Giving In Secret

Apr 12, 2026

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:52

We all want to know that we matter. That our lives carry weight. That we count. That we have value. Sometimes that desire just goes a little bit deeper. We don't just want to matter sometimes. Sometimes we want to be seen. We want to be noticed. We want to be honored. We want to be affirmed, recognized, perhaps even praised. If I'm honest with myself, I am probably one of those people. I can trace back throughout the course of my life this yearning, this desire for some sort of recognition. I craved that. I fought for it. As a kid, I remember I would do things in front of my parents that I thought were praiseworthy in order to elicit a response from them. One of the qu classic examples I can think of is my parents had a put up a hoop in the front yard and it was an adjustable hoop, right? Any boys grew up with an adjustable hoop, amazing, right? Because you can lower it and you're like a superstar at that point. So I would lower the hoop and I would practice dunking on a lower height. And every once in a while I'd be doing new dunks, and then if my parents walked outside or maybe they pulled up in the driveway, that was my moment. I would say something like, Hey dad, check this out. Or hey mom, watch a school dunk. And then I would go and I would do it. I would dunk and then I would get down and I would stop and I would turn and I would look at them and then I would wait. I would wait for their response. I would wait for their approval. I would wait for their praise. Now, truthfully, I probably did that a lot longer than I should. Probably was a little older by the time you know that ended. In fact, I probably would keep doing that if I didn't think I'd blow an Achilles, but either way. That was something that I did, and that's a desire that really never goes away. In fact, that desire, I think it just grows up with us. Even today, that impulse, the desire to be seen, that craving to be noticed or affirmed, it still lives in there. I still do many of the same old things. I just do them in new ways now. Let me give you an example. I noticed myself doing this just this last week recently. I'll do something like maybe I'll do the dishes. And I have this tendency when I'm done doing the dishes to tell my wife, hey, did you see I did the dishes? Why do I do that? Why do we feel the need to do things like that? I don't know. It's an impulse, it's a compulsion that many of us have. But you see, this morning, I believe that Jesus has something to say about that desire that lives deep within our hearts. I believe that Jesus has a better approach to life that's that's different from us seeking to get approval or attention or praise from others. In particular, Jesus wants to speak into the way in which we live out our faith, the way in which we practice righteousness. He has something to teach us. And so if you want to see what Jesus has to say about that, I want to invite you to open your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter six this morning. Matthew chapter six, we're in the Gospel of Matthew. If you came here and brought your Bibles, great. Just a heads up, we open our Bible every single Sunday here at Franklin Luth Bible Church. We uh believe that the scripture is the authority that we want to submit to. And so if you brought your Bible, that's awesome. If you didn't, we got you covered. There should be a Bible in front of you. You're welcome to use that. If you don't own a Bible, that Bible in front of you is yours. You're welcome to take it home. And if you're looking for the book of Matthew, it's in the New Testament. That's three-quarters of the way into your Bible, after the Book of Malachi, it's the very first book of the New Testament. If you hit Mark or Luke or John, go backward. Matthew 6. And as you're turning there, I want to introduce myself. I'm Joe. I'm the lead pastor here. Uh thanks so much for joining us. If you're a guest today, we're so glad that you're here. Maybe you visited on Easter Sunday and you decided to check us out. I hope that you just enjoy your time here, and we're we're just really grateful that you're here today. Uh, it's a great Sunday to visit and to join us because today is actually the first message in a short little new series that we're doing here. So you're one for one. You're here so far, you can't miss the series now, you're locked in, and so we're glad that you are here for the series. We call this series Secret Service. And this series is all about the way in which we live out our faith, the way in which we practice righteous behavior with the right motivations. Uh the goal here is all about practicing our righteousness for the sake of God's glory, not trying to bring about our own glory. And so before we jump into this message today, uh, which is in Matthew chapter six, let me just do something that I often do. I want to set the context. Okay, we're in a book. We're in the sixth chapter of this book, right? So this is literature. So let's kind of refresh our memories about where we are in Matthew's gospel. So the Gospel of Matthew is one of the four gospel accounts in the New Testament that tells the story of Jesus. This gospel account tells the birth of Jesus, the life and ministry of Jesus, the death, the burial, the resurrection of Jesus. And so at chapter six, at this point, we've already had the birth account. Jesus then has launched his public ministry. He's called disciples to himself, and now he's at a point where he's beginning to teach his disciples all about what kingdom life is. And so Jesus begins in Matthew chapter five to speak with authority about the standards and expectations of the kingdom. Now, what's cool about Matthew's gospel is it very clearly articulates this in a way that sounds familiar. If you you know anything about the Old Testament, one of the main figures in the Old Testament was Moses, right? In fact, the law is called the law of Moses because he's the one who was leading Israel when it was given. And when Moses gave the law, if you remember the story, he passes through the wilderness, he's in the wilderness, he goes up to Mount Sinai, and then he gives the standards and expectations for people living under the Old Covenant. Well, very similarly in Matthew's gospel, Jesus just traveled through the wilderness and then he climbs up a mountain, and now the true and better Moses is about to give the standards and expectations for people under the new covenant. That's what Jesus is doing. And so we know this is the Sermon on the Mount. It's the most famous block of Jesus' teaching. And so he begins that in chapter five. We're smack dab in the middle in chapter six. And so now that you kind of know the lay of the land, that we're in the Gospel of Matthew, that Jesus has begun his ministry, that now he's teaching with authority the way that followers of Jesus should live. Now that we have that, let's jump in. The first thing we're going to see in our chapter, number one, I'm calling it the principle. Jesus is going to give us a very important principle in this first verse. Notice what he says. He says, Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people, and catch this, in order to be seen by them. For then you will have no reward from your Father who's in heaven. Now, as we dig into this passage, it's important to highlight the fact that this verse, verse one, is really a principle that's aheading over quite a bit of real estate in chapter six. And so what I mean by that is this Jesus is giving a principle here, but then he's going to apply that principle in three different avenues. He's going to talk about our giving, he's going to talk about our prayer, and then he's going to talk about fasting. Those are various spiritual practices. Some people call them the spiritual disciplines. There are many more of them. He gives three examples, though, of how this principle plays out in each of these avenues. Today we're only going to cover giving. Next week we'll talk about prayer, and then the following week, fasting. But Jesus gives this kind of heading in verse one, and it really encompasses all that follows. So, what is the principle? Well, let me get me make it really clear. Jesus is telling us, he's warning us, that there's a wrong way to live out your faith. There's a wrong approach. If we begin, Jesus says, to engage in spiritual activities. And if we begin to engage in those activities with the wrong motivation, namely, if we do spiritual things so that people see us and think we're awesome. In front of other people, Jesus says that we forfeit the reward that our Father has for us in heaven. That's the basic principle. So Jesus talks all about practicing our righteousness here. And notice he tells us to do this in secret. That's the whole idea. That's why we call it secret service. It's about the way in which we practice our righteousness. That's the really the series in a nutshell. Now, before we move on from here, I need to kind of tell you what Jesus isn't saying. Because we could read this principle in verse one, and then we could conclude things that aren't fully true. So, for example, uh, one of the things I need to state right out of the gate is Jesus is not saying here that we should never do any spiritual activity in front of people. He's not saying that. If that were the case, then I wouldn't be allowed to pray up here on the platform, right? I would need to go like creep behind the piano, maybe, and quietly pray, or I would need to do it when you guys don't see, which is weird. He's not prohibiting that. No, that's not the case. In fact, if you look a chapter earlier in Matthew chapter five, there's a section there where Jesus begins to talk about doing good spiritual things before other people, in front of other people. So you can look there if you want, or I can just kind of quote it here. But Jesus says, You are the light of the world in chapter five. You are the light of the world. Talking to believers, you're the light of the world. He says, A city on a hill cannot be hidden, neither do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but they put it on a lampstand and it gives light to everyone in the house. Jesus says, in the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds. Then you notice that Jesus is saying there, let your light shine. Let other people see your good deeds. He says that in chapter five. So is he now contradicting himself in chapter six? Is he speaking out of both sides of his mouth? No. Let's listen to what Jesus actually says. Let's listen to the full scope of what he says. I actually didn't end that quote from chapter five accurately because I didn't give you the last part. What Jesus says in chapter five is in the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify who? Your Father who's in heaven. That's the key. That's the thing we need to grasp here. If we are practicing our righteousness for the right reasons, if our motivations are pure and we're engaging in these spiritual activities with the right heart, and there's other people who see us do this, then the natural result should be the glory of God. If people see you give and you're really generous, but your heart is in the right place, your motivation is in the right place, they really should be saying, Man, praise God, look at what God is doing in that person's life. You should always be pointing the glory to the Father. That's the idea. That should be the motivation. That's the end result. Because the truth is, if you really think about it, if I'm to be a light to the world, where does that light come from? Did I generate the light myself because I'm such a great person? No. No, the light that I shine before others is a direct result of the fact that God has shown into my heart the light of the knowledge of the glory of Christ. God's light has shined into my life. I'm now reflecting it to the world around me. I don't generate my own light. In the same fashion, anything good I do, it's not because I'm an amazing person. It's because of the grace of God working in and through me. And so this is what we see here in chapter six. It's not about visibility, it's not about people seeing you do things, it's all about your motivations. It's not about whether or not people see you practicing your righteousness, it's about why you want them to see you practice your righteousness. Because the truth is this you can do all the right things for all the wrong reasons. Let me say that again. You can do all the right things for all the wrong reasons. And Jesus wants us to understand this. This is why he begins with this principle. What's the principle? Beware of practicing your righteousness in order to be seen by others. That's the warning, because if we do this, we will forfeit our heavenly reward. So now that Jesus is given the principle in verse one, let's see him apply this to generosity, to giving. So now that we've seen the principle, let's move number two into what I'm calling the performance. You see, Jesus is going to begin by talking about what happens when we violate his warning, and he's going to talk about the performance of our generosity. So notice what he says in verse two. 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. Notice what Jesus is now saying. He begins by saying thus. I'm going to pause here with this one word. This word thus is a conjunction. And the idea here is what's about to be said is the result of something, right? It's the result of what was just said. The point here is this. Now I'm going to stop again. We're only four words into this verse, but let's pause. Can I no, I just show you something here. Jesus doesn't say thus, if you give. He doesn't say if you give, he says when you give. Why? Well, because he's talking to his disciples. He's talking to his followers. Jesus assumes that his followers are people who give. That's part of our discipleship. If you're walking with Jesus, part of that journey of walking with Jesus includes the way that you worship with your resources. By nature, Christians are called to be generous. We are to be generous people. Why? Because we belong to a generous God. We saw that in our Ecclesiastes series, didn't we? There were seven times in the book of Ecclesiastes where we were reminded that everything that we have is a gift. That life itself is a gift from God. So the money in your bank account, that's a gift from God. Yeah, you worked for it, but ultimately it comes from the Lord. The food that you eat, that's a gift. The home that you live in, that's a gift. The clothes on your back, that's a gift. The car you drive, that's a gift. The breath that's in your lungs today, that is a gift. Came from the hand of our Creator, who's benevolent. We have a generous God who gives us everything that we have. In fact, the greatest expression of the generosity of God is seen in the gospel. I want to pause for a second here because I realize it's the week after Easter. We may have guests with us. I use words like the gospel, and you might be like, I have no clue what that word means. The word gospel simply means good news. Scripture talks about the good news of Jesus all the time. The good news is who Jesus is and what he's done. And in the book of Romans, at the beginning of Romans, Paul says that this good news, this gospel, is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. So the point here is when we talk about the gospel, and we talk about the good news, we're talking about who Jesus is and what he's done. When we embrace that reality for our life, and we say, no, I believe that Jesus is God's Son. I believe who he is and what he's done. When we embrace that and believe that, God gives us this gift of salvation. That's good news. Now, if I can, I want to just explain the good news in my own life, but I want to do this using financial terms if I can. So when I was spiritually bankrupt, when I had a debt that it could not pay, God gave his one and only son, and his one and only son gave his life to pay my debt. My sin, which is a negative on my ledger, on my account, negative balance, my sin was given to Jesus, and his righteousness, which is a positive, it was given to me. It was imputed to me. Not because I earned it, not because I deserved it, not because God looked at me and said, Joe's such a great guy, I want to give him the righteousness of my son. No, it was given to me undeservedly because of grace. Unmerited favor was poured out upon me because God is gracious and because God is generous. This is the good news. This is the gospel. I have been redeemed, I have been rescued by God because the payment for me was the blood of Jesus. That's incredible to think about. And now by his grace, I'm called now to reflect that same kind of generosity that God has shown me to a dark world around me. And if you're a follower of Jesus, you're called to do the same thing. It's part of the Christian life. Generosity is assumed by Jesus. It's not if you give, it's when. Because we're Christians. We're called to image our creator and redeemer, and we're called to be people who live open-handedly. So Jesus begins by saying, Thus, when you give to the needy, and then notice what he says next. He's applying this principle when we violate it in a negative sense. He says, 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. Notice here how Jesus is using over-the-top imagery here to describe somebody who's practicing their righteousness in such a way where they're doing great things, they're going to great lengths to draw attention to self in order to be seen. Specifically, he talks about the goal here is to be praised by others. This word praised actually literally means self-glory. It's somebody who's looking for the glory to be given to self. And how do they do this? Well, notice what he says. So when you go to the synagogues, the synagogues were a place of worship for the Jewish community in the first century. They would gather, it was a very public place, they would worship there. Part of their worship included giving gifts and offerings to those who were poor. They would take collections up in the synagogue, and it was public. People could see it. And notice how he also references the streets. You could also be generous in the streets in the first century because there were people who were poor everywhere. They would beg for food or for money. And so this is somebody who's in very public places, the synagogue and the streets. And notice what they do as they give. Jesus talks about somebody sounding a trumpet. Now, this is like over the top. I'm somebody who I really appreciate music. Music has been a passion of mine. It's been something that I've enjoyed most of my life. I play guitar, I play a little drums, I plunk around on the keys. I'm not very good. I can, you know, have a few chords there, but I enjoy music. However, the first instrument I ever learned to play was the trumpet. It was a sixth grade band. My brother had played the trumpet, so I decided to play the trumpet as well. And I remember that I did all right at first. I think I made it to third chair at one point. So band was pretty cool. It was it was all right. But then there was a problem. Pretty early on in my experience when I was playing the trumpet, I began to realize there was a correlation between me playing the trumpet and me having a headache every day. And it probably had to do with yes, I'm exerting lots of air, but also what does a trumpet do? It makes what kinds of sounds? Loud sounds. Loud and often annoying, especially if you're learning to play the trumpet. Um, I actually brought my sixth grade trumpet. You guys want to take it out? There you go. Thanks, Jordan. That was Jordan. I know. He's my hype man. All right. So sixth grade trumpet. Have not played it much since sixth grade, but I want to show you the illustration that Jesus is using here.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Oh, look at that. Valve stuck. Not been taken care of this. It's okay. All right. Ready?

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Don't clap. No, I'm preaching against that. Don't clap for this. This is not praiseworthy. All right? That was awful. We don't need to clap for that. My point in this is if you were sleeping just now and you weren't paying attention, you were dozing off because it's warm in here and the seats are comfy, right? And I have a soothing voice. Um, if you were dozing off and then you just heard that trumpet, you are now alert and awake. I have got your attention because I blew a trumpet. This is the point. This crazy image here is somebody who's going to public places and they're doing something that should be benevolent from a heart that loves people and loves God. And while they're giving, they're blowing a trumpet. According to Jesus, what they're doing is not actually. Actually practicing generosity, right? This is a facade. He says, You know who does that? The hypocrites do that. The hypocrites are the ones who do that. Now, the word hypocrites, you may know this, we've talked about this before. This is actually a term that is derived from a Greek theater term. So in the ancient world, at the Greek theater, there were these characters, people who had different masks. They would put them on the same person, would play various characters in a play, they would just switch the masks. Those were hypocrites. And so the idea here, the image we're meant to glean from this, is that these are people who look one way outwardly, but inwardly they're somebody totally different. They're not consistent. And to that end, what Jesus is describing, therefore, is somebody who wants to look as though they are so holy, so spiritual, so generous. Oh, look at that person, man. He can't believe he gave that to those people in need. He's talking about people who look that way outwardly, but deep down all they care about is themselves. It's their own praise that they're pursuing. They're not generous, right? They're hypocrites. This is a performance, is what it is. And so Jesus goes on to say, truly, truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. In other words, if you give to be noticed by other people, and other people notice you and praise you, congratulations. You've received what you were after, and you get nothing more. Your giving amounts to nothing more. That's what Jesus says. Doesn't yield any heavenly reward. And I want to remind you that in the New Testament, the rewards of heaven, that's a common thing we see. The Bible talks about heavenly rewards. The Bible also talks about treasures in heaven. In fact, you're in the chapter where Jesus talks about that most explicitly. Go down to verse 19, and you'll see Jesus talks about storing up treasures in heaven there. So there are rewards and there are treasures in heaven. The point here is this: the way you live in this world today reaps heavenly dividends in the age to come, in the future. Now, there's debate on what those rewards will look like and what they encompass. That's a larger conversation for another day. But we know that God gives rewards, and we know that there are treasures. That's explicitly clear, but I want you to know that the greatest reward from my vantage point is God Himself. That's what's so cool about heaven. If you want to know what the best part about heaven is, it's that God Himself is there. He offers us Himself. We get to be with Him, be His people, dwell with Him face to face for all eternity. God is there. But the point here is Jesus is saying, hey, there's two kinds of rewards I want to put on the table. We can have the applause of people, or we can have the reward of our Father. The one is immediate, visible, and fleeting, the other is eternal, unseen, and infinitely greater. So the choice is ours. We need to consider that in the way that we give. So now that we've seen, number one, this principle. What's the principle? Beware of practicing your righteousness in order to be seen by people, because when you do that, you forfeit your reward. That's the principle. Number two, now that we've seen what happens when we give in such a way he applies this to giving that we draw attention to ourselves, it's just a performance, and the applause that we get from people is all we get. Now that we've seen that, thirdly, now Jesus wants to talk about the way we should give, the posture. How should the heart be when we give? What's the best approach? Well, notice what he says in verses three and four. 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. Notice here how Jesus advocates for a different approach toward giving. The kind of giving that's most fruitful, the kind of giving that most honors and pleases the Lord is not the kind of giving that seeks to draw attention to self. No, instead, Jesus tells us, give quietly. Give in secret. And notice how he describes this with vivid imagery. He says, Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. So the way in which we give looks like this. The left hand is giving, the right hand doesn't know what's going on. Now that's vivid. It's helpful for us to think through that, but how exactly do we follow this? Well, let me remind you again the point here is not so much about methodology, the point here is about motivation. What's your motivation? As I said earlier, there are times where you do things that are spiritual disciplines in front of people. That's okay. Things like prayer and giving, and there are times where people see these things because we're called to be salt and light to a dark and dying world. But in those circumstances, the goal should never be about glorifying self. It's always about pointing to the Lord and glorifying him. That's the idea here. And so that's what Jesus is unearthing. It's the motivations. If you want to be praised, that's a problem. Now, as I begin to kind of wrap up some of where we're going with this, I want to kind of draw some conclusions. As I think about this passage, I want to suggest something to you this morning. I actually don't think it's possible to give with the goal of drawing glory to self. I actually don't think that's a possible thing. I think it's an oxymoron. Think about this for a moment. If I give in such a way, let's say I'm super generous, in order to be seen by people, that's the motivation of my heart. And people see me and they go, Man, Joe, you're such a generous guy. Look at that. I can't believe how much you love those people and love the poor. If that begins to happen, if that's the goal behind my giving, I'm not actually offering a gift. I'm not releasing something. What I'm doing is I'm securing something for myself. I'm making a purchase, aren't I? Think about that for a moment. I'm buying my own praise. That's not biblical generosity, that's a transaction. That's me simply buying praise so that people think I'm amazing. And if I'm honest, if that's my approach, if I'm not giving out of the abundance of my love for God and my love for neighbor, then I'm really using that other person who's in need, who I'm offering benevolence to. I'm using that person as a tool to meet my own selfish needs. I'm manipulating that person, and I'm manipulating the gifts of God. Beloved, listen, this is something we need to pay attention to. This is something we need to see, all of us. I began the message by talking about this warning for myself. I'll be honest with you. This series is for me. I need to hear this. I know my proclivity. I know my sin nature. I know the things I struggle with. I have this natural desire at times, like I said, to be seen, to be noticed, to be praised. That's a craving that lives deep within my heart. Maybe it lives deep within your heart too. What drives that? What is it within us that makes us want to do that? I would suggest to you that it's insecurity. Deep down we look at ourselves and we kind of feel insufficient, we feel not secure about certain things. And so what we do is we we begin to make these transactions. We try to do things so other people see us, so that way we can manipulate the whole situation, so that way other people begin to give us praise and it validates us and makes us feel good about ourselves. That's what motivates it. We yearn for these things, we long for them, we crave for them. And in order to secure these things for ourselves, we manipulate the gifts that God has given, we leverage them to get from other people what I believe that God has already given to us in Christ. You know, I mentioned in the beginning of the message that I used to go in the front yard and try to dunk. And I would try to get my dad's attention, and I would say, hey dad, check this out. You want to know the truth? I have a father in heaven who's always watching me. He sees me, he knows me, he loves me. I have a father in heaven who's always there. He looks at me, he's pleased with me. My father in heaven, he delights in me, not because of something inherent to me, but because of what's been given to me. He sees the righteousness of his own son and he fully accepts me. The righteousness of Jesus has been applied to me, and now my father can look on me with favor, with pleasure, because of what Christ has done. I don't need validation from other people. I'm fully validated by God, my Father, who sees me, who watches me, who knows me, who loves me. This is the truth. And when I begin to live out my faith with the full knowledge of who my father says I am, knowing his full approval of me, when I begin then to live out my faith to glorify him, to praise him out of my love for him and out of my love for other people, when I begin to do that, then the Father sees me. He sees what nobody else sees, and he promises that he will reward me. See, the big idea that we see in this passage is something that's so important, and it's this what God sees matters most. There are some of you in the room who are just like me. Who crave, who long for that validation, for that affirmation, for that praise. You're yearning for that because you're hoping other people will give it to you. You need to tell yourself, just like I do, what God sees matters most. Your father sees in secret what you do. That's enough. It's enough for you, it's enough for me. It's not what gets noticed by others, what gets praised by others, what gets recognized by others. It's what the Father sees. What he sees matters most. So stop giving in order to secure for yourself, in order to purchase the praise of man. You don't need that. Your father sees you, he knows you, he loves you. Give in secret. This is what Jesus tells us. Give in secret. And your father who sees you, your father who delights in you because of his son Jesus. The one who sees you, he is the one when nobody else is watching who sees and he will be the one to give you the heavenly reward. So let's live for his glory. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for this message. Thank you for today. Thank you for the opportunity we have to lean into this truth. There are a lot of us who are like me who live with these insecurities. We look around, we compare ourselves with others, we seek to posture ourselves in such a way where we look good in front of other people. Lord, that's just that's foolishness. We don't have to do that. We stand before you, accepted, loved. You have lavished us with unmerited favor. And so, Lord, I pray that we would live with this sense of security in who we are, who you say that we are. And that as a result of that, Lord, the way in which we live out our righteousness, it wouldn't be for the applause of people around us. It would be for you and your glory. Help us, Lord, with this. Help us to be people who are generous. You've called us to be generous. The things that we have, we don't get to take them with us. Everything we have is alone. It's here for a short while and then it's gone. Help us to be good stewards of the resources you've given while we have them. We don't need to cling to the things that are we believe are ours. It's all from you, anyways. But we can loosen our grip and we can live generously for you and for the sake of those in need. So, Lord, help us with this. We ask that you would apply this truth to our life through the power of your spirit. We thank you for your word. We know it is true. We thank you for the words of Jesus. We know he is true. May we live for him, for your glory. We ask and pray in Jesus' name.

unknown 34:32

Amen.