EPISODE 214 GOSPEL OF MATTHEW CHAPTER 6 PART 1 "You Can't Fool God"

Welcome to Share the Word. We're on episode 214, covering Matthew chapter 6. The focus is hypocrisy. And in this episode, Pastor Paul Nitz not only defines hypocrisy, but goes beyond the definition and gives a practical point of view of how our actions and intentions play an important part when it comes to some of our most religious acts. Paul, Matthew chapter 6, part 1: You can't fool God. Saw a church sign recently which said, This church is not full of hypocrites.

But then in smaller print beneath it, There's always room for more. I hope they were joking. I hope they were trying to communicate something like, Don't imagine that because you don't have everything together in your life, you shouldn't fit in at our church. But self-identifying as a bunch of hypocrites? Hmm. That's probably not the best way to draw the spiritually sensitive and curious.

One big reason people who otherwise might go to church don't, they say, is because they believe churches are too full of judgmental hypocrites. I don't think it's that helpful when Christians joke that their church is full of hypocrites. If it really is, that's an affront to God, as well as a big stumbling block to unbelievers looking for better, looking for some spiritual authenticity. Along that theme, I heard a dark takeoff on the tragic Columbine High School shooting, one of the first such tragedies that happened in America, I think it was in around, I don't know, 25 years ago or so. If you're unfamiliar, two students came to school that day in long dark trench coats hiding weapons beneath. They ended up shooting 34 of their classmates and a couple of teachers too.

One story coming out of that was how one of their victims, a girl named Valine Chenier, was praying out loud during the massacre, and one of the shooters stopped to ask her if she believed in God, and she replied, Yes. Valine was shot four times then. She actually survived to tell about it. Well, anyway, forgive me for this, but the takeoff I heard went like this. A church was filled to capacity one Sunday morning with hundreds of attenders, when just as service was getting underway, two armed men dressed in black coats and ski masks burst through the rear doors. One of the two walked to the middle of the church while the other stayed at the rear to block the entrance.

They both reached under their coats and pulled out guns. Then the one in the middle announced, Everyone who is willing to take a bullet for Jesus, stay in your seats. The rest of you can get on out of here. After a few seconds' stunned silence, the pews began to rapidly empty, as did the choir, and the deacons, and the ushers. They're all running out the door, even the assistant pastor. After a few moments, there was only a handful of people left scattered throughout the auditorium.

The pastor was still holding steady in the pulpit when the men lowered their weapons, pulled off their ski masks, and said, Okay, pastor, all the hypocrites are gone now. Let's begin the service. Opponents of Christianity love to scorn us for hypocrisy, and some well-meaning Christians, too, readily, with even a laugh, admit that charge. But Jesus didn't find religious hypocrisy funny at all. He pointed the finger squarely at it with some pretty biting sarcasm in our text today from Matthew chapter 6. Listen to him.

Take care not to practice your righteousness in the sight of people, to be noticed by them. Otherwise, you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. When you give to the poor, don't sound a trumpet before yourself as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, so that they will be praised by people. 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 charity will be in secret; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they will be seen by people.

Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. And whenever you fast, do not make a gloomy face like the hypocrites do, who distort their faces so they will be noticed by people when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But as for you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face so that your fasting will not be noticed by people, but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. Do you consider yourself to be religious?

That sounds like a trick question, doesn't it? What does it even mean to be religious? Pretty vague term these days. The theme of the Sermon on the Mount is that Jesus expects his followers to be pursuing genuine righteousness. At the outset, in the Beatitudes, he stressed that genuine righteousness begins in our hearts, our inner selves. People are right with God, he says, and God is happy with them if they mourn over sin in their lives as well as in the world.

They pursue moral purity and hunger and thirst for what is right. They treat others with mercy and are ready to forgive. They long to be at peace with others and will pay the price to make it happen. But Jesus went on to stress that genuine righteousness will also be evidenced in our moral behavior. He said that our righteousness should exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. They were focused on external compliance to rules and even created loopholes to avoid the law's more difficult demands.

But Jesus said genuine righteousness raises their bar. Not only should we not murder people, we should not be angry or curse them out. Not only should we not commit adultery, we should not even fantasize about what it would be like. We should go the extra mile and do more than is required of us. We should love our enemies even. So Jesus stressed to his followers that genuine righteousness will be evidenced in godly behavior that proceeds from changed hearts.

That's what chapter five was about. Now in chapter six, he goes on to clarify that even what seemed like genuinely righteous acts may in fact be nothing of the kind. By acts of righteousness, he was speaking about the things people did in his society that we might say were religious acts, pursuing their religion, like going to church, praying, giving to charities, sharing your faith with others. And our text certainly indicates that Jesus expected his followers would be active in these kind of things. But surprisingly, he taught that it does not necessarily follow that because we are, that means we are doing much in God's eyes. It depends, because there's a danger implicit even in our religious activities, and the danger is hypocrisy.

The word, used more than 20 times by Jesus in the New Testament, came from the root idea of being an actor or wearing a mask to play a part on stage. It evolved to take on the figurative negative connotation of pretending to be something you are not. Someone has coined the synonym, I like this, disintegrity. Disintegrity. A hypocrite isn't someone who hasn't succeeded at Christian perfection. That's why I didn't like the message on the church sign.

No, a hypocrite is someone pretending to be something they are not, something they know they really are not. Jesus gives three examples of this in our section here, showing how even acts of righteousness can be, were being ruined by hypocrisy. One expresses our duty to God, one our duty to others, and one our duty to ourselves. He says about them all, Be careful not to do these acts of righteousness before people to be seen by them. He wasn't saying that we should try and hide our acts of righteousness, as in hide our faith. No, that wasn't his point.

He had already said in this sermon, Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. Rather, his point was, if there is anything in our religious acts that smacks of, I hope people notice what I did here, we have turned what could have been a good thing into an act of hypocrisy, because it was really about bringing admiration and glory to ourselves. Wow, you might be thinking, God is evaluating us that closely? Apparently so. And to be sure his hearers did not miss the point, Jesus gave three examples. Giving alms was the act of being generous with the poor.

Jerusalem had many truly needy people, like most large cities. Without the societal safety net that exists most places now, there was a religious and cultural expectation that capable people would, out of compassion, share with the truly needy. But can you imagine some well-to-do person on a busy street or square in Jerusalem having a servant of theirs blow a horn to attract everyone's attention before he gave alms to a beggar? Sound the trumpet, Benjamin. Now that I have everyone's attention, clink, clink, clink, he drops some coins into the bucket. There you go, my good man.

By the way, I think this is where our expression toot your own horn comes from. Sounds like an absurdity, but in reality, there are people who give like that. And Jesus said, Hypocrites, actors. Their gift is not really motivated by mercy. It's about looking generous in the eyes of other people. The real motive is not about giving, but about getting, getting the praise of others, buying a reputation as a caring and generous philanthropist.

Jesus said, When we give that way, the oohs and ahs of those who become aware of it, that's all the reward we will ever get. If you do it to impress people, if you do it even to feel good about yourself, then it's really not about giving. It's about getting. Instead, Jesus urged his followers, When you give, don't even let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. That's an exaggerated way of saying, Give as your heart moves you, and then forget it. So, is giving an act of righteousness?

Can be. Should be. But also, it depends on the motive. If I understand Jesus correctly, it's possible to give a ten million dollar gift to build a new hospital wing, or give ten thousand bucks to your church's building fund, or ten dollars to buy a lunch for a homeless guy outside McDonald's, whatever. The question is not about what the hand is doing, but what is the heart motivation behind it. Is it in some way for your own glory, to make you appear good and generous, or is it truly to meet a need out of a heart of compassion, or is it an act of worship to God?

No gift, no matter how small, goes unnoticed by God when it comes from a good heart. Ministries are blessed, people's needs are met, God's heart is moved when we give as the Holy Spirit prompts us with uncalculating generosity, whether anyone ever knows about it or not. Similarly, Jesus said about prayer, another act of righteousness, When you pray, don't be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. What he was pointing up was how some people pray primarily to impress those who see and hear them. In Jerusalem, horns were blown at certain times throughout the day from the temple, sort of like calls to prayer. Whenever they were, the pious would stop and pray.

If you thought ahead a little bit, you could arrange to be on a prominent street corner at the time, at the right time, so when the horn sounded, you were in an ideal place to stop and face the temple and raise your hands toward heaven and offer up the most eloquent prayer, and others all around would be impressed. Or at a synagogue service, like our church services, when prayer is led by a worship leader, what an excellent opportunity to demonstrate your piety. Jesus said some hypocrites really love to do that. They make long prayers using all the best prayer clichés, dramatic pauses, voice variations, to impress their listeners. It's like a line I once read about a certain prominent pastor's prayer at a funeral service. The Right Reverend so-and-so from such-and-such a church delivered the most eloquent prayer ever offered to a Boston audience.

When we pray in public, are we praying to our audience, praying to those who are listening to us? If so, it's just an act and nothing more because real prayer is communicating with God. One thing about being a pastor that's not my favorite is that no matter where I am, to whatever function, I am usually the go-to prayer. Years ago, I was at my daughter Natalie's piano recital. You know, one of those events where the teacher invites each of the students to perform their best piece for all their gathered relatives. And she asked me just before it began if I would give an opening prayer, which of course I did.

Afterwards, as the parents and family members were munching on cookies and drinking strange punch, several people came up to me and said, That was the most beautiful prayer. Even the piano teacher called me on the phone the next day to thank me and said, That was the most beautiful prayer. And I remember thinking, Was what I said there for God's ears or calculated for that audience that I wanted to impress? If it was for them, it was not really even prayer. It was just another performance that evening, like the kids playing their piano pieces. Again, Jesus is not condemning public prayer here, but rather the wrong motives that can creep into even that, communing with God Himself.

Some people will not pray at all in public because they feel like they just do not have all the right phrases down yet. Listen, when we pray, whether in our times alone with God or in an intimate group with a few friends or before many people, there is only ever an audience of one. The only times I feel I've even gotten through at all in prayer is when I get lost in it, when I forget anyone else is listening, when I forget even myself and really just say what is on my heart to God, when I am focused on communicating my feelings and concerns honestly to Him. Anything else is pretty much an act. Jesus' point is, whether we pray in public or we pray in private, we are entering the presence of God and addressing Him. If it is formulated to impress another audience than Him, then hopefully they were really impressed, because God will give such prayer no attention.

We'll talk much more about prayer next episode, I think. His final example concerned fasting. I read recently how it's becoming trendy chic to fast. You, like me, probably didn't realize this, unless, of course, you are trendy chic. While ordinary people want to go on cruises and be catered to and stuff themselves at endless buffets, apparently, among the who's who of big-time celebrities, increasingly their getaways are exactly the opposite. According to a New York Times article I read, people are paying exorbitant sums to visit health spas where they are, well, starved.

One such spa in Desert Hot Springs, California, is booked many months in advance with top-notch clientele from among the rich and famous. But instead of stuffing themselves with steak and lobster, they subsist on apple celery juice, herbal teas, laxatives, and bee pollen, sometimes for up to a month. According to one owner, it used to be that people who came here talked about weight loss. Now, she says, it's about detoxing my mind, body, and spirit. And, I might add, probably also about being seen there on such a spiritual quest by your peers and, hopefully, a contributor to People magazine. Fasting in Jesus' day was not about weight loss either.

It was a spiritual activity. On certain holy days, religious people would fast. The original intent was to get the mind off of the physical and more onto the spiritual. Sometimes people fasted for very prolonged periods to turn their minds away from worldly things and try to tune more into God, and to gain more mastery, self-discipline over their own body's appetites. But like any religious exercise, fasting too can be done more to impress people than anything else. The hypocrites Jesus was poking fun at used special makeup to appear unusually wan, you know, to make others notice they look drained and weak.

Nothing would make them feel better, though, than to hear someone whisper, Oh, look at so-and-so. They must be fasting. They look awful tonight, don't they? Then you needed to slip into casual conversation that yes, you have been fasting for days now, actually. Remember, Jesus is not saying such acts of righteousness like prayer, giving, fasting, and others are wrong. No.

In fact, he assumes his listeners will engage in them. He says, When you pray, when you give, when you fast. In prayer, we connect with God. In giving, we benefit each other. In fasting, we can discipline and focus ourselves. Done sincerely, these spiritual exercises are pure religion, I guess.

By the way, I've known people who chose a day each week to fast and devoted that time they would normally spend eating to praying, or to listening to God's word, or to even exercising their body. If fasting is done to focus more time on godly pursuits, that's pure religion. Or another good idea is you could use the money you would normally spend on eating out for a month instead on helping someone you know with a real need, or by giving it to a ministry you deeply believe in, anonymously, of course. Again, that would be an act of righteousness, pure religion. But always remember, whatever we do to impress others, Jesus is saying, no matter how otherwise worthy, if it's done to impress others, it is lost on God. The word in our text translated to be seen by men is the Greek word theathenai, the root of our word theater.

If we do our religious acts for the eyes of others, they are not acts of righteousness at all, but rather just theater. So the penetrating question we are left with must go something like this: Is my religion, the noticeable things I do which mark me in others' eyes as a religious person, done in any way to impress them, done to present myself to others as more righteous than I really know myself to be, or are these acts honestly acts of righteousness and for an audience of one, the one who knows the thoughts and intentions of my heart? Not exactly the work of George Gordon, Lord Byron, but this little poem makes the point. You can fool the hapless public. You can be a subtle fraud. You can hide your little meanness, but you can't fool God.

You can advertise your virtues, your self-achievements laud. You can even share your riches, but you can't fool God. You can magnify your talents. You can hear the world applaud. You can show yourself religious, but you can't fool God. Lord, help us to allow no place in our hearts for foolish hypocrisy.

As Jesus taught us, take care not to practice your righteousness in the sight of people to be noticed by them. Thank you for listening. This is Paul for Share the Word. Thanks, Paul. You know, there could be such a challenge of not sounding boastful or prideful or being hypocritical when it comes to our actions, our prayers, and as we participate in our ministries and do God's work. But here are some questions.

Are you doing to demonstrate your knowledge or to make a difference in the lives of those around you? And when you pray, is it a conversation between you and your Heavenly Father, or do you peek out to see who's listening? And when the project is over, do you get upset when you get no recognition? Or how about this? Are you always trying to make yourself look more important than others around you? Our actions should always benefit those who will receive rather than we who give, and the glory should always go to God.

Don't be like the hypocrites, Jesus said. And in Psalm 139, it says, Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. From all of us at Share the Word, our blessings and prayers go out to all of you.