FBC Boerne Youth
Messages from First Baptist Church Boerne's Youth Ministry. Visit us at https://www.fbcboerne.org/youth/
FBC Boerne Youth
Motive Matters // Matthew 6:1-18
Join us as we continue our sermon on the mount series in Matthew 6:1-18.
So you guys, unfortunately, I was raised a Cowboys fan and I've never been able to shed that. Look, brother, pray for us Dallas sports fans. All right, first Luca, then Brian Schottenheimer. Just pray for your Dallas sports fan friends, because we most definitely need it. And so, yeah, I'm a Cowboys fan and it was super sweet.
Speaker 1:A few Christmases back, christine knew that I've always wanted a custom Cowboys jersey, and so she knew that the Color Rush one was my favorite, and so she searches all over the place and she had trouble finding one, but she finally found one and she ordered it. And this is it, and it looked really great. Right, I unboxed it. It's awesome, I'm super excited about it. But even though it looked really great, as I started to look a little bit closer, there were a few details, like if you look, the swoosh on this arm is backwards, so that's a thing. And then you would notice a few other things, like there was some cardboard and all this sort of stuff. And what happened is, even though it had the appearance of something real, when you started to dig down underneath it was actually fake. And now I'm very grateful for my jersey. I love it. It's the best babe, you're the sweetest.
Speaker 1:But why am I telling you this story? Well, because that is where we're at as we continue our series on the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is going to be dealing with a similar situation, except instead of a jersey or faith or a walk with God. Maybe is a better way to understand it. But the point is he's saying that, hey, there is a way of doing things that is going to be real and there's a way of doing things that's going to be fake, and he's going to look at the differences between the two. And, as we've been tracking through this series, we've seen Jesus talk about a greater righteousness, that they needed to have a greater. His followers needed to have a greater righteousness than the Pharisees. And then, as he pivots to this next section, he's saying, hey, there's actually a motive behind this that matters, right? The righteousness I'm telling you about is not a list of rules to just check boxes, but instead we want to follow God's heart. And he's going to talk about that fake religiosity that we mentioned and a true relationship with God. And, just like the jersey, there's a kind of religiousness that looks good on the outside, but when you pull back the curtains it has no authenticity, it's not real, it's fake. But how can you tell? Well, there's no swoosh to look at. But what Jesus is going to point out tonight I always try to say this morning is that motive matters. In fact, he's going to use three examples to show us that fake righteousness is motivated by status, recognition and an image, while true righteousness is motivated by worship, relationship and dependence. And we're going to walk through all of those if you didn't get to write them down.
Speaker 1:So, that being said, we're going to jump into verse 1, matthew, chapter 6, verse 1. If you have your Bible, you can go ahead and flip there somewhere in the middle. Perfect, all right. Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
Speaker 1:And so I'm just going to stop with that verse for now, because that's like the thesis statement for this, and so at first glance, it might seem like it contradicts something that Jesus said earlier in Matthew 5, because, if you remember, from a few weeks ago, he says in the same way let your light shine before others that they might see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. But he just said, don't practice your works in front of others. So what is it? Should we hide our good works or should we let people see our good works? Well, here's the difference. It's all about motive. In Matthew 5, 16, jesus says let your light shine before others and then here's the point so that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Right, the purpose of people seeing what you're doing is so that they would see God and they'd be hey, he's really good, like there's something good about the God this guy follows. Your works should help people see God's goodness. He's the one who gets the glory.
Speaker 1:But in this verse Jesus says be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others, to be seen by them. And so here Jesus is warning against doing good things so that you get noticed. So people think a lot about you and who you are. It's not a contradiction, it's a heart check. Jesus is saying there's this way of looking righteousness, of doing a lot of spiritual things, but with the wrong motive, to impress people instead of honor God. It's worthless, there's no reward, it's fake righteousness. And here's the scary part, as Jesus says that there is no reward from God, that it's empty. So you have these two categories of a true righteousness and a fake righteousness, but still that begs the question how do you know? Like? What are the signs? How can I know which side of the fence I'm on? Well, jesus actually uses those three examples we mentioned earlier, and so we're going to read through some of the text. This is going to be like a long trunk, so stick with me, and then we're going to walk back through it.
Speaker 1:Verse two 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 others. Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly, I tell you they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room and close the door and pray to your father, who is unseen, then your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like the pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your father knows what you need before you ask him.
Speaker 1:And here I'm actually going to move forward a little bit, because this is where Jesus gives his followers a model for prayer. We call it the Lord's Prayer. You could do an entire sermon series, just don't have time for that. And so we're actually going to see how that fits within the greater movement of what's going on in these 18 verses. So we're going to move past that to the next part.
Speaker 1:In verse 16, he says when you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others that they are fasting Truly. I tell you they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face so that it will not be obvious to others that you're fasting, but only to your father, who is unseen, and your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And so that seems like a lot of unrelated text, like he's talking about prayer, he's talking about giving and then he's talking about fasting. Like what in the world does that have to do with true and fake righteousness? But remember, these are examples. So he's saying, hey, don't practice your good deeds to be seen by others. Don't be this fake faith performative. Don't be that. And then he gives these as examples for what not to do and what to do.
Speaker 1:So he goes on either side of the coin and as we move through them, we're going to start with that fake righteousness and we're going to think through three things that are indicative of this fake faith. It looks real but at the end of the day, there's actually nothing there. And so Jesus starts with giving. He says when you give to the needy, don't announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues. And so did people really blow trumpets before they gave? Probably not. And some commentators think that he's talking like metaphorically here. Like don't be. Like. Like look how much money I gave. Like look at me, I'm so awesome.
Speaker 1:Other people believe he's talking about these metal receptacles that were in the temple and the synagogue, basically what people would throw coins into to get money. And they're metal, so they make a lot of wealthy person coming up with their big old coin collection and making it rain, dumping them all in there makes a ton of noise. So people look at them and think, oh man, he's really holy. And Jesus says that's not generosity that's showing off. Their motivation wasn't to help people, it was to be honored by others. And that's at the heart of fake righteousness.
Speaker 1:It's doing good things to get status, to impress people, to elevate yourself. And we see this all the time, and especially in church culture. Right, and I'm not trying to call anybody out, I'm not being pointed. I think I believe our church does a great job of this actually. But you see the big givers in church, they get a little bit of extra attention, they get treated a little bit differently. You know, when you know somebody has money, you kind of cozy up to them, like maybe I can get a favor or whatnot, and we get this status that we give out to people based on how much money they have or they give.
Speaker 1:And look, I understand that as a student in Bernie, like y'all probably aren't trying to flex your bank accounts, like you're just trying to see like do I have money to go to Canes after this or not, like I have no clue, like I get that right. But look, this isn't just about money. Here in Bernie it is just as easy to chase status in ministry as it is to chase social status or athletic status. There's towns that do a great job, there's other well-known ministries, there's other well-known student leaders, and it's really tempting to start trying to climb that spiritual ladder, to do things so that you get noticed, not out of worship, and that's fake righteousness. It might look good on the outside, but the motive is messed up and if that's your goal, getting noticed is the only thing you're going to get out of it. And it's the same type of thing.
Speaker 1:When Jesus talks about prayer. He says when you pray, don't be like the hypocrites that pray to be seen by others, but when you do pray, do not keep on babbling like the pagans, for they think they'll be heard because there are many words. So I'm skipping around a little bit there. And what's going on that Jesus is referencing is it was very common for Jews to pray three times a day, and so oftentimes they would kind of know when these times of day would be, and they just make sure that they just happened to be in a very public place when that time to prayer came, and they just happened to make sure to pray very loudly and very like, use all the big words so that everybody hears and thinks like how holy I am. And Jesus calls them hypocrites. But that word didn't mean the same to him as it does to us today.
Speaker 1:We think of hypocrites as, like somebody who says something and does something else intentionally, but here it's actually talking about like. That word is related to the Greek word for actor, so it's like putting on a mask and playing a part right, the Greek word was actually the same word. And actors would perform on a stage and they would put on this big mask to play different characters. And actors would perform on a stage and they would put on this big mask to play different characters. And so Jesus, when he calls somebody a hypocrite, he's not saying that you're inconsistent. He's saying that you're pretending You're playing a role to impress an audience. And these people were putting on a show in order to gain some recognition for how spiritual they were. They have this religious mask on, like I want everybody to think that I love Jesus, to think I've got it all together, but it's really just a show, it's just an act. They're after applause, not authenticity.
Speaker 1:And so the last example he uses is fasting. He says when you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do. They disfigure their faces to show others they're fasting. And so, out of the three, fasting is the one that's probably the most foreign to us. We don't necessarily practice this regularly. If you do, that's amazing, it's a great practice.
Speaker 1:But fasting is this practice of going without food for a period of time, and sometimes you can fast from other stuff. But the point is to encourage prayer. So every time I feel hungry, I'm going to pray to God, or I'm going to encourage dependence and willpower. I'm not going to depend on my own strength, but I'm going to depend on the Lord. I'm going to learn that I can go without what I want so that I can have him. And this was a common practice.
Speaker 1:A lot of Jews would probably fast twice a week. But again, there had been a practice where, when people were fasting, they'd make themselves look all miserable, like they'd drag their feet. They'd make their face look bad, like they would look like death walking around. And the point was so everybody would see them and be like man. His fast must be crazy. Like he loves God so much, like he's the Lord. And look, they weren't fasting for God, they were fasting to create an image. Look, they weren't fasting for God, they were fasting to create an image. And in a world that is all about creating an image, we are so in danger of falling into the exact same trap.
Speaker 1:You might not fast twice a week, but we give things up. We might take a break from social media or step back, but you have to ask yourself this question what's your motive? Remember, motive matters Like are you doing something? Are you giving something up so that you can press into God or so that people would notice how committed you are? And we've seen this before. We all know the people who announce their social media fast, right, like you make posts leading up to the social media fast that are actually longer than the social media fast itself. It's like three weeks of telling everybody you're about to log off for two days of actually logging off, right, you're like putting your address up there. It's like all right, guys like write me letters, you know. And then, two days later, it was so refreshing and I'm not trying to make fun of anybody, I'm just as guilty as anyone else.
Speaker 1:But the point here is, if you're giving something up just so that people think you're holy, you've already received your reward. There's no growth in that. It's all for appearances. And so when you look at these three examples, you start to get a pretty good picture of this fake righteousness. It's a spiritual life devoted not to God but to your own status, your own recognition and your own image, and it might be bold of me to say this, but I think this is one of, if not the biggest issues that you as a student could face here in Bernie Church, because we're blessed to live in a town where it is easy to be Christian. I say easy meaning we don't face persecution, we don't have people running us out of our churches, we have lots of amazing organizations here, and so it's easy to identify as a Christian. In fact, being a Christian can kind of be advantageous here. It can get you into the right social circles, it can get you into the right Nueo group or Young Life group, it can get you into the right friend group, and none of those things on their own are bad.
Speaker 1:But you have to ask yourself what is my motive? Am I trying to use my spirituality to just climb a ladder to be popular, to be accepted, because there's no life in that, it's fake. Motive matters. And here's the thing Jesus isn't saying don't give, don't pray, don't fast. He's saying do it in the proper way, with the proper motive. And so then the question is well, what in the world is that? How am I supposed to?
Speaker 1:And so now we're going to go back through and look at the positive examples, starting with giving. Jesus says when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. And so this hand illustration is kind of confusing and people have debated it and like, how serious is it? Like, is it a sin to tell anybody that you're giving? It's not right. We give in community. I think it's helpful for people to know how you give. The point is that when you do give to somebody, it should be like low key, it should be discreet, you shouldn't be trying to make a show of it, and not only that, but you shouldn't be showing off to other people. You shouldn't get right. Sometimes we might keep it in secret, but we really are patting ourselves on the back Like we're going to throw our shoulder out like man, come on and you start to kind of buy your own steam, and it's just not how it should be, because true righteousness is motivated by worship.
Speaker 1:Why do I say worship? Because worship is a response to God, and so when we're generous, it, yes, to some extent, is to help people. We want to help people. It is because it's healthy for you to give things away, but at the end of the day, we are generous because we serve a generous God that everything we have our bodies, our lives, our experiences it's from Him right. None of it's our own. You think, well, I work to earn my money. Well, who gave you those legs right? Who gave you the breath in your lungs? It all belongs to God. And so we are generous because God has been so generous to us. And children look like their parents, and so if we are children of God, then we should reflect that to those around us. And so true generosity, true faith and righteousness is worship. It's responding to who God is. It's not caring about what anybody else thinks, simply living out our faith and living out who God is to us, to other people. And so chasing status blesses you, but worshipful giving blesses others.
Speaker 1:Moving on to prayer. Jesus says, when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And so in one element, jesus is talking about hey, you should go practice of, I'm going to get away from all the noise and all the distraction. I'm going to spend time talking to God. Right, we shouldn't be going out and thinking about what other people are going to think about me or how I say things. But it's also not saying that you should never pray in public.
Speaker 1:Jesus prayed in public, right, but he's saying if your prayer life is all about being seen by people, you're missing the point, because prayer is not meant to be a performance. And you can see this because later in that command, he says hey, don't babble. Like the pagans and what he's referencing is a lot of pagans who worshiped other gods during that day would just say a bunch of words, like, like. They would just ramble on and on and on and on, thinking that maybe I'll get God's attention right, maybe I can get him to listen to me, because they viewed God as this distance. Just hey, he set the world up and then he let it run or he doesn't care about us. And Jesus says hey, you don't have to fight for your father's attention. He sees you, he knows you and he loves you. So why do we pray? Because he's your father. Because prayer is not about impressing someone, it's about knowing someone. It's about conversation with God. Like I want my kids to talk to me right Now.
Speaker 1:Imagine if Leighton, every time she came up to me, started with this like Dear Father, o most gracious Abba, father, who sits on high of the throne of our family, who inhabits the realm of 157 Sycamore, you discipline, you lay me down for naps. Would thy grant me a fish stick? Like it would be. No, I'd be like stop, that's weird. Quit. Like don't do that, don't talk to me that way. Right, that's just that's weird. Stop it. But see, if she would continue to talk to me that way at a certain point it would say something about how she sees me as her dad, that she needs to use fancy words to impress me, that my love can be bought by her performance. And see, I don't want that. I don't want her performance, I want her heart. Do you see it?
Speaker 1:Prayer is not about trying to impress God and it's certainly not trying to impress the people around us. Rather, prayer is time for you to have a conversation with the God who made you. So you don't need fancy words, you don't need a formula, you just need to talk. And can I say this is an area I've been convicted and as I'm prepping for the sermon, like I'm trying to pray to prep for this, and like, lord, would you give me the words to say, and I was like, why do I say Lord every five words, like I don't go? Hey, sam, could you help me to get Sam? Will you really go help me out? Like Sam, please, sam, like you don't do that in conversation. So I'm like, all right, even myself I'm like, hey, I have room to grow here. But this is where life is found. When that prayer turns from something that's performative and it becomes personal, that's where intimacy, you really get to know God.
Speaker 1:And then, finally, fasting. Jesus says, when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face so it will not be obvious. So again, people were making it showy and Jesus saying, hey, this isn't about the show, don't walk around looking miserable so that everybody knows how spiritual you are, because the point of this it's not about impressing the crowd, it's about denying yourself and looking towards God. Fasting is an act of humility. It's a way of saying God, I need you more than I need food. I am not self-sufficient. I cannot do this on my own. I am dependent on you. That's true righteousness. It's not about building your spiritual image. It's about building reliance on him. It's about getting to a place where you realize I can't go one moment without you. I need you 24-7, every second of every day, because here's the reality. You don't need the applause of the crowd when you're walking in the presence of the Creator.
Speaker 1:And I remember in high school I had a friend on the football team and I envied him because he was good. But it wasn't because he was just good at football, it was because he was just so unbothered. And you know how it goes if you've been on a sports team or if you've been in activity. There's usually a lot of peer pressure to do dumb stuff. You know you're joking around. Everybody's ragging on each other. And this guy was different because he was just unfazed by it to the point where people eventually just left him alone because he was so unbothered. They respected him, those things and so.
Speaker 1:But I knew that that wasn't good for me and I wanted nothing more than to be able to be free from that fear of man. And so I go up to him and like, bro, like how in the world? Like how do you just not care what people think about you, thinking he was going to give me some like crazy answer or whatnot? But I don't care about approval, I just know whose approval actually matters. I'm like all right, yoda, like what does that mean? Like that's not helpful. What kind of Jedi mind trick Like come on, help me out. He's like well, think about it. Why would I chase the approval of people when I already have the approval of the God who made all of them? And it stuck with me because he understood something that most of us miss.
Speaker 1:We are wired to seek approval. Like approval itself is not a bad thing, but it's all about where you seek it from. You were made to have the approval of the God who made you, but if we try to go anywhere else for that approval, it's going to leave us down because the crowd's fickle, they move on. But your Father in heaven, he sees you, he loves you dearly and his presence is far better than the applause of any man. Or you don't need the approval of the crowd, when you're walking in the presence of the creator. So who are you living for? The crowd or the creator? And Jesus says, hey, live for the creator. And that kind of life it's not flashy, it's not loud, it's not going to get you a ton of followers on Instagram, but it's where true life is, it's true freedom and that's the kind of faith that Jesus is after. And so, to sum up everything I know we just did a lot of information. There's a lot of verses True righteousness is motivated by worship over status, by relationship over recognition and by dependence over image.
Speaker 1:Thank you for putting that up there. And unlike fake righteousness, which Jesus says over that, there's no reward in that it's worthless, it's pointless. There's a reward with this one. What's the reward? Well, the Bible is clear for one. We actually receive eternal rewards in heaven, and I don't know exactly what that's going to be, but it sounds pretty sick. But I also believe that that reward actually starts here and now, that that reward is that you get to live a life that matters. Because here's the truth.
Speaker 1:Many of you here tonight live for the likes. You build a profile that looks flawless perfect outfits, perfect friends, perfect captions. You spend your days trying to be funny enough, hot enough, smart enough or chill enough for people to think that you're somebody. You make the team. You date the person. You go to the parties. You get the recognition. Maybe people know your name at school. You're funny, you're well liked, you're in the in crowd. Maybe you're even doing what you're supposed to do Schools. You're making the grades. You just got into the school that you want to get into sports friends, even some church stuff on the side.
Speaker 1:From the outside, your life looks good, but if you're honest with yourself, you're tired, because every day you wake up wondering if it's enough, if people really like you or just the version of you that you've put forward, and no matter how many people notice you, it never feels like it's quite enough. And then one day it all fades. The trends shift, the followers stop paying attention, the relationship ends, the popularity dies and the days on don't last. And what are you left with? You climbed a ladder that was leaning on the wrong wall. You spent your whole life trying to matter in the eyes of people who don't even remember your name a year later, that you're never going to see after you graduate high school. You lived, but you left nothing that lasted. You existed, but you didn't make a dent in eternity.
Speaker 1:A life that looks full but ends up empty. It's a life that doesn't matter, but Jesus is inviting you into something that's so much more than that. A life that matters, because the truth is you were created to know him. That's your purpose for existing, that's the purpose for all of this is to glorify him, to know him. We're made for relationship, yet we took our free will because God didn't want us to be robots. So it gave us the opportunity to choose, and we chose to try and put ourselves in the seat of God.
Speaker 1:That whole tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It's not that they didn't know good and evil existed. It's that they said, hey, I want to define good and evil for myself. I'm the boss here, I'm going to be my own God. And every single one of us have made that decision. And because God is good and just, he has to punish evil, and we want that when it's someone else's evil, but what do we do when that's ours?
Speaker 1:But God didn't want us to be separated from him, from our sins, so he sent his son, jesus, who lived a perfect life, but at the end of his life he died on the side of the road, suffering, suffocating to death. It wasn't a mistake, it was a willful choice so that we could be reconciled to him, because scripture says on that cross he became our sin, that that wasn't just a random death, that that was the father's wrath being poured onto Jesus because our sin had to be punished. So when we say the words that Jesus forgives your sin, he's not just sweeping it under the rug like it didn't happen. So you think, hey, you don't know what I've done, you don't know how far I've gone. You're right, I don't. But I can tell you that it was paid for by the God who does? It was paid for so that if we place our faith in him, that we confess with our heart, believe with our mouth that Jesus is Lord, we would be saved. And so the truth is, if you make that decision, you place your faith in him, you become his child, you become adopted, you become redeemed and you receive the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit starts to clean you up from the inside out and you have a role to play in that of surrender More and more of your life how I talk, my relationships, my job, how I spend my time, how I spend my money.
Speaker 1:I'm not trying to earn my way into heaven, I'm not trying to earn God's love, but I already have it, and so it changes everything about my life. And then, guys, you get to be a part of building God's kingdom. You're not working a job just to make money. You're working a job to go into a broken world and beat back the darkness, to be a part of seeing salvation. It's a miracle from death to life, that one day at your funeral, they're not going to stand there and say, hey, he made a bunch of money, like he earned a lot of stuff, he did a lot of cool. No, I was in heaven because God used him in my life. I'm in heaven because she told me about Jesus.
Speaker 1:You get to live a life that actually matters, not just go to school to get a degree, to earn some money and retire in Port A one day, to actually make a dent in the darkness in this world, to play a part in that and the darkness in this world to play a part in that. That's a life that matters and it's available to you, every single one of you, and it just begins with a choice which righteousness do you want? Who do you want to live for? Yourself, the crowd or the Creator, the one you were made to know? If you want true righteousness, if you want to live a life that matters, it all starts with surrender. So, real quick, everybody, just go ahead, bow your head, close your eyes. I just want to give you that opportunity to respond. Tonight we're not going to have you stand, I'm not going to have you walk an aisle, I just want it to be you and the Lord.
Speaker 1:Maybe you say, hey, I'm looking at my life and I fall squarely in that fake righteousness camp. I've been living a lie, I've been putting on a show to impress my parents, maybe to just get my parents off my back, but if I'm honest, I've never made that decision. It's my faith in Jesus. Let me tell you, tonight can be the night. Let me tell you tonight can be the night. You don't have to live on that hamster wheel of fear, of man trying to live for people's opinion. Say, hey, that's me. I've never made Jesus my king and I want to do that tonight. If you just slip your hand up real quick Nobody's looking around you say I want to place my faith in Jesus for the first time. Cool, I see you. I see you, you can put your hands down.
Speaker 1:Look, here's the thing. Maybe you didn't pray that prayer, maybe you didn't want to raise your hand. You're afraid of what people might think. Let me tell you that's okay. But I just encourage you. If you raised your hand or if you know you need to make that decision, go find a leader after this and have that conversation. I just want you to be able to walk through that with someone, because you don't have to settle for that type of life. You can be set free through a relationship with the one who created you. And so, guys, I'm going to pray real quick, and then we have one short thing we're going to do afterwards and then we're going to small group. All right,