Christian teaching

Today we look at a familiar passage from Matthew 6. As we will see, it teaches us about seeking out God’s attention, and we all need God’s attention and help with our concerns and needs.

Our text is found right smack in the middle of what is called the “Sermon on the Mount” (Matthew 5-7) a section of this gospel that pulls together much of Jesus’ teaching on righteousness.

Read through this text, if you will – Matthew 6:1-18 

1. Jesus is calling us to engage in these activities

that is, almsgiving (or giving to the poor), prayer, and fasting. These were all central practices of Jewish spirituality. But notice in this – Jesus assumes that we will be practicing these as well, for he says,

• “when you give to the needy” – v. 2
• “when you pray” – v. 4
• “when you fast” – v. 16

. . . not “if” or “if you happen to get around to these.”

We are to be giving to the poor, praying and fasting. And so we might begin by asking ourselves – “When was the last time we prayed seriously?” or “Specifically gave to the poor?” or “Fasted in any form?”

Jesus assumes we are doing these things, and he is simply teaching us how to do them in the right way.

2. Each of these practices seeks God’s attention and favor

This is important to understand if we want to get Jesus’ point. This comes out in our verses because he is saying , when we do these things in the right way:

• God will take note of us
• God will respond to us

Or as Jesus says three times – “And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

Now Prayer is obvious enough. It’s all about seeking God that God will hear us and help us. We want God’s attention and God’s mercy.

Fasting is often connected to prayer. In fact, fasting is a particularly intense kind of praying, usually when someone is upset, distressed or grieving. Your situation is so bad that you must have God’s attention and favor. You are desperate. And Scripture notes that God responds to this kind of intense seeking.

Almsgiving – might seem puzzling here, but it is seen in Scripture as giving you favor before God and in your seeking of God. Lets look at this one just a bit more . . .

The principle behind this is clear – “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” – James 5:16. The one who is righteous or obedient has powerful prayers; they have favor with God.

In Judaism, and also here with Jesus, giving alms is a, if not the token of a truly righteous person. In fact in Judaism giving alms became synonymous with the word for “righteousness.” So, given our principle, giving to the poor gives power to your prayers.

An example: Acts 10:4. Remember the story of Cornelius? He prayed and had a vision from God where an angel came to him. Our verse says, “And he stared at the angel in terror and said, ‘What is it, Lord?’ And he said to him, ‘Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God.’”

Notice, his prayers and his alms came up before God. And because of this he had God’s favor. So God sent Peter to preach the gospel to him.

• His alms gave potency to his prayers.
• His alms gave him favor with God.

So, all of these practices have to do with seeking God’s attention and favor – “they are seeking activities.” Prayer is seeking God and both almsgiving and fasting  are, as it were, “prayer enhancers.” They are ways of strengthening our praying and seeking after God. They come alongside our prayers, to make them more effective.

Now let’s look at . . .

3. What Jesus is forbidding here

. . . because we sometimes miss the point.

• Jesus is not saying that we can’t give alms publicly. For instance in church – in our offerings. Remember how in Luke 21:1-4 Jesus commends the widow who gave to the temple treasury, in public?
• Jesus is not saying that we can’t pray publicly. For instance how we pray in church. Both Jesus and the apostles prayed in pubic, not in a closet.
• And as well, Jesus is not saying we can’t fast publicly. Paul and others fasted publicly as we see in the book of Acts (13:2: 14:23).

No. Jesus is saying – Don’t draw attention to yourself when you do these things – for instance:

• Blowing a trumpet when you give alms. (Now this is probably not literal, but just a figure of speech for getting everyone’s attention).

• Praying where the most people can see you.

• Disfiguring your face so everyone knows you are fasting, the idea being to emphasize that you are suffering as you fast.

Rather than all this, Jesus teaches us to make sure we don’t draw attention to ourselves. And he drives this idea home with typically extreme statements:

• With regard to giving – don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.

• With regard to prayer – go off into a closet to pray.

• With regard to fasting – dress up as if you are celebrating.

This is all hyperbole or intentional exaggeration. As I said, Jesus didn’t always pray in a closet (if ever). His point in all of this is simply – Don’t draw attention to yourself!! Or as Jesus says at the end of each example, engage in these practices “in secret”- for God to see.

Now this doesn’t mean that others won’t see us . Jesus talks about this in Matthew 5:16. We are to let our light shine before others so that people will see our good works and glorify God. But, our text teaches us, we are not to do these things in order to be seen!

This brings us to . . .

4. The central contrast that Jesus is making

These three practices are meant to seek God’s attention and favor.  But we often use them to seek human attention and favor. They are meant to be focused on God and God’s reward. Not on people and the reward that they give.

Thus Jesus rightly says in each case, don’t be like the “hypocrites.” For hypocrisy is when appearances are not as they seem:

• we appear one way on the outside (good & righteous)
• but we are really another way within (unrighteous, full of pride or deceit)

In this case, we are doing righteous things: praying, fasting, giving to the poor. But we are doing them for the wrong reason. Instead of trying to please God, we are trying to please people, to gain human praise, notice and honor. (And this wrong motive often affects the character of our righteous acts . We tend to do them in exaggerated ways, trumpets blowing and all the rest, to make sure people notice).

Jesus wants us to do what is right, but that’s not all. To move beyond hypocrisy, we are to what is right, for the right reason.

5. Finally, there is a promise in these verses

It is not for those who seek to be seen in their praying, giving to the poor, and fasting. As Jesus said three times – “Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.”

We get nothing from God, because we already got what we were really looking for – whatever human attention or praise we received from other people. We are nothing more than hypocrites.

But the promise is – if we give alms, pray and fast to gain God’s attention and favor (that is, with right intention and a pure heart) then God will reward our seeking of him. As Jesus said three times – “And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

This is the promise of Jesus to us – when we seek God as he instructs us to, we will get God’s attention. God will reward us; God will care for our needs and answer our prayers. William Higgins