The Secret Place (Matt. 6:1-8, 16-18)

The Secret Place
Matthew 6:1-6

INTRODUCTION:
The movie War Room came out in 2015. Movie critics did not like it but it ended up grossing $74 million worldwide, including $67.8 million domestically. The movie revolves around a couple, Tony and Elizabeth, who have a daughter named Danielle. Tony is a pharmaceutical salesman, a high pressure job that keeps him away from home, his wife, and his daughter. He is verbally abusive and is thinking about cheating on his wife.

Elizabeth is a realtor who comes under the influence of a Miss Clara, an elderly woman who believes in the power of prayer. Miss Clara encourages Elizabeth to fight for their marriage by praying for Tony. Miss Clara has a special “inner room,” a closet which she dedicates to prayer - it is her “war room.”

Miss Clara states: “in order to stand up and fight the enemy, you need to get on your knees and pray.”

The movie ends with Tony giving Elizabeth her favorite dessert while he gives her a foot massage and Miss Clara now lives with her son, praying in the still of the night.

Giving to the poor. Praying. Fasting. Tonight, we’re going to spend time with Jesus’ instructions from the sermon on the mount relative to these three spiritual disciplines. Let’s turn to Matthew 6.

In the previous chapter, but same sermon, Jesus had told His disciples that their righteousness should exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees (5:20). That would put pressure on the disciples of Christ, if they are not careful, to really emphasize their good works, so that they’ll be seen as being more righteousness than the Pharisees. So, here Jesus cautions about our motivation for doing right. “Righteousness" is used by Matthew 23 times in 28 chapters. “Righteousness” is doing right, according to God’s standards. Here, we see that it also includes the proper motivation.

RIGHTEOUSNESS TO BE NOTICED - 6:1:
“Beware” or “take care” is used two dozen times in the Scripture; half a dozen times by Matthew. Jesus warns His disciples here that they must not do their “righteousness” before men to be noticed by them. Jesus had just said in Matt 5:14-16 that we are to allow our lights to shine on a hill, allow our lights to be visible, so that others may see our good works, and glorify the Father in heaven. So, what is the difference?

The difference is found in the motivation between the two texts. In Matt 5:16, the motivation is to bring glory to God, to draw people’s attention to Jehovah God. But the motivation in this passage is to be noticed by men. Do we want ourselves to be honored or do we want Jesus Christ to be honored?

We must be careful how we do the good things we do - is our motivation to “toot our own horn” or to direct people to God? The “righteousness” here is a broad term which Jesus is going to narrow down to three examples of right behavior in this text: giving, prayer, and fasting.

Jesus warns us that if we do things to be seen by men, then we have no reward from our Father in heaven. Jesus emphasizes in the original language: “a reward you do not have.” Notice how many times Jesus uses the word “reward” in this text. It is used 7 times between verse 1 and verse 18. Clearly Jesus understands that we are after rewards; we are motivated by rewards. Eternal home in heaven is a reward, a reward for faithful living. If we look back at the beatitudes in 5:3-10, we see a list of the “rewards” or synonyms for that one reward in heaven:

kingdom of heaven (vs 3)
comfort (vs 4)
inherit the earth (vs 5)
be satisfied (vs 6)
receive mercy (vs 7)
see God (vs 8)
be called sons of God (vs 9)
kingdom of God (vs 10)

But it is easy to get our eyes off the eternal reward and do things, even holy and righteous things, in order to be visible by men on earth and receive that reward. Jesus cautions against that mentality. The Pharisees were notorious for this behavior; let’s read 23:5-7.

This human urge to be praised by men, or at least accepted by men, is a very strong urge and it is universal. Paul wrote in Galatians 1:10: “For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.”

GIVING IN SECRET - 6:2-4:
“So” - Jesus is going to make a practical application to the general principle He just gave. When you “give to the poor…” is all one word in the original language. It is from the same word family as the word “mercy.” This word means to be “merciful by giving to the poor.” The old KJV translates the word as “alms.”

In Acts 3, we have the account of Peter and John healing the lame man in the temple. This word is used three times in that context. The lame man was laying at the Beautiful Gate, in order to beg alms. At the hour of prayer, when Peter and John walk up in order to pray, the lame man asked alms of them. We know the story; Peter tells them they have no money but what he does have, he will give to the man. At that point, Peter says, “In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene - walk!” (vs 6). Notice that Peter gives Jesus Christ the honor for performing this healing miracle. Peter was letting his light shine so that men would glorify Jesus Christ.

The Christian woman named Tabitha, or Dorcas, whom Peter healed in Acts 9 was known for her acts of kindness and “charity” (9:36). She did not do these things to be noticed by men; she did it because it was the right thing to do in the eyes of God and men noticed. And, of course, God noticed and now everyone for the last 2,000 years who read the Bible read about Tabitha.

Cornelius “gave alms” to the Jewish people as a part of his effort to be right in the eyes of God (Acts 10:2, 4) and God noticed. That’s part of what motivated God to send Peter to Cornelius to preach the gospel to him (10:31).

So God expects us to give charitably to others, not necessarily so no one sees us but our motivation should be to bring glory to God. Here in Matt 6, Jesus uses the Pharisees and their behavior as a foil (negative example) of what He expects out of His own followers.

“Do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets.” Why do they do that? Jesus hits at their motivation: “so that they may be honored by men.” But, the honor they receive from men will be the extent of their honor.

There does not seem to be any evidence that the Jews or Pharisees literally blew a trumpet before they gave so Jesus apparently is using the same type of idiom I just used: they were “tooting their own horn.” In the inter-testamental literature, Sirach 31:11, there is evidence that liberal donations were announced in the synagogues.

Jesus says these are hypocrites, that is, they are insincere. They have deceived themselves into believing that if they give liberally and get praised by men, then God is also pleased with their behavior. Jesus tells us not to let our right hand know what our left hand is doing. Obviously that is not literally possible. But what Jesus is emphasizing is doing things discreetly, not publicly to draw attention to ourselves. We help someone discreetly and then when they ask the motivation, we tell them, “Because that’s how Jesus would want us to live.”

When Jesus portrays us at the judgment, in the scene from Matt 25:35-40, He portrays His disciples as not even knowing they were serving in a way to be noticed. They were just doing what came naturally as a follower of God. God sees what is done in secret; the Bible is consistent in teaching that God knows everything; He sees everything. In this situation, God sees what we do for good and God will reward us.

Before we move on, I think it is instructive in this context to see what the apostle Paul does in his second letter to the Corinthians. In 2 Cor 8, he praises the giving of the Macedonians in order to help motivate the Achaians to give. Let’s notice 2 Cor 8:1-5 and then notice 9:1-4. Paul knew about the giving of some churches of Christ and he used that to motivate other churches of Christ to give more. So, it is not entirely wrong for people to know what we give, at least as a congregation. What makes it wrong is our motivation.

PRAYING IN THE INNER ROOM - 6:5-8:
The second specific example of our righteousness that should be done to honor God is that of prayer. The “hypocrites” whom Jesus had just denounced for their giving ostentatiously also pray ostentatiously. Jesus says they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners - notice their motivation - so that they may be seen by men. Again, Jesus says they have received the entirety of their reward. That means there will be no more reward for them; nothing to be received in heaven. That’s it.

First, Jesus is not condemning public prayer. Nor is He condemning audible prayers in public. Jesus and the church, as we studied last week, both prayed publicly and prayed audibly. But, again, the challenge is to pray not to be seen of men. Even when we pray publicly, we don’t need to pray in such a way as to encourage people to be impressed with our Christianity, with our theological depth, or our biblical knowledge. Prayer is us talking to God and if we are talking to God, we have no basis for praying in a “showy” way. God cannot be impressed with us and we should not try to impress Him or to impress others.

Jesus turns His attention directly, individually, to His disciples: “But you,” Jesus says, pray in your inner room. This “inner room” was a small room in the center of the home, which means it would be without windows. The emphasis is going somewhere not visible. Close your door and pray in secret. Then, the Father in heaven, who sees in secret, will reward His sincere disciples.

In verses 7-8, Jesus directs His thoughts to the form of the prayer. While Jesus does not specifically condemn long prayers, He does condemn needlessly repetitious prayers. The word translated “meaningless repetitions” is one, compound word which means babbling. It was the practice of some, and still is, the practice of some to repeat themselves extensively in their prayers or to pile up names and designations for God, one on top of the other. This is the only time the word is used in the NT. Pagans believed they had to do that type of thing in order to sound pleasing to their gods.

Jesus tells us not to be like them because the Father knows what we need before we even ask Him. There’s no reason to try to impress God with our words in our prayers. If we are His children and faithful to Him, we will be heard. Of course, Jesus also teaches us in Luke 18:1 that God wants us to be persistent in our prayers. We do not have to badger God to hear and respond to our prayers.

The fact of the matter is, our words themselves will not compel God to respond to our prayers nor is it our body posture that can compel God to respond to our prayers. It is our relationship to God through Jesus Christ and God’s perfect love for us and perfect knowledge of what is best for us that compels God’s response to our prayers.

FASTING UNOBSERVED - 6:16-18:
Between Jesus’ discussion about praying in the inner room and fasting, He gives us the “model prayer” and He reminds us that our forgiveness by God is going to be dependent, to some degree, on our willingness to forgive others. I’ll leave this whole text for another occasion. Our theme for this sermon picks back up with the discussion of fasting in the next paragraph: 6:16-18…

Fasting means to go without eating. The Jews fasted in the OT; they had set days they fasted. Jesus, other than during the temptation, never fasted. The Pharisees criticize Jesus for not fasting in Matt 9:14-15 and in that context, Jesus suggests His disciples will fast, at least during the few days Jesus was dead. In the book of Acts, Christians fasted when they appointed elders (14:23) and when they set aside missionaries (13:1-3) but beyond that, there is no further discussion about Christians fasting. It is not wrong but it is also not expected. According to Luke 18:12, the Pharisees fasted twice a week. In OT times, of course, the Jews would put on sackcloth and sit in ashes.

When you fast, Jesus instructs, don’t let people know about it. Don’t disfigure your face or neglect your appearance, “as the hypocrites do.” They want to be seen by men. But, again, Jesus says they have received their reward “in full.” That’s all they’re going to receive.

But Christ’s disciples, if they fast, they need to anoint their head and wash their face - clean the body (anointing with oil was a natural cosmetic in Bible times) - so that no one will notice they are fasting. If you were to look at someone, to the external appearance, they would not appear to be fasting. The fasting is done in secret, as far as friends are concerned, but it is not done in secret as far as the Father is concerned. He sees it and God will reward His disciples.

Take home message: Let us make sure that the good works we do are done to honor our Savior, and not to draw attention to ourselves.