Matthew 6:1-4

What motivates you to do the right thing?  And does it matter?  The truth is we all can be prompted into action by things like rewards, the fear of punishment or negative consequences for bad behavior or even bribes. The Jesus way challenges all of those things and calls us to develop the habit of simply living rightly.

Jesus teaches about giving to the needy in Matthew 6:1-4, instructing us to think about so much more than the admiration and applause of people.

Transcript

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What motivates you to do the right thing? And does it matter? The truth is we can all be prompted into action by things like rewards or negative consequences for bad behavior, even bribes can put us into motion. The Jesus way challenges all of that and calls us to simply live rightly. On that happy note, welcome to Meet Me in the Word. I am genuinely glad that you joined in with us today. Jesus teaches about giving to the needy in Matthew chapter six verses one through four, which is our passage for today. So go ahead and open up your copy of the Word, and while you're doing that, I'll invite you to subscribe and join in on this weekly rhythm. Meet Me in the Word is fully listener funded, and if you'd like to participate in that, links in every episode are in the description. Beyond that, I really do value your prayers. Let's take time now to listen to Jesus' words, but before we do that, let's talk to him in prayer. Jesus, we are so glad to be here meeting with you. And as we've just reminded ourselves that we're about to listen to things that you taught, things that you said to your followers. God, we include ourselves in that. We want to follow you in a in the best way. But thank you, God, that you listen to us even as we call out to you. Be with us now. Amen. All right. Jesus says in Matthew six, verses one through four, 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. 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. Let's take a moment to just listen to Jesus and let that soak in. You can pause this if you need. All right, let's observe a few things about what Jesus taught and today just four verses. So it's fairly straightforward in some ways, but I think there's enough here for us to just kind of wrestle with and seek God about. The first thing that jumped out to me, and it may not have jumped out to you, and that's okay, but at first glance, it seems, this teaching seems to challenge what Jesus himself said about being salt and light back in chapter five, in in verse 16, there's a moment where he says, Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. And so what are we supposed to do? Are we supposed to like let people see these good things that we do, or do we just do them in secret? But there are a few distinctions that will help us, I think, differentiate between the two ideas. Today's teaching is addressing giving in particular. Now, I think it can apply to other situations, helping in other ways, other acts of kindness, uh, acts of righteousness can be uh synced up, I guess, with this with this teaching. But the motives in the two situations are about as opposite as you can get. So if we just slow ourselves down a moment and listen, the salt and light teaching in Matthew 5 is really about courage, courage to do the right thing and to draw people's attention to the Lord, right? It's all about bringing glory to God, not glory to self. This teaching addresses people who take something that should be quiet, something that should let God take center stage, but instead they kind of step in the way and sort of intercept, there's a good football term. They intercept the attention, they intercept the glory that should be God's, and they steal that attention with their pride. Right? So something that really should be, you know, uh just done for for goodness' sake is has been twisted by these people that Jesus simply calls hypocrites. And and so they they take really what isn't theirs to take. In the first one, it it is also about giving glory to God. And so we let the light shine through, right? There's that kind of a concept, and so that is something that we're called to do as believers, as followers of Jesus, to live our lives in public. That's that's part of the deal. And yet we're not supposed to be like glory hogs, essentially. I think that's a good way to kind of understand that. So, what's Jesus' main point here in this text? I did my best to boil it down just to keep it real simple for myself, and I said it like this Be generous for the sake of generosity, not for recognition. That is a form of reciprocity, which makes your generosity hypocrisy. Boom. Like listen to all of those eight dollar words. Right? Be generous for the sake of generosity, not not to get attention. And when we do those things with the people that Jesus is is referencing here, you know, they're clearly seeking reward from people. They're giving money, and the thing that comes back to them is a sense of, you know, applause or maybe you know adoration on some level. Jesus is saying, no, don't do it for those reasons. You want to do it in such a way that it really is just seeking uh God's delight. So here's a couple of follow-up thoughts about this. Giving should be a regular part of the Jesus follower's life. And I really want to be clear about that. It's a challenge to all of us. And you might be in one of those situations where you have more month than money. You know what I'm talking about. And even in that situation, it's an act of faith, and I get that, but we're called to just give. God, you've been generous to me, and I'm gonna give a small portion back to you as it's an act of faith, an act of trust, and an act of worship. So giving should be a regular part of what we do. And if you're somebody who has, you know, more funds, more resource resources, then you know, that's between you and the Lord, absolutely. But I would encourage you, make that generosity uh a centerpiece of your faith. And I think when we do that, and we do that with right motive, when we do that with this sense of like, no, I get to do this because uh because I want to, because I know that it frees me from the from the the shackles of of money, right? Because money can really, when it dictates our world, it can really have its way with us, and we can be anxious about it. Man, when you live generously, you're not anxious about it. You just trust. So I think it should be a regular part of the Jesus follower's life. And you'll notice that Jesus didn't say to the hypocrites, stop giving. He's just saying, stop announcing it with all of this fanfare. Just do it, just do it like it matters to you. And I'll add this it should be so regular that we just don't make a thing of it anymore, right? Like it's just a it's a habit. It's turned into this thing where, yeah, this is part of our our regular, and it may not be a daily thing, but our weekly or monthly worship of God. We just continue to be generous people, and and we do it because we recognize how much God has given us and we value his delight over the applause of people. And that's something that I've been learning over the course of a lifetime. So if you're in that spot where you're like, man, this still feels like a chore, just be patient with yourself. Like, don't don't worry about it too much, but but practice it, right? Get in, get in that uh, that habit of of giving to your local church, to ministries you believe in, to to whatever it, you know, the Lord, let the Lord lead you and all of that, but but practice this generosity that's quiet but effective, and in and seeking the the delight of God over you know the accolades and the fanfare of of people. I'd like to reflect just one step further with a couple of questions. And I'll come back to the first thing that I asked at the beginning of this episode What motivates me to do the right thing? And it's just a question to hang out with. What makes me be generous? What makes me offer acts of service? What pushes me into doing the right thing? Only you can answer that question for yourself. Secondly, how does generosity show up in my budget? It's just a very practical question, but something for us to all mull over. I'll pray for us. But Jesus, thank you that you teach and lead so clearly for us. God, we really do want to do the right thing. So help us with our hearts. Help us to do it to simply bring delight to you and uh and then to be satisfied with that. We love you, Lord. Amen.