Men's Breakfast - Sermon on the Mount - Giving

Introduce myself?

The Sermon on the Mount

• Studying through it this year in Men's Breakfast
• A Collection of teachings from Jesus, best organized in the book of Matthew, from 5-7.
  • Some parallel passages in Mark and Luke
• These teachings from Jesus are fairly well-known, even in secular culture:
  • The Golden Rule
  • The Lord's Prayer
  • the Sunday school favorite of "the wise man built his house upon the rock"

The central point of The SoM is about the heart: your heart matters more than your actions.

• It's a set of teachings that are about actions: do this, don't do this
  • focuses in on the heart condition that leads to those actions
• My favorite summary of SoM is in Luke's brief account
  • Luke 7:45 - "The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks."
• Our heart produces our actions
  • Make the tree good
• Once our heart is good, the good deeds flow out naturally
  • We have become the kind of person who does right and right becomes the easy and natural thing.
  • Sinning becomes unnatural, distasteful, and difficult

Today's text is from the beginning of chapter 6

• Right at a turning point
• Blesseds - what it looks like to live in the kingdom of God
  • Upends a lot of their assumptions
• Commands to be salt and light, a city on a hill, shine before men
  • have a righteousness surpassing the scribes and pharisees
• Gives these contrasts about Anger, Lust, Divorce, Oaths, Retaliation, Loving Enemies.
  • You have heard it said not to do the external action, but I tell you that even the internal thing will defile you.
• That leads to the statement right before our section for today:
  • "You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect"

But how? How do we make the tree good? How does our heart change?

• "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules." Ezekiel 36:26
  • Promise is repeated in Jeremiah: ""

Boom. What a punch of a chapter!

Chapter 6: I'm about to give you something to do, we're going to talk about some of the fruits of the good tree...

• Giving, Prayer, Fasting
  • Today we'll talk about Giving, Prayer + Fasting next month

But before he does that, he needs to issue a warning...

• "Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them"
  • Why do you do the things that you do?
  • Jesus cares about our hearts, and doing good in order to be impressive to others is actually toxic for our souls

People-pleasing is toxic to following Christ.

• Paul warns against it in Galatians 1:10: "For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ."
• Yet we are all tempted by this.

I ask you again: Why do you do the things that you do?

• Why are you at Men's Breakfast? Or attend community group? Or come on Sunday morning?
• Why do you tithe?
• Quick thought exercise...

"In secret"

"In order to" is not about secrecy, it's about who gets the glory

• 5:16 - "let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. "
• The end of our good deeds should be to BRING GLORY TO THE FATHER.
  • Is the way that I'm giving/praying/fasting glorifying God or glorifying me?
• 1 Peter 2:12 - "Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation."
• 1 Peter 2:15 - "For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people."

Life-long struggle for me: wanting to appear impressive, wanting to be liked, wanting people to think "that guy is awesome."
Be secret and exult,
Because of all things known
That is most difficult.

William Butler Yeats, To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing

Story of getting grades in my English Lit class

North Carolina state motto: To Be Rather Than To Seem (Esse quam videri)

• 1 Cor 3:13-15- "each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire."

• God Himself is our highest good - his very presence is our rewards
  • As Lewis puts it, we will be "In Love" - dwelling for all time in the presence of God
• Belonging to The Family of God
  • Mark 10:29 - "Jesus said, 'Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.'"
  • Once you were not a people, but now you are a people of my own possession...
• The comfort of the Lord
  • Joy, inexpressible!
  • Peace that surpasses understanding!
• A triumphal entry into heaven!
  • 2 Cor 5:10 - "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil."
  • Some will be saved as by a fire...

• We might start thinking this is like prosperity gospel thinking - "God gonna bless me!"
• It's because our heart follows our treasure...
• At the end of these sections on Giving, Praying, Fasting comes the famous saying of Jesus: "Do not ... but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
  • Remember Jesus cares about our hearts!
  • Think on this reward! Strive for it! Aim for it! Store it up! ... because your heart will go there.

• Your favorite NC basketball team
• Your car or some other possession that you value

• I don't know about you, but I'm aiming for "Well done, good and faithful servant."

• If you're not currently doing these things, you are not in obedience to Jesus!

• He needs to start by dismantling the "teaching" of the scribes and pharisees on these things

• prevents the temptation to get the earthly reward
• that it may help the one who receives it to look directly to God as the giver since they have no human being to thank or repay
• BUT, Don't neglect giving because there's no way to do it secretly!
  • Matthew 5:42 - "give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you"
    • If someone is actively begging from you, it may be challenging to give to them in secret - give, but not in order to be seen, but in order to glorify God

• can you be secret and exult?

• Look around you for ways you can be kind
  • pick up trash, push in a chair, leave an extra large tip... on a different table
• When you have something you don't need / use, find a way to give it away to someone who needs it