Sermon Transcript
Matthew 6:1-4. Beware of practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them, for you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. 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, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
One time, uh, Beth and I were sitting in church. This is when we still lived in Atlanta, not here. Um, and the pastor was talking about the importance of giving. So in the, in the, um, context of that, he was saying what the church did with its finances. So like us, they have a benevolence ministry for those in need.
They have a huge mission focus, so forth. And then the pastor said, that is why— it’s like the end of his message— says, that is why he and his wife give 10% of all their income from all their sources of income, pre-tax. They give 10% of everything that comes in to the church. Like, he said that out loud.
He disclosed how much he gave to the whole congregation, and really to the world, because this would be online. And there’s like this palpable shock throughout the congregation. We’re like, didn’t Jesus say do your giving in secret? Is that what we’re supposed to do? Then like later that week in our small group we were talking about it.
We’re like, is he allowed to say that? Aren’t you supposed to keep your giving secret? Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? Like, didn’t Jesus say something about that? I’m just trying to remember.
Have you ever felt awkward when someone has found out what you have given? Like, maybe you sponsor a kid through Compassion. I hope you do. And so you have this kid’s picture on your fridge, right? Who you send money to every month, and someone comes over and asks, who’s this on your fridge?
And you’re like, do I make my giving public or do I lie? Like, which is— am I supposed to do? Like, is it okay for me to say, oh, there’s this organization, it’s $38 a month, the kid gets nutrition, education, Christian environment? Am I— can I say that? Would that be okay?
Or should I just not put the picture on my fridge at all because I shouldn’t get any credit for what I’m doing? Is it wrong to get credit for our giving? Or maybe it’s not wrong, but maybe would it be better if we didn’t get credit? The verses we’re studying today, you know, make your giving secret, then your Father will reward you. Don’t let your left hand know what your right hand’s doing.
These verses at times can cause tension for Christians. We might think that all of our giving must be completely secret from everyone all the time, and therefore we’ve done something wrong if someone finds out. But is that what Jesus is teaching here? We’ll see. Uh, so today as we look at this passage on giving to those in need, we’ll discuss what it doesn’t mean, what it does mean, and then the ultimate giver.
So what it doesn’t mean, what it does mean, and then the ultimate giver. So first, what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean that all giving must always be totally secret. Doesn’t mean that. If you think Jesus is teaching all giving must always be totally secret, or if you have even just felt uncomfortable when someone has found out about your secret generosity, generosity, because you’re like, oh no, now I don’t get my reward or something.
Let me just challenge you in a couple of ways, okay? First practically, then biblically. Practically, um, is it okay for the IRS to know about your giving?
Are you comfortable getting a deduction on your taxes for your charitable donations? Um, I hope so. I hope you’re comfortable with that, please take advantage of that benefit, right? Do we all agree? Get as much money from the government as you possibly can.
Amen. Right now, if it’s acceptable for some processor at the IRS to know about your charitable giving, if that’s okay, then why would it— why would you be automatically uncomfortable with other people knowing? Like, if, if all you’re giving must be always totally secret from everyone, as these verses might suggest, then even the IRS shouldn’t know, right? And while you’re at it, don’t even let anybody ever see you put anything into the offertory. Don’t let our church financial secretary know that the gift was from you.
Just drop off bags of cash in the middle of the night and pray that it gets to the right place if you want all your giving to be totally secret from everyone always. Is that what Jesus is teaching?
No, it’s not. Your instincts are telling you something there. Your instincts are telling you the problem isn’t who knows. The problem is something else. Jesus is forbidding something, but it’s something else.
Now let’s see if scripture supports our instincts, our practical instincts, because we don’t really care if something is impractical if it’s biblical, right? Like if Jesus wants us to drop off bags of cash in the middle of the night, no matter how inconvenient that is, that’s what we should do if that’s what he wants. So let’s see if that’s what he wants from Scripture. In a very famous account, Jesus is at the temple. Rich people are putting a ton of money into the offering.
Plate, and then a poor widow comes up and contributes 2 coins, which are essentially worthless. The account is called the Widow’s Mite. It’s famous, idiomatic even, you know, the Widow’s Mite. Someone without very much gave all she had. You’ve heard of this, probably.
And what does Jesus do? Does Jesus scold the widow because people saw what she gave? No, he applauds her. In fact, Jesus says these rich people gave out of their abundance, which is great, by the way, but the widow gave more because she gave all she had. Yay for her!
That’s the story. Now, if it was always wrong for people to know what you give, then Jesus would have told that widow it was wrong for her to give as publicly as she did. But he didn’t. He didn’t scold her. He celebrated her.
Second piece of scriptural evidence that it can be okay for people to know what you give. As you know, we’re studying Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, going through a little section of his sermon each week, and next week we’re going to look at what Jesus says about prayer. This week is about giving to those in need. Next week is about prayer. Prayer.
And Jesus says something very similar regarding prayer to what he said about giving. Jesus said, when you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and street corners that they may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, shut the door, and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Very similar to what he says about giving.
He says, give in secret, not to be seen by others. Then it’s like the next sentence, he says, pray in secret, not to be seen by others. They’re parallel concepts, parallel teachings. We’re just switching prayer for giving. Meaning, if you think it is always wrong for others to know what you give, then it must also always be wrong for people to hear you pray, which is not the case.
Like when I pray at the end of this sermon in 25 minutes, I don’t need to turn off my mic, go find a closet, and shut the door before I pray. It’s okay for me to pray, or it can be okay for me to pray in front of you. So it can be okay for others to know what you give. The problem is not who knows. The problem is something else.
So let’s talk about that something else. What does this passage mean? It means motives are everything.
Motives are everything. Jesus isn’t saying that public giving is automatically wrong, but Jesus is saying seen, something is always wrong. There is a wrong way to give. We see it both in verse 1 and verse 2. It’s giving in order to be seen, verse 1.
It’s giving in order to be praised, verse 2. It’s the motive behind the giving that makes it right or wrong. If I am giving in order to receive praise from others, then that’s not right, and we’ll talk about why why in a minute. But for instance, the celebrities who take a camera crew with them when they visit malnourished children.
What’s the motive? Like, why bring a camera crew? To be seen? To be praised?
Maybe us, we’re volunteering, right, and we take a selfie, and we post that on social media. #LoveServingToday. What’s our motive?
Why put that on social media? Are we doing it in order to be praised? By the way, no judgment on you from me, at least. No judgment at all if you are someone who posts that kind of thing on social media. Seriously, no judgment, because really, we don’t know your motive?
We don’t know. Only you do. We can’t see what’s driving your actions. The celebrity might bring a camera crew only to raise awareness for a critical need in the world. Maybe it might not have anything to do with getting applause for themselves.
Hard to say. We don’t know. You might post your volunteer efforts on social media only in order to get other others excited about volunteering. You may not want any attention. Maybe.
On the other hand, you might.
And the celebrity visiting those children might be doing it as a calculated career move to attract good publicity. Maybe. Now, if they are, or if you are, trying to do that to get attention. What’s wrong with that? What’s so evil about doing some good in the world and at the same time getting a little benefit for yourself?
That sounds like a win-win. Why would Jesus say don’t do that? A critical need gets attention, those kids get some food, maybe my career gets a little boost. Hallelujah! What’s really the problem here’s the problem.
We’re using other people.
We’re using those people. We’re using their need for our own benefit. We’re exploiting them and their situation for our own gain. We’re not looking at people in need as people, but as a means to the end that we want. It’s dehumanizing of them while helping them.
Like, how could I use your disadvantage for my advantage? I’m going to take advantage of your disadvantage. That’s why it’s evil. You say, well, I’m not a celebrity. No camera crew would follow me anywhere, right?
I’m not even on social media, so there’s no way that I’m using others, or there’s no way that my giving is in order to really benefit myself. Okay, so why do you give?
Here’s my guess. You, like me, have a whole mixture of motives. There’s not one solitary driving factor behind anything that we do, right? The celebrity taking the camera crew probably both really wants to help people and simultaneously use those same people in order to get ahead. It’s both.
It’s not like it’s all one or all the other. And if we’re honest, if we really look into our own hearts, even our best deeds probably had some percentage of selfish motivation in them. Maybe it was only 1%. 1% selfish, 99% altruistic. But some part of us was likely out for us.
Maybe we give because we saw other people giving and we wanted to be able to tell ourselves, as good as those other people. We didn’t want to seem worse in our own eyes, meaning we really gave to improve our own view of ourselves. Maybe Mama always hit us on the back of the head when we didn’t share with our sister, and we can still, like, kind of feel that. So we give to alleviate that, like, charitable obligation that she pounded into us, right? But we’re out for us.
You see, it’s not really about the other person, not entirely. I mean, some part of us really cares about the other person, sure, but also some part of our motivation is self-serving.
One of my favorite philosophers, Joey Tribbiani, said it like this to Phoebe Buffay. If you know who those people are, you know. Joey said, there is no unselfish good deed. Phoebe says, of course there are selfless good deeds. She uses proper grammar.
She says— then Joey asked, can you name one? And then Phoebe’s stumped. We actually have video footage between the philosopher Joey Tribbiani and his understudy Phoebe Buffay, so let’s take a look.
I’m sorry, Pheebs. I just, you know, I just wanted to do a good deed like, like you did with the babies. This isn’t a good deed. You just want to get on TV. This is totally selfish.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. What about you having those babies for your brother? Talk about selfish.
What, what are you talking about? Well, yeah, it was a really nice thing and all, but it made you feel really good, right? Yeah, so? Well, it made you feel good, so that makes it selfish. Look, there’s no unselfish good deeds.
Sorry. Yes, there are. There are totally good deeds that are selfless. Well, may I ask for one example? Yeah, it’s, you know, there’s— No, you may not.
That’s because all people are selfish. Are you calling me selfish? Are you calling you people selfish?
Yeah, sorry to burst that bubble, Pheebs, but selfless good deeds don’t exist, okay? And you know the deal on Santa Claus, right? I’m gonna find a selfless good deed. I’m gonna beat you, you evil genius.
Uh, Joey’s right. You probably never thought you’d hear in church that Joey Tribbiani was right, but He’s right. All people are selfish. Now before the self-esteem police throw their tomatoes at me, we are also other things, right? We aren’t only selfish.
We are also generous and sacrificial. We are a mixture. So save your tomatoes for later. But Jesus’ teaching reveals evils, we are a mixture even in our best actions. Even our best deeds have some amount of evil in them.
I mean, Jesus looks at people who are helping the poor.
That’s pretty good, right?
But He looks at them and calls them out. And says there’s something wrong about what you’re doing, which flies in the face of what most people believe. Most people believe that sometimes they are good and sometimes they are less than good. No one really wants to admit that they are bad, but, you know, like Phoebe didn’t want to be called selfish. Most, most people don’t want that label of bad, but most people understand, especially looking in their past, yeah, there were some instances when they really went sideways on purpose.
There were some dark moments. I really hope no one finds out about that, right? And if you’re religious, you might call those dark moments sin. But regardless of what we call it, we all say, sure, there was a time I admit I was definitely wrong. Some people have more of those than others, but everyone admits that they have a few.
So we think We think some things we have done, whether we use these labels or not, some things we have done are in the bad category and some things we have done are in the good category. That’s the general understanding of human behavior throughout the world. That’s karma. And some people say, I need to get my karma cleaned up by doing good things. I need to balance out my bad, or I even need to overcome my bad by doing good.
Something like that. But Jesus comes in and says, no.
He says you even need to watch out for your good deeds, because even your good deeds have some amount of evil in them. So if you are someone trying to get your karma cleaned up, how are you going to do that? By helping others? Great, I’m sure they’ll appreciate it. But why are you helping them?
If it’s to get your karma cleaned up, then it’s not for them. You are helping them for you. You’re using them. You’re taking advantage of their disadvantage. And now you have an even bigger debt with your karma because now you need to balance out how you were just exploiting them.
You’re using their need for your benefit.
That’s why the Christian understands. The person who’s really listening to Jesus knows they not only need to repent of their evil deeds, which they do, we also need to repent of our good deeds. That’s what the old catechisms say, because even our best deeds have something in them that is not entirely good. Long before Jesus, Isaiah said our good works are actually filthy rags because they’re all tainted. Meaning your only hope, my only hope for actual righteousness, our only hope to get our karma cleaned up, so to speak— not that we believe in that— our only hope is to have a righteousness given to us.
Our corruption is so deep that even our best actions serve only to indict us further. We won’t escape it. We won’t dig ourselves out. We must have a righteousness given to us. We must have a Savior, someone who is entirely pure, someone who had no hint of selfishness.
If He could give us His righteousness, then our record would be clear. And that is the only way our record can be clear.
I often meet Christians And actually, honestly, it seems to be every time that we dive deep into the concept of sin in a message like we’re doing today, afterwards Christians seem to feel really bummed, particularly if they’ve been Christians for a long time. They’re like, I thought I was doing pretty good with this Christian life thing, and then you come in and show me I’m not even close.
So they are all down and depressed, and they’re kind of like moping around like Charlie Brown, crying like someone popped their balloon. Sometimes I even hear, yeah, those kind of messages just make me feel bad about myself.
You know what that shows me?
It shows me we are still counting on our own efforts. Efforts to give us a sense of righteousness.
If we’re all mopey after being exposed as sinners, then we believe it’s our behavior that will clear us or validate us. We’re looking to our actions to provide us with high self-esteem. We think a good moral record comes from our good moral behavior. Behavior. We still think that, which means the penny hasn’t dropped yet.
Folks, if we ever have a good moral record, it came from someone else’s good moral behavior that is given to us.
It doesn’t come from our behavior.
Here’s the question that will determine whether you feel all hopey or not after today? Do you believe your only hope for a clean moral record, for right standing before God, do you believe your only hope is Jesus’ righteousness or not?
If you think your behavior will somehow help you claw your way up to goodness, if you, if you’re counting on your good to provide you with some amount of self-esteem, then you’re gonna hate yourself when someone comes along and shows you you aren’t good. You’re gonna be all mopey, and you’re probably gonna be mad at the guy who pointed it out, just like Phoebe got all mad at Joey. You calling me selfish? That’s how you’re gonna feel if you’re counting on your actions to give you a clean moral record. You don’t get what Jesus has done for you fully.
You don’t get it.
But if you realize your righteousness doesn’t come from your actions, your righteousness does not come from you clawing your way up to goodness, if you realize your goodness goodness comes from Christ’s actions alone. If you realize that, if that has hit you, then when someone comes along and shows you that you aren’t good, you won’t be mopey. Instead, you’ll rejoice all over again. You’ll say, thank the Lord that He gave me His righteousness. You won’t be down on yourself.
You won’t hate the person who exposed you as a sinner, your self-esteem will go up, not down. You’ll celebrate what the Lord has done for you. You’ll dance in the streets when you realize how corrupt you are.
That’s one way to know if you’re really a Christian.
That’s one way to know if conversion has really come to you. When your guilt is exposed, does your heart sing to Jesus who gave you His righteousness? Do you say with Paul, Romans 7, what a wretch I am, thanks be to God?
Or when your guilt is exposed, do you feel like a huge weight has landed on your shoulders and now it’s up to you to prove your goodness all over again? Do you feel like you need to compensate for your shortcoming in some way?
If you feel like you need to prove your goodness through your behavior, It may have never really clicked for you what Jesus did for you. The penny hasn’t dropped yet fully. You’re hoping in your own righteousness, not his, and that’s why you’re all mopey.
So let’s talk about this Jesus who saves us. Jesus gives a picture of the ultimate giver in these verses. Verses. Someone who isn’t out for the praise of others, someone who isn’t trying to, um, get something in return for giving, someone who is totally content simply with what God thinks, someone who’s giving just to give. That’s the ultimate giver.
Now, who is that?
Jesus. The answer is always Jesus. Um, Jesus is the ultimate giver who gave all he had to us who are poor. But unlike us when we give, he gave with untainted motives. He did not sacrifice everything he had out of some need to be praised.
He has no such need to be praised. His motivation was 0% selfish. He gave to give, not to get. God, in fact, is always the giver, never the receiver. Even when we praise him, them, that’s for our benefit, not His, because God already has everything He needs within Himself.
Now pay attention, because this is how we can give without any part of us needing to get something in return. This is how we can give like Jesus. God within the Trinity— Father, Son, Holy Spirit— they all love one another, glorify one another, exalt one another completely unselfishly. Son glorifies the Father, Father glorifies the Son. Each member is others-centered.
It’s perfect community. No one’s out for themselves. Each member is giving fully to the others, meaning each member is totally full, yet no member needs to be selfish in order to receive. That is how God has no needs. He never needs to look outside of himself for something.
He has everything within. So that means anytime he acts or anytime he looks outside of himself, it’s not in order to get something, but it’s in order to give something. He created the world to share what is already within himself. Then the world rebelled, so he saves the world to share what is already within himself. Jesus comes along and gives us all he has, not to get something from us, but to give us something, to bring us into the abundance that he has always shared with the Father and the Spirit.
Jesus wants to fill us with the abundance of God so completely that we won’t need to use others to get our needs met, just like Jesus is filled so completely that he doesn’t need to use others to get his needs met. And Christians you have that abundance in you. Jesus prays, John 17, that the love of the Father that has been in him, in Jesus, that love is now in us, his followers. So to whatever extent the Father has poured into the Son, which made Jesus completely free of any need of praise from us, that same love, adoration, affection from the Father is now poured into us as Jesus followers. Which means, Christians, since you have the full abundance that Christ had, you can give as freely as he did.
You don’t need to use people to get any of your needs met because you already have all of your needs met. You can give just to give, not to get anything, because you already have everything. Jesus says if you give like that, you will be rewarded. Verse 4, rewarded. He doesn’t say what the reward is, so we can’t be too rigid in our conjecture, but I don’t think we need to stretch very far to figure out what the reward might be.
If you have ever been freed from the need to be praised, you know how big a reward that is. If you’ve ever escaped from the tyranny of self-centeredness, hardness, you know how big a reward that is. If you’ve ever felt like you didn’t need to clamor for attention, approval, to be seen, because you already have all of those needs met in abundance, you feel so full of affirmation and adoration and recognition that you can just shower them on others without any worry of running out, if you’ve ever been there, you know how big a reward that is.
That’s what Christ offers us. He gave up everything on the cross that we may have what he has. And now that we have been completely filled by him, we are capable of giving without any need to get anything in return. Let’s pray.
Father, thank you for meeting our needs so completely and fully. Lord, thank you for Jesus who gave to share what Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have always enjoyed. Lord, we pray that we would be so filled that we really can give without any need to be praised at all, without any need for attention, without any need for affirmation, Lord. May we give like you give, just to give.
We pray those things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
