MATTHEW 6:1-4
INTRODUCTION
When Howard Carter and his associates
found the tomb of King Tutankhamen, they opened up his casket and found another
within it. They opened up the second, which was covered with gold leaf, and
found a third. Inside the third casket was a fourth made of pure gold. The
Pharaoh’s body was in the fourth, wrapped in gold cloth with a gold face-mask.
But when the body was unwrapped, it was leathery and shriveled.
Whether they are trying to cloak a
dead spiritual life, or something else, in caskets of gold to impress others,
the beauty of the exterior does not change the absence of life in the interior.
Hypocrisy is a façade painted just to give it a touch of reality.
Having finished six comparisons
between His standard of righteousness and that of Israel’s religious leaders,
Jesus next teaches about motives in religious life. Thus Jesus moves from a
Christian’s moral righteousness to his religious righteousness. In Matthew
6:1-18, Jesus lays down some guiding principles regarding the practice of
righteous living. In these principles, Jesus provides three practical
illustrations that pertain to the religious observances of the Jewish people.
They are almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. All the three main religious faiths,
namely, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam embrace these religious practices.
Almsgiving, praying five times a day toward Mecca, and fasting are among the
five pillars of Islam. The remaining two are the word of witness (shehadah),
and a pilgrimage to Mecca. I would like you to pay careful attention to these
things that Jesus is teaching us, because if you get it right it would impact
your Christian life in a very positive and significant way.
I. WARNING AGAINST RELIGIOUS HYPOCRISY V. 1
The fundamental warning Jesus issues
is against practicing your righteousness before men in order to be seen by
them. At first reading these words seem to contradict what Jesus had told
the disciples in 5:14-16, “Let your light shine before men so they may see
your good works.” No contradiction exists, however, because in 5:16,
Jesus gave the disciples the correct motive: that people might “give glory
to your Father in heaven.” The first Jesus commands it, but in our present
text Jesus prohibits it. Jesus warns that doing good works or acts of
righteousness so that others might see and praise you for what you do would
earn no reward from your Father in heaven.
The phrase acts of righteousness
can be translated different ways, but it means, “To do what is right.” In
verse 1, Jesus is warning us of the danger of religious hypocrisy. Jesus is
focusing on the motive behind any good deed. Why do you do good to people? Why
do you give money to the church? Why do you help others? Do you do such things to
promote or parade yourself? Your acts of kindness and generosity should not be
self-centered, but God-centered, done not to make you look good in the eyes of
people but to make God look good. God rewards good deeds done for His glory
alone. He does not reward good deeds done for personal recognition, display,
applause, or honor.
II. THE WRONG WAY TO GIVE V. 2
There is much teaching in the Old
Testament on compassion for the poor. The Greek word for almsgiving in verse 2
is eleēmosunē, which means a deed of mercy or pity. Since our God is merciful, as Jesus has emphasized, kind to the ungrateful and the selfish, His people must be kind and merciful too. Jesus expects His disciples
to be generous givers and this includes you and me today. Jesus’ words condemn
the selfish stinginess of many Christians today. Nevertheless, Jesus says that
generosity is not enough, but motivation behind it is everything. By the way,
if you are a Christian and you do not give to help the Lord’s work and the
poor, then you must examine your life whether you are a true Christian. Why am
I saying this? I am saying this because Jesus did not say if you give, rather He
said when you give. Jesus expects you to give; but more than the giving He expects your
motive for giving to be right or pure. So in this verse Jesus illustrates the
wrong way to give and that is “to sound a
trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets,
so that they may be honored by men. So Jesus is
saying that if you are His disciple He wants you to give to help the poor or
needy, but you are to have a different motive in giving than did the hypocrites. Hypocrite was the Greek
word for actor, one who wore a mask and pretended to be someone he or she wasn’t. The
term hypocrites as used here, describes people who do good for appearance only, to be praised by others—not out of compassion or other good motives. A hypocrite is a person
who lays aside his/her true identity and assumes a false one. If you are a
hypocrite you are no longer yourself but in disguise, impersonating somebody
else. You are wearing a mask.
In a concert or a theater there is no
harm or deceit in the actors playing their roles. It is an accepted convention.
The audience knows that they have come to a drama; therefore they are not taken
in by it. The trouble with the religious hypocrite on the other hand, is that
he deliberately sets out to deceive people. He is like an actor in that he is
pretending, yet he is quite unlike an actor in this respect: he takes some religious
practice which is a real activity and he turns it into what it was never meant
to be, namely, a piece of make-believe, a theatrical display before an
audience. And it is all done for applause. Like actors in a play they give
their gifts in front of an audience, hoping for praise. Let me ask you a
question, “Are you more influenced by what people will say than by what God
Almighty thinks?” Probably the vast majority of people are more influenced by
what men/women will say than by what God thinks about them.
You may not employ a troop of
trumpeters to blow a fanfare each time you give to a church or charity. Yet,
you like to “blow your own trumpet.” It boosts your ego to see your name as
subscribers to charities and supporters of good causes. When that happens you
fall to the same temptation, because you draw attention to your giving in order
to be “praised by men.” Of such people who seek the praise of men, Jesus says with emphasis:
they have their reward. The verb translated “have” (apecho) is a technical term in commercial transactions; it means to “receive a
sum in full and give a receipt for it.” So the hypocrites who seek applause
will get it, but then “they have all the reward they are going to get.” Nothing
further is due to them, nothing but judgment on the last day. So Jesus has
shown you and I the wrong way to give.
III. THE RIGHT WAY TO GIVE VV. 3-4
Having
forbidden His disciples to give to the needy in the ostentatious manner of the
Pharisees, Jesus now teaches us the Christian way to give, which is the way of
secrecy. He expresses it by another negative: “But when you give to the poor,
do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” Some people use
this verse as an excuse not to give sacrificially, so in worship they fold their
dollar and throw it at the offering plate. Some too don’t want the church to
keep record of their giving so this verse is their favorite one. However, this
is what I have noticed. If such people were giving generously and
sacrificially, they won’t mind the church keeping record of their giving, but
because they give their leftover money after purchasing gas, they contend that
nobody is to see how much they give to the church on weekly basis.
Nevertheless, their argument has nothing to do with what Jesus is teaching
here. The instruction that Jesus is giving is not to prevent the local church
from recording your weekly tithes and offerings. What Jesus is saying is that
not only are you not to tell others about your Christian giving; there is a
sense in which you are not even to tell yourselves. In other words, you are not
to be self-conscious in your giving, for your self-consciousness will readily
turn into self-righteousness. So subtle is the sinfulness of the heart that it
is possible to take deliberate steps to keep your giving secret from others
while simultaneously dwelling on it in your mind in a spirit of
self-congratulation.
Jesus
is teaching us that motives for giving to God and others must be pure. Jesus is
saying that don’t call attention to your acts of mercy or generosity. There are
some people when they do something for you, it would be better for you to go to
Channel 8 (ABC) and tell them to telecast it because everybody had already
heard it. If it is clothing that the person gave you, when you wear it
everybody will be looking at you, because he/she has already broadcast it. That
is very embarrassing. Jesus is telling you not to do that. You should not call
attention to your act of mercy or compassion.
We
live in a fallen world so it is easy to give with mixed motives, to do
something for someone if it will benefit us in return. Jesus teaches us that
giving should be done in secret. Jesus words do not forbid record keeping,
receipting, or reporting procedures used in good stewardship. But He condemns
practices to impress others. You and I who are believers should give
generously, out of compassion, when there is a need. God rewards such giving.
Dr. Billy Graham says it well: “God has given us two hands—one for receiving
and the other for giving.”
Christian
giving should be marked by self-sacrifice and self-forgetfulness, not by
self-congratulation. What you should seek when giving to the needy is neither
the praise of men, nor a ground for self-commendation, but rather the approval
of God. The truth of the matter is that, although you can keep your giving
secret from others and yourself, you cannot keep it secret from God. For no
secrets are hidden from Him. So your Father who sees in secret will reward
you.
Helping
others becomes a real adventure if you remain anonymous. Regardless, you still
must help others. You may have to live through times when your acts of
generosity are neither recognized nor appreciated. What can you do to give to
those in need? What is your excuse for not giving to support the church and
others with needs? To those of you who are generous, what is your motivation
for giving your money?
Outward
forms of religious practice have acceptance with God only if they have the
right spirit behind them. If they are done without sincerity, then they are an
insult to God. The Old Testament prophets had clarified this centuries earlier
and Isaiah was particularly adamant about it (Isaiah 1:10-17).
It
is nearly impossible to keep secret the amount of charitable giving you do
today. The IRS requires donors to keep accurate records of their giving, and
the larger the gift, the more people must keep a record of it. It would be
foolhardy today not to keep track of your giving for tax purposes. However, you
can still apply the spirit of Jesus’ teaching even while you keep accurate
financial accounts.
Jesus
tells us:
1. Do not get proud
of your generosity. You are only a steward of resources that belong to God
already.
2. Do not give for
the honor bestowed on donors. Instead, give in gratitude for what God has given
you.
3. Don’t count your
gifts as merit points for heaven. God will reward you generously, but not on
your invoice.
4. Every time you
give, count it as a reminder of your freedom from the power of money and of
your trust in Jesus alone for all good things.
Before you harden your heart and rebel
against the teaching of Jesus on giving in this passage, I would like you to
think over this:
God
made the sun—it gives.
God
made the moon—it gives.
God
made the stars—they give.
God
made the air—it gives.
God
made the clouds—they give
God
made the earth—it gives.
God
made the sea—it gives.
God
made the trees—they give.
God
made the flowers—they give.
God
made the fowls—they give.
God
made the beasts—they give.
God
made the plan—He gives
God
made man—he . . .
Jesus
said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).
*If the messages from this blog have been a blessing to you and you want to give to support this ministry, you can write your check to:
KENADARKWA LLC
Kennedy A. Adarkwa, PhD
6402 Redding Court
Arlington, TX 76001
*If the messages from this blog have been a blessing to you and you want to give to support this ministry, you can write your check to:
KENADARKWA LLC
Kennedy A. Adarkwa, PhD
6402 Redding Court
Arlington, TX 76001
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