As we continue our sermon series on the Sermon on the Mount. This is God's word. Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. For then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they've received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. Pray then like this. Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. And when you fast, do not look gloomy like hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Here is the reading of God's holy word. Let's pray. Father as we come to your word, we ask that you would be merciful to us, that we would hear it, that we would believe it, and that it would change us. We pray in Jesus name, amen. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a prolific writer from Columbia and he said all human beings have three lives, public, private, and secret. Your public life everyone sees. Your private life only a few people see, your family, your friends, maybe some neighbors even if you don't want them to. But your secret life only you see, only you and God see. In this section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is talking about the distinction between the public and the secret life. Another writer put it this way, he said, you are who you are when no one is looking. Jesus illustrates this by telling us about three areas of religious practice, he calls it practicing your righteousness and how we should beware of practicing our righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. He talks about three areas of the normal Christian life. These are things that should be true of all of us who follow Christ. Three areas are giving, prayer, and fasting. In the first section of the chapter, Jesus talks about giving and the difference between how the hypocrites give and how he wants his followers to give. We've seen throughout the sermon, Jesus is probably merely concerned with what is in our heart. We've already seen in chapter five when he talks about the sixth and the seventh commandments about murder and adultery that those commandments can be violated in our heart without ever saying anything. They can also be violated with our speech. So he desires that our heart be right before him. First he talks about hypocrites and how they want others to see how righteous they are. They desire the praise of other people. With giving he says how the hypocrites blow a trumpet to announce their supposed generosity. Now these days people don't blow trumpets. They post things on the internet or they leak their gift to a news outlet or sometimes it's so big that the recipient tells everybody. But here Jesus is most likely referring to the Sadducees and Pharisees because in Matthew 23 verse 27 he says, woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you are like white washed tombs which outwardly appear beautiful but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. Now think about that, he's saying that you people who are blowing the trumpet and announcing your giving your hypocrites that you should give in secret. We should give quietly not drawing attention to ourselves for the purpose of receiving praise from others. Giving is from the heart. Each one must give as he is decided in his heart not reluctantly or under compulsion. Paul writes for God loves a cheerful giver. There are a couple of things I want us to notice about this passage and the first one is that Jesus assumes that you're going to give and pray and fast. He doesn't say if you give to the needy, he says when you give to the needy, he's already assuming that you're going to give to the needy. If you're following him, if you are a Christian that you are going to give to the needy. You can do it through the church, you can do it through giving to causes or organizations or you can do it sometimes directly to a person that you see and need but Jesus assumes that you're going to do it, that you're going to give. He also assumes that you're going to pray. He says when you pray, not if you pray. He assumes that you're going to come before him and make your request known and to give him praise and adoration, he assumes you're going to intercede on the behalf of others and you're going to do it with an economy of words. When you pray, not if you pray. And then this one is probably the hardest for Canadians. This is when you fast. That means you don't eat. I know people don't like to hear this. When you fast, not if you fast. So Jesus expects that fasting on occasion, he doesn't specify how often but fasting on occasion is the normal part of your Christian life that when you follow Christ, you will on occasion fast. The purpose of which is to concentrate wholly on your spiritual life, on your relationship with Christ, on a particular need. A lot of times when people in the Old Testament were in some sort of trouble, there was an attack coming or there was a famine or anything like that, that people would fast. They also said in sackcloth and ashes, which made it even more uncomfortable. I don't think we have to do that part. But he says when you fast, when you withhold from yourself food or food and drink for the purpose of focusing completely on your spiritual life. So again, he doesn't say if you give, if you pray or if you fast, Jesus assumes that you will give to the needy, he assumes you will pray to God, he assumes that you will on occasion fast. And he wants you to give and pray and fast with a heart toward God the Father. So that if God is the only one who sees your giving or you're praying or you're fasting, that's enough for you. The Psalmist says, delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Now, that's often misinterpreted by people to say, well, you know, the desire of my heart is a new car. I don't know, pick your favorite BMW Mercedes. Jaguar, Lamborghini, whatever. And you say, that's my desire, that's the desire of my heart. Therefore, I will delight in the Lord so that I can get that, no, that's not what that means. You see, if you delight in the Lord, he is the desire of your heart. If you delight in the Lord, you will get the desire of your heart because the Lord is the desire of your heart. So he wants you to give, pray, and fast with a heart toward him and that that is enough for you. If praise comes along from other than God, that's fine, but that's not what we're supposed to seek. The second thing I want you to notice is our Father in heaven wants to reward us. Three times in this passage it says, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. He's not stingy with his rewards. So the first is to give to the needy and to do so without fanfare, without trumpets. You probably have heard the saying, don't blow your own trumpet. Excuse me, that's probably where it comes from. This idea that you're going to announce yourself. Things that don't go together are giving in pride, or prayer in pride, or fasting in pride. Jesus illustrated this in Luke chapter 18. He told a parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt. Then he says, two men went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. Now why did Jesus choose Pharisee and tax collector for the parable? Because the people to whom he was speaking, Pharisee is supposed to be the epitome of religious righteousness. And the tax collector was loathed by everybody who was a Jew. The Pharisee supposedly knew the scriptures, was close to God, and could be counted on to tell the truth about God and how we should follow him. And the tax collector, he was the one who was, along with the Roman government, taking our money. Tax collectors were particularly loathed because they would have a certain amount of money. They were supposed to collect four of the Roman government. But if they collected extra and kept it for themselves, Rome didn't care. So Jesus has set up this parable with the most righteous in the public view and the least righteous in the public view. And this is what he said. He said, the Pharisee standing by himself prayed thus, God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, pretty bad company, or even like this tax collector. You see, the tax collector's the worst. Then he lists his spiritual resume. I fast twice a week. I give a tithes, tithes of all that I get. So he's giving, he's fasting, and right here he's praying, but he's not doing it with a heart toward God. He's doing it as a, what we call a humble brag. But the tax collector standing far off would not lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast saying, God be merciful to me, a sinner. Jesus then says, I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humble, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. And that's what Jesus is talking about with these three things, giving, prayer, and fasting. He's talking about somebody who is exalting himself spiritually, as opposed to somebody who humbles himself or herself. The Apostle Peter, who was guilty of pride, remember, he told Jesus, when Jesus was about to be arrested, he said, even if all the other people abandon you, I will not, I will die with you. Very bold and prideful thing to say, because when it happened that he was around the fire after Jesus had been arrested, all it took was a slave girl to say, hey, you're with Jesus, aren't you? And three times he said he didn't even know him. But Jesus restored him. So he could write in 1 Peter 5, clothe yourself, all of you, with humility toward one another. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time, he may exalt you. Paul was guilty of spiritual pride. Remember, he said, I'm a Pharisee of Pharisees. As to the lost, spotless, sinless. But he was guilty of pride before coming to Christ. And he says in Colossians 3, 12, put on then, as God chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. So then Jesus moves from giving to prayer with a similar admonition. Don't be like hypocrites who make a big show of their long-winded prayers. It was a different time then, I suppose. If somebody in Jerusalem stood on the street corner and prayed a long time, others would walk by and think, wow, what a righteous man, what a spiritual man, what a religious man. If you stood on the corner of Halifax and did that, you'd probably be ridiculed and you might even be arrested. But it's a different time then. And so people were showing their spirituality, their righteousness publicly. But Jesus also warns not to heap up empty phrases that the Gentiles do, for they think they'll be heard for their many words. What does that mean? That means that praying something over and over and over and over again does not necessarily impress God. Being persistent in prayer, yeah, Jesus tells parables about that as well. But I remember being at a conference, just as shortly after I became a Christian, I was attending university in our Christian student group. Then it was called Campus Crusade for Christ here in Canada, it's called Power to Change. We were all at a Christmas conference in Chicago and we went to this famous pizza place called Geno's East. And there was, oh, I don't know, 30 or 40 of us. And the leader, Mike, was the director of the group. He called on one of the students to pray for the meal, to say grace. Well, this young man's name was John, I won't say his last name. He started praying for the meal. He was five minutes into it, five minutes of saying grace. Finally, Mike said, hey, John, if you haven't prayed all week, don't make up for it now. So we can be guilty of that too, heaping words when we pray. So how should we pray? Go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. Your Father who is in secret will reward you. I was preparing for this sermon, I was thinking about our public life and our private life and our secret life. And who are you when you're alone? And I asked Tracy, I said, what do you think about when you're by yourself? You know, because what I think about is, are the Red Wings doing a good job with their pre-agent signings over the summer? Who's going to win the presidential election in the United States? What's for dinner? Things like that. So I asked Tracy, I said, usually I just pray. I said, man, you really are better than me, aren't you? Now you see, she doesn't do that to get praise, but I'm gonna praise her a little anyway. Then Jesus goes from praying to fasting. And he says, don't be gloomy like the hypocrites, they just figure their faces, that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward, but when you do fast, anoint your head, wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your Father who is in heaven and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. You'll notice, I'm sure, that Jesus repeats the phrase and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. God, our Father desires that our public and our private and our secret lives all match up. Now that doesn't mean you should divulge your private life and secrets to everyone, but they shouldn't be at odds with each other. Ask yourself, what do you think about when you're alone? What comes to mind? Ask, how do I spend my time when I'm alone? I'm not alone. We spend, we live in a time, excuse me, when we are faced with more and greater temptations than 30 or 40 years ago. And that's because of the internet. Now there are a lot of amazing blessings about our access to the internet. We can learn all kinds of things. My father, who passed away at 94 years old, two weeks shy of 95, when he was in his 80s, he took violin lessons from a woman in London. He could do that because of the internet. I've reconnected with some old friends and renewed fellowship with men that I knew from college more than 40 years ago, 45 years ago, almost 50 years ago. And to my delight, some of them have become Christians. Some friends from a long time ago found out that I was a minister, they couldn't believe it. They found out that I was a minister and started listening to our church services. During the pandemic, people were able to stay in touch with their loved ones, view their church worship services, have meetings on Zoom or some other platform. We have children and grandchildren all over the United States. We're able to see them and talk with them because of the internet. Just a couple of days ago, Tracy and I talked with my daughter and her family in Tucson, Arizona. Including our two year old grandson, Julian. See, we tried to talk to him on the phone, but he can't see our faces so it doesn't connect. But when he sees our faces, he recognizes us. And we were just with them in June. So the internet can have all kinds of blessings, a lot of conveniences. But there is a darker and more sinister side that we don't usually talk about in church. But it has become a plague. So bear with me. There are 42 million websites, 42 million, devoted to pornography. 42 million. I remember when we lived in Indianapolis and got a computer and hooked it up, hooked up the internet. And this is before we had any filters, didn't know you needed them. As soon as I pressed the button, there were all kinds of graphic pictures. See, where I grew up in Garden City, Michigan, there was one theater on Telegraph Road where those kind of movies could be seen. Everyone knew it was there because it was a white building with the big letters adult on the side. But to see that kind of movie, you had to drive there, park in the parking lot, get out of your car along a busy road and walk in. You had to take the chance of exposing yourself to the public, to be seen. And every once in a while, there were some church people, usually ladies, that would stand in the parking lot and take pictures as people went in and came out. Now, the cameras may have been empty, but the point was they were there to shame anyone who went in and out. There were natural community barriers that prevented the majority of people from partaking in things like that, from entering in a place like that. But you see, today, those very things are available by pressing a few keys on a laptop computer. There's no risk of being seen by other people who might express disapproval, but certainly you might think this doesn't affect the church. Here's some disturbing statistics. The pornography industry's annual revenue is more than the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, and Major League Baseball combined. It's also more than the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, NBC, and CBC. In some blind surveys, 68% of church-going men admit they regularly view pornography. And for young men, 18 to 24, it's 76%. And you might think, well, that's the man's problem. 87% of Christian women admit to having watched porn. 55% of married men and 25% of married women say they watch it at least once a month. Maybe the worst thing is 11 is the average age of a child first exposed to it. 94% of children will see it by the age of 14. So why am I talking about this? Because it's an insidious secret sin. And if you are partaking in it, you might think, well, it's secret, nobody knows it, nobody's getting hurt. Well, your father who's in secret sees it. That's the danger. People either think God doesn't see it, or they may not think that intellectually, but their behavior, that he doesn't see it, indicates that's what they believe. Now maybe this isn't your sin, but maybe it is. And if it is, Jesus wants you to repent. Jesus wants your heart. He wants your life. He wants your public life, your private life, your secret life. He wants all of you because he gave us all of him. Your father in heaven wants to reward you. He wants your whole heart all the time. One of the Pharisees asked Jesus, "'Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?' He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart "'and with all your soul and with all your mind. "'That is the great and first commandment. "'And the second is like it. "'You shall love your neighbor as yourself. "'On these two commandments "'depend all the law and the prophets.' "'God wants your life for himself, "'your public life, your private life, "'and especially your secret life.' And you might be sitting here thinking, I'm a failure, join the club. All of us fail to some degree. All of us have fallen short. Romans 3.23 says, "'All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.' That's me, that's you, that's everybody since Adam and Eve. "'But we're justified by his grace as a gift "'through the redemption that is in Christ, "'whom God put forward as a propitiation "'by his blood to be received by faith.'" That word propitiation is, a lot of people try to replace it with something else, but nothing does. Propitiation means that the wrath of God has been satisfied on the cross of Christ. The wrath of God has been spent on the cross. Whatever your sins may be, God calls you to turn from them and to embrace Christ. He lived the life you should have lived and died the death you deserve to die so that you may have everlasting life in heaven with God. Prepare your heart to come to the Lord's table. Those who are serving, please come forward. "'On the night in which he was betrayed, "'the Lord Jesus took the bread and he broke it "'and said, this is my body which is given for you.' In the same way, he took the cup also and said, "'This is my blood which has been shed "'for the remission of the sins of many.'" At Bedford Presbyterian Church, we use real wine in our communion. If for some reason you prefer, there's grape juice in the outer circle of each tray.