On September 28, 1882 the Worcester Ruby Legs from Massachusetts played the Troy Trojans from New York in a professional baseball game. This is a famous game… but for not for reasons you might suspect… this game has gone down in the history books because it set a record for the lowest number of fans in the stands. The Trojans beat the Ruby Legs that day, 4-1… with a whopping six people in the stands watching.
And that record [for the lowest attended game] stood for almost 125 years… it was broken fairly recently… on April 29th, 2015… the Baltimore Orioles played against the Chicago White Sox… and the stands were completely empty. ZERO FANS. The powers that be in the MLB mandated this bizarre development because the city of Baltimore was in the wake of protests and outbursts of violence at the time.
One article wrote this about the game: “Chris Davis might have hit the quietest home run for the home team in Orioles history. As the slugger pounded the ball deep onto Eutaw Street, just a few feet from where fans normally would have sprinted after a chance to catch a souvenir, there was almost nothing to hear. The only muffled cheers came from a pocket of die-hards locked out of Camden Yards yelling “Let’s Go O’s!”
A stadium that tends to seat 30,000 Orioles fans was muted. The wild applause had been silenced. No fans to stand and cheer and high five. Davis’ teammates in the dugout were the only ones coming over to celebrate the home run… Davis said, “When you’re rounding the bases, and the only cheers you hear were from outside the stadium… it’s a weird feeling.”
With most things in life, we operate on a performance-driven scale… so it’s easy to treat our walks with Jesus in the same way… but Jesus calls us to operate from a different value system… to reach into the intentions of the heart… and choose which audience you want. With no live audience… no cheering fans… and no applause… I can’t help but wonder how much the audience might affect your performance… I wonder how much the cheering crowd motivates you to do a good job?
I was part of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes growing up at my high school… and they had a line that grew popular among our group… Ao1… it stands for Audience of One… meaning that no matter who is in the stands, or who is in your corner, or who is rooting for you or against you, or who is rallying around you… you’re ultimately playing for One… and I know the challenge to actually live this out is a tough one… because we love the affirmations of man… we love the feeling of having our backs patted and egos stroked. We love the praise of others and that can get in the way of pure motives in matters of spiritual growth. Our text this morning (Matt. 6:1-18) is a challenge for us to check those motives. 
Jesus starts his teaching on motives with one overarching warning in the very first verse.
Matthew 6:1, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.”
And in the next 17 verses, we will see how he applies this to three different scenarios. But before we go further in today’s text, let’s back up just a little to get the context and understand the continuity of this text with the one right before.
In Chapter 5, we saw Jesus raise the bar on morality six times. He did it by using the phrase, “You have heard that it was said …” soon to be followed by “But, I say.” In each, Jesus called us to a higher standard … in areas like anger management, lust, marriage, revenge. He knew he was dealing with an audience that liked to check the boxes, so he taught them that being righteous – living as God designed us to live — requires more than that. It requires not only following the letter of the law – but developing a heart bent on the kind of purity, commitment, and love that forms the foundation of God’s law. In fact, Jesus was SO intent on calling them to a pure heart that he summed up by saying,
“Be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.” (5:48). Jesus understood that his followers needed more than law-keeping. They needed hearts like the Father.
And now in chapter 6, Jesus addresses the condition of the heart once more but instead of applying it to morality, Jesus applies it to spirituality… to the disciplines… to religious duties… specifically: giving, prayer, and fasting. With each of these three, Jesus will say once more, “check your motives.” In this, too, we are called to be perfect.
Here’s why this is tough… because living a moral life and being devoted to spiritual disciplines is good… and yet in doing each of them, we can miss the point entirely. Human beings are experts at missing the point. We can have outstanding public morality… and we can be the most devout at religious ritual… and at the same time have hellish motives. So Jesus warns us, “check your motives.” The Sermon on the Mount continues its call to live a distinctly different lifestyle… to model garden-like living, different from religious hypocrites and different from pagans.
Carson says this, “The demand for genuine perfection loses itself in the lesser goal of external piety; the goal of pleasing the Father is traded for its pygmy cousin, the goal of pleasing men. It almost seems as if the greater the demand for holiness, the greater the opportunity for hypocrisy. This is why I suspect that the danger is potentially most serious among religious leaders… Be perfect (5:48), but be careful (6:1).” Let’s see the Jesus way…
Matthew 6:1, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.”
This first verse sets the stage for the theme of this whole section… caution with discipline. Secrecy in piety. Purity in spirituality. And I know what you’re thinking… “wait a minute… back in Matthew 5:16, Christians were commanded to let their lights shine! What’s up with that? Do we let our lights shine? Or do we practice our spiritual disciplines in private?”
Matthew 5:16 says to go public… but Matthew 6:1 says to keep it private? What’s going on here? The confusion here is like splitting hairs… and as you could have guessed… it comes back to the heart… when we are tempted to hide our Christian commitments, usually in the face of public opposition, we must remember the words of Matthew 5:16… let it
When we are tempted to promote ourselves through religious activity, usually in corporate church settings… we must remember the words of Matthew 6:1… Jesus is dealing with the attitudes that motivate certain behaviors, and calling His followers to do the right things for the right reasons. From here, He dives into 3 examples of what this looks like…
Giving: Outward in Love Matthew 6:2-4
“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. 3 But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.”
Jesus doesn’t use the word “pious” here, but that seems to be the topic of conversation. When was the last time you heard the word ‘pious’ used in a positive context? It could mean “showing reverence for deity and devotion in divine worship” BUT… we usually use it to mean “marked by conspicuous religiosity – a hypocrite.”
Authentic piety is outward in love – it’s less about the act and more about the motive. Giving and serving and offering all you have is first about your heart, not what you actually give. When the underlying attitude is right, the expression will be right as well regardless of the circumstances.
Warren Wiersbe puts it this way: “The great sin of the Pharisees was hypocrisy (play-acting) based on pride. Their religion was external, not internal; it was to impress people, not to please God. They bound people with heavy burdens, while Christ came to set people free. They loved titles and public recognition and exalted themselves at the expense of others.”
And they did this in their gifts to the poor… The Jews didn’t have anything like social security, or a government welfare system… so voluntary “almsgiving” was critical for the survival of the poor and disabled. It was up to God’s people to care for the least of these. Still is, regardless of the government’s programs.
But the Pharisees, in obeying the expectation to tend to the needs of the poor, would give… but as you might expect… money was given NOT to help the poor, and probably NOT to glorify God either… but to draw attention to one’s own personal piety… a display of generosity, that is actually far from the heart of generosity.
We don’t know if the “sound a trumpet before you” is a literal or figurative line… like if someone actually blew their own horn to pull everyone’s attention on themself before making their gift… or if it’s a figurative expression. Mark Moore conjectures that it refers to the noise and clang of throwing money into various collection receptacles… John Stott conjectures that maybe the trumpets were blown to call the poor in to receive their dole… like a mom clanging the dinner bell at supper time, the hypocrites would call in the poor.
I don’t know… either way… Jesus makes the same point… He is speaking against hypocrisy. This is a word that describes Greek actors who concealed their true identity with a mask. When you go to a theater you expect the mask… no one is really fooled by it… but when you go to church, it is not supposed to be a game or an act… so we can be more easily fooled by the façade because we don’t expect it here. Jesus is not speaking against financial accountability or keeping track of your benevolence funds for budgeting. Maybe closer to Jesus’ words would be like the idea of hanging up plaques with the heaviest hitting donors’ names on them or published lists of benefactors to Christian organizations…
Giving is a real activity that involves real people in real need. Its purpose is to alleviate the distress of the needy. And this is how perverse we can be… we can turn an act of mercy into an act of vanity… we can shift our motive away from benefitting the person getting the gift, to our own benefit who give it…
What does Jesus say? You get to choose your reward! We can either receive praise from men, which the Pharisees loved… or a reward from God. Now… God’s reward is not necessarily future (like heaven, crowns, or mansions)… it may be a blessing like answered prayer, the satisfaction of seeing the needs of the poor met, overcoming temptation, developing Christlike character… etc… Whatever God’s reward turns out to be, you can be sure that it is better than man’s fickle praise. And of course, we all nod and affirm… the choice is easy! It’s obvious because the immediate gratification of human recognition is fleeting… yet we know in our heart of hearts that sometimes it’s lures can get the best of us.
Jesus calls us to a higher standard… our Christian giving is not to be done before other people (waiting for the clapping to begin), and not even for ourselves (our left hand applauding our right hand’s generosity). But it is done “before God,” who sees our secret heart. Let’s continue with our text..
Prayer – Matthew 6:5-8 – Upward in Prayer
“When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 6 But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you, 7 “And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. 8 So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.”
We should pray… but we should NOT pray like Pharisees… who pray for public recognition… We should pray… but we should NOT pray like the pagans, with “vain repetitions.”
Jesus is NOT against public prayer.
- He is against prayer that is not genuinely offered to God… prayer that puffs up…. Or prayer that garners the kudos from the audience.
Jesus is NOT against repetition in prayer.
- He tells us to be persistent in prayer… Mt 7:7-8; Lk 11:5-13; 18:1-8. In this very sermon… He tells us to ask, seek, and knock…
What is He against then?
Jesus is against is “vain repetitions”… the word “babble” is an onomatopoeia in the Greek… [batta]… like the teacher in Charlie Brown going “Wah, wah, wah…” … this is the Greek equivalent of that blah, blah, blah talk… It seems to be talking about memorizing prayers, then reciting them without thinking about you’re saying… or multiplying words… not for the sake of communicating anything thoughtful, but for lengthening the prayer in an attempt to gain God’s attention.
It was dynamic speech… flowery rhetoric… nonsense syllables… all could be commonly found in pagan magic practices… and Jesus’ response to these lofty words and lengthy prayers… these don’t impress God.
Jesus gives two warnings that are common in prayer…
- We are not to pray to attract attention from a human audience… AND…
- We are not to pray in an attempt to manipulate God into giving us what we want…
This is the difference between hypocrisy and reality. The hypocrites… they love to pray… but it is not prayer that they love… and it’s not the God they are supposed to be praying to that they love… no… they love themselves and the opportunity that public prayer gives them to parade themselves around. Behind their piety lurked pride. What they really wanted was applause. And they got it. Jesus says, “they have received their reward in full.”
But Jesus gives us a contrast from the batta… the babble… pray then, in this way… And I’d like to go through this model prayer in detail, but to do it well would require another sermon… so I’ll give you the SparkNotes, or Reader’s Digest version.
Matthew 6:9b-14, “‘Our Father, who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.”
- Jesus approaches the Father in prayer with a deep intimacy and a deep reverence. He is close and personal… and He is infinitely bigger than we could ever imagine.
10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.
- We pray that God’s reign and purposes and plans be realized as completely on earth as they are in His throne room.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
- Hard for us to ask for God’s daily provision when we have freezers full of food at home… but a prayer of deep trust and dependence on God’s provision… and His immediate, day-to-day, provision.
12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
- We are forgiven in the same way and to the same extent that we forgive others. How can we expect forgiveness from God and yet be unwilling to forgive those who do us harm?
13 And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’
- Its not that we pray, “don’t’ let me be tempted,” but, “don’t abandon me in temptation so that it overwhelms me.”
14 For if you forgive other people for their offenses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive other people, then your Father will not forgive your offenses.” It sure seems like forgiveness is on Jesus’ heart… it should be on ours too.
There is a little irony in this, right? Because we can even take the model that Jesus offers us, and turn it into a legalistic rule to follow… It’s intended to be a model, not a legalistic standard to qualify what counts as prayer and what falls short. It is supposed to help you to pray… not become another thing to check off your box of spiritual maturity.
And I wish that kind of religious pharisaism was a relic of the past… we church goers often hear the accusations that church people are full of hypocrisy… and its certainly possible that that accusation is true at times…
- We can go to church for the same wrongheaded reasons that took the Pharisees to the synagogue… not to worship God, but to gain for ourselves a reputation of being super spiritual.
- We can do the same thing with our private devotions… we can turn Scripture reading and prayer into opportunities to puff up and show off. Like peacocks displaying our fans.
What stands out is the perversity of all hypocrisy. Going to God in prayer but keeping an ulterior motive destroys the beauty of the act. It degrades the service of God and others into a mean kind of self-service… religion and charity become an exhibitionist display… we can pretend to be praising God, when in reality we are more concerned about whether or not others are watching and will praise our good deeds…
How then, should we pray? GO INTO YOUR ROOM AND CLOSE THE DOOR.
Not just to minimize distractions, but to shut out the prying eyes of others! And to shut ourselves in with God! In this kind of prayer… the Father is waiting to welcome us.
Keep your eyes on Jesus! He is the One who sees beyond outward appearances and looks at the heart… He sees beyond merely who is praying, and what is being prayed, but He sees the why… He sees the motive behind the prayers.
He is the Creator, God the Lord, God the Judge, God our Heavenly Father through Jesus Christ our Savior. We pray because we desire to meet Him in the secret place in order to bow down before Him in humble worship, love, and trust.
In prayer, He affirms our sonship, He grants us the assurance of His fatherhood and love. He lifts the light of His face upon us and gives us peace. He refreshes our soul, satisfies our hunger, quenches our thirst. We know we are no longer orphans for the Father adopted us; no longer prodigals for we have been forgiven; no longer alienated for we have come home.
Jesus’ heart is to purify our motives in praying. We are to give out of a genuine love for people… and we are to pray out of a genuine love for God. And finally…
FASTING – Matthew 6:16-18 – Inward in Self-Denial
“Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 17 But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face 18 so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.”
I wonder if this is a passage that anyone has highlighted or underlined in their Bibles? Here is a passage of Scripture that is probably ignored quite a bit… we probably live our Christian lives as if these verses have been torn out of our Bibles. We like to stress daily prayer and we love to share stories of sacrificial giving… but I don’t know how many of us delight in fasting. Fasting is self-denial and self-discipline, usually abstaining from food partially or totally, for shorter or longer periods of time. It is to humble ourselves before God.
It can be done with a spirit of repentance, to humble ourselves before God, to express dependence on God… we can fast for a special occasion or a decision, to seek spiritual direction or blessing… we can fast for protection, special prayer, and maybe just to remind the body that it is not in control. 
We have to continually beat back the tendency toward spiritual pride. Disciplines like fasting are beneficial for that spiritual formation. To set aside something you love, something necessary like food, for a time can either be a means for showing off or a means for saying to God, “You are more important to me than food. You are greater than my earthly appetites. You provide me with more satisfaction than anything else!”
This is more of the same… as with giving and prayer… when we fast, we must not show off our piety… otherwise, the praise of men is the only reward we will get. But if we practice our piety before God alone, He will see and reward us.
The hypocrites would draw attention to themselves… look somber and disfigure their faces. It’s like they may have neglected personal hygiene, or covered their heads with sackcloth, or smeared their faces with ashes in order to look pale, melancholy… and super holy. All so that their fasting might be seen and known by everybody. The admiration of the onlooker would be all the reward they would get.
So, when we fast, we are to comb our hair and wash our face as we always do, and go about business as usual. Spruce yourself up! Make it so that no one would suspect you were fasting!
This does not mean that no one will ever know we are fasting… it would be hard to hide that fact from a spouse… but we don’t go around declaring it from the rooftops. This isn’t to advertise ourselves but to discipline ourselves… not to gain a reputation for ourselves… but to express our humility before God and our concern for others in need.
To conclude… What do we do now? We choose.
Once more, you can either impress people or God. Take your pick. The way of the Pharisee is showy, motivated by vanity and pride. The Jesus way is secret, motivated by humility and rewarded by God. The way of the Pharisee is perverse, destructive, and divisive. The Jesus way prays to seek God, gives to serve others, fasts to discipline oneself. The way of the Pharisee destroys the integrity of these disciplines by turning them into displays of self. It’s a theater performance. Their religion is a public spectacle. The Jesus way is aware they are being watched, but for them the audience that matters is God.
The way of the Pharisee can bluff a human audience. We can be tricked by human performance. We can fool others into thinking our giving, our praying, our fasting are genuine, but we are only acting. But God is not mocked and He cannot be deceived! God looks at the heart…. That is why to do anything in order to be seen by other people is bound to degrade it… but the Jesus way is to be seen by God and gives it dignity.
The way of the Pharisee is “before other people in order to be seen and praised by them” – the hypocrite has no concern for anyone other than themselves. The Jesus way seeks to live the words of John he Baptist in John 3:30, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” … we seek to be so conscious of God that we die to ourselves.
And it’s not like God some ‘celestial’ policeman snooping around in order to find us out and catch us… but as our loving heavenly Father, who is ever looking for opportunities to bless us. The whole of this discussion can be summed up in this question: who’s your primary audience? Which spectator matters to us more? Earthly or heavenly? People or God?
To prefer human spectators is to sacrifice your Christian integrity. So, we must choose God as our audience. God hates hypocrisy by He loves reality. We believe that the real God sent His real Son to die a real cross for the real you because he love you SO much. He is the One who’s opinion of you matters. That is the measure of a true kingdom citizen. Public performance is easier than private devotion. But to care more about impressing people than about connecting with God is just one more adventure in missing the point.
We’re not in front of an empty baseball stadium… we find ourselves in front of family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, critics, church goers… people for us and people against us… and in both cases, we choose the Audience of One…