The Mount No.12 Privatised Piety

My God is so great, so strong and so mighty, there's nothing I don't want to do. My God is so great, so strong and so mighty, there's nothing I don't want to do. What comes is not me, what is is not me, the strong and the mighty are you.

My God is so great, so strong and so mighty, there's nothing I don't want to do. Just a moment or two of quiet thought for you to bring to the Lord the desires of your own heart. Moving into chapter 6. And in this chapter it seems to me that the Lord is drawing some contrasts between what we see and what God sees.

What men can see on the outside and what God sees in the heart. And Jesus emphasizes that it's what God can see in the heart that is all important, much more than what we can see on the outside. Be careful not to do your act of righteousness before men, to be seen by them.

If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.

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. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites.

For they love to pray, standing in the synagogues and on the street corners, to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is unseen.

Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like the pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

This then, is how you should pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come.

Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

This is the word of God. Almighty God, we thank you for the gift of your holy word. May it be a lantern to our feet, a light to our paths, and a strength to our lives.

Take us and use us to love and serve all men, in the power of the Holy Spirit. And in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I seek thee Lord. Father, some of us never stop, for we want to go beyond. But some of us don't recognize, that beyond the word of God, there is the God of the word.

Take us on, not merely to examine the bush, but to remove our sandals and bow down before your majesty, and acknowledge who you are. Word of God, take us on to yourself. God of the word.

Amen. Well, it started with the telephone system, didn't it? And then it went on to the gas board. And then it went to aerospace.

Then it went to British Air. And while I've been away, it's gone to water. And Harold Macmillan, who's not too happy, says that his friend Mrs. Thatcher is actually taking the family silver of the nation, and selling it off.

In other words, privatization is very much the heart of the philosophy of our present government. And it's not for me to make comment either pro or con, but at least to use that as a starting point, and to invite you to turn your attention to the sixth chapter, and the opening verses of this great and glorious gospel of Matthew, in which he portrays Jesus as king. And where you discover our Lord Jesus, simply, or so it would seem, arguing for what I have called the privatizing of piety.

Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men. Let me remind you of the context. It's a long time since I've had opportunity to come to this particular passage of Scripture, this great sermon which our Lord declares, though I've appreciated listening to the tapes of my very gifted brother, Tim Saunders, as he's dealt with the latter part of chapter five.

The sermon on the mount is not, as the little boy quipped in his simplicity, with a certain amount of misplaced logic, the sermon that Jesus preached as he rode to Jerusalem on the donkey, donkey, mount, you see, never mind. The sermon on the mount is proclaimed by our Lord Jesus, not in Judea, but in Galilee, his home territory. The back of where he's standing, there's a natural amphitheater.

Over on his right, there is Capernaum. To be seen on his left is Bethsaida. And if he casts his eye and it's a clear day across the lake, he will be able to distinguish Decapolis, where his ministry is going to have some tremendous impact.

But in front of him are gathered together people from Galilee, perhaps some from Nazareth. It's a mixed congregation. Not everyone comes willingly to hear a preacher.

Some come to nitpick. And that was the situation for our Lord wherever he preached. Yet so magnificent is he that he can deal with a situation that's not controlled.

He can deal with the movements of the crowd far better than I can. He can cope with the fact that there are those who are planted in his audience who are allowing every word that falls from his lips to go through their own minds so that they can nail him ultimately, I use that word deliberately, for things that he has said which are against the orthodox teaching of the clergy in the headquarters in Jerusalem. So our Lord comes and almost like Moses indeed, some think that Matthew writing this gospel, putting together all the fragments of information, perceives Jesus as a second Moses laying down the law.

He's come not from Sinai. He's come not from that geographical location. But he has come from the presence of God.

And he's standing in front of his kingdom, of his servants, of all those who will follow him. And he is laying down dictates. He is laying down instructions for life in the kingdom.

This morning we stand, or we sit, in the presence of the King. And he is giving to you, not advice. He is giving to you those controlling principles that are to regulate your life.

And Jesus will teach in a radical fashion. But because he is the Son of God, all that he has to say will always be up to date. Not just 2,000 years ago is it applicable.

But it's right on the line for men and women living in the increasingly complex world of the 20th century. Islam has five pillars. I mean by that there are five supporting foundations of that so-called great world of religion.

I take back the word so-called, it is a great religion. And three of those pillars, foundation pillars of Islam, did you know this, Christianity also has in common the three that are of importance to which our Lord makes reference is the whole matter of the giving of alms, charitable work, the whole matter of prayer, interceding before Jehovah, and the business of fasting. Now in the Old Testament you discover that these three aspects of the devotional life are underlined and here our Lord Jesus is talking as King to his citizens and he is saying as it was in the Old Testament day, so it is today.

So it is in my kingdom. But the problem is in Old Testament times these disciplines have been perverted and today our Lord is speaking historically at that moment today. Not only is it perverted but there are those even in my congregation who actually are in the vanguard of the perversion and I want to correct it.

And so he speaks about these fundamental pillars of the Christian faith. Charitable giving, praying, and fasting. If you were to turn to Psalm 112 in the ninth verse you would discover there a statement that says about the man who is blessed before the Lord.

Verse one indicates the subject matter. His heart is secure, he will have no fear. Verse nine, he has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor.

His righteousness endures forever. There is in the Old Testament as I say, instruction given about the way that the Jews were to look after the poor. If you were to go to a Muslim land, get on a bus, you would probably discover that before the bus sets out in the station some poor beggar will come and he will go up and down the seats and he will hold out his little begging bowl and the Muslim community will give just a very small coin to help the beggar.

Now our Lord Jesus is saying that we as Christian people are also to look after this whole business of piety. In reference to almsgiving, in reference to prayer and also in reference to fasting. That's the reason, incidentally, those of you who, and perhaps with some justification, still opt for the authorised version of the Bible need to have a correction at least in your mind, if not literally written on the page, because it's not that our Lord leads off in the first verse with the instruction be careful not to do your alms or whatever the exact rendering of the AV is.

He's not here just talking in the opening verse about almsgiving. He's talking about the whole idea of piety. Be careful not to do your acts of piety in these threefold areas.

Don't do them publicly, but to be seen of men. He's concerned about motive. He's concerned about the how and not just the what of spiritual performance.

And he's doing this because, well, as I say, he has in his audience those who he needs to correct, and if they won't take his correction, then he has to put down the principle that unless your understanding of what piety means is an improvement upon their understanding, then you cannot enter the kingdom. Verse 20 of the 5th chapter For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not be mine. You will certainly not enter into the establishment which I am founding.

And so, he talks to us about these three areas that are going to continue to need to be attended to in the kingdom of God, but he deals with a whole business of motive. When you do your acts of piety, don't do them before men, to be seen by them. Let's open that statement a little bit, because within it are three propositions.

Within it are three propositions, and the first one includes a balance which has to be established. A balance which has to be established. What do I mean? Well, if you check the 16th verse of the previous chapter, you will see that what our Lord says here in the 6th chapter seems to contradict his teaching.

For there we find in verse 16 in the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. And yet here, when he's talking about almsgiving and subsequently about prayer and about fasting, he's referring to the privatization of these acts of piety. Now, is there a contradiction here? Well, no, of course there isn't.

What really is behind our Saviour's teaching, behind our Saviour's objective, is what if you were to place it in a garage setting you might call fine-tuning. Fine-tuning. You see, there is a sense that you and I as Christian people are called to be different.

We are asked to be seen to be different by the world. Somebody puts it like this, that the Christian must be seen to do good works but not do good works in order to be seen. You see the point? If you're engaged in these acts of piety, and your motivation is for other people to recognize you as being an outstanding person, then your objective is wrong.

Because you have got a motive that will bring ultimately glory to yourself and not glory to God. So here is the fine-tuning. Nonetheless, if you decide in as you commit your life to the Lord Jesus, that these acts of almsgiving and praying and fasting are going to become part of your disciplines then obviously it's going to make a difference.

But the difference is going to be something that's a sort of also ran. It's going to be a consequence. It's not going to be your motivation.

Your motivation is to give honour and glory to God in your personal life, in your private life. And so our Lord Jesus, in contradistinction to what the Pharisees and the religious clergy of those days were engaged in, puts down this opening principle. There's a balance to establish.

Yes, in one sense you want to let your light shine, but the way that you let your light shine is by ensuring that your inner disciplines are intact, are attended to day by day and week by week. It says a man by the name of Artie France, the difference lies not only in the motive but the result. The former brings glory to God.

When you do your acts of righteousness in private, it brings glory to God. The latter, doing your acts before men, brings glory to the performer. Now one of the things that our Lord cannot stand is clay acting.

Time and time again in His teaching, not only in the Sermon on the Mount, but later on in the 23rd chapter of this Gospel, you discover Him using that very harsh word hypocrite. What does hypocrite mean? Well, it's a Greek word in the way that it's used, obviously in the New Testament, which is translated from the Greek, and it has the idea of acting. The actor is never real, is he? He's never real.

And here our Lord Jesus looks upon certain people who claim to be God's own children. They're gathered together in that natural amphitheater, and He says, don't be like them. They're not really real.

Their concern is not God, but self. But you, you who are going to be mine, get this balance. Have these disciplines attended to constantly, and as a result of that, your light will shine.

Your objective is to glorify God, and as you're doing that, you will be so distinctive in the way that people look on you. They'll appreciate that that is a measure of difference. So there's a balance to establish.

There's also, I think, in our Lord's teaching in that first verse, an option to choose. Why do I say that? Well, look at the verse for a moment, will you? Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men. Then drop down to verse four, will you? Because when He's put the corrective in, and He applies His general proposition to the whole area of almsgiving, He talks about your Father, who sees what is done in secret.

You get exactly the same thing, coming in to the 15th verse, when He's now dealing with the matter of prayer, and bringing it to its conclusion. If you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. As though, once again, the Father is looking on the human activity.

Perhaps the point is better underlined in the sixth verse. Then your Father who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. You get exactly the same thing at the end of His teaching on the whole discipline of almsgiving.

Verse 18, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. You see the point? You've got an option.

By and large, there are always two categories of spectator on your life. There are human agencies, your friends, those with whom you deal, day by day, and there is also the Lord. Now, Jesus, the King, is setting down for His subjects as to what category is to them to have overriding importance.

When you engage in your spiritual disciplines, keep your eyes not on your fellows, but on the Lord. Your Father who sees in secret. You remember Hagar? That little Egyptian au pair who seemed to me to be so roughly treated by Sarah.

One day, because she's pregnant and has fallen foul of Sarah's jealousy, she's evicted from the camp. The most despicable thing for Sarah to have done. And here is this pregnant woman, typical of many people expecting children today, without the support of a husband or without the support of a family.

God comes and finds her in the backwoods. You remember the story in the early chapters of Genesis? And she responds when God has taken up on her particular case. She responds in the words of the authorised version, Thou, Lord, seest me.

My good friend, don't you appreciate that if you had that concept of God, that all the time you're alive, He is watching on you, watching over you. How different your life would be. Now says Jesus, in my kingdom that's the way you are to live.

Your behaviour is to be conditioned, not by people who are attending on you, who are looking at what you're doing, but rather keep your eyes on the Lord, the Heavenly Father, because He has His eyes upon you. So I say in the whole area of privatising piety, there are those two propositions. There's a balance to establish.

There's an option to choose. But then, and perhaps surprisingly, there's a reward to secure. Now the whole business of rewards perhaps surprises those people who are a little sensitive on the idea of being rewarded in having heaven, having already received our salvation, and yet it's a very honourable thing to think in terms of rewards, is it not? Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men, to be seen by them.

If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. Our Lord Jesus is the first person, obviously, to take up this whole business of rewards in the teaching of the Gospels. You discover in the twelfth verse of the previous chapter, when He comes to concluding those lovely beatitudes, He says rejoice and be glad.

If you're persecuted for righteousness sake, why? Why should I be glad? Well, great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecute the prophets who were before you. You see, the Bible makes it very plain, my friend, that you're not only saved, you're saved with the potential of being recognized for the service that you do for the King. Do you appreciate this? It's a very interesting expression in the latter part of that first verse of the sixth chapter.

If you do your acts of righteousness before men, to be seen of them, then there will be no reward. You'll already have been rewarded by those who have looked on and congratulated you. There is no reward from the Father in heaven.

Why? Well, you see, they've been paid. That's the Greek verb for the stamping of a receipt. Here I am, and I engage in almsgiving, in fasting, and in praying, and in many, many other aspects of spiritual discipline, but really what I want are the congratulations of the people.

Alright, says Jesus, you have them. But if that's your motive, there'll be nothing else. Nothing left whatsoever.

But you see, for members of the king, the king's kingdom, those who are following our Lord Jesus, we have our eye on the ultimate as to what is going to happen to us when we've run our race on earth, when this uncertain earthly life and pilgrimage has come to its conclusion. Then I will stand before him. The teaching of the Bible indicates that what I have done for the Lord Jesus will be assessed.

You read it in Corinthians. Paul talks about those who are saved as by fire. They've nothing to show.

But then there are those who were engaging in serving the Lord. They gave charitable bestowments upon the poor. They invested time in praying in a private fashion.

They went without food in order to give more money to the poor, more time, and more energy to the holy business of intercession. There's that little lady who's faithful in church. She's always in at the communion table.

She takes her brother Ted Davey, who was suggesting the other Sunday night magnificent sermon he preached in the evening. She takes other people's children under her wing so to speak, and she brings them before the Lord. She's never up front, but my, she's a faithful lady.

Now the Lord Jesus says, Great, great shall be the reward of that person in heaven. Now I ask you, my dear friends, I ask you very carefully, and I measure my words. Are you working towards your reward? You see, if we really believe from the depths of our being what our Lord Jesus is teaching here, then the whole of the controlling factor of our lives is going to shift.

We're not going to be concerned about people. Campbell Morgan says that most of us are more influenced by people and what they say than by God and what he thinks. And that is true, isn't it? Henry Ford said of his wealth that he couldn't take it with him, but he could send it on ahead.

Now I'm not just referring to wealth. I'm referring to all that you are and all that you are doing. Are you using your time in investing work in the kingdom of the Lord so that your reward shall come? It's an honorable thing I say.

It's spelled out throughout the whole of the Gospels. I could take you into later chapters in Matthew where our Lord is teaching the same thing. I can take you into the Epistles.

But I've said enough. Here are three propositions, three controlling factors which are to deal with every aspect of whatever you call piety. Now I've got time left to deal fairly briefly with the example that our Lord Jesus gives to us here.

We can apply his teaching in the whole area of almsgiving. Verse 2 you see is the illustration of the principles that he set up in verse 1. And you'll find further illustration as I say in verse 5 and also in verse 16 when he deals with prayer and fasting. So our Lord says when you give to the needy, when you engage in almsgiving.

Now he's not talking about tithing. I think that this is a very different thing from tithing. I believe that the New Testament and the Old Testament teach tithing, but that's not my subject for this morning.

We're talking about this whole disposition that should be part of your personality towards the unfortunate. We're not even thinking, I believe I could go as far as saying this in interpretation, we're not even just thinking about money. We are thinking about helping those who are in need.

For James makes it very clear in the epistle that bears his name that through religion, it's not a matter of words. It's not just understanding the word of God. That's why I got ready to play that opening melody from that beautiful hymn where the first verse impels you to say, take me beyond the word.

Take me beyond the doctrine. Take me to where the real life is and make me live for you there Lord, encountering you day by day and ministering to others in your name. You see, one of the things that frightens me about a church like this is that maybe we become a sort of holy club.

And you're glad to have the preaching of the word of God and, you know, you're very fine-tuned in doctrine. But Jesus was confronted in his audience with people who were fine-tuned in doctrine. I mean, the Pharisees, you couldn't have got finer in the tuning.

I mean, really, if you hit them, they rang out solid all the doctrines of the Mosaic law. The first five books of the Old Testament, they would have had off by heart, but Jesus said, you're hypocrites. Why was that? Well, because of the way that they dealt with this pretense of piety.

Our Lord Jesus tells us that there is the wrong way. What is the wrong way? Well, look at the second verse. When you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets to be honoured by men.

I tell you the truth. They have received their reward. The receipt is there.

It's given to them. There is nothing else. I don't know whether he had in mind a literal incident.

Campbell Morgan reckons he does. Most Bible commentators say, here our Lord was engaging in sort of exaggeration, just to make his point. There's a tinge of humour.

Blowing the trumpet, and in comes this mumptious little Pharisee, and everybody's watching him as he takes the largess, he takes his wallet out, and he hands around his credit card and says, you know, fill in what you want and I'll sign. Now our Lord says there's nothing the matter with giving, but what is the matter with that particular form of giving is that it brings glory to the person himself. Look, I think I can make the point much more clear by taking you to our Lord's terrible condemnation of the Pharisees in the 23rd chapter.

God forbid of this Gospel. God forbid that this should ever apply to us. Matthew 23 and verse 5. Matthew 23, 5. Everything they do is done for men to see.

See the point? Everything they do is done for men to see. There's a wrong way of engaging in your acts of piety. I think of the Pharisees in terms of what I'll call the theology of little Jack Horner.

Okay, think back to your childhood. Little Jack Horner, what did he do? He sat in a corner. He was eating his Christmas pie.

Come on, you know it, don't you? Stop being so sophisticated. He put in his thumb and pulled out a plum and said, what a good boy am I? Two men says Jesus went into the temple. One was a Pharisee, the other was a tax collector.

And little Jack Horner, he was there in the part of the first. I thank God that I'm not like other men. You see, it was a display.

We can put on a display, can't we? Display before our fellows and even a display before our God. And our Lord Jesus says, no fellas, no sisters, you who are in my kingdom, don't behave like that. It's the wrong way.

If you give, if you minister to those who are needy, then do it in a way that honours the Lord because you're bringing glory to him and you don't have your eye on the rest of the people. Have you ever watched these politicians when they're interviewed, and I don't speak disrespectfully of politicians, thank God for men of integrity, as I believe some of them are. Have you watched them when they're going to be interviewed and they've obviously been told by the cameraman to stand about a hundred yards from parliament and they're photographed or they're filmed as they walk in.

And they try and do it naturally. But you can see they're almost going cross-eyed because you have this sort of human tendency to look towards the camera. Here I am, your constituent member.

Now it's that, it's that attitude of keeping your eyes on other people that our Lord deprecates here. He says, no, that's the wrong way. When you give alms, when you help the poor, when you help the unfortunate, when you help the unmarried mother, when you help the girl who's pregnant, when you help the fellow who's made a mess of his life, when you do that, well, don't do it with your eye upon the camera so that, you know, other people might pick up the film and think what a good boy you are.

No, that's the wrong way, says our Lord Jesus. But there is, however, a right way. There is a right way, and that's in the third verse taught for us.

But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Now that's very difficult, isn't it? I mean, you imagine being a pianist and not letting your right hand know what your left hand is doing. Actually, one pastor once came to me and he said he had a problem in his church with a biblical pianist who had this difficulty.

When you catch a ball, the left hand automatically goes to the right hand, doesn't it? Hardly anything you can do, and these things are not in tandem. But our Lord says, the naturalness with which you serve me, the largesse, the extravagance, in one sense, in this area, the lack of thought is to the extent that the left hand is surprised by the right hand. The right hand is surprised by the left hand.

You know, God is a generous God. I don't believe that He keeps accounts the way that He gives. Although I'm not suggesting we're not methodical in our giving, I am suggesting that those of us who are very much of an accountant disposition, we are not always to be totting up and thinking back about what we have given or what we have done for the Lord.

It's like a man who's truly in love. Loving his wife or loving his friends. You really love someone.

You're not thinking about what you did for them last week, are you? You've forgotten that. You're on to the present. You want to serve them now.

You want to get a warmth in their heart now. That's the measure of love. It always gives.

It doesn't keep account. Now our Lord Jesus says in this whole area, this discipline of almsgiving, of helping the poor, well, you are to do this in such a natural fashion that your right hand has even forgotten what your left hand has given away. I wonder if this is the fashion in which you're coping with, or not coping, you're rising to the challenge of your Christian discipleship.

You say, but Pastor, how can I do this? Well, it seems to me that it takes you back to Calvary, you see. When you realise what God has done for you, then you'll do anything for Him, won't you? You take that lovely hymn of Cecil Alexander, Oh dearly, dearly has He loved, and we must love Him too. And trust in His redeeming love and try His work to do.

You remember how Isaac Watts puts it when he thinks of the cross and his own indebtedness, that drops of grief will ne'er repay the debt of love I owe. Here, Lord, I give myself away. It is all that I can do.

There's a naturalness about responding, were the whole realm of nature mine, that were an offering far too small. Lord, I'm so mesmerised by your love, that I just want to minister to other people in your name. And sometimes I'm going to be daft in the way that I do it.

I'm going to go beyond what I ought to do as your son went beyond what was expected of him. My left hand is not communicating with my right hand in this area. My friends, as I bring this to a conclusion, let me talk to you about the blessing.

The blessing that this is for all who follow the teachings of the King. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. The blessing, what is it? It's glorious.

It's beyond all your ability to compute. The blessing is the realisation that actually, though our Lord speaks about the privatising of piety, actually, there is nothing that is finally private because the Heavenly Father realises all that you have done for Him while you walked on this earth. And He will reward you.

When you get to the end of the book of Matthew, you find a picture of the judgement. In the 25th chapter there are those who receive the accolade of the King and He says, Blessed are you. Enter into the kingdom of my Father, for when you were on earth you did this and you did the other and you did so and so.

And they said, Lord, when? We didn't know. Our left hand didn't know what our right hand was doing. Yes, we visited the sick, but it was natural to us.

Yes, we gave to the poor. Yes, we helped this person and that person, but Lord, do you mean to say, yes, says the Lord, I mean to say that that in as much as you did it to one another, you did it to me. Your left hand and your right hand were not in tandem.

It was so natural to you to work for me, you didn't even realise you were doing it. And that's what the King wants. He wants it from you.

And He wants it from me. So we stand again before the King and we say, Lord, in this matter of disciplines, we want to fashion out in our lives what you teach in that first verse, that those controlling principles may govern the whole of the direction of the way that we take because of what you've done for us. Stand for a moment.

Stand in the presence of the King. Just a moment for you to correct anything that needs correcting. To make the necessary balances and to say, Lord, from this time on, I want to act like the Pharisee with an eye on the congregation of the audience.

I want to act like that unconscious person that Jesus refers to who did things for you without even realising that it was part of worship. The way I look after my baby. The way I look after my husband.

The way I am true to Christian friends. The way that I give to the poor. The way that I'm honourable in all my relationships.

Lord, help me to realise that all this I can offer to you. See it done in secret and ultimately reward me openly.