Matthew 6:7-15 — Series on the Mount #21

Last week, we began studying Matthew Chapter 6, the second chapter in the Sermon on the Mount and we started by reading the first 18 verses.

And if you remember what we said last week, whenever we do something, whether it is giving to the needy, praying or fasting, we need to make sure that we are doing those things out of the right heart.

And last week we talked about not giving to the needy in order to make people think better of us.

And we are not to pray so that people put their attention on us.

And finally, when we fast, that is when we give up food our other things for a time in order that we come closer in our fellowship with God, we fast in a way that is not seen by others. We don’t wail and moan about how hungry we are, or do things so that other people around us applaud us for our holiness.

No, we do these things for the glory and to the honor of God. Otherwise, we are hypocrites. If we are acting the religious part so that people praise us, we are only going to get the applause of men, and not of God.

Now, like I said we are going to camp out in this neighborhood of Scripture for a few weeks in order to dig up as much treasure as we can from God’s word.

Tonight, we are going to really zero in on prayer.

First, let’s review Matthew 6:5-15
5 "And when (not if) 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. 6 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.

Now, we talked about that section pretty extensively last week, let’s move to verse 7.
7 (again) And when (not if) you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

9 "This, then, is how you should pray:
" 'Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10 your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today our daily bread.
12 Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.'
14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

This is the word of God.

Now last week we dug into the warning against being like the hypocrites. In that, Jesus was saying to the Jewish people in the crowd, these religious leaders you have, the scribes and the Pharisees, they put on a good show. But as they pretend to focus their words on God above, their hearts are focused on the watching eyes of the crowds.

Jesus says, you hear their words. But God is hearing the heart and the two aren’t adding up. So don’t be like them.

And again, He taught the same principle about how the hypocrites fasted and the way they gave to the needy. So last week we focused on – “Don’t do it like that. Pray. But, don’t pray to be seen as righteous by other men and women.”

But then, he breaks from the pattern and warns against another mistake. He says, don’t pray like the pagans (also translated as the Gentiles).

7 And when (not if) you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

In the New King James, don’t keep on babbling is translated as “do not use vain (meaningless) repetitions”. In the English Standard Version it is “do not heap up empty phrases”.

You see this kind of prayer in 1 Kings 18, where Elijah was one of the only prophets of God in the entire nation of Israel. And He was set against 450 “prophets” of Baal.

And they had a showdown on a mountain to see who’s God was better.

So they each took a bull and an altar and whosever God sent fire down to burn the sacrifice was the true God.

So the Baal priests put on this long show and over and over they prayed their prayers that Baal would start this fire and he never showed.

So they prayed longer still and kept saying these things and still nothing happened. And we’re talking about hours and hours of this.

Then, showing off a bit, Elijah sacrificed his bull, had the animal and the altar doused with water, (not a good idea when you want to start a fire). Then, he made a very short, and focused prayer to the true God, our God, and boom! God sent the fire down and His glory was revealed.

So the babbling of the Baal priests was useless. Again, it was vain (meaningless) repetitions.

The fact is, Jesus is saying here and we see in the Old Testament, that we can say what ever we want to whoever we want as many times as we want, but if it is not the prayer to God, for the God’s will to be done and for His glory, then that prayer is a waste of our breath.

So, don’t be like them.

Now, before we move on. Repetition is not the problem. It is the meaningless or empty prayers that we see at the core of the problem here.

Jesus Himself repeated His prayers. In Matthew 26, as He prays before He is betrayed, Jesus knows that He is about to take the wrath of God for the sins of the world, yours and mine. And over and over He says, if there is any other way, take this cup from me, if there is any other way, let’s go that route. And then He adds, but not my will but yours be done.

So, if you have a concern our a fear or a need, take it to God the Father and take it more than once, over and over if need be. But always include the humility and deference to God, who sees everything, beyond the scope of our understanding.
We may be praying for something that seems completely within His will. There may not be anything out of bounds about our prayer. But, if it doesn’t conform to His overall plan, we have to accept that He knows better than us.

As the cliché goes, God will answer every prayer with a yes, a no, or a wait and see.

And sometimes that’s going to hurt. Sometimes you may pray that someone you love might be brought out of their struggles. And that may come from a pure heart that only wants the best for them.

But, God may know that that person may need to be allowed to self-destruct in a way that brings them to the point of total surrender to their old way of doing things.

And, there’s no guarantee that God will ever reveal all of the information to us.

What He does is guarantee to bring all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. And, that’s where we are to find our hope — In the promise of God.

Let’s move on: Matthew 6:9
9 "This, then, is how you should pray:
Jesus doesn’t just say, don’t do this and don’t do that. He guides us. He gives us a template.

Now, we are about to get into the Lord’s Prayer. This is a well-known passage. It is said in churches around the world, it’s printed on coffee cups and on posters with little pictures of a loaf of bread.

And, let me be the first to say, that is great. It is a valuable tool, given to us by Jesus and we should always hold it in high regard.

The one warning that I would lay out is that we can – without realizing it — begin to allow this to become so commonplace in our minds that it simply rolls off our tongue without ever penetrating our heart.

And then what we have done is we have become like the pagans that Jesus just warned us against by making this a meaningless repetitive string of words.

One quick example. Have you ever been listening to the radio and been singing along with some new song that they have been over playing and then, out of the blue, you realize what the words are that you are singing and your taken off guard by how dumb or offensive the lyrics actually are?

And you realize, I am just following along with the repetition. This song is on every other hour and it is just lodged up in my head. You are not only not feeling the words in your heart; you may not even be paying attention in your head.

Or am I the only one?

Well, this prayer can become the same thing. If you say it every Sunday, week in and week out in church and in other instances throughout the week, it can start to just be noise that you make with no heart connection at all.

Now, these words we are about to read are infinitely more profound than any pop song, but without a heart connection, our prayers can come out in a meaningless way, like babble.

9 "This, then, is how you should pray:
" 'Our Father in heaven,
That is, we recognize you as our Father, as our dad, the source of faithful and incomparable love. We recognize you Lord as our Father, who adopted us, chose us, reconciled us to Yourself by way of the ultimate sacrifice — by the blood of Your Son.
And, we recognize that we are praying to you Father God — In Heaven! Our eyes are fixed on you in Heaven, not on us here in this broken world. We fix our eyes and our thoughts and our hearts on the promise, the amazing promise of what is to be — even if the world seems to be falling apart around us or even if things are going so well for us right now that we may get distracted by small blessings and lose focus on the ultimate blessing to come.
(" 'Our Father in heaven,)
hallowed be your name,
Hallowed in the Greek is hagiazo . It means to be set apart as holy or pure. To be sanctified. Here we are simply agreeing with God. God is the holiest of all. God is the ultimate in purity. It is by His standard that all things are measured.

10 your kingdom come,
In one sense, this part of the prayer has been fulfilled, yet we still seek its ultimate completion. You see the Kingdom of God is already here in the lives of every believer. Everyone who has put their trust and loyalty in Christ has been given the Holy Spirit and we are now spreading the kingdom out into the world.

Jesus said the Kingdom of God begins like a mustard seed; it begins small, but eventually grows so big that the birds of the air can land on its branches.

And He taught that the Kingdom of God is like the yeast that is mixed into the dough. He says that even thought the yeast (or leaven) is tiny; it eventually works through the whole loaf.
Well, we can see this in the truth of history. The church began as a rag tag, tiny group of followers, who began to spread and grow and work their way into different areas of the known world. And with each new believer, another area could be reached with the Gospel of the Kingdom.

And it is still growing and spreading today. We are here as just one more small part of the tree growing in the world.

And, with all of that said, we still pray for and long for and wait expectantly for the final and ultimate completion of all of this. When Jesus returns in all of His Glory with the power to judge and the love to redeem. And we pray that that day would come — that His Kingdom would come — That Jesus Himself would come — in all of His glory.

We pray for His Kingdom to come because we long for that new Heaven and New Earth that He promises us. Where there is no more sadness, no more pain or sickness, where we no longer struggle with sin, when we are no longer hurt by the sins of others or the sin in our own lives. We pray passionately for His Kingdom to come!

(Your kingdom come,) your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
That is, just as God’s will is done in Heaven, apart from sin or our selfishness or the greed or malice in the hearts of men and women, just as His will is done perfectly in Heaven, we also desire that to happen here.

This is where it gets really interesting. Because Jesus is teaching us to pray that His will would be done and I don’t know about you, but I always used to think about “Oh, Lord. Change this person or that person so that he or she will start doing your will.”

And that is certainly part of it where we see a brother or sister in Christ or even a non-believer living outside of the will of God.

But this is also and more so a deeply personal request to conform us to His will. And this is necessary where we need to turn from sin, but he gets to that later in the prayer.
More so, this is a place where we say God, help me to surrender to Your will.

Because there are times when we don’t want this to happen. There are times we want God to change His will to conform to ours. Sometimes I do this when I am in outright rebellion that needs to be addressed. Sometimes it is when I am not seeing the big picture and I am not seeing all of the facets of a situation and I don’t want to accept His will if He won’t show me how it will all work out.
Or, I simply don’t think that He knows best. This is pride and arrogance and a lack of humility that has to be smashed. And if you are in that boat, it comes out and is easy to see when we start asking God, How could you let that happen?! Or, God, Don’t you see what’s going on?! Or If you loved me (or her or him or them) you would do something.

And we start trying to give advice — or worse yet — orders to the creator of the Universe.
So in this prayer template, Jesus reminds us to remain right-sized in our relationship with god and conform ourselves to the will of God.

(And then),
11 Give us today our daily bread.

Again, this is a hard one, if you know what you are praying. It goes back to Old Testament teachings that the Jewish audience would have been familiar with. Proverbs 30:7-9 says

7 "Two things I ask of you, O LORD;
do not refuse me before I die:

8 Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
(And then, as a foundation for this part of the Lord’s Prayer):
give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.

9 Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, 'Who is the LORD ?'
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God.

So, Lord, Give us today our daily bread so that we are provided for and at the same time we don’t begin making other “extras” into our new sources of contentment or satisfaction.

(And then)
12 Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.

There are a few items to look at here. First off, Debts here is talking about our sin. And I am in agreement with those who believe that this is a prayer for the ongoing grace and mercy of God in the areas where we are still being sanctified and corrected in our lives.
This isn’t the original prayer for forgiveness otherwise it would not come after a daily request. The prayer is not likely for the original act of justification. The work of Christ on the cross created a relationship, a bond between Him, and us that cannot be broken if we are truly in Christ.
But, as we’ve talked about before, the sin that we fall back into can still cloud our fellowship with God, even though our relationship will never be broken. So this prayer is that our fellowship be restored by His grace and forgiveness.
Then there’s an interesting word usage.
12 Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
This goes back again to the piece in Matthew 5:23-24, where Jesus told us not to offer a gift at the altar if we know there is anger between us and another. In a similar way, Jesus is telling us in this prayer, don’t ask for God’s forgiveness if you aren’t willing to forgive. Jumping ahead to verse 14, Jesus reinforces His point, saying 14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
With all that I just said about the unbroken bond between us and God if we are saved, let me also make clear what Scripture makes clear. If you have been justified by faith in Christ, through the Grace of God, then you are saved from God’s wrath.

But also, as Jesus, and Paul and James all make clear, if you are saved you will produce the fruit of repentance, the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of a follower of Christ.

The centerpiece of that is granting the same forgiveness to other people that you have been given from God.

So yes, we will stumble in this area like every other. But, if there is a person, or people or a group, or a company or a church or WHOEVER, that you defiantly refuse to forgive –if there is someone that you will not even consider forgiving and there is NO conviction from the Spirit of God in that area of your life. Then I would say, like Paul says in
2 Corinthians 5:20, “We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.”
Because, that level of unforgiveness is a pretty clear sign that you may not be in Christ yet. And if you are not in Christ, then you have not been saved and you cannot yet call on God as Father. Until you are made right by the shed blood of Jesus Christ, you are still in the path of the wave of wrath that will sweep across the earth when Christ returns. So please, with all of the love in my heart, be reconciled to God.

(And no to close out the prayer, Jesus teaches us to ask…)
13 And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.'
Brothers and sisters, I don’t have to tell you that while we are still on this side of Heaven we are still going to deal with temptation.
Your temptation may be to get drunk or high, or to sleep around, or to think highly of yourself and end up being selfish, or self-centered, or judgmental and self-righteous.
You may be an abuser and your temptation may be to lash out at your spouse or your boyfriend or your girlfriend or your children, or your parents.
You may be desperate or you may simply think people owe you something and you may be tempted to steal.
You may not be confident that God is in control and so you may be tempted to continue in your gambling or cutting corners or padding expense accounts at work.
You may not be comfortable with quiet times of reflection and meditation with God. You may have a past that is to hard to look at and you may only see a future that offers more of the same, so in order to shut that all out you turn to business at work on with other self-appointed duties that never allow you time to be quiet and still and alone with God.

The truth is there are thousands of temptations and Jesus tells us that what ever our temptations are, we are to pray that out, to give it up to God and trust in our prayer that God will deliver us from the evil one and all of the things the evil one does to try to pull us back into the slavery of sin.

And that is the Lord’s Prayer.

Remember, this is a beautiful prayer. It covers all of the bases that we should focus on as we talk with God.

And remember, it is very easy to take this and just make it into one more ritual that loses its meaning and begins to degenerate into meaningless repetition or useless babble or just another religious exercise that is devoid of relationship with the Father if we do not come to God with a longing to fellowship with Him through the prayer. So tonight, go home and read this over and allow these words to search you, allow these verses to guide you into a more intimate communion with the Lord. And remember, it is a template, if these words become so common to you that it begins to lose it’s desired impact on your spirit, then begin using it as a springboard for your prayer. And as an example that is how we will close this message tonight.

Let’s pray…

Matthew 6:1-6 & 6:16-18 — Series on the Mount #20

We are going to start tonight by reading a large chunk of Scripture, the first 18 verses of Matthew chapter 6 and then over the next couple of weeks we are going to unpack it in sections. But, I feel like we need to see it all as a whole so we don’t loose the textual context as we study.

Please stand with me and we will read the Scripture. (Matthew 6:1-18)

Now, over the next few weeks we will break down several topics relating to this passage.
Tonight were going to talk about hypocrisy and heart motives. And the first verse of chapter six is our key tonight.

1 "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.

Now some of you may be thinking back to a month ago, when we taught on being the salt and light. And you may remember that in Matthew 5:16, Jesus tells us to let our light shine so that people can see our good deeds.

And this would be very confusing, this would seem directly contradictory if He did not qualify His commands or if He only taught on surface issues. But, if we look closely at both verses in their entirety, we see that He is teaching us the same principle through repetition.

Again Matthew 6:1 says
"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.

And Matthew 5:16 says
In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

So you see, it goes back to the “Why” questions. Why are you doing these good deeds? Why are you staying away from disobedience?

Jesus spent most of Chapter 5 saying, this is what a Christ follower looks like:
— We are to be humble
— We are to have a hunger and thirst for Him
— We are to be peacemakers
— We are to honor our word
— We are to very simply be different from the world, set apart from the world and as we saw in the last verse of Chapter 5, we are to strive for perfection, as God demonstrates it.
— This is our life long goal and we will not reach that goal until after we’re done with this life.

So, we are not to think that God wants us to just go along living the way we once lived. He has no intention of just giving us “fire insurance salvation” That’s not in the Scriptures.

No, The word of God makes clear that we are to confess our sins, and turn to Him trusting that He will SAVE us from those sins, that He will give us the ability to turn away from our old way of doing things.

He will TRANSFORM our lives.
So Jesus doesn’t say here, “Don’t practice righteousness.” No He says beware of practicing righteousness for your own glory.

Look at Matthew 6:2 "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.
Jesus doesn’t say don’t give, and He doesn’t say IF you give to the needy. He says WHEN you give. This is just a given for Jesus that a child of God, who has been given so much – we were given the riches of His grace when we were spiritually poor. We were given the promise of victory, when we knew only failure — So it is just a given for Jesus that a child of God, who has been given so much would desire to give to those who we see in need.

And read Matthew 6:5 "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.
Jesus doesn’t say don’t pray, and He doesn’t say IF you pray. He says WHEN you pray. This is just a given for Jesus that a child of God would desire to talk with God.
My son desires to talk with me, to tell me about his joys, to come to me with his problems. He knows he can because I am his daddy.

Jesus just lays it out here that if we really see God as our Father, as we should, then we will want to talk to Him. We will want to come to Him like little children to the father.

And Skip down to Matthew 6:16 "When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting.
Jesus doesn’t say don’t fast, and He doesn’t say IF you fast. He says WHEN you fast. This is just a given for Jesus that a child of God would fast.

And this is something that we don’t talk about very often in the church today. But it is a discipline that we see throughout the Scriptures. Fasting is a way of stripping away all that provides worldly contentment, to draw us closer to a dependence on God for our ultimate contentment.
Fasting restores our gratitude for the provision of God in our life.
Fasting refocuses our hearts and minds on the majesty of God’s grace to forgive our sins.

The people of Israel were commanded to fast once a year on the Day of Atonement.
In a similar way for us, fasting is a time to reflect on our lives as believers and examine where we still fall short of the will of God and it is a time to mourn such things and to repent.

And I don’t know about you, but it is true for me that some of those levels of examination are hard to come by when I am simply focused on keeping my belly filled and when I’m focused on worldly contentment.

Jesus understood all of these things where part of the Christian life and said in a matter of fact way
— When you give to the needy
— When you pray, and
— When you fast…

In all these areas, we are right to do these things but then He adds the same tail to each by saying, “Don’t be like the hypocrites.”
It’s a heart motivation, just like we saw throughout the first chapter from the Sermon on the Mount.

I heard of a pastor who preached on the same topic for week after week and then month after month until a church member finally asked, “When are we going to move on? You’ve been talking about forgiveness for two months.”

And the pastor said, “I’ll stop preaching on it when we start doing it.”

Jesus seems to have that same feeling in mind in the Sermon on the Mount. We see that no matter what He is talking about it always goes to the heart. He just won’t let up. He says yes, I want you to follow me. But I want your real commitment.

He doesn’t call us to change our facade. He says He wants to transform us from the inside out.

If you look downtown here in the city it is easy to become enamored with the beautiful architecture. In the last few years paint crews have done a fantastic job of making over the exterior of all these old buildings. But, on closer inspection, you will see that several of the buildings are still in a great need for structural makeovers. Foundations and support walls are in desperate need of work.

Jesus says, Ken, or Andy, or Ryan, You have been saved, now it is time to sanctify.

Hebrews 4:12 tells us:
…The word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

We are getting a full renovation. So we do the good works that He has prepared in advance for us to do. But we do all the good works as a form of worship to Him and in praise to His love for us. We don’t do it to gain attention for ourselves.

2 "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.
In other words, they did it for the approval of others — which is a fleeting and meaningless pursuit. And, they got what they were after.

3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4a so that your giving may be in secret.
If you give to a charity, if you give to a homeless person; If you give of your time to visit nursing homes or hospitals; If you give of your talent to organizations who need you – Don’t do any of that for a pat on the back by the people around you. As much as you can, keep it to yourself. And even then, don’t keep replaying it over and over again to yourself for your own pride.

Just thank God for the opportunity to give and move on.
4b then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

5 "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.
Jesus says that if you are praying in order that someone might notice how righteous you are it is meaningless prayer. He was speaking directly into the culture when religious leaders would wait until the busiest time of day in the marketplace so that as many people could see and hear their demonstrations as possible.

And also in the synagogues, the religious leaders would stand up and say these long and eloquent prayers, but Jesus, knowing the heart, says it was vain talk, those prayers were for the gratification of the speaker not the glory of God or the spiritual benefit of the congregation. And again, there is public prayer throughout the Scriptures that God honors. What Jesus is getting at in no uncertain terms is, if it is for your own glory, just keep your mouth shut.

I would add this observation as well. We pray at the dinner table. Everything from the food we are able to eat to the roof over our head is a gift from God and out of gratitude we thank Him for that.

And I pray weather I am at home or at a restaurant. But, If I begin to see an element of praying in public, at Wendy’s or wherever and I think there may be even a hint of self-righteousness tied to it I stop talking. Usually I say a silent prayer instead when I am in public.

Now, I’ve heard some people say they pray in restaurants as a way of shining God’s light in areas where some people may not know Him. That is great. If that is the reason you’re doing it then go on. I’m not suggesting that you stop. I’m saying that I see false motivations in MY HEART in those situations, so I usually keep my prayer silent. That is, unless I feel the prompting of the Spirit to pray aloud, which happens from time to time.

Just make sure you keep your motives in check.

And another area that this speaks to is corporate prayer. We do pray in church. And there was nothing wrong with praying in the synagogues
UNLESS, the prayers were said in the wrong heart.

6 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.

The bottom line here is that prayer in church, prayer in the restaurant, prayer before the ball game, prayer when you get on the plane, it is all fine in the right heart, but you and I are to have a prayer relationship with God that is ours.

And we will talk more about that kind of prayer next week.

Moving on now to Matthew 6:16-18

16 "When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth; they have received their reward in full. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 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.
There are times when we as a community of believers might be called on to fast. We as the leaders may do it if we see that we are disconnected from our mission here. If we see that we are out of alignment or if there are major decisions to be made in the direction of the church, I may call for a corporate fast.

Some other religious groups have periods of time when they fast each year. A friend of mine in college was a Baha'i and he fasted from sunrise to sunset for 40 days each year. Many of my Catholic friends give up different things for Lent.

Community fasts, at least in the Christian life are fine scripturally so long as we do not make them a legalistic mandate. Unlike other groups, we in the protestant Christian faith find liberty here.

But again, when you fast, when you feel guided to do so. Do it without fanfare. Don’t complain to your friends about being hungry, or how you can’t wait for the fast to be over so that you can have some food, or what ever else it is that you are giving up in order to commune with god in that way. And here’s where I struggle when I fast. I end up talking to myself about my hunger pains instead of turning to God in prayer.

It’s like when giving and we are not to let our left hand know what the right hand is doing. In the same way, we don’t fast to make ourselves feel better or more righteous about our works; we do it to turn our hearts to God.

And our Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward us with the closer connection that we seek.

We will go deeper into the issue of fasting in a couple of weeks.

Until then, I would ask that you dwell on these passages as a whole. And when you give to the needy, when you pray, when you fast, do all of that for God’s glory, and not you own.

And take this principle even farther.
When you go to work and work with the excellence and faithfulness you have been called to as a child of God and a follower of Christ, do that for God’s glory, and not you own.

And when you serve in the church, this one or another, do that for God’s glory, and not you own.

And when you pour out your love as a good husband or wife, or brother or sister or son or daughter or parent, do that for God’s glory, and not you own.

And when you treat other people right when you are on the road or in the marketplace, do that for God’s glory, and not you own.

Jesus tells us that we are first and foremost supposed to love Him, with all of our heart and our soul and our mind (Matthew 22:37). And He tells us that we love Him by obeying His commands (John 14:15).

So when you go out from here and even while you are here, do that. Love God. Obey His commands.

But do not do it so others can say how great you are doing, or how nice you are or so others can look up to you. Do it so that they may see Christ reflected in you. And when they do heap praise on you. Thank them and then turn it over to God. Verbally.

And, see how much service you can do under the radar. And don’t tell us or anyone else about it. Just do it for the glory of God.

And now, before we close. There’s one more thing we need to talk about. With nearly every teaching in Scripture, We are given a path that is obedience. But next to this path we end up having two ditches that we can fall into if we don’t obey out of the right heart.

Of course most of this message was about being righteous for God’s glory not your own.

So the ditch on the right of the road is self-righteousness, self-gratification, and the like. It’s reckless, unregenerate disobedience.

A friend pointed out yesterday that he struggled with driving into the other ditch and it is this. He found himself trying so hard to do things in secret that he began making that his focus and what happened is he began making anonymity his ultimate pursuit, instead of God’s glory.

Friends if we do that, we begin to undermine the very reason we are alive and kicking in this world.

Remember, there is not an issue with being seen as a person who does good things or being seen as a person who has righteousness within them.

Jesus says to obey God so that we can be a reflection of His light in the world. So do it on the sly, but don’t do things so quietly that you begin to impede the transmission of the gospel. Remember, we’ve been saying for the last several weeks, our countercultural way of living is that light in the world, it is our way of opening up gospel conversations where we wouldn’t be able to talk otherwise.

Find the path in the middle between legalism and license and live your life in wild abandonment for the Glory of your creator, savior, God. And, let his righteousness shine through you so that you can become His calling card in the world.

Let’s pray…

Matthew 5:43-48 — Series on the Mount #19

Last week we talked about the countercultural teachings of Jesus that we find in the Sermon on the Mount.

And in particular, we discussed Matthew 5:38-42, where our Lord tells us that when we are insulted, we are not to retaliate.

And, when someone tries to take us for our stuff, our possessions, we are to give more than expected.

And when someone imposes on our time or our energy – our freedom – we should serve that person beyond the request or the order.

And we discussed giving to those who would borrow from us, give to the one who asks. Don’t hold on to stuff. Give to those in need.

And again, all of Jesus’ teaching seems to cut against the grain but last week’s topics really drive a wedge between the western mindset of my rights, my stuff, don’t tread on me! And they say it is time that we as Christians as Christ followers look at life in a whole new light.

In America, we say; if someone slaps you or insults you, stand up for yourself. Get your revenge. But God says NO! He says you trust me to be your vindicator!

In today’s culture we say if someone tries to sue you for your stuff, you counter-sue. Not only hold on to what is yours, but also take from them what is theirs.
But God says NO! He says be different, so different that people will have to question your motives.

Be countercultural. And, friends, there is hardly anything more countercultural in our lives today than a person who doesn’t hold onto their possessions with a tight fist. Loosen your grip and people will start asking “Why? Why do you react that way?!”

And in this world, even in the church sometimes, we are told not to help the poor. We are told it was their own bad choices that got them where they are; let them pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Or, we’re told not to give because those who are in need will likely waste what is given. But, God says, that’s not how Christ Followers behave!

Yes, you may be taken advantage of once in a while. Yes, a couple of the street corner beggars may waste what you’ve given them. But remember, it isn’t your money or my money or your stuff or my stuff anyway. Everything we have belongs to God.

Furthermore, we must always remember how destitute we were when we first asked Jesus to help us. That’s how the Sermon on the Mount began, remember?
Matthew 5:3: "Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

How can anyone come to Christ with a humble and impoverished spirit, in need of compassion and in need of mercy; how can that person – me or you — ever find the love of God and then turn around and refuse to show the same kindness to others?!

But, we do it all the time, that’s why Jesus just keeps on driving home the same points again and again and again.

And tonight we are going to keep driving home the point that we are to be people that are in the world but not of the world, we are to be completely set apart as the children of God.

Now that does not mean that we build a commune and hide out and wait for Jesus to come back and say to Hell with the rest of those poor saps. No we are to be set apart by way of our response to the world. We are to be set apart in the way we choose to live.

We are to be set apart by being countercultural.

Now, if you thought the teaching was hard to accept last week, this week will be a doosey. This is the passage that will separate the men from the boys, and the women from the girls.

And before we get to it let me point out that, there are some teachings that those following Jesus had a hard time with. Sometimes He would say things and people would just say, “Sorry, Jesus, that’s too much for me to handle,” and they would turn away.

One time it was when he told a rich man to sell all his possessions and follow Jesus.

Another time He was teaching on His upcoming sacrifice for our eternal life and Jesus told everyone that His flesh was the bread of life and His blood was the living water. He said in John 6, “Eat my flesh and drink my blood.”

And this kind of teaching just turned people off, they said it’s too hard to understand or it is too hard to live out and they walked away.

Now, tonight’s teaching may not cause you to storm off. But as you try to put it into practice, some of you may give up and say, “That’s it! This is too hard, I give up.”
In order to keep that from happening we will discuss a little later HOW we can actually put these words into practice.

But first, let’s get to the passage.

Matthew 5, starting in verse 43: "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Impossible! Right? It is the mantra of the churchgoer today. We all say it. I’m not perfect. Only Jesus is perfect.

But we’ll get to that. Let’s break the rest of this down.

Matthew 5:43
"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
If you’ve been with us for a few weeks you’ve seen a pattern. Jesus says, You’ve heard it said…But I tell you…”

And what He’s doing is correcting wrong teaching.

He said that about their teachings on murder and anger. He said that about their teachings on adultery and lust. He said that about their teachings about marriage and divorce, oaths and promises, vengeance; and now He says it about their teaching on love and hate.

Now, the teaching on love your neighbor was correct, that was from Lev. 19:18 “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.”
But, then the religious leaders of the day diverted from the word of God and made up their own rule to go with Love you neighbor. And this rule they made up fit in very well with their society and with ours today. They said love your neighbor and Hate your Enemy.

To which Jesus says to them and to us, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, that’s not the word of God. You’ve got to stick with the word of God.”

For example, in Exodus 23:4-5 we are told: 4 "If you come across your enemy's ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to take it back to him.
5 If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help him with it.

So Jesus says, don’t hate your enemies. Love them and pray for those who persecute you.

And even that is two pieces. Love and prayer.

Love is an action. Love is actually stretching out our hand to help.
Love is using our words to build up our enemy, not to tear them down – and that includes when they are around and when they are not around.
Love is avoiding the things that annoy the other person when those things can be avoided. In other words, you and I know what buttons to push to set people off. You may have done it to your brother or sister on long car rides, you may do it to a co-worker you don’t like, you may do it to your spouse. Love is NOT pushing those buttons on purpose. Love is an action.

And then we have prayer. Pray FOR those who persecute you. For, not against them.

I’m gonna let you in on a prayer that I learned that has helped me immensely. I didn’t learn this from a Christian, but I see nothing heretical about it, so here it is: “God, bless them (my enemy) and heal me.” Say it with me…

That is “God, I’m not praying that this person receive your wrath, instead, bless them in what ever way is within your will. I pray the same mercy will fall on them as I have been gifted with.” And, “God, heal me. I have unforgiveness in my heart, or self-righteousness, or selfishness, or anger, or…. Please wash my heart clean and allow me to return to fellowship with you, unencumbered, unblocked by my own sin.”
Pray for your enemies. Moving on.

Do all of that, so: 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

This goes back to being the children of God, the representatives of God in the world. We are to be shining His light, being ambassadors of His love and carrying the message of reconciliation.

Then He gives an interesting piece about the rain and the sun. Those are just basic elements of life. We all need the rain and the sun and He gives those things to everyone, even the people that rise up against Him and say He doesn’t exist, or who mock His power. He loves them all enough to provide the basic elements of survival — even to His enemies.

So too, we should be putting forth at least the basic level of civility and mercy and compassion.

I’m not saying invite them to your get togethers, although you certainly could. I’m not saying confide in them with your deepest and most intimate thoughts — if they really are your enemy that would be foolish. I’m not calling you to that and neither is Jesus. What He says is, there should be a general level of love a base line that everyone receives from us if we are Christ followers. That goes for our loved ones, and strangers and our enemies.

And, then He jabs all of us. We like to think that we are doing well; we like to think that we deserve a pat on the back when we show love to our friends and loved ones.

We talk about taking so and so out for lunch. Those who know we helped someone out with their power bill or their mortgage payment applaud us.

These are nice things to do, But Jesus says: 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?

He says, that’s all well and good, but that’s a cultural response, that doesn’t raise questions that doesn’t point to God, that just points to us being generous. People will likely give you and me the praise for those things.

Instead we are to show that kind of love to those people that have wronged us. To those people that have come against us.

People should have to scratch their heads and just be confused and have to ask “Why?” once in a while because of the things we are doing to show love; because of the words we are saying to show love and because of the things we are NOT saying out of love toward our enemies.

Then Jesus really knocks one out of the park. He really goes against the teachings of the world, maybe, and the church for sure: 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

And again, we say Impossible! Our fallback response when we sin and when our brothers and sisters in the faith sin is, “Hey, lighten up. Nobody’s perfect.”
We all say it. I’m not perfect. Only Jesus is perfect.

And you know what, It is true that we are not perfect. But Jesus commands us here not to take solace in that. He says, “Be Perfect!”

What do we do with that?

Well, this is how I see it. Really, this is how Christians have seen it for centuries. We can’t do this. In fact we can’t do any of this. Not without help.

Jesus says that to be saved we must put our faith and trust in Him and believe that He is the Lord and that God raised Him from the dead. But we are also told that we were dead in our sin. So how does a dead man, how does a dead woman make a conscious choice to believe?

We have been told in this first chapter in the Sermon on the Mount to be humble, to hunger and thirst for God, to forgive, to be pure, to be peacemakers.

We are told to rejoice during the hard times that will be coming in this life, we are told to be more righteous than the most religious people that we know.

We are told not to hold onto anger and not to say hateful things to people. We are told not to lust even in our own minds, and we are told to honor our marriage covenants.

And finally, Jesus sums it all up and we are told to be PERFECT. Just as the Father — Just as GOD is perfect!

It’s impossible! I can’t do it! You can’t do it.
Time and time again I’ve tried. And time after time I’ve failed. For every step forward on my own strength and on my own power, I end up going many more steps back.

I…we can’t be perfect. Not without help.
Not without the help of God.
You see, it is by faith in God that we were saved from Death and saved from Hell, an eternity apart from God. But that faith was only available to us by the grace of God. The very faith that saves us is completely out of our hands, it is not of our works, not even our own choice. It is by God alone. Praise Him for including us and allowing us to find that faith.

And then once we understand that we depend on Him for our very salvation. We then proceed to put our dependence on him for everything else.

We say, Father God, thank you for your commands that we find in the Scriptures. We understand that this is the way we have been designed to live. We understand that this is our roadmap to freedom from the bondage of sin and earthly pursuits in our lives.

But, Lord, we need your help to walk these commands out, because the world is still trying to grow up around us like weeds in a garden to choke out your light, Father God.

We thank the Lord for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the life of every believer and we ask that we be made more aware on a day-by-day, moment-by-moment basis — more aware of the guidance of the Holy Spirit in order to pursue the perfection He has called us to.

We can do it, if we let God the Spirit take the lead.

To close let’s read Philippians 3:10-14 (New International Version)

10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have I already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Let us all press on Press forward Let us all strain forward for the prize. Let us pursue Christ and His love, because in it we will find the perfection He has called us to.

Let’s pray…

Matthew 5:38-42- Series on the Mount #18

Good evening. I want to begin tonight by defining a word that was coined during a movement for change in the 1960’s. It was the movement that happened in response to the turmoil in the world with war and racism and assassinations and you name it.

It was a time when the facade was falling away. The June Cleaver times of the 50’s were being pushed on by a generation that said, we will not pretend that everything is alright. We will not pretend that things are o.k. They said we must fight the oppression of the government. We must push back and take the power.

And from this, some great things happened. Uppermost to our minds now is the civil rights movement that provided the catalyst for change that we saw come to fruition in the election of our nation’s first black president last year.

And this movement toward change didn’t just change social dynamics between the races. It also changed music, and fashion, and architecture, and the cinema, and politics and even organized religion.

Anyway the word that was coined during this era is Counterculture — the culture and lifestyle of those people, who reject or oppose the dominant values and behavior of society.

And this definition could be applied to anyone in that generation that developed the knee-jerk reaction to “question everything.”

And we are not going to really delve into that particular generation tonight. There were fruits of their labor that were incredible and beneficial (again, the civil rights laws, the music of Jimi Hendrix, etc.) Those were good things.

And there was other fruit that was destructive like rampant cynicism, escalated drug abuse and the so called “free love” movement or sexual revolution, which helped to break down the intimacy and pleasure found in the sexual relationship as God designed it to be.

All of those topics could be zeroed in on for their own sermons because all of them still relate to us today.

But the point that I want to make is. The generation was so different than the rest of society that they stood out as a class onto themselves.

And while the term “counterculture” was coined just a few decades ago, Jesus was calling for a different form of counter cultural-ism 2,000 years ago.

Tonight and next week we are going to discuss
Jesus’ call for us to be counter cultural.

We are still wading through the Sermon on the Mount, slowly dissecting the word of God, and discovering together what we can learn, in our day in age, from Jesus’ teaching to first century Jews.
And really, all of the things He has taught so far seem different that normal.

He’s told us that the world applauds power and pride. But He says that we should exhibit meekness and humility.

He says the people of the world look for satisfaction in money and materials and the approval or adoration of other people.
But Jesus says His followers look for satisfaction and fulfillment in Him and Him alone.

And so it all seems different right?

Well the next two passages, we’ll deal with one tonight and one next week, they are probably the most countercultural of the bunch and I can honestly say I have never seen these commands of Jesus followed very well. And we never get any of them perfect. But I’ve hardly ever seen any of my group of friends submit to these teachings, even partially and I’m included.

Tonight let’s read Matthew 5:38-42 (New International Version)

38 "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41 If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

Now, let’s just unpack this and as we dig in, I hope you will see just how radical this teaching is.

It starts out simply enough in verse 38 "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'[Exodus 21:24; Lev. 24:20; Deut. 19:21] Jesus is doing here what He did in the last few passages.

He is taking a teaching from the Jewish leaders that misconstrued the Old Testament and so, had to be corrected. It’s important to remember, He isn’t correcting the Old Testament itself. He is correcting the misinterpretation of it.

You see, the people of Israel took a law that was designed to ensure that a punishment would fit the crime and instead used it as a scriptural mandate for revenge.

God was teaching in the OT not to over punish, don’t take someone’s life for an eye. But they took it as, “If you come against me I will get my revenge.”

And the problem was they were not interpreting scripture by scripture, they took those passages out of context and abused them. They took Exodus 21:24; Lev. 24:20; Deut. 19:21 but ignored Deuteronomy 32:35, which teaches that we are not to seek our own vengeance. The Lord is the avenger!

And we, as Christ followers, have the gift of the New Testament where we find Paul fleshing it out even more in Romans 12:19:
Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.

The eye for an eye tooth for a tooth laws were laid down as a designed way of dealing with crime, dealing with sin in the Nation of Israel so that people would be deterred from sinning, but again, it also protected the criminal from being overly punished. And since it was given as a law to be enacted by the leaders of the nation of Israel it was their job to punish.

This should have stopped the wronged person from taking revenge out on the sinner.

The only exception when revenge even seems to be slightly allowed was in the case of murder. But even then the person, the one who killed someone else, was given the opportunity to flee to a refuge city where they would not be subject to revenge.

So with all that in mind, that the eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth deal was for the good of the people and not a mandate or an excuse for revenge – keeping that in the front of our mind — let’s look at the next verses.

(38 "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.') 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41 If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.

Now all of the commentaries that I read have concluded that a open handed smack on the face with the back of the hand was one of the most insulting things that someone could do to you at the time that Jesus was teaching.

Back when I was a kid, it wasn’t a smack in the face, it was talking about someone’s mama. That was going to start a fight. I don’t care who you were or how big the other kid was. You talk about someone’s mama and you are going to go round and round.

Well, that’s what the slap was.

So, Jesus is saying. Let it go. Do not respond the way the world responds, respond like Jesus.

Now back to verse 40: And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.

Richard Krejcir is the Director of Into Thy Word Ministries and he teaches that the tunic was a kind of undergarment, most people had more than one unless they were poor. And so, if someone was suing you for your tunic, you could survive.

So knowing Jesus goes against the grain, knowing that Jesus is Countercultural, we could probably understand if He says, “Just give the guy the tunic and be done with it.”

But no, Jesus goes beyond that to what many of us would push back against. He says if he wants your tunic let him have your cloak as well.

I didn’t get the difference between a tunic and a cloak, so I read up on it, listen to what Krejcir says about a cloak:

“(The cloak) the 'outer garment' was one of the most valuable and important possessions a person could have. It would be like our house today, or our entire wardrobe. They usually had only one cloak due to the enormous time and expense to make. They wore it all of the time, and slept with it as a blanket. To lose it would be catastrophic, especially in the winter. They could pursue legal (action) if it was stolen, just as we could today in the loss of any valuable possession…”

So, Jesus doesn’t just say give over the little concession, He says go overboard. Krejcir continues:

“Some commentaries say this passage is 'hyperbole (or overstated) literature,' that Jesus is 'exaggerating' to make His point. This may be so; I do not think He would want us to lose all of our possessions so we became homeless and destitute. But, the primary focus here is the unimportance of possessions and the importance of much more valuable matters…”

In other words, stuff is just stuff and in God’s grand scheme of things, He would rather use your loose handling of your stuff to demonstrate to people what is truly important in your life – that is, a Christ centered focus on restoring the world to God. If that is our aim, we understand that unnecessary conflicts divert us from our purpose so we do what we can to avoid the conflict.

Now let’s look at verse 41: If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.

First we saw an attack on our dignity and reputation with a slap to the face. Then we saw an attack on our possessions with the taking of a tunic and the giving of a cloak. And now we see an attack on our freedom.

Remember, slavery was common back in the day and we really have little to compare this to today. The best I can do is to say look at your working relationship if you are an employee, or have been an employee or will someday be an employee.

We have all had that boss or supervisor that demands more than he or she should. Demands more of our time or demands that we work beyond our job description or whatever. The point is. It violates our freedom (in a loose since). It takes away our freedom to be with our families, or to get some other non-work chores done or it takes away our freedom to pursue other interests or hobbies or rest.

To all of this the culture would say, “No way! They’ve got you for 40 hours and that’s it. Don’t be a chump.” The world would say your boss doesn’t care about you, that you are being taken advantage of and all the rest of the arguments.

But Jesus says, be countercultural. Don’t just work late, if they demand it, go above and beyond and do whatever you are doing there to the best of your ability not grumbling and complaining and not doing a half hearted job. Perform with excellence.

And why should you? Because, you are representing Christ.

The bottom line is our right response is to go to any length we can in order to be peacemakers, even when that means we may get the short end of the stick, even when other people might mock us and even in the instance that someone might take advantage of us.

In Romans 12 Paul says it like this: 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

Now this is countercultural. On the playground, if you make fun of Johnny’s mama, Johnny’s gonna throw down. In the workplace, if the boss makes Jodi work on the weekend, she’s gonna “get sick” or sluff off on her responsibilities in protest. And if, for some reason in the marketplace, someone is trying to get one over on Jim with some of his property or finances, Jim is going to hold on to that material possession until they pry it from his cold dead hands.

Those are the cultural responses. And remember the people coming up against us and against our dignity, or possessions and our freedom, those are bad people. It’s not like we’re missing something. These people are our enemies in the worlds eyes and that’s why the world says, defend your stuff and get revenge when you are hurt in these areas.

And in all of those situations, everyone around the offended person is likely to say they were right to come back against the offender. In fact, there have been times in my life when someone hasn’t retaliated and My first thought was that they were either weak or stupid.

Jesus isn’t saying anything about the sinner, He’s simply saying this is how you and I — as Christ followers — deal with the offence.

But we cry out, “What about them!? They’re gonna get away with that!”

And we know what everyone else is going to think if we don’t retaliate. We don’t want to look weak or stupid. So, what do we do?

We ignore Jesus and we lash out.

And if history and life prove anything it is that retaliation begets retaliation begets retaliation begets retaliation begets retaliation…

Look at the gang wars in Los Angeles between the Cripps and the Bloods. Look at the battles between the Israelis and Hezbollah in the West Bank. Look at the battles between the Sunnis and the Shiites in Iraq. The retaliation cycle never ends!

So Jesus says live a different life. Live a life that is in stark contrast to the madness of the fallen world we live in.

And, it will rise up against everything that we have been conditioned to think, especially in the West. Our culture is a “me first” culture. Jesus teaches something different. Jesus teaches a “Kingdom first” culture.

And we are to sacrifice and be an example in everything we do, not just when life is sunshine and rainbows, but also when it seems the whole world is against us.

And remember, this wasn’t just what Jesus taught. This is what He lived out.

After praying in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was taken captive by the soldiers and He went without a fight (save for Peter who wasn’t following the will of God)

In His trial before the Sanhedrin before His crucifixion, Jesus was smacked and mocked. Yet, He did not retaliate.

And as they wanted to take His life from Him on the cross, scripture says no one could take it but that He gave up His life.

And in every aspect He showed love. 1 Peter 2:21 tells us He showed us a perfect example.

Lets close tonight with Matthew 5:42
Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

If you look at this verse in relation to the verses right before it, it seems to be concluding a thought.

In this world we often times are so worried about getting taken for a fool, so worried about being taken advantage of, that we build up our defenses and we just don’t help anyone. And again the culture applauds that. We are told even in churches to be careful, most people with cardboard signs are really just conmen. They live like kings on what they take us for.

Or we are told, don’t give to the gentleman sitting out, homeless on the street, because he is just going to spend it all on drugs or booze.

And what happens is we convince ourselves that we don’t need to help.

But that isn’t scriptural. Now, I’m not saying go and support someone’s vice. But there’s other ways you and I can offer support. Ask what they would like for lunch and take them some food.

And personally, I think it may be true that some – not all— of the cardboard sign-toting people may be conmen. But I’m also convinced that homelessness and desperation is a paycheck away for some people and if they really are in need and my few bucks will help, than I’m not going to regret giving up that $5 that I would probably waste on soda and fast food anyway.

Just like anything else, this is between you and your father in Heaven.

We are going to conclude this, these countercultural teachings from the Sermon on the Mount next week.

Until then I would just ask that you view any hardships or conflicts that come your way in the light of this teaching and just start practicing the self sacrifice that Jesus talks about for the glory of God.

Let’s pray…

Matthew 5:33-37— Series on the Mount #17

33 "Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.' 34 But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

Character Counts.

There was a time when I was a liar. I lied about everything. If I thought you would be impressed with something I would tell you it was so. If there was something I had done that you saw favor in, I would talk it up make it grander, make it more wondrous.
If there was something I did or had done that you would not like or if it would make you look down on me, I would deny it to my dying breath.

And I was good at it. Those of us in the Christian faith, those of us following the way of Christ are said to have gifts of the Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:8-11 says:

8 To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10 to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.

Well, I don’t know that it’s in scripture, but I would say I certainly had gifts of the evil one back in the day before I knew of Christ. And my gift was lying.

And I don’t have to tell most of you this, you’ve seen it or you’ve experienced it. Lying is hard work. Your every thought becomes, “Okay, what did I tell them yesterday? Or oh, no! I hope those two people don’t get to talking, otherwise every thing's gonna unravel.”

In fact, there are some relationships that I used to sabotage in the past because if I made person A dislike person B, they would never talk to one another and then I could stick to my lies.
It was destructive and it was damaging. And that’s who I was before Christ.

So, once I came to know Him. Once He regenerated my spirit through the saving work of Christ on the cross and the continuing sanctifying or purifying work of the Holy Spirit after my salvation I began to be transformed. I saw the destructive path of my dishonesty. I saw how trapped and enslaved I had become in my little web of lies and through Christ I was freed.

And you may be in the same boat, you may have been in that same boat. You may have lived a life of lies and found freedom.

But, as many of you know, there is a residue left by many of our sins. It is like when you clean a really dirty window, there are areas where it’s clear as crystal, but until the cleaning is thorough, until it is complete, there are still these little streaks that disrupt the view.

That’s how I’ve found it to be with many old time liars that have turned a new leaf — or, more correctly, who have had their leaf turned by the Holy Spirit.

You’ll see if there is the residue of their old sin when they try to convince you that every thing’s on the up and up when there was no doubt about it in the first place.

Because you see, even though they have been transformed, even though they don’t need to lie and can find comfort in who they are, they still feel like they have to go in the far out other direction and just really make it clear to people that they are not lying.

So they always swear that they are telling the truth. And they go over all this ground over and over again and what it does is it just gets in the way.

And sometimes it makes people think they aren’t telling the truth when they are because they swear to it too much.

To that person. If it is you. Jesus would say, lovingly, “knock it off.” And we’ll get to why He wants us to knock it off in a moment.

But first, let’s get to another group of people. You may be in this camp, or you might know somebody. Don’t dwell on it unless it’s you.

There are some people who just flippantly say I swear to God that I… or God strike me dead if… Or, by God, I’m…

Or, in what they think is reverence to the Lord they replace Him with something else. They say, I swear on my momma’s grave… or I swear on my kids’ lives…

Or they call down cursing on themselves if it is later found out they lied. May I get struck by lightning is I’m lying… May my favorite NASCAR racer loose this weekend if… or, If I’m lying I’m dying…

And it goes on and on. And this group of people aren’t saying these things because they feel like they need to convince somebody. They just use these expressions like it’s punctuation. It just becomes thoughtless noise.

And to this second group, Jesus seems to say, lovingly, in Matthew 5:33-36, “Knock it off.”

So that covers the piece on, don’t swear, not by God, not by people, not by the earth or a great city. Don’t even swear by your own head, or by your own life.

But now let’s move on to the last verse, Matthew 5:37:
“Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”

This introduces a couple of more camps of people that need to be addressed. Again, Maybe it’s not you, but I’m sure you know someone. If none of these relate to you than you get a free pass this week, pray for the rest of us.

We’ve discussed the second part of this verse, anything that goes beyond your yes or no, anything you add to it is from the evil one, that is Satan.

But let’s look at the first part of the verse: “Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'”

There are several camps of people that are immediately dealt with here, and no I’m not going to talk about politicians, that’s a given, that’s too easy.

No the camps are the over committers, the absent minded and the liars. The over committers, the absent minded and the liars; I believe that everyone who has a problem with their yes being yes and their no being no fall into one of these three areas.

The over committers are sometimes those people who feel the need to people please, and in other cases the over committers are those who just over-estimate how much time is in the day or how much energy they actually have in order to do all that they have promised to do.

The people pleasers sometimes have a low view of them selves and try to gain the respect or the kindness of others through being the “go to” person in every situation until they “go to” their grave or they just burn out and fade away.

Eventually they simply cannot fulfill all of the things they have agreed to do and things begin to unravel and they are left feeling more rejected than before.
I used to be in this camp and it was not until I was pointed toward a deeper relationship with Jesus that I finally found freedom.

You see, if we try to look for the satisfaction or joy by pleasing others, that satisfaction or joy will never last. It will never last. It is the same as anything else that we try to find fulfillment in other than Christ, everything else fails us, if not right away, than eventually.

In these cases, people either don’t know, or don’t care about our feelings. Or, if they see in you or I this kind of vulnerability, they may try to exploit it.

And all kinds of destructive co-dependent relationships can spring up from that. You may have seen marriages like this. You see it in almost every workplace. It’s everywhere.

And again, bringing it back to tonight’s message. If our goal is to please others in order to wrestle out some kind of approval, we will ware ourselves out and eventually let people down. Our yes’ will go unfulfilled and we will become liars. So, Jesus warns against it. He says lovingly, knock it off.

And what happens to the other kind of over committer who doesn’t realize or admit that they are biting off more than they can chew is that they also begin to fall short of their promises. Then things don’t get done in time or with the level of excellence that a Christian should strive for and their yes, becomes a no. They become liars, and Jesus warns against that too. He says lovingly, knock it off.

Now, there’s people in both of these camps that say, “Well if I don’t say yes, if I don’t do it, it won’t get done. Or if I don’t do it, it won’t be done right.”

To that I say, first off, if you think you are the only one that can do it right, you think to highly of yourself and to low of others, get over yourself. And, if it happens to be true, learn to be okay with that.

It doesn’t all have to be perfect and it doesn’t all have to get done. The world will not end.

Learn when to say yes and when to say no and when to say wait and see. But we don’t want to lie, and we don’t want to fall short on our commitments.

Moving on.
The next camp that does not come through on what they say — the next camp that does not make sure that their yes is a yes and their no is a no — are the absent minded brothers and sisters. You can call them scatter-brained, you can call them flighty or whatever. There are times when I fall into this category as well.

Truth be told there are times when I fall into each of these categories. If you search yourself, you might find yourself in each camp too.

Anyway, to the absent minded. If this is you, you may constantly be making apologies, constantly saying you are sorry because you have completely spaced off on a commitment, or gone and done something you said you wouldn’t do.

Now, I don’t know about you, but when I find myself doing this it always seems to come in waves, and it is usually at work where I’ll miss two or three appointments in one week. And those waves always seem to coincide with the last category, when I am over committed.

I’m telling you this is a major stumbling block that I have not yet found victory in. I juggle family, church, school and my day job. And if I don’t structure all of it just right, I’m up a creek really quickly.

So the only advice I can give here is the advice I have not yet heeded and that is slow down and start cutting things out of your schedule in order to give yourself breathing room.

And this also includes taking time out each week for Sabbath rest.

But again, we haven’t got that figured out yet. But, we WILL be tackling the issue of the Sabbath in the church and in the Christian life soon.

Finally, we get to the liar. Now if you notice, all the other camps eventually lead us into being liars if we don’t watch out.

And in case you were wondering God’s not okay with that.

Let’s just look quickly at Revelation 21:7-8
7 He who overcomes (that is he or she who overcomes sin and death through the death burial and resurrection of Jesus, He) will inherit all this (That is fellowship with the Lord in person, in the new Heavens and the New Earth), and I will be his God and he will be my son. 8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars (He groups liars with all the other “big sins”)—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."

In other words, our lies are not something to be shrugged off or laughed away. God takes it seriously, so we need to as well.

Now, I know the first obvious response is, the blood of Christ covers all our sin, and takes it away from us as far as the east is from the west.
And that is all true.

The point that Jesus makes is, if you are walking in the sin of lying and think it is no big deal, it is like walking in unbelief, or with a murderous heart, or in sexual immorality, or witchcraft.

The New Testament, from Jesus to Paul to James, says over and over, that that is the fruit of one who is not known by Christ, so take lying as serious as any other sin. Repent and turn back toward Christ.

One last thing, we’ve got to close this down. But the reason we do not lie, the reason we tell the truth is the same reason we do any other “good” thing.
We do it in thanksgiving to God, for His gift of grace and mercy to our soul.

And we do it to reflect a part of who He is into the world. We remain faithful to our words because God is faithful to His.

Turn with me quickly to Genesis 17
1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, "I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. 2 I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers."
3 Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, 4 "As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. 5 No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. 6 I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. 7 I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.

Now, if we follow this throughout the Old Testament and into the new we see that God keeps His promises. No excuses, no take-backs, Every time, even when we are unfaithful to our end of the deal, He is faithful.

His son, Jesus, on the cross, is our ultimate example that He does whatever needs to be done to hold up His word.

So when we, as His adopted children say we will do something or say we won’t, that is all that needs to be said. We are His ambassadors in this world.

The fact of our salvation is all the proof we need. Anything else that anyone demands beyond that is related to their sin. It is not something we need to fall into.

And, if we feel like we need to swear an oath to prove ourselves as honest, it is because we seek the approval of man instead of the approval of God, and Jesus, In Matthew 5: 31-37 lovingly says, “knock that off.”

So, let’s go out as salt and light and simply let our yes be yes and our no be no, amen?

Let’s pray…