter mention

Just listen to this.

This is John chapter 12, where Jesus, what John says about the way some people responded to Jesus.

John 12 · chapter mention

John chapter 12, verse 42.

John 12:42

Nevertheless, many, even of the authorities, believed in him.

But for fear of the Pharisees, they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue.

For they love the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.

It is easy.

It was easy 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem, and it's easy today in America to be a professing believer.

To say, yeah, of course, I believe Jesus, Son of God, I believe all that stuff.

But not to really fully give yourself to Him, not to really fully trust in Him, not to fully surrender in Him because you're like, you know what?

When push comes to shove, I care much more about what people think about me than I do what God thinks about me.

And that's not true conversion.

Romans chapter 1, verse 25.

Romans 1:25

Just listen to this.

It's a pretty famous verse.

Probably a lot of you are familiar with it.

Because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and they worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.

Guys, when I or when you are doing actions primarily to get the praise of man, in that moment it's almost like I'm worshiping them.

I'm treating them like the most important reality in the world.

I'm not worshiping God, I'm worshiping that person.

And it's insane, and we know it's insane, and yet our heart often is pulled that way.

Don Carson said it this way: when we do a good work and we're eager for men's applause, it's like we've prostituted that righteousness.

There's nothing good left in it.

All right, now I'm gonna give an illustration, and I may mess up a fact or two.

This is not my area of expertise, okay?

But just go with me.

If the story I'm telling you are like, no, I know more details and you missed one point, give me grace.

All right, I'm not an expert in the movie business.

But I have heard that in the movie business, actors can choose to get an upfront flat fee for their acting in the movie, or they can forego the upfront flat fee, and they can get a back-end payment based on the percentage of how well the film does, and if there are sequels, and if there's merch that's sold.

So there's this actor long time ago named Harrison Ford.

He's a struggling actor, and he was cast to be in this movie called Star Wars, and he said, I need the cash now.

Suppose I think he took 10,000 up front, no back-end fee.

Well, don't know if you heard, that franchise did pretty well.

Lots of sequels and merch.

But he got the 10,000 and that was it.

No back-end fee off of Star Wars.

Why?

You had your reward.

And in a similar way, guys, if you are living for man's praise and approval, this is what's terrifying about what Jesus is saying.

It's like, you're gonna get it.

And then at the final judgment day, when you like something good from the Father in heaven, it'll be like you already had your little tiny reward.

Your little front-end payout.

There's nothing left for you.

Third, a Christian's main motive must be our father's reward.

That's got to be the main thing driving the engine of our heart.

Martin Lloyd-Jones said, our supreme object in life should be to please God.

If that is our aim, we cannot go wrong.

I'm not saying you'll never make a mistake in life, you'll never trip and fall, but if the if the deepest desire of your heart is, I just want to please God, you're gonna end well.

Things are gonna go good for you.

Randy Alcorn says, There's no place in the Bible that talks about loving eternal rewards too much.

There are lots of places, like right here, that talks about not loving them enough, not paying enough attention.

Now, I know this can sound strange because it starts to sound a little bit legalistic.

It can start to sound a little bit works-oriented, like I'm doing good things down here to earn some reward.

Okay, so let me let me try to explain.

All right.

Our obedience, if we're a Christian, our Christian obedience is never the meritorious cause for good God's rewards.

And if you're like, what does that mean?

Just hang with me, okay?

If all Christians could take the words and the concepts, earning, deserving, meriting out of our vocabulary, out of our heart.

When it comes to our relationship with Father God, that would be a wonderful, blessed thing.

Listen, you got a job at Publix, you need to keep earning, deserving, and all that in your vocabulary with your manager.

But when it comes to my relationship with God, those concepts ought to just be gone.

Okay?

We are only saved, we're only forgiven, we're only right with God based on the merit of Christ and what he's done for us.

Matthew Henry said it this way: Our giving to the poor does not deserve heaven.

But it is true we cannot go to heaven without them.

You understand what he's saying?

And then lots of different people have said this a lot.

We're saved not by good works.

And yet we're not saved without them because once you have genuinely become a Christian, the Holy Spirit comes in you, He starts to change you, He starts to conform you to Christ.

So you do do good works, like giving to the poor, like giving to church, and it's not earning you anything, but it is proof of the salvation you already have.

Okay, so our good works, our good deeds, they're never the meritorious cause for God's rewards, for God's blessing.

But our obedience is the instrumental cause for God's rewards.

And I'm gonna explain more about what I mean by that, but I do want you to flip over to Matthew chapter 25, to a very famous parable.

Matthew 25 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 25.

Matthew 25 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 25, and listen to this quote by Jerry Bridges.

Matthew 25 · chapter mention

The meritorious cause of God's blessing is always the merit of Christ.

We can never add to what he has already done to procure God's blessing on our lives.

The instrumental cause, however, is the means or the avenues God has ordained to use.

So, Matthew chapter 25.

Matthew 25 · chapter mention

We're not going to read the whole parable, we're going to start in verse 14.

For it will be like a man going on a journey, Jesus, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property.

To one he gave five talents, to another, two, to another one, to each according to his ability.

Then he went away, and he who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more.

So also he who had the two talents made two talents more.

But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money.

Now, after a long time, the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them.

God gives us gifts, God gives us abilities, God gives us opportunities, and God gives us money and stuff and property.

It's his, but he gives it to us as stewards, and he wants us to use it and to make more.

Some of you have a gift of making money.

That's a great thing.

Go use it for the glory of God.

But he's gonna want an account one day.

What did you do with my stuff?

Okay, now we'll come back to that in a minute.

But let me try to give a couple of examples.

When I was a little kid, I used to cut the grass.

That was one of my chores at the house.

And I even started a little grass-cutting business.

But here's the thing: my dad owned the lawnmower.

My dad bought the gas for me.

He taught me how to cut the grass.

Sometimes he would come outside and help me because I was so bad at it.

But when I kind of went out there and did my best, what would he say?

He'd say, Well done, buddy.

Well done.

And I couldn't say I earned that.

I merited that.

But by obeying him, it was the instrument, it was the avenue that dad said, if you do this, I'll be pleased.

I mean, my dad has often joked, and it's not really a joke.

He's like, hey son, you were making money in that little grass-cutting business you had in the neighborhood.

I was losing money because I was propping you up.

And that's oftentimes the way it is with Father God.

Okay?

We are going to be asking you, as staff, as elders and deacons, over the next couple of weeks, to pray and think about.

End of the year giving.

Giving to the church, giving to the poor.

We're going to be asking you to pray and think about plans for next year.

Giving to the church, giving to the poor.

More details to come.

But before we get into any of that, I think part of what God wants to do with all of us, myself included, is just go after our heart.

Before we get into the minutiae and the details that are important, they're important in a secondary way.

We need to have our hearts right with the Lord so that when we get into wrestling with the nitty-gritty percentages, amounts, all that, our heart is right with him.

So let me tell you another story.

I've got a friend older than me, grew up in Birmingham, and uh definitely middle class.

And uh he played football, and they were all sorts of rich, poor, all different sorts of people on the football team.

And a lot of times after the football game, all the guys would go out somewhere, get something to eat, hamburger.

And he said his dad would always pull him aside and he'd give him some cash.

And the guy's name is Mike.

He said, Mike, he said, I want you to be real sensitive when y'all go to Dairy Queen, wherever y'all go.

I want you to look around, I want you to notice who doesn't seem like they have money to buy food.

And he's like, I want you to help them.

He said, and I want you to do it subtle, don't make a big deal about it.

Don't let them know, don't embarrass them.

Maybe you just hand them$5 and nobody's looking.

Maybe you ask them and you buy the food and you just kind of hand it off.

He's like, but I want you to make sure nobody is hanging out at the burger joint from the football team and they don't have something to eat.

No, my friend's in his 60s now.

And when he tells me this story, he's not bragging on himself.

He's not saying, Man, I was such a godly teenager, man.

You should have just seen me out there buying all the poor kids a hamburger.

He's bragging on his dad.

He when he tells me this story, there's always a smile on his face and like tears in his eyes.

Because he loves his dad.

He's like, man, my dad was generous, my dad was thoughtful, my dad cared about people, and my dad was raising me to think that way.

You know, I was just a teenage boy.

I like cheeseburgers and football and girls.

You know, I wasn't thinking about that.

My dad was training me to love people.

And think about it, he couldn't brag about it because he wasn't real source, he was just the instrument.

Right?

All the money, it wasn't his money, it was his dad's money.

Even the idea to do it wasn't his, it was his dad's.

He's bragging on his dad.

And I don't know his dad, I've never met his dad, but I like his dad.

I'm excited about his dad.

I wish I had known his dad.

I want to be like his dad.

That's the way that Christians ought to be.

That's what ought to be happening in our heart.

There is some sense in which being like God, being conformed into his image is enough of a reward in and of itself, is it not?

You ever been on a playground, maybe, and you see a father and son over there, and the little boy goes and gets on the monkey bars and he's swinging and maybe does one pull-up.

He's like, Dad, Dad, look at me, I can do a pull-up just like you.

What do you think when you see that?

Just a little legalist over there.

Pharisee in the making.

That must be a works righteousness home right there.

No, of course not.

It's the most innocent ambition in the world for a little kid to want to be like mom and dad and for their mom and dad to see it, and the little kid to have pleasure in the smile of mom and dad, is it not?

Have you ever had your child come to you?

Look, daddy, I drew this picture.

Don't you like it?

And you're looking at it like, I don't know, this looks like some kind of weird elephant, maybe a woolly mammoth.

Yeah, I do like it, buddy, but what is it?

Oh, it's you, Dad.

Well, okay.

You're not angry that your child's not Picasso yet.

You take delight in their best efforts, although it's not that great.

See us, Lewis said about God.

Father God is easily pleased, but he's hard to satisfy.

Right?

We're not gonna perfectly satisfy him with our righteousness.

But he's such a gracious, kind, loving God.

He's easy to please when we're just faithful and trying to fall forward in the right direction.

When each of my sons turned 12, I would take them on this little manhood trip.

And part of what we do is some Bible study about what it means to be a man, and I'd teach them how to shave and tie tie and all that kind of stuff.

Uh but the main thing I was trying to do is I was trying to say, buddy, I know enough about what it's like to be a teenage boy that you and I are gonna butt heads probably over the next few years.

And on the front of this thing, I just want you to know I like you.

I'm for you.

I want to be your friend.

Yes, I'm gonna be your dad and your authority.

I want to be your friend too.

So we would go out west, we would go skiing, I would spend way too much money.

But it was kind of like, hey, buddy, as long as it's not illegal or immoral, we can do pretty much whatever you want.

You want to sleep in one day and skip half the skiing day, even though I spent a lot of money on the ski pass, we can do that.

You want to wake up and eat a candy bar for breakfast, we can do that.

Mama's not here.

You want to go out for dinner and order a gigantic steak that costs way too much, and I know you're not gonna finish it, we can do that.

Right?

We'll watch lots of really violent movies that your mom would never let.

It was like, this is gonna be a trip for you.

And when I did it with my first son, we were staying in this little hotel room close to the mountain, and the last morning you had to wake up, you know, go to the airport to come home.

And my son, 12 years old, woke up before me, which didn't happen very often in those days.

And I could see he was kind of scurrying around the room.

And so I was just kind of trying to act like I was still asleep, watching.

And then when I finally woke up, Up, 12 years old.

Last day, hey, hey, Dad.

Because I noticed what he's doing.

He was cleaning the hotel room, which I didn't have the heart to say, hey, buddy, you know, part of what you pay for in the hotel fee is they're gonna clean it.

We don't have to clean this place.

He said, Dad, I want you to know.

I cleaned the room, I took the trash out, I've already packed my bag, I got your bag packed, and I fixed you like a little bowl of oatmeal, Dad.

I just I just want to say thank you for this trip, Dad.

And I said, How dare you?

You trying to earn something, boy?

Of course not.

Listen, he already had the gift, he already was enjoying the gift.

He it was just a natural overflow of his heart.

He was trying to express, Dad, you've been a great dad.

You're not always a great dad, but for this weekend you were a great dad, and I love you, and I'm trying to say thank you.

That's what Christians ought to be doing.

And you know what happened in my heart as a father?

I was happy in his happiness, and I just wanted to buy him more gifts, right?

If you become crazy rich, like the next Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, whoever, and you give 90% of your wealth away, and you become famous for that, the greatest philanthropist of all time.

Better than Bill Gates or whoever.

But the reason you're doing it is for the praise of man, you're probably gonna get it.

They'll probably write an article in Time magazine about you.

Whoop to do.

Because you'll get the judgment seat of Christ and you'll get nothing.

I'll tell you what.

If you're a Christian and you're giving away lots of your money as secretly as you can, and you get to heaven, and part of the reward package, is Jesus is like, you're about to get a massive mansion over here.

Let me tell you what I know for sure you will not say.

You won't be looking at your neighbor saying, My blood, sweat, and tears bought this mansion.

I earned it on planet earth with all my giving.

You won't say that.

No, it is a blood-bought gift, but it's a gift bought by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that bled out for us on the cross for all of our selfishness, all of our self-righteousness.

And based on that meritorious cause, we can go and obey and be his instrument to bless others.

There's a song I love, I think Adam sang it one time for offertory, has this great line there, it says, When I stand on the edges of Jordan, the saints and the angels beside, when my body is healed and the glory revealed, still I will boast only Christ.

Even in heaven, guys, it's gonna be like, it's all him.

I'm perfect now, but it's still all him, it's all him, not about me.

Talking to a friend recently, about to take a new job.

I've had this conversation with lots of people lots of times, and the deal he says he's getting sounds way too good to be true.

And so I said, get everything in writing.

Because people tend to get real squirrely when it comes to money, doesn't it?

You know, Jesus did not give us a lot of specifics in this Matthew 6 passage about how to give, when to give, where to give, who to give?

He didn't.

But he did give us this promise of reward.

It's in writing.

And guys, he sealed it with his blood.

How can our God, who has given us his only son, not also with him graciously give us all things?

He loves to give good gifts to his children.

Back to Harrison Ford for just a second, and then we're done.

Why did Harrison Ford take the$10,000 and not go for the back-end deal on maybe the greatest movie franchise of all time?

Because at that point he was a struggling actor.

He was not making it, he was having to do more carpentry work.

In a sense, he was like an orphan in Hollywood.

He was a nobody.

And he's like, I'm desperate, I'm struggling, I need the cash now.

And when we're living for human praise, that's what we're like.

It's like we're orphans spiritually and we're scrapping around for, I just need somebody to be nice to me, so let me do something public.

That's a terrible way to live, guys.

The way we ought to be living is you know what?

My dad is the richest person in the universe, and he loves me.

He's already proven it time and time again.

He proved it mainly through sacrificing his son for me.

I got nothing to worry about.

And he's given me money to take care of all my needs and provide and enjoy, but also to give away, to help others and to glorify him.

What's the ultimate reward?

It's the smile of the Father we've been created for.

Here's my last thought, I promise.

Even if you get all the praise of man that you could ever dream of, you know what?

It won't satisfy the depths of your soul.

Because you're made for something more.

We're made where the only thing that will really satisfy the deep desires of our heart is Father God in heaven looking at us and smiling and saying, Well done, good and faithful servant.

You have been faithful and little.

I'll give you charge over much.

Enter into the joy of your master.

What greater reward is that?

To share in perfect joy with Jesus forever.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, we love you.

You're truly an awesome God, an awesome Savior.

You are so wise, you are so good, you are so gracious, you are so generous.

We want to honor you with our words, with our prayers, with our songs, with our life, with our thoughts, with our desires, with our feelings.

Please, Holy Spirit, conform us to the image of Christ.

We're giving is a joy.

We're giving is just the natural overflow of our heart's enjoyment of you because you have given to us so much.

We pray all this in Christ's name.

Amen.