The Heart of Good Works Pt 1

up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross. Yes, it just made me think of that. I want to welcome you all this morning to Calvary Chapel and those online also. Would you join me in prayer? Father, we thank you for this opportunity to come and gather as believers here at this building, this facility that allows us to gather to worship in song and to study your word. Lord, we pray that you would just bless this time.

We come just as we are, Lord. We all have our weeks. Each one's week may be different than the other one's week, but you're still the same. You bring us through. You strengthen us. You encourage us. Lord, you know the things that have gone on through the week. We know, Lord, that you're here. You're here. You're here. You're here. You're here. You're here. You're here.

We can be discouraged at times. We can feel very joyful. Our feelings can be rather fickle, as a matter of fact, sometimes. But you and our faith in you is that which is something that is not based on feelings, but based on the truth of your word as we yield ourselves to you. Just bless our time, Lord, this morning. Help us not be afraid to sing out to you and

be concerned about what... what others think we sound like or anything like that, but mostly just give ourselves over to you in praise and worship. And we thank you, Lord.

Keeper of the star, Lord of my name to save. O'er the cross, life, you wander. Jesus is your name.

Holly, holly is my author of everlasting. Jesus is your Lord and we can trust you in everything. In every area, Lord. And in our weaknesses and our memory failings, you're made strong in spite of it. And we thank you for that, Lord Jesus. And we just come and worship you. You're good to us. You're mighty. You're powerful. Everlasting, Lord. May we not forget that, Lord. Matter not

what men say, what women say, whatever it may be, Lord, we'll stand in you, Lord. Because of our strength, because of who you are.

And that's what we've done, Lord. We've come to you this morning. I thank you for the work you're doing in our lives, Lord. sometimes you put us through the humble tumbler sometimes you encourage us in other ways but you're working in our lives to do what is best for us making us those individuals that are yielded to you all things are working together for the good for those who love God we know Lord according to your purpose and plan and notice it's all things work together for the good for those who love you we thank you Lord we thank you that you're with us always in everything I'm standing in the fire through the valley of the shadow you'll go you saw right as way overtake me into where you fight my every bad you redeemed me through these trials

you've always been faithful you bring healing to my soul I am not alone I know we've all experienced those times of being in a crowd all things going on around us people laughing and feeling alone at the same time and I know for me there was much more than not feeling that way when I come to know you as my savior knowing that you're always there with us we can trust you Lord I just thank you Lord and praise you thank you for in this moment we can sing intensely singing times heartlessly singing voices for the sky and start to sing his love just let our voice let the sound of praises fill let us sing the song of Jesus' love will you stand with me times hallelujah oh yes times prayerfully singing sometimes hallelujah sometimes heartlessly singing

unrestrained outside the air ILLEGAL right now let it rain let the spirit to tow gently singing gently now hallelujah on to Jesus sing it to your father rejoice all the earth rejoice he wraps himself in life this tries to hide and trembles at his voice trembles at his voice how we weep how we weep how we weep how we weep How great is our God. Oh, we'll sing how great is our God. Sing with me. How great is our God.

Oh, we'll sing how great is our God.

The Lord bless you. Father, we lift up Ryan as he comes up to teach your word that you would anoint him by the power of your Holy Spirit, that it would do its work in our hearts, that you would overflow us all with your Spirit, being yielded to you, knowing that you're working in us both to will and to do of your good pleasure. As we know, all things are working together for the good for those who love you, Lord, and are called according to your purpose. And we're going to trust you in that, Lord.

The things that go on, you are very aware of, Lord. You know exactly what each of us need at each time as we're praying and looking to you, the author and the finisher of our faith, knowing that you're drawing us through these different things as we go through closer in your image. And so, God, continue your work now as we continue our service, and we'll give you praise and thanks in Jesus' name. Amen.

Y'all have some fellowship.

Good morning. If you would, go ahead and locate your seats. Grab a bulletin. We'll go over a few announcements.

Glad you can be here with us this morning. There'll be a lot more time afterwards, including food. So save those conversations. We're going to have a great time afterwards. As far as announcements go, on the left-hand side, all things are happening this week, so find a spot to get plugged into. Over in the middle section of your bulletin, some things to pay attention to.

As a reminder, today is our church potluck right after this service, so we'll have some good time of food and fellowship. We'll have some good time of fellowship together. Marriage and family study is going to be tonight. They have switched that for this month and next month. It's going to be the first and third for these next couple of months. And so, for marriage and family,

let me make sure I say this correctly. You need to read chapters 15 and chapter 7. But if you can only read one, read chapter 7. I don't know why. That's just what I was told, and I wrote it down. And then there's also the pages, that have all the questions that you guys are going to be going over. And since marriage and family is going to be the first Sunday

for the next couple of months, our usual intercessory prayer time that's on the first Sunday will move to the second Sunday for the next two months. So, intercessory prayer time will be next Sunday evening. And then one more thing, Operation Christmas Child is coming up. I won't step on Ross' announcement this time like I did last time. So, Ross has an announcement for us.

Not Operation Christmas Child. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. All right. Everybody know what day this is? Sunday. What's next Sunday? The 14th, yes. All shoeboxes are due next week. So, for, you know, my wife wrote this out for me, so I'd make sure I wouldn't miss it all. And here's the most important thing. Next Sunday is Collection Sunday here at Calvary.

So, if you're like Ryan, I mean, if you're a procrastinator, this is the final call, right? Next Sunday. So, what's the most important thing you can put in your shoebox?

Prayer, right? So, make sure you take this as an opportunity to pray for the shoeboxes and to pray for Operation Christmas Child because, remember, what we've talked about, each one of these boxes is going to go out and potentially touch as many as 10 additional lives. And we know that many people come to Christ as a result of these little bitty boxes that we're packing right here at Calvary and around the nation. Okay?

So, prayer is the most important thing. What is... What is the thing you absolutely should not put in your shoebox?

All those things are great, but you know what it is? Air. Don't put air in it because they have air where they're going, right? We don't need any air. We want to fill them up with as much stuff as we can. Okay. So, also, related to that, we still have a bunch of boxes out in the hall. There's a bunch of boxes, and in the agape room where we're going to be having lunch in a little bit,

there's a whole bunch of stuff on the tables. Please, if you're led, take boxes, go back there and fill them with whatever you would like. I don't want any of that stuff left at the end of the day if we can help it. Take boxes, put as much stuff as you can in them, fill them with whatever you're led to fill them with. Take as many boxes as you can, take them home,

put some more stuff in them. Most importantly, pray over them and pray that they will bring people to Christ. And then there's a big need right now for shipping prayer for all these boxes. Because, as you know, a container did cost about two years ago, a container was $3,000, $3,500 for a container. Now they're $30,000 to ship a container across the ocean. Okay?

So, you know, it's $9. All it still costs is just $9 because Operation Christmas Child is managing that. So if you can put your $9 in, that's great. If you want to donate more to offset this, you can do that online. Just go straight to the OCC website. And you can get your $9 in there. Last, we still have six spots left on the trip to Dallas in December. So there's a sign-up sheet in the Agape room.

So please, if you're led to join, it's a great amount of fun. For those of you who've been on it, we have a lot of fun. Glenn is our cheerleader.

He's the full box, ooh-ha-ha, cheerleader, right? Every time we fill a box up. So, we're going to have a lot of fun. That's it. Let's make sure we get everything we can out. Bring your boxes back next Sunday because Sunday afternoon, they're going to go from here up to Wichita. So that's it. Thank you.

That's exactly right. Any money you put in the box, you can put more than the $9 in. If you want to put a $20 in there or a $100, whatever you want to put in it, that money, for those of us who have worked at OCC, we know what happens to that money. The first thing that comes out is the money. It goes directly into the collection. And then that money goes straight

to pay for delivering the shoeboxes. So whether you put it in a box or do it online, you can do it either way. So thank you. Great question.

Okay. Thanks, Ross. And yeah, you know, my youngest daughter has decided to not be a procrastinator and she keeps saying, hey, we need to fill up boxes for the past two or three weeks. And I'm like, no, it's not the 13th yet. We do that the day before. And most of you are in Dollar Tree with me because I see you in there with me. So we'll all be in there together

filling up our boxes. So I'm going to teach you to be a procrastinator, but I'll do it later. Okay. For our responsive reading this morning, oh, make sure that your mobile device is silenced. And then for our responsive reading this morning, we are going to be in Psalm 67. We'll be looking at the New American Standard just so we all say the same thing at the same time.

If you don't have one, there should be one in a row. Psalm 67. And as you are turning to Psalm 67, if you would stand in the honor of the reading of God's word, I will read the odd verses if you will follow along with Pastor. For Alan and the even verses. Psalm 67 for the choir director with stringed instruments, a psalm, a song. God be gracious to us and bless us

and cause his face to shine upon us. Say law. That your way may be known on the earth, your salvation among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, oh God. Let all the peoples praise you. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy for you will judge the people, the peoples with uprightness and guide the nations on the earth. Say law. Let the peoples praise you, oh God.

Let the peoples praise you. The earth has yielded its produce. God, our God, bless us. And read verse seven with me. God blesses us that all the ends of the earth may fear him. And Lord, we do thank you for your many blessings that you give to us. Father, in this month where we are told it's the right thing to do, we've got a whole holiday set aside for it.

Lord, we thank you. Thank you for how many blessings you give to us. And may we always remember that. And Father, I pray that as we get ready to spend time in your word this morning, that you would move by the power of your Holy Spirit as you see fit. Father, instruct us where we need instructed. Convict us where we need convicted and comfort us, Lord, where we so desperately need

the comfort of the Holy Spirit. Be with our time together, I pray, in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. If you would, open up in your Bibles to the book of Matthew, chapter 6. Matthew, chapter 6. Well, everybody must have gotten the message about falling back because nobody showed up here an hour early, at least not that I saw. So we did good with that.

But as anyone else noticed, it's finally clicking with me, second service. This is why I feel like I'm running on half speed right now. It doesn't matter if they give me an hour of sleep or if they take an hour away. When they screw up what the clock does, it totally screws me up. For like, for the next month and a half, I'm going to be going, huh, what's going on?

And this time I've got a really good excuse. It's time change. So that being said, we're in Matthew, chapter 6. We've been looking at the Sermon on the Mount. Today we move into a new section of the Sermon on the Mount. But before we talk about that new section of the Sermon on the Mount, since we were out of Matthew last week and did kind of a little bit of a different message last week,

I wanted to bring us all back up to speed, get us all back on the same page and get our minds thinking once again with the flow that Jesus brought with the Sermon on the Mount. So the first thing that we saw in the Sermon on the Mount is he told us the Beatitudes, or if you will, the heart of the kingdom. He shared with us, because this is what the Sermon on the Mount is, is it's the description of the kingdom saint. It's the description of living according to the kingdom of God.

And so he told us what that heart of the kingdom looked like and what our lives as kingdom citizens should be like. The way that we think, the way that we live, and the way that we act, exactly what that's supposed to look like. He then went on in the next section in chapter five to tell us about salt, light, and the law. It was sort of a segue. He said, you are the salt of the earth

as a kingdom citizen. The question is, what kind of salt will you be? You will either be the kind of salt that preserves life, or you will be the kind of salt that destroys life. It depends on whether or not you're living a life dependent upon the grace of God. He also said that we were the light of the world, that as the light of the world, our light should so shine,

that we glorify our Father in heaven through the things that we do. Of course, he segued into his next section by saying that he didn't come to destroy the law, he came to fulfill the law. As a matter of fact, not even the smallest part of the law would fall short, except that he would fulfill all of it. Now the requirement for us is perfection. He said, unless your righteousness

exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you can in no way see the kingdom of heaven. As far as they were concerned, that was pretty intense because the standard for righteousness at that point was the scribes and the Pharisees. But Jesus went on to explain that the law was not simply outward actions. While God does care about our outward actions, he also cares about what goes on on the inside of us.

And so he explained the heart of the law, which was the next section that we looked at. The heart of the law behind murder, the heart of the law behind adultery and divorce and the taking of oaths and retaliation and loving our neighbor. That God was also concerned with our actions, but definitely concerned with the heart behind the action because though it may look to the rest of the world like you're doing everything right on the outside, you can still be guilty because of the sin that takes place in your heart that nobody ever sees. And of course, he closed out chapter five by saying, therefore be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.

Well, as he moves on from here into this next section, Matthew chapter six, verses one through 18, we will see the heart of good works, the true heart of good works. We're only going to look at the first part today because what he's going to do is he's going to give us the principle for doing acts of righteousness. And then he's going to explain three of the major acts of righteousness that we'll begin to discuss and exactly what the heart behind those acts of righteousness should look like. And so we pick up in chapter six, verse one.

He says, beware of practicing your righteousness before men, to be noticed by them. Otherwise, you have no reward with your father who is in heaven. So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets so that they may be honored by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward in full.

But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your giving will be in secret and your father who sees what is done in secret will be in secret. The secret will reward you. Now in verse one, he gives us the principle that he will then go on to expound upon in three other areas, the first of which we'll get to today. But the principle that he gives to us is this.

Beware of how you handle your righteous acts. Beware of the way that you perform your righteous acts. He starts off, the first thing that I take note of is that word beware. As a matter of fact, when I read it, I bracketed it because it really stuck out to me. The word beware, and some of your translations may use these words, means to beware. It means to take heed to

or to pay attention to. Perhaps you've been reading instructions for the putting together of something or the operation of something and it uses the word beware. And usually when we read that, we go, ooh, I better pay attention. As a runner, I pay attention to where dogs are. And so when there's a sign on a fence that says beware of dog, I pay really close attention

because I've been chased by them before and it's not fun. I'm like, that's what they meant by beware. They jumped the fence. But it's interesting to pay attention to this in scripture. And when these areas of warning come up, we should pay attention. Because the reason why Jesus in this sermon chose to use the word beware at the start of this means that we need to pay attention

because it's something that we don't always see in ourselves. Here's the interesting thing about some of these sins of the heart is some of these sins of the heart are not always apparent to us at first. It's not until the Lord through his Holy Spirit and through his word begins to reveal these areas of our lives that we even realize that we're doing them. And so he says to beware and we should do this in every aspect of our lives.

We should have a heart in our lives that we are constantly paying attention to what the Holy Spirit is telling us to do. You see, that's where when Jesus constantly tells us to be alert and to beware, it tells us that we're somewhat sleepy in these areas of our lives. And so he starts off with this word. He says, beware, pay attention to these warnings that are given.

He says, verse six, or verse one of chapter six, beware of practicing your righteousness before men. The next two words, next three words that are used are practicing your righteousness. In other words, doing good deeds. Now there's nothing wrong with doing good things. As a matter of fact, I believe that as believers in Jesus Christ, that should be what our lives

begin to exemplify. I was having a discussion with a young lady the other night about what it looks like to really be a Christian. And I said, well, to really be a Christian means you should be walking away from the things of sin and you should be walking into the good works of God. Not because those things save you, but because that's now who you are. You've been completely transformed

and now your life is to begin to do those kinds of things. And as believers in Jesus Christ, practicing acts of righteousness is something that a kingdom citizen, should begin to exemplify in their lives. We call it producing fruit. And so as he begins to give this warning, the warning is not against practicing acts of righteousness. I think that our lives should begin to be identified by that.

The question is, what's your heart behind doing these acts of righteousness? He says, beware of practicing your righteousness before men. Now, I want to first of all tell you what he's not saying here. He is not giving a prohibition of doing any good work that can be seen by people. My Bible class, servanthood hours have changed, but the way that we used to do it

was that you had to find somebody that you could do something for and then they would sign a little sheet of paper saying they worked two and a half hours for me and they got credit for doing that. Well, I had one particular student who did not want to do servanthood hours and they tried to use this verse to say that, no, I should not have them sign a paper saying that I've done servanthood hours because that's doing my righteousness before men. And I said, then don't tell anyone else about it. Just do it for them.

Have them sign it. Hand it to me and don't tell a single other soul that you did it. They didn't like that answer. It's not a prohibition of doing things for people when they can see you doing it. There are certain acts of righteousness that you do for people that they're going to see because by very nature of doing them, it's in front of them. Let me give you a, for instance,

can you imagine if you've got a flat tire, you're on the side of the road and I pull over to help you, but I think to myself, but I can't do this in front of them. So here's what I'm going to do. Hey, look over there. Change the tire. I can't even do it that fast. I'd still be trying to figure out how to work the jack. Wait, keep looking over there. It's a Liger, I promise, right?

You have to see me helping you and that's okay because that's not the problem. If I want to come up and pray for you, which I think is an absolutely wonderful thing to do. And I say, how can I pray for you? And you tell me and I lay my hand on your back and I say, look over there while I pray. Like, it's a ridiculous thought. It's not a prohibition of that.

No, what it is, is he goes on to tell us what it's a prohibition of because he goes on to qualify this statement. He says, beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them. Now we get to the heart of the warning. You see, he tells us to beware because, because sometimes when we do things for other people, we do it so that they know that we did it.

So that they can be aware that we did it and so that they can praise us for the fact that we did it. You see, I've come to understand a particular idol that we have in our culture. An idol that's not really spoken of and probably one you've never really felt all that condemned about, but one I guarantee almost runs a good portion of your life. And that idol is the idol of opinion.

You see, we sometimes bow down to the opinions of other people. Sometimes it prevents us from doing things. Sometimes when we know how people feel about things, we know that they may give us a hard time for what we're doing. We might not make as strong of a stand on something. And so that idol of opinion will sometimes keep us from doing certain things because we think if I do this,

I know what they're going to say and I'm scared. We're scared of what their opinion is going to be. But you see, the idol of opinion can take on the other form too. And we now begin to live our lives not for Jesus, but for the praise of people. And we start saying, I want to do good things, but I want to do good things so that other people will look at me and say, you're a really good person.

I really like the things that you do. Now listen, you can't avoid the praise of people. I want you to understand that. Sometimes when you help someone, they're going to say, thank you, and that's okay. The question is, what was the motive of your heart when you did it? What was going on inside of you when you did that? And are you completely content to know that nobody else knew

that you did it? Nobody else saw that you did it and you still performed it with all of your heart. He gives this heart of this warning because he knows the idol of opinion that is so strong in our hearts that, sometimes drives all of the things that we do. And may I say, I think it's one of the greatest idols we bow down to in our culture right now. And we bow down to it so much

in our culture right now with all of the ability to see what people do on aspects of social media. I don't mean to harp on this. I can't help it. It just comes up because that's exactly what we're able to do. We can take pictures of ourselves giving away or doing some form of service and we can say, had a great day serving today. And then we get all of the likes

and all of the comments and all of the things that go along with it. And Jesus says, that's not why you should be doing what you do. And then he tells us why. He says, otherwise, verse six, or verse one of chapter six, you have no reward with your father who is in heaven. You have no reward with your father who is in heaven. In other words, if all I care about

is the opinion of people, God no longer cares about the work that I'm doing. There are some who would say, oh, you should never do anything for a reward. You just need to do good for the sake of doing good. Well, you just need to know doing good for a reward is a biblical thought. We need to pay attention to that. Matter of fact, there's two places that I want you to go to in scripture

to teach us that rewards come from God and they're absolutely part of our motivation for serving. First of all, go over to 1 Corinthians chapter three. 1 Corinthians chapter three.

When you get to 1 Corinthians chapter three, I want you to look at verse 10.

1 Corinthians chapter three, verse 10 says, according to the grace of God, which was given to me like a wise master builder, I laid a foundation and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man's work will become evident for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire.

And the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work. If any man's work which he has built on, if any man's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved as through fire. You see, Paul lets us know here that rewards are an important thing. As a matter of fact,

we'll all be given rewards for the things that we do. And we should seek eternal rewards. He said each of us that are involved in the ministry, which if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, as we've shared before, you are involved in the ministry in some way, shape, or form. There's no such thing as spectator Christians. The ministry that God has given you, there's two things you need to know.

Number one, it needs to be built upon the foundation of Jesus Christ. But second of all, you need to pay attention to how you build. Because there's two different types of building materials that you can use. There are eternal building materials like gold, silver, and precious stones. Then there's temporary building materials which are wood, hay, and straw.

The gold, silver, and precious stones are the building materials of doing my good works only to be seen by my Father, only to be praised by Him so that I can receive my reward from Him. Those last forever. But the good works that I do that are like wood, hay, and straw are when I do the good works to be seen by people. And here's the problem. They all get burned up.

Can you imagine standing before the Lord and going, but I did all of these things. And He goes, I have no idea what you're talking about. Because that's all just got consumed with fire. One more place I want you to go to. Go over to 2 Corinthians. Next book over to your right. 2 Corinthians. And I want you to look at chapter 5.

2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians. Chapter 5, verses 9 and 10. Say this. Therefore, we have also as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds done in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad. You see, we'll all stand before the Lord

at some point in time for the things that we've done. Now, this is not the standing before the Lord. For whether or not you're saved. That's a different type of judgment seat. You see, that will be what did you do with Jesus? And when we know that we've asked Jesus into our heart to be our Savior, we go directly to another throne in which He begins to judge us

for the things done in the body. Whether or not we did our good works to be seen by God or whether we've done our good works to be seen by men. And God will test those works with fire. And as He does so, some will be burned up. I guarantee there are works in my life that will get burned up with fire because I know me. And I know that sometimes my potential,

because I also struggle with the idol of opinion, I know that there are some of those works that are going to go, they're going to be gone. My prayer is that some of those works will not be. My prayer is that my heart is right behind all of those things that I do for the Lord. But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that that's what's going to take place. I'll still go on to be with Jesus.

I might smell a little bit more like fire than I intended to, but I'll still go on to be with Jesus. It's just that the reward for those things done in the body won't necessarily be there. Now, before I move on, and that's not true, one more thing I want to tell you. Okay, back to Matthew chapter six.

Because he goes on to say, well, he says, otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. So not only do rewards come from the Father, but there's one other thing I want you to pay attention to about these rewards that come from the Father. And that's the fact that God has the ability to see all. As a matter of fact, in Hebrews chapter four, verse 13, you don't need to turn there, but you might write it down over in the margin of your Bible.

It says that God is able to see the hidden person of the heart. Tells us in the verse before that his word is sharp and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, able to pierce between bone and marrow. And he sees into the inner recesses of who I am. That can be both a comforting verse and a challenging verse. It can be really comforting when you're the person

who is always doing good for other people and it feels like nobody ever even notices what you do. You're like, man, I work so hard. I try so hard. I pour so much into it. And it just feels like nobody even pays attention. I don't even know if it's, anything's even happening because of it. God sees the hidden person of your heart. He looks past all of the, whatever you think of as results or fruit,

and he sees, he sees your faithfulness because he sees all of those things. And it's a great comfort knowing that God sees those things that sometimes it feels like nobody else in the world sees. But it's a great challenge because there are those of us that get a lot of praise from people and when that happens, God is able to lay aside all of the layers where we can lie and say, I did it for Jesus. And he can look and say, but I see the hidden person of the heart.

And I saw what really went into that. And it's a sobering verse, isn't it? Now we get to the point I tried to jump to too soon. And the point is this. This is one of those sections of scripture that causes us all to sit back and do a little bit of self-examination. And if you're anything like me, when you begin to examine your heart, you start to see the things that are wrong.

And you can at times feel really condemned by that. And you can feel like, I have failed and I am never going to be able to do it right. I want to give you a little bit of a piece of encouragement. The Holy Spirit wants to do a work of conviction in your heart, but not a work of condemnation in your heart. And I want to explain the difference between those two things.

You see, conviction is when I am shown where I am wrong so that I can then be made right. It always points me to Jesus, the only one who can truly make me right. Condemnation shows me where I'm wrong and tells me I will never be right. And it always pushes, it pushes me further away from Jesus because I think I can't approach him because I can never be good enough.

You see, as the Lord does this work in our hearts through sections of scripture like this, I don't want condemnation to creep into your heart and to have you start saying, oh, I see all of my failures and I can never be right because I've failed in these areas. I want you to see these areas and say, Lord, I know that I failed. You're the only one that can make me right. And know that there is hope in Jesus for him to make you into who he wants you to be.

And so as we move into this next section, he's going to address three issues now of doing good. The three issues of doing good that he's going to address are the issues of giving, the issues of praying, and the issues of fasting. We'll only get to giving today and we'll cover the next two next week. The reason why he chose these three is because these three acts of righteousness were the pillars upon which the Jewish religion built their righteousness.

They felt like if they could be very giving, if they could have a good prayer life, and they fasted enough, that they would be acceptable to God. And therefore, those were the three pillars of righteousness that they sort of built themselves upon. And so he addresses these three so that they could see the true heart of righteousness, the true heart that was supposed to be behind these good works. Now, as we move into this, I want you to take note of a pattern that we'll examine of the way that Jesus addresses these things.

The first thing he's going to do is he's going to give a warning. The warning will be to not seek the praise of men. The second thing he will do is he will give an assurance. An assurance that if you have sought the praise of men, that's the only reward that you're going to get. Third, he's going to give a command, a command for how to do this in the proper way.

And then the fourth thing he'll do is he'll give a promise. A promise that if you do it the prescribed way with the right heart, your reward will ultimately come from God. So, we move into verse two and it says this. So, when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets so that they may be honored by men.

Truly, I say to you, they have their reward in full. So, he gives us this warning. He says, when you give to the poor. Now, the thing you'll take note of also that I didn't point out yet is that in each of these, Jesus doesn't say if you do. He doesn't say if you do these good works. He takes for granted the fact that you already are doing them. He says, when you do these good works.

So, he says, when you give to the poor, this is what you should not do. Now, when we think about this aspect of giving to the poor, I'm reminded of the fact that in Deuteronomy 15, verse 11, the scripture says in the law, you will always have the poor with you, but you should always have an open hand towards them. And so, as the Pharisees lived out their lives, they knew that they were going to win. They knew that they were going to win.

knew the law, and they knew that the law said the poor would always be with them, and they knew that the law said they should always have an open hand towards the poor to be able to help them out. But much like some of the other issues that we looked at in chapter 5, they went one step too far, and they began to view their almsgiving, or their giving to the poor, as something that could actually purchase them forgiveness of sins, something that could actually purchase them salvation. That if I've done something wrong, I will just give a little bit more to the poor, earn a little bit more forgiveness for what I've done wrong, and I'll be okay. If you will, they

were trying to buy their way into the kingdom. Sound familiar? Others have done that. And so this is the way they viewed things. And so this is why later when Jesus said, it's harder for a rich man to make it into heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of the needle, the disciples are like, what? It's hard for rich people to make it to heaven? Then how can the rest of us do it? Because they

viewed it as being able to purchase your way into heaven. And so Jesus, as he begins to address it, when you give to the poor, which is a wonderful thing to do, he says, don't sound a trumpet as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets. He says, don't sound a trumpet. Now, I did a lot of reading of commentaries as far as this is concerned, because in my mind, let me first of all tell you what picture takes place in my mind when I think about this, right?

If I could put this on a video, I would. What takes place in my mind is this. Somebody walks into the synagogue, and they say, today's the day I give to the poor. And out of nowhere comes somebody with a trumpet with a little flag that unfurls, and then he walks forward, and he gives to the poor. He's like, thank you, thank you, thank you. Drops his money in there. I don't think that's

probably how it happened, but that's what takes place in my mind. Some of the commentators that I read said, this never actually took place. We never actually read a history of there being any point in time when there was actually a trumpet that was sounded. This is simply hyperbole on Jesus's part, kind of like when he gave the, if you're right, I causes you to sin, pluck it out sort of a statement. Could be that. But then there are some that I read

that said that there was a custom at this point in time, though it didn't take place in the temple or in the synagogue. He's decided that they wanted to give to the poor. They would go onto the street corner, and it would be announced, perhaps trumpeted, so-and-so's giving to the poor. Go and find him at the corner of Fifth and Main. And he's trumpeting the fact that today's the day he's

giving out a little bit of money to the poor. Whichever of those three it is, I'm hoping for the first one, whichever of those three it is, I don't know, but I do know what the heart behind it is. And the heart behind what Jesus is saying is this, don't make a spectacle out of your giving. He says, when you give to the poor, don't make a spectacle out of it. Don't make sure that everybody

in the world knows that it's taking place. He says, if you make a spectacle about it, if you alert the world that it's taking place, then you're acting like a particular group of people that none of us want to act like. He uses a word that is probably considered somewhat of a dirty word in church circles, right? He uses the word hypocrite. He says, you'll act just like the hypocrite.

Hypocrites do. That word hypocrite sounds terrible, doesn't it? Because most of you probably have friends that you've invited to church and they say, I don't want to go to church because it's full of hypocrites, right? Like that's always, and it is, we're all hypocrites, right? We are all recovering hypocrites. Because a hypocrite's an actor. It's somebody that wears

a mask. It's somebody that's not really who they are. You see, at that point in time, they didn't have all of the technology and stuff to be able to change the look of somebody like we do now. So what they would do when someone would act is they would wear perhaps even two different masks to shield their real identity so that they could play a different part on the stage.

You see, what makes us hypocrites is not the fact that we struggle with sin. What makes us hypocrites is when we pretend like we don't. What makes us hypocrites is when we shield our sin with our righteous acts. When we try to look better in front of people than we really are. You see, I think one of the things that Jesus wants from us as people is that we're not just hypocrites. We're hypocrites. We're hypocrites.

It's just to be genuinely who we are. That's why Jesus told the church of Laodicea, I wish you were either hot or cold, but you're kind of neither. So he pretty ticked off at you right now because he just wants genuine reality from us. Because until we're real, we can never help each other and he can never really help us. And so he says, if you do that, if you sound a

trumpet and let the whole world know about your giving, you're acting just like those hypocrites do. go into the synagogues, and they stand on the street corners, and they make sure that everybody sees. Why? Notice what it says at the end of verse 2, so that they may be honored by men. So that they may be honored by men. Now, I was thinking about this particular phrase,

and I thought, how do we put some shoes on that so that we can understand what that looks like in the 21st century? What does it look like to give to be honored by men? And so I came up with four ways that I think sometimes we give in order to be honored by men. Sometimes we give to appease a guilty conscience. Sometimes giving takes place to appease a guilty conscience.

And it's to please one man, and that's me, right? It's to please you. And so we seek to appease that guilty conscience. This is kind of what the Pharisees were doing. They would sin, and so when they would sin, they would think, well, I've got to cover that up, and so I'll cover that up. I'll appease that guilty conscience by giving a little bit more. This is why sometimes the most immoral people in the world are also

the most generous people in the world. Why? Because they think, I can't stop sinning. I can't stop living this lifestyle. I'll cover it up by giving a little bit more money. I'll cover it up by making sure that everybody's taken care of. This is usually the time of year when people find their spot of righteousness. They say, you know what? I may be a really horrible person,

but I always sponsor a child for Christmas. I always go to the Christmas tree and make sure I pull one of those angels. And you know what? I know that God looks at that and says, good job. And I'm like, no, he doesn't. God doesn't look at that and say, good job. God wants your heart, not your gifts. But sometimes we give to appease that guilty conscience. Number two, sometimes we

give gifts to appear righteous. Similar thought, a little bit of a different action. We want to put that mask on. We want the whole world to go, oh, he's really righteous so that we can still live our lives in secret without anybody actually knowing about it. Sometimes our giving to please men is so that we appear righteous before them. Number three, sometime our giving to please men

is so that we can simply receive praise. This is usually where the social media posts start coming into play, is we start saying on social media, I decided to give this much to these people in order to really help out because the need is great. And everybody says, oh, can you believe how great of a person they are? And they get all of the likes and they get all of the comments. And it's like, nope, not the right reason. They did it to please

men. You see, those first two, appeasing guilty consciences and appearing righteous, those probably aren't what we struggle with the most. I think three and four are probably where we start to struggle as a good Bible-believing Christian. Is we want to receive that praise from people. And then number four, we can use our giving to control others. We can use our giving to control others. Now, this is a difficult one. Matter of

fact, when I do premarital counseling with couples and we're going through some things about in-laws, one of the questions that I have to ask is, if your in-laws were to help you get started financially, what would they require of you in return? And there's kind of some interesting answers to those questions sometimes. But it's an interesting thought. And people use their money to control each other. Perhaps you

have a loved one that has helped you out. And though they say they love you, they now say, well, you've got to always do this now because I did this for you. And sometimes we can do that in the lives of people. And where it can really be bad is when it happens in the life of a church. When somebody says, hey, I've given X amount of dollars and now the church better do what I want

for them to do. You see, there's there's issues with that because then it causes pastors to no longer preach the truth anymore because you have to tiptoe around that person who gave all that money because they've got a little bit of control over you now. This is why, as I shared with first service, Pastor Allen and I have no idea who gives what. And I very much keep it that way. I try very hard

to not pay attention to who gives anything because if your toes need stepped on, I want to step on your toes. If you need confronted, I want to confront you. I don't care if you're the richest person in here or the poorest person in here. If you're in sin, you're in sin. And we're going to deal with it because that's what's got to be done. And we can't control who

builds the building. We can't control who puts down the carpet. We can't control what color the walls are going to be or anything, those kinds of things, just because you were the one that gave the most money. It can be used to control. Those are ways that we seek to be honored by men with our giving. And so Jesus says, don't do it. He gives the warning. When you give,

do not give. Do not sound a trumpet as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets so that they may be honored by men. He gives the assurance. Truly, I say to you, they have the reward in full. You'd better soak up all of the stuff that you can if that's the reason why you've done it. If you've done it to receive praise, if you've done it to appease a

guilty conscience, if you've done it to appear righteous, if you've done it to control others, you'd better soak up as much as you can. If you've done it to receive praise, if you've done it to because that, my friend, is the only reward you'll get because it's a temporary reward and it will disappear with the earth that we're standing on. Instead, what he says to do is this, verse three, but when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your giving will be in secret and your father who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. He says, instead, give like this. He said, when you give to the poor,

don't even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Now, every time I read that, all I can think about is, do you remember that commercial that came out at some point in time where a guy is trying to write a check and two other hands come out like this and those hands keep slapping his right and left hand? Do you guys remember that commercial? Anytime somebody says, I wish I just had two extra hands right now, all I could think is, that's what would happen to me if I had two extra hands, right? God knew that he was going to give to the poor, but he didn't give

it. Two were even maybe too many for me. And so if I had more than two, they would slap each other all the time and they would get really confused. So in my life, it's not difficult for my left hand to not know what my right hand is doing. They can't communicate anyway. But that's not the point he's trying to make here. The point he's trying to make here is this, when you give,

there should be extreme privacy in the way that you give. Now, are there times where somebody's going to know about it? Absolutely. When you give to Calvary Chapel of Ark City, you're going to get a statement at the end of the year that says, for tax deduction purposes, this is how you're going to give. I know some people that say, I won't write a check to a church because I don't even want them

to know how much I gave and I don't want my tax deduction. I say, perfect. That's between you and Jesus. But there should be extreme privacy in the way that we give because our giving should ultimately be to Jesus and not to anyone else because he's the one who owns all of our stuff anyway, right? He says, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. There should

be extreme privacy in the way that we give, extreme secrecy in the way that we give. I shared with First Service, when my wife and I got married, I haven't told very many people this story. When my wife and I got married, it was a day or two later, we were over at my in-laws and we were opening all of the gifts because they'd taken them all home. And so we're opening everything up and I come to this one card and I open it up, not thinking too much about it. And when I open

the card up, I started unfolding these pieces of paper and laying them out. There were four $1,000 money orders in this card that to this day, I've never seen in my life. I've never seen in my life. I have no idea who it was. We tried and tried to figure it out. We even asked a couple of people questions and nobody told us. We still have no idea who it was. All we knew is it was one

of the most wonderful stamps of approval God could ever put on a relationship. It was like, oh man, this relationship, our marriage, the ministry God will give us together will be built on faith and God will always be the one that takes care of it. God will always be the one that supplies our need. That's what we felt like God showed us through that. But we still have no idea who it was. And

that's the way they wanted it because they didn't even want their left hand to know what their right hand was doing so that they wouldn't receive praise from it, but so that we would do exactly what we did. And we praised God. And we said, Lord, thank you for the gift that you just gave us because that came directly from you. But you know, there's another thought that I had not, that had not occurred to me until I started studying this. Archant Hughes and his commentary, his preaching

the word of God, he said, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. He brought up something really interesting. He said, it's absolutely true that what Jesus is speaking of here is an extreme form of privacy. But there's another thought I would like to introduce to you to give you another way to look at this. He said, I'm a sports fan and I enjoy

watching athletes. But the thing that you have to know about athletes is that athletes will do the same thing over and over and over again. A batter practicing his swing, a pitcher practicing his throw. In my mind, a wrestler practicing his moves. So that they can develop muscle memory. Muscle memory allows them to not think but react because their muscles automatically know how to handle that situation because they've been put in that

situation so many times that their muscles automatically react. So I want you to think about this. For your left hand to act without your right hand knowing about it, it requires muscle memory. While Jesus is absolutely speaking of extreme privacy, maybe he also is speaking of the fact that giving, should be something that is practiced in our life so much that it is simply a natural reaction.

That we have muscle memory when we see a need presented to us, that it is our automatic reaction simply to give. So that when you see an individual that you love and care for and you see the need that they have in your life, your initial reaction is simply to give out to them. Your initial reaction is to provide that need. I will always remember the young man that I went to Bible college with. I don't remember his name, but I absolutely remember him. I remember him. I remember

watching what he did. We used to go down to Oceanside, California, and we would street witness in Oceanside, California. In Oceanside, California, you get a variety of people, not the least of which is a bunch of homeless drunk guys. And I will never forget us going down to Oceanside to witness one time, and there was an old church that we would go in the basement of, and we would pray there first, eat a couple of cookies, and then go out and street witness. But while we were waiting

for the pastor to get there, this guy comes up. And he's talking to us, and he's absolutely drunk. And one of the guys gets a little bit nervous around him. But the other guy that we're with says, no, I know him. I've been down here before. And he engages him in conversation. And he says, how are you? And he's talking with me. He says, what do you need? How can I help you? And he goes, I don't have any socks. You know what this

kid did? He sat down, took off his shoes and socks, took his socks off, and gave them to him. And that guy put his socks on, and he said, that means so much to me because it's getting cold, and I don't have any socks. You see, that's muscle memory. That's his left hand not knowing what his right hand is doing because it was just so natural for him to see the need and to fill the need. And I will tell you, he did not do it so that we would all praise

him. And it's okay for me to tell this story because I know that his heavenly father is going to reward him for it. But that's what he's speaking of here. It should be so natural to us that it just flows off of us. Because of that muscle memory that we have. He says, when you give to the poor, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. And then notice the promise that he makes. So that

your father, verse four, so that your giving will be in secret and your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. What a wonderful promise that though the rest of the world may never see what happens, God sees it. And he's accounting it to you. And he'll reward you for it. Amen. The next couple of weeks, we'll get into the next two things, both prayer and fasting.

But for today, we're going to wrap up and we're going to get ready to take communion together as a fellowship. We're going to get ready to take communion together as the body of Christ. And so hopefully the ushers are already on their way down to get young people, to get the kids and to bring them back in here. But I want to spend just a few moments talking to you about communion before we get into it.

What we're getting ready to do is take part in a ceremony that speaks of unity. It speaks of the unity that we have with Jesus Christ and the unity that we have with each other as the body of Christ. On that last great night of the feast, when Jesus was there in the upper room with his disciples, he first of all took the bread and he broke it and he said, this is my body, which is broken for you take and eat. And then he took the cup and he held it up and he said, I'm going to take it and I'm going to eat it. And he said, I'm going to eat it. And he said,

this is the cup of the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you. Take this and drink. And of course, Paul in the book of 1 Corinthians tells us that as often as we do this, we're to do so in remembrance of him. Because as often as we do this, we proclaim the death of Jesus Christ. Because you see, all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And the only way that

our lives can be unified with him is if there was a sacrifice that was enough to cover all of our sin and take it away so that our fellowship with God could be made complete again. And that's what Jesus did for us on the cross. He bore all of our penalty in his own body on the tree when it was broken for us. He covered our sin with his blood when it was shed for us. And it was

guaranteed accepted when he was raised from the dead. And so what we're getting ready to do here is to drink a cup of juice and eat a crack. But that's not the only thing we're doing. We're proclaiming the death of Jesus Christ. Because as we do so, we proclaim the fact that that body and that blood were enough to cover my sins and allow my heart to be unified with my creator for whom I was originally created to know.

But it also means that for every person that's in here that's born again, we are now unified through the blood of Jesus Christ. And we are not a group of individuals that showed up to a building. We are a family. We are a church. We are a church that make up a body because we have been unified through the blood and the body of Christ. And so we're told that when we do this, we're to do so in a worthy manner.

And as I always share, that means two things. That means, first of all, if you're here this morning and you've never asked Jesus into your heart to be your savior, this is nothing to you. This is simply a cup of juice and a cracker. It actually could be more dangerous for you to take it. then it is meaningless.

And so if you're here this morning and you've never accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, today needs to be that day of salvation for you. Because brothers and sisters and those that don't know Jesus, he's coming soon and we need to be ready. And so if you're here this morning and you've never accepted Jesus, today is the day for you to do that. Today is the day for you to admit that you're a sinner and ask Jesus to be your Savior.

But you see, there's another way that we can partake of this in an unworthy manner and that's what applies to us as believers. The way that we can partake of this in an unworthy manner is to be harboring sin in our hearts. To be harboring sin inside of us that causes us to be separated from God or to be harboring sin inside of us that causes us to be separated from each other. Because as we proclaim this death, we're proclaiming unity.

But if in my heart I'm harboring sin, then there's no true unity between myself and Jesus or myself and you. And so, in just a minute I'm going to ask Dad to come up and share one more song with us. And as he does, I'm going to ask that you would ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart. To search your heart and see if there's any area of your life where sin has popped up over this last month.

Where issues have popped up over this last month that business needs to be dealt with between you and Jesus so that you can be unified with Him again. And it can be a beautiful celebration of the fact that Jesus' blood has never failed you yet. And so, I'm going to invite Dad to come up and sing this last song. The ushers are going to be bringing the kids in.

And as they bring the kids in, they will then hand out the elements. As they hand out the elements, I ask that you would stand and we will partake together. I deserve the grace that you have given me, son.

But I stand and want the sacrifice. Your mercy beyond measure. Yes, in the sky,

Jesus, your life is sacrifice. Your mercy beyond measure. On the stars,

this is your love. Father, we come before you and I just thank you so much for who you are. Lord, I do thank you that your love has no bounds. Lord, it goes on forever and ever. Lord, I want to thank you for the sacrifice of your son. Father, that Jesus took all of our sin on Himself on the tree. And Lord, because of that, now we can live in newness of life.

We have redemption and forgiveness of sins. So Lord, I just want to pray that as we do so now, as we take part in this, I pray that you would keep us ever in mind of the sacrifice of Jesus. Lord, that you would keep us ever in mind of the great love that He has for us. And Lord, that our hearts would truly be committed to you, to loving you and following you.

Father, we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. You may partake.

Would you bow with me one more time? Father, again, we just thank you for who you are. Lord, I pray that as we have a fellowship meal together as family, Lord, that we would have sweet fellowship with each other. Lord, that as we enjoy that koinonia, that sweet time together, I pray that you would just bless it. Father, I pray that you would bless the meal to our bodies

and bless our time together and bless all the hands of those that have prepared things and brought them. And Lord, strengthen us as we go out from here, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Probably give them a couple of minutes down at the end of the hall. That's where you'll get your food down there. There's some seats.