Do Not Your Alms Before Men

Introduction to Matthew Chapter 6: The Christian's Life in God's Presence

0:05 Now let us turn to the Sermon on the Mount as we resume our studies in this very key passage of the entire Word of God.

0:15 I am thrilled the more I study in preparation for these Sunday morning expositions with the wonderful symmetry of God's truth, the wonderful unity of all that God has revealed in His own precious Word. And increasingly I have little patience with those who would chop up my Bible into dispensational piecemeal and throw away so much that God has for my profit and for my good. Matthew chapter 5 and this morning we are going to begin our studies of chapter 6 after spending just several minutes to try to catch again something of the pulse of the whole of this sermon. Like a grand symphony that may...

1:03 They have some very beautiful melodies which are beautiful in themselves. If you extract them out of the setting of the entire symphony, they are beautiful. But they have a double beauty when you hear them and listen to them in relationship to the whole of that work of musical art. The same is true with a beautiful painting.

1:22 You may take one aspect of that painting and extract it and blow it up and isolate it and it has an intrinsic beauty but the beauty is nowhere nearly as much appreciated as the whole of it. And that is when I see that one aspect of the work of art in relationship to the whole. And this is true of the Sermon on the Mount. There is hardly a text in Matthew chapter 5, 6 or 7 which is not in itself intrinsically beautiful and has tremendous spiritual truth embodied within its words.

1:53 But if we are to catch the real weight and the true spiritual beauty and the impact we must continually refer the individual, the spiritual portion that we study within the framework of the whole. And so we have seen in the introduction to this sermon the character of a Christian described in Matthew 5 verses 2 to 12. There is this delineation of the character of a true Christian. He is pictured as a man who mourns, who is poor in spirit, who hungers and thirsts after righteousness.

2:26 And I would remind you that no one is a Christian who does not have these character traits inscribed in the Sermon on the Mount. He is inscribed upon his heart and life by the power of God. These are a mirror reflecting the character of a Christian as in wrought by God the Holy Spirit. Then we saw in verses 13 to 16 the function of this man or woman in the world.

2:49 He is light and he is salt. This is what he does in the midst of society. God does not make him this character in order to isolate him in a monastery. But God makes him this in order to bring him into the midst of a depraved society, a putrefying society.

3:07 And as salt he checks the process of decay and putrefaction. He puts him in the world that is full of darkness in order that by his life and by his lips he may shed light to all that are about him. Then in verses 17 to 48 we had the Christian in his relationship to the law of God. Or in other words the Christian in his practical righteousness.

3:34 This person described in the Beatitudes as poor in spirit, as hungering and thirsting, who takes his place in society as light and as salt. What will his practical life be like? It will be a life lived in conformity to the true purpose of God's holy law. He will not be content with a mere externalism.

3:56 He is not content that he merely doesn't chase around with someone else's wife. He longs to have a purity of heart and of mind. He is not content that he merely doesn't fight against those who pick on him. He longs to actually love his enemies and to show the very compassion of God to them.

4:14 So we've seen the Christian in his character, the Christian in his function in the world, and then the Christian in his relationship to the law of God or practical godliness. Now we come to chapter 6. This chapter which Martin Lloyd Jones described as the Christian living his life in the world in the presence of God, in active submission to God's will, and in utter dependence upon God. And I can't improve upon that.

Two Divisions of Chapter 6: Religious and Practical Life

4:48 Chapter 6 now takes this man described in chapter 5 whose function is light and salt, whose life is lived in practical obedience to the precepts of God, and now God gives us a picture of this life, in the world, lived in the presence of God, in submission to His will, and in utter dependence upon Him. And the chapter breaks down into two very natural divisions. They're not artificial at all. You have in verses 1 to 18 the Christian in what we might call his religious life.

5:25 We have some clear instruction about giving, about praying, and about fasting. These are what we might call the religious disciplines of the true Christian. And then beginning with verse 19 through the end of the chapter, we have the Christian in his practical life. He has kids that he's got to clothe.

5:45 Or if Mrs. Architect was here, I'd say he has children. She doesn't like you to call them kids. She says they're not little goats.

5:53 Some of you friends, Mrs. Architect is one of our long-standing members of the church who's not with us, but who is still one of us. But you've got children. You've got to put food in their mouths, and clothing on their backs.

6:05 How does all this business about praying, and giving, and fasting, and all this business of living as light and salt, what does this do? Be practical, man. I've got a wife and children and bills to me. What does all this have to say about me?

6:18 God's got something very clear to say about this. Not only about what we would call the religious life and the disciplines of prayer and giving and fasting, but God has something to say about bread and clothes and these very practical issues. So as we think our way through the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, this second great portion of the Sermon on the Mount, we want to do so in terms of that two-fold division that's right here, very obvious, the Christian in his religious life, the Christian in his practical life. Now, all of this is introduced by verse 1, which is a very sweeping statement, which covers the whole first section.

The Sweeping Warning: Do Not Your Righteousness Before Men

6:58 Let's look at it together. Chapter 6 and verse 1. Take heed that you do not your alms, or better translated, your righteousness, before men to be seen of them, otherwise ye have no reward of your Father who is in heaven. You see, when the King James was translated in 1600, they did the best they could with the manuscripts they had.

7:20 Since that time, we've discovered older manuscripts, and all the older manuscripts have, in place of the word alms, the general word righteousness. Take heed that ye do not your righteousness before men. Verse 2 then talks about alms, and then verse 5 talks about prayer, and then when we come down toward the end of this section, in verse 16, it talks about fasting. So verse 1 is a general introduction to verses 2 to 18.

7:51 Verse 1 is the introductory word concerning our religious lives. Now, let's notice first of all the theme of this first section of chapter 6, is this matter of righteousness or practical piety. Someone has translated it this way, Beware of practicing your piety before men to be seen of them. The theme of this first section is this matter of our deeds of religious discipline and devotion.

8:21 Giving is an expression of devotion to God. Prayer and fasting are disciplines of the Christian life. Now, our Lord is going to deal with this general theme of these deeds of religious discipline and devotion, those practices by which spiritual life is sustained and expressed. Now, I remind you, spiritual life is sustained and expressed by giving, by praying, and by disciplining our physical appetites to higher ends.

8:56 But these things do not mean to give spiritual life, they merely sustain it. Let me illustrate from the physical world. Food and exercise sustain physical life, among other things. But they have no power to give life.

9:12 If I go out here and take a corpse and start cramming food into its mouth and wiggling its arms, it'll never come to life. I can force a ton of food into it if possible. And I can make it do Kennedy's physical fitness scheme of exercises every morning for a month. But these exercises have no power to give life.

9:33 Eating and exercising are God-appointed means to sustain life, but they have no power to give life. What is true in the physical is true in the spiritual. Giving, praying, and fasting can never give me spiritual life. Spiritual life is the gift of God by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit.

9:57 I must be born of the Spirit. I must come into a living relationship with Jesus Christ the Lord. I must hear His Word and embrace that Word in faith. And Jesus said, Those that hear His Word and believe shall live.

10:12 So any here this morning who'd be tempted to think, Well, if I only give enough and pray enough and fast enough, I'll have life. No, my friend. Jesus is dealing with those practices by which life already given is sustained and expressed. But you can pray and you can give and you can flagellate your body and discipline your physical appetites until you're nothing but an emaciated frame of bone and skin.

10:43 But you'll come to find, as did Martin Luther, who by his fasting and his watching and his praying, or George Whitefield, who spent literally nights and sometimes weeks prostrated on a cold floor praying, pleading, fasting, denying himself, trying somehow to come into fellowship with God. You'll find, as they found, dear ones, that life does not come by giving, by fasting, by praying. Life comes by looking to the Son of God. For the Scripture says, Look unto Me, all ye ends of the earth, and be ye saved.

11:20 Life comes by the gaze of the soul in faith upon the wounds of Christ as we're willing to forsake our sin and embrace Him. Spiritual life is imparted as the gift of God. But, though life is imparted as the gift of God in the operations of His grace, that spiritual life is sustained by these means of prayer and of fasting. That life will be expressed in giving.

11:48 And it's what our Lord, that's what our Lord is dealing with here, the expression and the sustaining of spiritual life. Not the giving of that life. That's the subject for other portions of the Word. And may God help us to keep them straight.

The Warning Against Improper Motives

12:02 So the theme is this matter of the deeds by which our religious life is sustained and expressed. Now notice carefully the warning. We've got the theme of the whole section. Now notice the warning in verse 1.

12:16 Take heed that ye do not your righteousness or your deeds of piety before men to be seen of them. In relationship to these things whereby spiritual life is expressed and sustained, our Lord warns us, take heed, be on your guard that you don't do these things before men. Now are we to stop there? No, because that would contradict chapter 5 verse 13.

12:46 Where we're told that we're to salt to the earth. We're told in verse 16 of chapter 5, let your light shine before men that they may see your good works. Our Lord is not condemning the fact that men know that we have spiritual life as we express it in giving, in praying, in fasting, disciplining our physical needs to higher ends. What our Lord is condemning is the motive.

13:15 Notice now. Take heed that ye do not your righteousness or your piety before men to be seen of them. What He is warning against is doing these things from an improper motive. Don't do them, He says, in order to have the approbation and the approval of men, which is basically doing it to gratify yourself.

13:38 For if I pray and if I give and if I fast in order to impress men, I'm really doing it basically to gratify myself. I want people to think I'm this or I'm that. I'm not doing it out of a regard to please God. I'm not doing it out of a regard to know God.

13:56 I'm simply doing it that I may be seen of men, that I may gratify myself and may build myself up before the eyes of men. So the theme of this whole section, according to this introductory verse, is this matter of our practical deeds of righteousness. The basic warning is in the area of our motives. Take heed that ye do not these things to be seen of men.

Principle 1: The Assumption of Christian Disciplines

14:21 Now as we approach the section, there are several principles that I want us to see this morning, and then the Lord willing, we'll begin a detailed study of the first matter with which our Lord deals, namely that of taking giving of alms. But we won't get to that until next week. Principle number one. Now notice carefully.

14:41 We read in verse two, Therefore when thou doest alms, we read again in verse seven, or excuse me, verse five, and when thou prayest, and then again in verse sixteen, moreover when ye fast. Three times I come across this parallel expression. When ye give, when ye pray, when ye fast. What does this tell me?

15:13 It tells me, first of all, that our Lord assumes that all true Christians will engage in these acts of practical piety. Our Lord is not commanding us to give. He's not commanding us to pray. Nor is He commanding us to fast or to discipline our physical needs to spiritual ends.

15:35 He is assuming that all His disciples will pray. He's assuming that all His disciples will give. He's assuming that all His disciples will discipline their physical needs to higher spiritual ends. All He's doing is giving them some instruction as to how it's to be done.

15:53 But our Lord assumes on the very surface, that anyone who claims to be His disciple will give, will pray, and will fast. Now there's a tremendous lesson for us in this. Will you listen carefully? There's no teaching in the Bible to support the idea that there's such a thing as a Christian who doesn't give, who doesn't pray, and who doesn't discipline his physical needs in order to subject them to higher spiritual goals.

16:24 The Bible nowhere records or recognizes any such creature as a prayerless Christian. It does recognize a Christian who may neglect the duty of prayer for a period of time and be disciplined by the Lord until he gets back to the place of prayer. But the Bible nowhere recognizes any such creature as a Christian who doesn't pray and pray alone with God. It's one of the marks of wicked men that they don't pray.

16:54 For I read in the Psalms where David said something concerning the wicked who call not upon God. And one of the characteristics of wicked men is that they have no recourse to the throne of grace. And I say to you this morning, members of this church, friends or visitors, if you are a prayerless person, you are a Christless person. Do you hear me?

17:17 You are not a true disciple of Jesus Christ if you live without prayer. For what is prayer but the conscious recognition of the utter destitute nature of my heart, and I need supplies of grace to please God, to honor Him, to serve Him, to do His will? What is prayer but coming with my empty buckets to the infinite ocean of God's supply? And a Christian is someone who has seen himself as utterly destitute of grace and strength.

17:46 To live is to please God. I'm not talking about those of you who cry to God and whimper when you get in trouble, and then when you get out of your trouble you never come back to the throne of grace. I'm not talking about that. Even people do that.

17:57 I'm talking about prayer that drives you to God because you see something of the corruption of your heart, and you know unless God gives you grace you'll plunge yourself into sin and uncleanness. I'm talking about the kind of prayer that draws me to the throne of grace to worship Him whom I love and whom I serve, who I serve. Beloved, do you know anything about this? You're a professing Christian.

18:21 Most of you here this morning are. Our Lord nowhere assumes that there's any such preacher as an utterly prayerless Christian. He nowhere assumes there's any such thing as a true Christian. There's a true Christian who doesn't give.

18:32 He says, When thou doest thine alms, for if the love of God revealed on Calvary has gripped my heart, there's an awfully short distance between a Calvary-gripped heart and an open pocketbook. And when I've received free grace from Calvary, the gift of God's love, and I know something of His unspeakable gift, then the natural response of my heart is to desire to share in the needs of others. For if God has entered in and identified Himself with my greatest need, my sin problem, then the least I can do is reach out and seek to meet the temporal needs of others. And if you're a person who can shut up the bowels of compassion in the light of human need, you're not a Christian. For our Lord assumes that all true Christians will give, and then our Lord assumes that all true Christians will fast, or will discipline their physical appetites in order to bring them subjects to spiritual goals. The Bible nowhere recognizes as a Christian the man or woman who simply lives to gratify sensual natural appetite and who thinks, well, God's given us all things to enjoy, eat, drink, tomorrow we die. The Bible nowhere recognizes such a person as a Christian.

19:51 For a Christian is one who has seen that the only thing that matters, basically, is his relationship to God in the light of eternity. And he has seen that the issues of eternity are all important. He's fled the wrath to come. He's fled to Christ.

20:06 And that person realizes that though these God-given appetites have their proper place of expression and fulfillment, they must always be brought subject to spiritual ends and to spiritual goals. And so I say to you this morning, and I trust you hear me, that if you are a person who lives without a heart that longs to give and a hand that actually gives, if you live without a heart without prayer and without the discipline of your physical appetites, you are not a true Christian. Now, how are you going to become one? By starting to pray, give?

20:37 No. That sustains life. You don't get life that way. You get life by fleeing to Christ.

20:41 But if you fled to Christ and receive life, that life will be expressed in these ways. That life will be sustained in these ways. I've said it before from this pulpit, but I want to say it again, not because I haven't other things to say, but it's one of the themes that I have in my life that I want to talk about. And it's one of the themes that I have in my life that I want to talk about.

20:58 And it's one of the themes that I trust will ever be marked upon the minds of the men and women of this place should God ever move me elsewhere. Listen carefully. The Bible teaches that all works done before we receive life from Christ are dead works. Everything I do before I come to Christ as a guilty, helpless sinner and by faith receive Him as my Savior and Lord, all the works I do, the Bible says, are dead works.

21:26 Hebrews 6, 1 says, Repentance for all dead works. All works done before repentance and faith are dead works. Every man or woman in this building or in the many buildings set apart for public worship today who think that by their coming to church and by their praying and by their giving they're going to earn life, they're under a delusion of the devil. Dead works will lead to the lake of fire, the second death. But there's a second truth of the Bible and that is this, that all faith, all professed faith that does not issue in giving, in praying and in fasting is dead faith. For James says, if a man say he hath faith and hath not works, can that kind of faith save him? As the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead and dead faith leads to the same hell as dead works. And never forget it, beloved. There are people here who profess to be dead works. There are people here who

22:28 profess to be dead works. There are people here who profess to be dead works. There are people here who profess to be dead works. There are people here who profess to be dead works. There are people here who profess to be dead works. The first thing is that that say but you've received life from Christ, the proof will be the open hand, the bent knee and the disciplined body. You will give. You'll pray. You'll discipline your physical appetite. And if there's no giving, no praying, no discipline, there's no life. You have a dead faith, a lifeless barren faith that's all notion and maybe some affection, but it hasn't touched the root of your being. And I haven't found in all my treasure, that travels across the country, but probably several dozen people who've got these two things straight. Either they're over here crying against dead works and saying dead works won't save, dead works won't save, and here there's all kinds of dead faith. Or they see this and they go to the other extreme and they say faith, if it's real, will have to work.

23:19 And so they're working and striving, hoping to earn eternal life, and they've never fled to Christ. Remember, dead works and dead faith both lead to a devil's hell. So, and the first principle of our passage this morning is that our Lord assumes that all true believers will engage in these disciplines of the Christian life and in these expressions of our devotion to Him. Now there's a second principle that I want us to see.

Principle 2: The Affirmation of Proper Motive

23:48 Our Lord not only assumes something, but our Lord affirms something. In this whole passage, verses 2 to 18, our Lord affirms that the...

23:59 the most important thing about these deeds is that they be done with the proper motive. He tells us in that first verse, take heed that ye do not your arms to be seen. That's the motive. Then He tells us, in verse 2, when thou doest thine arms, do not sound a trumpet.

24:20 Why? That they may have glory of men. And then when He deals with the matter of prayer, they do this, He said, in order to be seen of men. And all the way through, our Lord is touching upon the matter of motivation.

24:36 How well our Lord knows the human heart.

24:41 For if we cannot be kept from doing these deeds which express life and which sustain spiritual life, if the enemy of our souls cannot keep us enmeshed in inactivity, then He will seek to spoil our holiest deeds by causing us to be possessed of a wrong motive in the performance of those deeds. And so our Lord is not only assuming that all true disciples will engage in these things, but He's affirming that our motive is the all-important thing.

25:17 You've heard me say it many times from this pulpit, it's not what I'm doing that's so important many times as why I'm doing it. It's not enough to be in the right place at the right time saying the right words. The question is, why are you there? Why are you saying what you're saying?

25:32 And why are you doing what you're doing? Let me illustrate. What are you here for this morning? Why are you here?

25:37 What's your motivation? May I take two hypothetical people? One here, one there. They both sit.

25:44 Now, I can see them in my mind's eye. So I'm not picking on anybody. Nobody's on that front pew. There they are.

25:49 There's the man over here and the man here. And while we sang, I watched them. And each one of them opened up his voice and sang lustily. When we prayed, I kind of peaked a little bit.

25:58 Don't you do it now, kids. But I peaked a little bit. And each of them had their head. And when the offering plates were passed, I did something I never do.

26:07 I watched to see. And both of them put in the $10 bill.

26:11 Then when I stood up to preach, both of them looked at me and listened. And when they went out the door, both shook my hand and said, Thank you, Pastor. I appreciated that message. Everything exactly the same.

26:21 But listen.

26:25 One man, everything he did was virtuous and pleasing to God. The other man, everything he did was a stench in the nostrils of God. Everything they did was the same. But in one case, all that activity was a sweet-smelling savor.

26:38 In the other case, everything was a stench in the nostrils of God. What made the difference? It couldn't be what they did. They both did the same thing.

26:45 It couldn't be what they said. They both said the same things. It couldn't be because of where they were. They were both in the same place.

26:51 What makes the difference? All right. This man came this morning when he awoke. He said in his heart before he could even get alone to pray, Oh God, thank You for another Lord's Day.

27:01 And he began to think of the hours to come when he would sit here and hear the voice of God and be able to praise His God. His mind was back over the past week. And he thinks of all the mercies of God and the goodness of God. And when he comes through that door and takes his place, his heart's longing was to praise the Lord, to meet God, to hear the voice of God.

27:21 And when the Scriptures were opened, he sat there with this attitude, Oh God, speak to me. Show me if there's sin in my life. Show me the path of duty. Show me.

27:30 Speak to me. And Lord, by Your grace, I'll obey. And he went out determined to obey, determined to walk and to watch his motives, determined in all his praying, his giving and his fasting, he would have an eye singled to the glory of God. He's received the Word, not as the Word of man, but as we read this morning, as the Word of God.

27:49 This man, he got up Sunday morning. Well, for years, he's been going to the North Caldwell Alliance Church. It's part of his life, just as much as getting up and shaving. Why do you always start on this side when you shave?

27:59 Do you ever ask yourself that or this side? Ever ask yourself? You start the same way every single morning. If you don't believe me, just follow me.

28:06 Just follow me. If you don't force yourself tomorrow morning, try to start on the other side. It'll feel so strange to you. Well, that's just something you do.

28:11 Why is my first stroke always here or here? Which one is it? I don't know. I'll have to analyze it tomorrow morning.

28:17 So why do you do that? Well, that's just part of my life. All right, so Sunday comes along and it's part of your life to get up and get dressed and print a little bit and fuck a little bit and get in your car and come to the church. And you came and you sat.

28:30 And your mind is drifting around. Oh, then pastors come in so it's about time to come to attention. So you listen, sang some songs, no heart, no desire to really express your devotion to the Lord. And as the Word is preached, oh, you listen.

28:43 But it's not with the desperation of an obedient soul that says, Oh, God, speak. That I might hear. That I might obey. It's simply listening to a sermon because that's part of your life.

28:55 When you go out, you go out not with a sense that God has spoken and I've responded, but you go out with a sense I've done what I'm supposed to do and now that's done, I can forget it. This man, all that he does, he does simply to gratify himself and all his worship and his singing and all the rest is a stench in the nostrils of God. Why? Because he hasn't come to sustain spiritual life, to hear the voice of God.

29:26 He hasn't given to express his gratitude to God. He's simply gone through the motions like a robot with no heart, no expression of love to God. And beloved, I'm afraid that man may not just sit on the front pew this morning. I'm afraid he may be sitting in a few other pews.

29:45 I'm afraid he may be. And I'm afraid he may have some female friends too. I'm afraid he may have some friends who are young people.

29:58 You see why our Lord touches the matter of motive? You see why I constantly emphasize it? Because all I can do is see you sitting here looking at me. All I can do is, if I want to, peek through my eyes and see if you bow your head.

30:11 But I don't know if your heart is actively seeking God when you bow your head. I can see you looking at me when I preach, but I can't look into your heart and see if you bow your head. If there are those echoes of longing after God, saying, Oh God, speak to me and I'll obey. As your pastor, I am determined by the grace of God if people are going to just go through the motions without the proper motive, at least I'll do all within my power to arrest them and to alarm them and to warn them that it's not enough to be in the right place at the right time saying the right words unless the motive is, as we find throughout this whole passage, that thy Father who seeth may reward thee.

30:54 You've come basically to see God, to meet God, to hear God, to obey God, to fall before God.

31:04 I realize this isn't going to fill the church overnight, dear ones, but I just determined afresh as I read 1 Thessalonians 2 as our brother read it and we read it together. Paul said, For at no time used we flattering words, nor did we seek to please men.

31:21 But at the same time, he says, we were tender and I want to be tender to both of them. I want the kind of boldness that doesn't fear the face of man, but I want the tenderness of a mother to a child. Most men either go sour on one or the other. They're all tenderness and no boldness or they become bold with a boldness that's disgusting.

31:43 You pray for your pastor that he'll have both. I want both because your souls are committed to my charge and the motivation of your life is the key issue. And so our Lord, our Lord affirms that throughout this whole passage that the motive is basic. And then may I remind you of one more principle.

Principle 3: Instruction by Negative and Positive Examples

32:06 There are so many here. We'll just have to deal with several of them. Our Lord assumes that all true disciples will engage in giving, in praying, and in discipline of their bodies. Our Lord affirms that in all of these things our motive is the important thing.

32:23 And then thirdly, our Lord instructs us in this passage by negative and positive instruction. You'll notice all the way through the passage. This is just a brief look at the passage now. Notice what he does.

32:34 Verse 2. When thou doest thine arms, do not sound the trumpet before thee as the hypocrites. Verse 3. But when thou doest thine arms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.

32:45 Don't do this, but do this. Now notice the same thing. Verse 5. And when you pray, don't be like the hypocrites, but, verse 6, when you pray, do this.

32:57 Same thing with verse 16. When ye fast, don't be as the hypocrites, but, verse 17, when you fast, do this. Notice the parallel all the way through in each of these instances. How I'm to give as a Christian, how I'm to pray, and how I'm to discipline my body, in each case, our Lord instructs me by a negative example and then by positive instruction.

33:23 Now this is a masterful lesson or a lesson in masterful teaching. Now I want to ask you something this morning. Do you think by teaching this way that our Lord brought the cheers of those scribes and Pharisees, those play actors that he was talking about? Do you think they stood on the sidelines and said, well, that's wonderful?

33:44 Isn't that wonderful that he condescends to use us? Boy, we're important. He's using us as illustrations in sermons. Oh, I tell you, dear ones, can you imagine what this did to them?

33:54 Here our Lord is speaking to the multitudes there upon that mountaintop for when the sermon closes, it says that those multitudes were astounded at his teaching and among them were these scribes and Pharisees, literally play actors. When Jesus uses the word hypocrite, he uses the word which means the man who comes on the stage and if he's supposed to play the part of a devil, he puts a mask on and he becomes a devil. Then he goes off into the wings of the stage and if he's supposed to play a kind father, he puts on a different mask and he plays the part. That's exactly the word Christ uses here.

34:23 Play actors. And the Lord says, look, do you want to know how to give? I'll tell you first of all, don't be like those play actors and he explains expose the sham of people who stood right in his midst. And so, beloved, I have no qualms, no reservations of conscience by exposing error by illustrations that are obvious to all of you.

34:43 Our Lord did it. Our Lord did it.

34:47 And where there is sham in our midst, I'm obligated if I'm to follow the pattern of my Lord to expose a sham that you know something about. But that's only one half of it. Then our Lord gives positive instruction. Now, what does this tell us?

35:02 It tells us that I should never conceive of Jesus Christ in such a way that I rob him of his right to expose sin even at the risk of making people angry.

35:15 You follow me? Some people have got a Jesus that's not the Jesus of the Bible. They've got a Jesus who'd never make anybody angry. Good God, good devil kind of a Jesus, you know?

35:25 That's not the Jesus of this book. Our Lord exposed evil at the risk of raising some fur on the back of these people. Now, that's my Jesus. That's the same Jesus who sits and has little children hop up onto his knee with his arm around them and says, suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not.

35:46 My Jesus is the tender, compassionate Christ who sets the little children upon his knee. He's the Christ who stoops to touch an unclean leper and says, be thou made whole. But he's the Christ who says to his disciples, don't be like those play actors. And the Jesus I worship is all of this.

36:05 Not just one part of it. Now, beware of projecting this same kind of a thing upon preachers. There are some people that always want you to be so sweet and nice. Well, you've got visitors.

36:17 Pastor, can't you be a little bit more tactful? You've got visitors. You don't want to offend visitors. They've been kind enough to come.

36:24 We just, you know, go positive. As Tozer said in that record we heard. People come to him all the time saying, go positive. Go positive.

36:33 Go positive. And his classic answer, his classic answer was everything in the human life has a polarity. I can't inhale all the time. I've got to exhale.

36:45 There are plus signs and there are minus signs. There are negative poles and positive poles. And our Lord so clearly illustrates this. And I believe it's a lesson for us that God would deliver us as a congregation from this anemic kind of Christianity that thinks it must always confront the world with that which will never trouble it.

37:05 Remember, these were unsaved people that Jesus was showing up as sham. And you say, you can't win them that way. Beloved, for you to say how God will do His work. Maybe if some people full of sham had been exposed a long time ago, they'd have got desperate enough to seek God.

37:23 And maybe some of you have been able to sit here for years. And simply because you're here and say the right thing at the right time, you think all is well. Well, dear one, for the sake of your soul, I'm willing to run the risk of having you become a little bit disturbed when I talk to you the way I did this morning. If it'll drive you to seek God and seek reality.

37:43 You fellas and girls going out into the ministry, never forget that principle. It's not your business to know how God is going to reach people. It's your business to be faithful to the whole counsel of God. The results are His business.

Principle 4: The Christian Life is Not 'What Comes Naturally'

37:56 And then there's another principle here and then we'll close with this. It's under this third principle that our Lord gives us detailed instruction as to how to give, how to pray, and how to fast. This tells me that the Christian life is not to be simply doing what comes naturally. I've got a sneaking suspicion and I think I can prove it that a lot of people think there's something unspiritual if they sat here and said, look, why am I giving this morning?

38:22 Am I giving as the Lord tells me to give? And then look at the details that He gives. He gave some very clear details. When thou givest, when thou doest thine arms, do this, do this, do this.

38:33 When you pray, pray this way. And then He gives us an outline of prayer. Now you see, the Christian life is not learned by simply doing what comes naturally. And I venture to say there's some of you people who've been Christians for years who've never sat down for a half an hour and analyzed your prayer life in the light of what our Lord taught about prayer.

38:53 You've never examined your prayer life to see if it matches up with what the Lord wants your prayer life to be. Our Lord says, when ye pray, don't use vain repetitions. Some of you use vain repetitions.

39:07 Why do you do it? Because you've never analyzed your prayer life in the light of Scripture. Our Lord says, when ye pray, pray, pray after this manner. Our Father who art in heaven, not dear God, dear Lord, our Father who art in heaven.

39:21 I come recognizing I'm a little creature of the dust. And He's the great transcendent God of glory. See? That's how I'm to pray.

39:30 Well, you say, I wasn't taught that way. Well, that's the way the Lord wants to teach you. I don't know who taught you, but that's the way the Lord wants to teach you. You see?

39:37 And the Christian life is learned by examining the aspects of my life in the light of the Scriptures. That's why I don't offer any easy, quick way into sanctification and blessing by a trip to an altar and a glorious shout in 20 minutes. Beloved, it doesn't come that way. The path of sanctification is the path of self-reflection and the path of the searching of heart and laying my life and my motives up alongside the Word of God.

40:06 But someone objects and says, won't this lead to introspection? Now, you students, some of you folk may not be problem, but this is a word that's like a boogeyman in Bible schools. The minute someone starts talking about searching heart, everybody says, oh, introspection, introspection, don't be afraid of that. Now, if you mean by introspection that I should go around all the time picking over my heart, no, God doesn't want that.

40:28 But if you mean by introspection that I am to examine my life in the light of the Word of God soberly, seriously, and carefully, yes, Jesus said, take heed. That means I am to give conscious attention to these things. Take heed that you do not this, but that you do this. Don't be like this, but be like that.

40:47 God wants me to engage often in the art of self-reflection. Do you know anything about this?

40:57 People say that's morbid introspection. That's just a big word they've heard somewhere and they're throwing it around. They don't know what it means. For every person I've met who maybe analyzed his motives too much, I've met a thousand who could do well to take a couple hours and begin to analyze their motives.

41:15 Now, beloved, why do you pray? Why do you give? Why do you discipline yourself? How do you give?

41:22 How do you pray? How do you discipline yourself? Is it the way the Lord's told you? The principle of this whole passage is that our Lord not only assumes that we'll do these things, He not only affirms that our motive is all important, but He instructs us by negative and positive instruction and He expects us to follow that instruction.

Conclusion: Seek God's Reward Through Right Motives

41:44 May God help you in the week ahead. May God help me to read over this passage now, verses 2 to 18. Will you do that? Often.

41:54 And then when we come next week, come with the question, Lord Jesus, teach me how to give. And we're going to deal with giving. When thou doest thine arms. And then we'll move from there to praying and the God willing, we'll move then to the matter of fasting or the discipline of our body.

42:11 And as we do, we have the wonderful promise that the Lord's going to reward this for we read three or four times in this passage Thy Father which seeth in secret shall recompense thee. He shall reward thee. Not the reward of works, but the reward of grace. As God rewards faith with salvation, the reward of grace, so God will reward diligent desire to analyze my motives in giving, praying, fasting.

42:42 God will reward with spiritual blessing. Isn't that what you want? Or are you content to just give? Or do you just come to church?

42:49 Do you want to be blessed? Or do you just want to come to church? Which do you want? Do you want the reward of God?

42:55 Then take heed that you do not your piety to be seen of men,

43:02 but that the eye of God being upon you, you may know His favor and His blessing. Let us unite our hearts in prayer.

43:20 Now as we wait for just a moment quietly before the Lord, would you right now say, God, by your grace, I'm going to do this. I'm one of these the pastor talked about. I never analyze my prayer life, how I pray, what I say, how I approach God. I just do what comes naturally.

43:37 Lord, I'm going to stop this. I want to analyze, to see if my prayer life is what you want it to be. I'm going to stop just sticking my money in the plate and never asking myself, why am I giving? How am I giving?

43:49 Will you determine right now by the grace of God that you're going to take the instruction of the Lord Jesus seriously?

44:06 If you're here this morning, one who's thought you could create life by giving, by praying, by fasting, you see this morning that these things have no more power to create spiritual life than giving food to a dead man can create physical life.

44:20 And you're determined this morning to say, oh God, I'm done with trying to gain the gift of life. I will throw myself upon thy mercy in Christ and receive spiritual life as a gift.

44:40 Oh Father, seal the word to our hearts, we pray. Grant that the instruction of our lovely, lovely Lord may become exceedingly precious in the days that lie ahead, that as a people we may learn how to give so as to please Him and to receive the recompense of our Father in Heaven. Teach us how to pray so as to please our Father who is in Heaven. Teach us how to discipline our bodies and these appetites and fleshly lusts which would war against the soul and the fleshly lusts of the world.

45:18 Oh Father, seal these truths to our hearts for our good and for thy glory we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.