Big Idea: Final Version
Meeting God through acts of Mercy Matthew 6:1-4
Share the vision idea:
Big Idea: When we give to impress others we have received our reward in full, when we give before an audience of one we are rewarded with God.
A person went to a concert at a beautiful old theatre. At the end of the concert, this person noticed two ushers standing near his seat who were applauding harder than anybody else in the whole place.
The man said that he was thrilled with this particular concert because of the extraordinary talent of the musicians. He was even more thrilled to see these two ushers standing there applauding more vigorously than all of the other concert goers. His joy was somewhat diminished, however, when he heard one usher say to the other, “Keep clapping. If we can get them to do another encore, we get paid overtime!”
In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount He taught that what we do is important, but our motivation for what we do is even more important. Action is important, but our attitude behind the action is even more important.
Jesus in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount speaks of three spiritual disciplines that contribute to a healthy spiritual life: Giving to the poor, prayer, and fasting.
But he talks about our motivation for practicing these disciplines.
Today we’re going to look at giving to the poor and what Jesus teaches about our motivation in doing this (next week Jade will teach prayer and the week that after that, God willing, we’ll look at fasting saying no to say yes).
If you have your Bibles please turn to Matthew 6, Jesus says:
1"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men and women to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do (hypocrites literally means “an actor who wears a mask”) in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men and women. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
In this Jesus is assuming that his audience is or at will be involved in giving to the poor so he says, in vs. 2 when you give to the needy… again in verse 3. when you give to the needy.
Jesus is addressing an audience of primarily Jewish people here, and he would have known showing mercy to the poor would have been considered an important part of their spiritual lives.
In fact to the Jews giving was considered an act of supreme piety. Teaching of the law taught that giving to the poor was considered, greater than offering a sacrifice.
Jesus is assuming that people in his audience are either in the practice of giving to the poor or as they are exposed to his teaching will become people who give to the poor.
Jesus serving the poor in ministry was central part of his ministry. Jesus said, in describing his mission statement said, “I have come to proclaim good news to the poor.”
Someone has pointed out that in the Gospel of Luke one every 6 lines deals directly or indirectly with the poor.
And from earliest part of Christianity, followers of Christ have become people committed to serving the poor.
For John and James, very close disciples of Jesus, loving people was a kind of test to see whether a person had truly come to follow Christ.
In James 2 we read, James asks, “Suppose you see a brother or sister who needs food or clothing, and you say, "Well, eat well…stay warm, God bless you" but then you don't give that person any food or clothing. What good is that?” How can the love of God be in you?
An author in the 2nd century penned an Epistle to Diognetus in which he said, Christians live in cities like everyone else, they’re not eccentric in their lifestyle, they marry like everyone else, but don’t throw away their children and they share their bread, but not their marriage bed.
As the Gospel spread throughout the Roman Empire in those first centuries A.D. what happened was people who had a habit of being generous with their marriage bed and stingy with their money became the exact opposite because as they became people who were sexually exclusive (that is sexually involved only with their marriage partner), but generous in their giving.
They became who didn’t share their marriage bed, but people shared their daily bread.
Throughout the ages, who people have heard the call follow have also, responded to his call to love the poor.
Amy Carmichael was born into a well to do family in North Ireland in 1867. She was beautiful and intelligent and a gifted writer.
When she was 24 felt called by God to become a missionary. Her “adoptive father” Robert Wilson was against he going, saying that would be a waste of your life and gifs. She ended up first going Japan and almost had a nervous breakdown and then onto India to serve as missionary and stayed there for 55 years.
The work for which is she most well was rescuing children from temple prostitution (parents in India had a habit of selling their infants into life-long temple prostitution to make money); Amy Carmichael ended up rescuing over 1000 of these girls and boys across the years. With help of Indian Christian women she rescued them, clothing and feeding them, and shared the Gospel with them, and educated them.
She was criticized by conservative Christian missionary colleagues, who said, “You should just stick with the word sister,” and she said, “One cannot just save souls and pitchfork them to heaven they are more or less fastened to bodies.”
Christianity has a had blemished history, but Christians have had a proud history of serving the poor by starting orphanages, schools for the poor, feeding lines and shelters for homeless, hospitals and hospices.
This is not a liberal practice, there a Christian practice.
When we volunteer in ministry through a ministry like Out of the Cold or Oasis, when we sponsor a child with an organization like World Vision, or adopt a child through an organization like International China Concern started by David Gotts who is a member here or help build a house with Habitat for Humanity or help rebuild the roads of Afghanistan as Chris Thoreson has done, when provide people with job training and/or give them some start up capital or when give to Tsumani relief or when we sign off on the ONE Campaign also called Make Poverty History campaign with supporters like U2’s Bono (the idea of campaign is to get governments to give 1% of their budgets to eliminating world poverty you sign a petition online), we are expressing the heart of Jesus who said in his manifesto, “I have come to proclaim good news to the poor.”
Jesus in Matthew 6 assumes his listeners are or will be involved in giving to the poor and he teaches us the spirit in which we are to give:
T.S. Eliot said the last temptation is to do the right thing for the wrong reason, and Jesus here helps us avoid that peril.
When we give to the needy, Jesus says:
2"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do (hypocrites literally means “an actor who wears a mask”) in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men and women. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Eugene Peterson’s says in his paraphrase The Message: “Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don’t make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won’t be applauding. When you do something for someone else, don’t call attention to yourself.”
That’s hard to do because we all want be noticed (even the shy), especially when we’re doing something good.
John Ortberg says, “I know I’m supposed to be humble, but what if no one notices?”
A person can pretend to care, not because of they have genuine love for something, but because they want to improve their image in the eyes of someone.
When I was trying to win over Sakiko, I knew she loved animals. So I was, like uh, I like animals. My siblings, were like what are you talking about you’re not an animal lover, I am NOW!”
Our “loving something” can really be about loving ourselves.
When I was living in California, I remember someone saying, “Volunteering with the Peace Corp is great way to bolster your chances of getting into medical school. If a person is volunteering in some good cause only because it will look good on their resume, that’s not act of loving service freely given, its exercise of prudent, enlightened self-interest!
We can give because we will look better to others.
Or we can give because we look better to ourselves.
When I was in high school, I remember a girl who was in the popular set tell me how wonderful felt about herself because she was talking to a girl in the hallway who was clearly lower on the “coolness” scale… she was giddily impressed with herself about the fact that she such was such a noble person for be willing to talk to someone who was below her in social status….
We can be humble so that we can be proud of being humble!
We can give to impress others and we can give to impress ourselves.
Jesus says if we give to “impress” and then receive applause we have received rewarded in full, meaning that’s ALL the reward we will get… the expression that Jesus uses here in text that is translated “rewarded in full” is word from world of commerce and it means “paid in full.” If we give to impress others, we may well be rewarded with what we desire: the approval and respect we desire. but Jesus says that will be All the reward we get. We will have been paid if full.
It’s if Jesus a good can only be rewarded once. If do what you do for the applause you of people, you will not also be rewarded by God.
When media mogul Ted Turner announced that he was giving a billion dollars to the United Nations so they could help the extremely poor with food, clothing, and shelter—wonderful, great! And he made sure his huge donation was seen by everybody. Before he made the gift, he notified talk-show host Larry King so he could start circulating the news. And then, Turner made his announcement in a New York ballroom filled with tuxedos, evening gowns, reporters and cameras. He received well deserved applause for this generous act, but that’s all the reward he’ll get. He’s been paid in full.
A little closer to home if we give away your income or volunteer in some good cause in order to impress someone, we may well impress that person because generosity is an attractive quality but that’s all the reward you’ll get “Paid in full.”
Jesus is saying when we give to the poor or the needy he says figuratively “don’t blow your trumpet,” we might say when we you give, “Don’t toot your horn.” Don’t try to draw to attention to yourself. Give in a way that is as self-forgetful as possible, as if your right hand does not know what your left hand is doing… then your father in heaven who sees what is done in secret will reward you…
I don’t know that I’ve ever done anything with 100% pure motive and I don’t if you have either.
Sometime it’s not possible to give in a way that totally secret, sometimes it’s not appropriate to give anonymously. The main issue is not private or known giving, but our motive for giving. Jesus is calling us to resist calculating. Jesus is calling us in so far as possible to not let our right hand know what our left hand is doing, i.e. to be self-forgetful when we give… and when we give in this way God will reward us.
When we give to impress others we have received our reward in full, when we give before an audience of one we are rewarded with God.
What is the reward?
Vs. 1 says "Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men and women to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
The preposition as Darrell Johnson pointed is the preposition para in the Greek which means “with.” The New American Standard which tends to be a more literal translation renders the preposition with your Father in heaven.
And the Bible speaks unabashedly of rewards from God in this life and in the life to come for the things we’ve done. Jesus says God will give to each according to what she or he has done. So we do get rewards from God, but in this text the most literal reading is reward “with God.” And greatest reward we can get through our giving to the needy before audience of one and the poor is that we can get is a richer, fuller, deeper encounter with God.
In Matthew 25, Jesus gives a kind of sneak preview of our final exam, come judgment day.
In Matthew 25 Jesus says to the righteous I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
36I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.'
37"Then those "sheep' are going to say, "Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? 38 -39And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' 40Then the King will say, "I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me--you did it to me.'
And the righteous when did we see you hungry and gave you something to eat, thirsty and you gave me something to drink, a stranger and invited you in… needing clothes and clothed me…
Jesus will say when you did to the least of my brethren you did it for me…
The great gift of giving to the needy, the poor, the oppressed… when done without the motive of being honored or advanced, is that it is as though giving directly to God.
Someone has said… we Christians imagine that the poor and the stranger around the world are waiting for us to bring them Jesus when in fact--it is in the poor and the stranger where we are most likely to see Jesus face to face, disguised in the face of the poor.
One day a young man named Francesco was riding on horse through the countryside of Italy. He was son a wealthy merchant, who loved beautiful clothes and pleasure, came face to face with a leper. Repelled by the appearance and the smell of the leper, Francis nevertheless felt compelled to jump down from his horse and embrace the leper. As the leper returned his embrace, Francesco felt great joy! As he rode off, he turned around for a last wave, and saw that the leper had disappeared.
The young man is known today as Saint Francis of Assissi, till the day he died, he saw this a holy moment in which he had encountered God.
A friend of mine had the great privilege of meeting Mother Teresa in India. He asked, Mother what enables you to keep giving and giving?
Mother Teresa responded, we do our work for Jesus, with Jesus, and to Jesus.
When we give to impress others we have received our reward in full, when we give to poor before an audience of one we come face to face with our maker.
-----------------
We have not come to be place to be shield from the pain, but be healed by God and redirected by God so that we see the world as he sees it and love it as he loves it…
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;where there is hatred, let me sow love;where there is injury, pardon;where there is doubt, faith;where there is despair, hope;where there is darkness, light;and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;to be understood, as to understand;to be loved, as to love;for it is in giving that we receive,it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Share the vision idea:
Big Idea: When we give to impress others we have received our reward in full, when we give before an audience of one we are rewarded with God.
A person went to a concert at a beautiful old theatre. At the end of the concert, this person noticed two ushers standing near his seat who were applauding harder than anybody else in the whole place.
The man said that he was thrilled with this particular concert because of the extraordinary talent of the musicians. He was even more thrilled to see these two ushers standing there applauding more vigorously than all of the other concert goers. His joy was somewhat diminished, however, when he heard one usher say to the other, “Keep clapping. If we can get them to do another encore, we get paid overtime!”
In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount He taught that what we do is important, but our motivation for what we do is even more important. Action is important, but our attitude behind the action is even more important.
Jesus in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount speaks of three spiritual disciplines that contribute to a healthy spiritual life: Giving to the poor, prayer, and fasting.
But he talks about our motivation for practicing these disciplines.
Today we’re going to look at giving to the poor and what Jesus teaches about our motivation in doing this (next week Jade will teach prayer and the week that after that, God willing, we’ll look at fasting saying no to say yes).
If you have your Bibles please turn to Matthew 6, Jesus says:
1"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men and women to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do (hypocrites literally means “an actor who wears a mask”) in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men and women. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
In this Jesus is assuming that his audience is or at will be involved in giving to the poor so he says, in vs. 2 when you give to the needy… again in verse 3. when you give to the needy.
Jesus is addressing an audience of primarily Jewish people here, and he would have known showing mercy to the poor would have been considered an important part of their spiritual lives.
In fact to the Jews giving was considered an act of supreme piety. Teaching of the law taught that giving to the poor was considered, greater than offering a sacrifice.
Jesus is assuming that people in his audience are either in the practice of giving to the poor or as they are exposed to his teaching will become people who give to the poor.
Jesus serving the poor in ministry was central part of his ministry. Jesus said, in describing his mission statement said, “I have come to proclaim good news to the poor.”
Someone has pointed out that in the Gospel of Luke one every 6 lines deals directly or indirectly with the poor.
And from earliest part of Christianity, followers of Christ have become people committed to serving the poor.
For John and James, very close disciples of Jesus, loving people was a kind of test to see whether a person had truly come to follow Christ.
In James 2 we read, James asks, “Suppose you see a brother or sister who needs food or clothing, and you say, "Well, eat well…stay warm, God bless you" but then you don't give that person any food or clothing. What good is that?” How can the love of God be in you?
An author in the 2nd century penned an Epistle to Diognetus in which he said, Christians live in cities like everyone else, they’re not eccentric in their lifestyle, they marry like everyone else, but don’t throw away their children and they share their bread, but not their marriage bed.
As the Gospel spread throughout the Roman Empire in those first centuries A.D. what happened was people who had a habit of being generous with their marriage bed and stingy with their money became the exact opposite because as they became people who were sexually exclusive (that is sexually involved only with their marriage partner), but generous in their giving.
They became who didn’t share their marriage bed, but people shared their daily bread.
Throughout the ages, who people have heard the call follow have also, responded to his call to love the poor.
Amy Carmichael was born into a well to do family in North Ireland in 1867. She was beautiful and intelligent and a gifted writer.
When she was 24 felt called by God to become a missionary. Her “adoptive father” Robert Wilson was against he going, saying that would be a waste of your life and gifs. She ended up first going Japan and almost had a nervous breakdown and then onto India to serve as missionary and stayed there for 55 years.
The work for which is she most well was rescuing children from temple prostitution (parents in India had a habit of selling their infants into life-long temple prostitution to make money); Amy Carmichael ended up rescuing over 1000 of these girls and boys across the years. With help of Indian Christian women she rescued them, clothing and feeding them, and shared the Gospel with them, and educated them.
She was criticized by conservative Christian missionary colleagues, who said, “You should just stick with the word sister,” and she said, “One cannot just save souls and pitchfork them to heaven they are more or less fastened to bodies.”
Christianity has a had blemished history, but Christians have had a proud history of serving the poor by starting orphanages, schools for the poor, feeding lines and shelters for homeless, hospitals and hospices.
This is not a liberal practice, there a Christian practice.
When we volunteer in ministry through a ministry like Out of the Cold or Oasis, when we sponsor a child with an organization like World Vision, or adopt a child through an organization like International China Concern started by David Gotts who is a member here or help build a house with Habitat for Humanity or help rebuild the roads of Afghanistan as Chris Thoreson has done, when provide people with job training and/or give them some start up capital or when give to Tsumani relief or when we sign off on the ONE Campaign also called Make Poverty History campaign with supporters like U2’s Bono (the idea of campaign is to get governments to give 1% of their budgets to eliminating world poverty you sign a petition online), we are expressing the heart of Jesus who said in his manifesto, “I have come to proclaim good news to the poor.”
Jesus in Matthew 6 assumes his listeners are or will be involved in giving to the poor and he teaches us the spirit in which we are to give:
T.S. Eliot said the last temptation is to do the right thing for the wrong reason, and Jesus here helps us avoid that peril.
When we give to the needy, Jesus says:
2"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do (hypocrites literally means “an actor who wears a mask”) in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men and women. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Eugene Peterson’s says in his paraphrase The Message: “Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don’t make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won’t be applauding. When you do something for someone else, don’t call attention to yourself.”
That’s hard to do because we all want be noticed (even the shy), especially when we’re doing something good.
John Ortberg says, “I know I’m supposed to be humble, but what if no one notices?”
A person can pretend to care, not because of they have genuine love for something, but because they want to improve their image in the eyes of someone.
When I was trying to win over Sakiko, I knew she loved animals. So I was, like uh, I like animals. My siblings, were like what are you talking about you’re not an animal lover, I am NOW!”
Our “loving something” can really be about loving ourselves.
When I was living in California, I remember someone saying, “Volunteering with the Peace Corp is great way to bolster your chances of getting into medical school. If a person is volunteering in some good cause only because it will look good on their resume, that’s not act of loving service freely given, its exercise of prudent, enlightened self-interest!
We can give because we will look better to others.
Or we can give because we look better to ourselves.
When I was in high school, I remember a girl who was in the popular set tell me how wonderful felt about herself because she was talking to a girl in the hallway who was clearly lower on the “coolness” scale… she was giddily impressed with herself about the fact that she such was such a noble person for be willing to talk to someone who was below her in social status….
We can be humble so that we can be proud of being humble!
We can give to impress others and we can give to impress ourselves.
Jesus says if we give to “impress” and then receive applause we have received rewarded in full, meaning that’s ALL the reward we will get… the expression that Jesus uses here in text that is translated “rewarded in full” is word from world of commerce and it means “paid in full.” If we give to impress others, we may well be rewarded with what we desire: the approval and respect we desire. but Jesus says that will be All the reward we get. We will have been paid if full.
It’s if Jesus a good can only be rewarded once. If do what you do for the applause you of people, you will not also be rewarded by God.
When media mogul Ted Turner announced that he was giving a billion dollars to the United Nations so they could help the extremely poor with food, clothing, and shelter—wonderful, great! And he made sure his huge donation was seen by everybody. Before he made the gift, he notified talk-show host Larry King so he could start circulating the news. And then, Turner made his announcement in a New York ballroom filled with tuxedos, evening gowns, reporters and cameras. He received well deserved applause for this generous act, but that’s all the reward he’ll get. He’s been paid in full.
A little closer to home if we give away your income or volunteer in some good cause in order to impress someone, we may well impress that person because generosity is an attractive quality but that’s all the reward you’ll get “Paid in full.”
Jesus is saying when we give to the poor or the needy he says figuratively “don’t blow your trumpet,” we might say when we you give, “Don’t toot your horn.” Don’t try to draw to attention to yourself. Give in a way that is as self-forgetful as possible, as if your right hand does not know what your left hand is doing… then your father in heaven who sees what is done in secret will reward you…
I don’t know that I’ve ever done anything with 100% pure motive and I don’t if you have either.
Sometime it’s not possible to give in a way that totally secret, sometimes it’s not appropriate to give anonymously. The main issue is not private or known giving, but our motive for giving. Jesus is calling us to resist calculating. Jesus is calling us in so far as possible to not let our right hand know what our left hand is doing, i.e. to be self-forgetful when we give… and when we give in this way God will reward us.
When we give to impress others we have received our reward in full, when we give before an audience of one we are rewarded with God.
What is the reward?
Vs. 1 says "Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men and women to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
The preposition as Darrell Johnson pointed is the preposition para in the Greek which means “with.” The New American Standard which tends to be a more literal translation renders the preposition with your Father in heaven.
And the Bible speaks unabashedly of rewards from God in this life and in the life to come for the things we’ve done. Jesus says God will give to each according to what she or he has done. So we do get rewards from God, but in this text the most literal reading is reward “with God.” And greatest reward we can get through our giving to the needy before audience of one and the poor is that we can get is a richer, fuller, deeper encounter with God.
In Matthew 25, Jesus gives a kind of sneak preview of our final exam, come judgment day.
In Matthew 25 Jesus says to the righteous I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
36I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.'
37"Then those "sheep' are going to say, "Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? 38 -39And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' 40Then the King will say, "I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me--you did it to me.'
And the righteous when did we see you hungry and gave you something to eat, thirsty and you gave me something to drink, a stranger and invited you in… needing clothes and clothed me…
Jesus will say when you did to the least of my brethren you did it for me…
The great gift of giving to the needy, the poor, the oppressed… when done without the motive of being honored or advanced, is that it is as though giving directly to God.
Someone has said… we Christians imagine that the poor and the stranger around the world are waiting for us to bring them Jesus when in fact--it is in the poor and the stranger where we are most likely to see Jesus face to face, disguised in the face of the poor.
One day a young man named Francesco was riding on horse through the countryside of Italy. He was son a wealthy merchant, who loved beautiful clothes and pleasure, came face to face with a leper. Repelled by the appearance and the smell of the leper, Francis nevertheless felt compelled to jump down from his horse and embrace the leper. As the leper returned his embrace, Francesco felt great joy! As he rode off, he turned around for a last wave, and saw that the leper had disappeared.
The young man is known today as Saint Francis of Assissi, till the day he died, he saw this a holy moment in which he had encountered God.
A friend of mine had the great privilege of meeting Mother Teresa in India. He asked, Mother what enables you to keep giving and giving?
Mother Teresa responded, we do our work for Jesus, with Jesus, and to Jesus.
When we give to impress others we have received our reward in full, when we give to poor before an audience of one we come face to face with our maker.
-----------------
We have not come to be place to be shield from the pain, but be healed by God and redirected by God so that we see the world as he sees it and love it as he loves it…
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;where there is hatred, let me sow love;where there is injury, pardon;where there is doubt, faith;where there is despair, hope;where there is darkness, light;and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;to be understood, as to understand;to be loved, as to love;for it is in giving that we receive,it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
posted by Shigematsu at 3:20 PM
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