Giving Without Hypocrisy
Matthew 6:1-4
Let's pray together. Lord, how we're convicted in our hearts when we hear You say "forgive them just as I have forgiven you." We are so prone to carry our grudges and bear our hurts until we can hurt back. Lord, help us to not be justice hearers of the word, but doers. Not just those who name the name of Christ, but those who live up to that name, those who obey the standard. Lord, we've had so much to fill our hearts already this morning wit the beauty of music of prayer. Thoughts about ministries and people. Our hearts, Lord, should be well prepared for what it is You have to say to us Your word. And so Father we ask Your special grace, grace of understanding, the grace of a willing and obedient heart that we might hear and apply what the Spirit says. Give grace to the speaker, the one who preaches that he may be the voice from on high. We pray in Christ's name and all for His glory, Amen.
Take your Bible, if you will, and look with me at Matthew Chapter 6, Matthew Chapter 6. It's with a great amount of joy that we have involved ourselves in a continuing study of Matthew's gospel. Finding ourselves again this morning at the beginning of the 6th Chapter, a marvelous, exciting, and thrilling portion of scripture. One literally replete with spiritual truth. One setting a standard that is so high that none of us can attain it, and yet all of us must and are able to in the confident assurance of the present power of Jesus Christ.
What the flesh cannot do, God's spirit in us can do. And so what we offer you today as we again look at the scripture and one particular emphasis that our Lord makes is not some human approach. Not some resolution. Not some grit your teeth and try to do it, but what we offer to you is a divine standard that in terms of human ability is unattainable. But by virtue of faith in Jesus Christ in the indwelling life of Christ in His blessed Holy Spirit becomes within the grasp of every believer.
Jesus came into the world and particularly in Matthew 5, 6, and 7, He set a standard that was unheard of to the people of His day. They had a religion, they thought it was biblical. It was at least sophisticated and certainly complex, but it was substandard. It didn't make it. Their theology was inadequate. That was clear from Chapter 5. Their attitude toward mundane things is an inadequate. That's clear from Chapter 6, verses 19 and following. And their attitude toward their religious activity was inadequate. That's clear from Chapter 6, verses 1-18 and that's where we are.
Jesus comes to the Pharisees and the scribes and those who adhere to the system of traditional religion passed down by the rabbis and says in effect, "you have emasculated the divine standard. You have torn it down and you have reconstituted a standard you can keep that is nothing but human. And so I am not come to destroy the law and the prophets. I am come to reaffirm them. I am not come to aside one thing of God's law. I am come to reassert it. I am come to re-establish that which has always been established in God's mind." And so we saw in Chapter 5 that he said your theology is inadequate. You've got the wrong doctrine about hate, anger, murder, divorce, swearing, telling lies, taking oaths, you've even got the wrong theology of love. And he re-established what God's view was.
Later on as I said in Chapter 6, verse 19 He tells them they have the wrong approach towards the things of this life. They shouldn't be anxious for what they eat or drink or wear. They have the wrong approach to theology and the wrong approach to things. But here in the middle section, verses 1-18, He tells them they have the wrong approach to worship. He says the problem your worship is phony. It's hypocritical. Look at verse 1. "Take heed," or beware, "that you do not your alms," or really the text says "your righteousness," dikaiosune, your deeds of righteousness, your righteous acts "before men to be seen by them."
Stop right there. He says the problem with your religion is, it's a show. And the word seen is theatomi from which we get theatrical. And then in verse 2, He calls them hypocrites and that's hupokritase. And you know what that means? An actor on a stage. You're nothing but an actor on a stage doing what you do for the applause of the people who watch. Your religion is just as bad as your theology. And He picks out three elements of their religion to attack. One is their giving, two is their praying, and three is their fasting.
Their giving is the element of religion that deals with others. Their praying is the element of religion that deals with God. Their fasting is the element of religion that deals with themselves and the mortification of their flesh. So He really sums up the whole area of religious responsibility. Whatever it is that I am in my worship, it should be coming from the depths of a pure heart not hypocrisy. Your giving is phony, your praying is phony, and your fasting is phony. And so He really unmasks hypocrisy.
What He's trying to do, you see, through all the Sermon on the Mount is to drive them to the realization that they're inadequate, they can't help themselves, they've missed the boat, they desperately need a Savior, and of course, He will then offer Himself to them. That's the same message He has for you. The world is full of religious people and some of them are here in our church right this morning. Religious people who are lost, religious people who's religion is a sham, a masquerade, a fasad.
In dealing with this, the first element that He talks about is giving; giving. And you will notice that He says in verse 1, "Take heed," or beware, "that you do not your righteous deeds before men to be seen by them. Otherwise, you have no reward of your Father who is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thy alms," that has to do with giving, we'll see it in a moment, "do not sound a trumpet before thee as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets that they may have glory from men. Verily I say unto you they have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth. That thine alms may be in secret and thy Father who seeth in secret shall reward thee."
In other words, He says, now when it comes to your giving it's hypocritical, but it ought not to be so. So He tells them what's the problem and then He offers them the solution. Now when you get into the area of giving folks, you really open up at least in our day a real can of worms. I don't know if there's ever been, in fact, I'm sure there has in a time in the history of the church when there's been a greater bombardment for our money from "Christian causes" than there is today.
With all of the capacity of mail and direct mail and all of the capacities for producing products and with all the airwaves of radio and television and media, it is so hard for us to avoid being literally drowned in a sea of needs from many well meaning Christian organizations. And just knowing how to give is very difficult, very difficult. But we do know in the Bible there are two kinds of giving. Basically, two ways that giving is to go in terms of Christian giving. One is systematic, structured, regular giving to the church. We know the Bible teaches that. 1 Corinthians 16 tells us that we are the first day of the week to lay by and store as God has prospered us. And we studied that in great depth in 1 Corinthians 16 and we decided that the store there is the church. And that the believing people are to weekly, every week, not just now and then or periodically or semi-annually or whatever, when you think about it, but we are every week to face the reality of the stewardship of money. And I believe that's why God wants us to do it every week, so that every week we again take stock of the level of stewardship as it relates to our funds.
So 1 Corinthians 16 says "On the first day of the week you lay by and store." That is systematic, structured as you purpose in your heart. But there's a second kind of giving. That's giving to the poor and needy. That's unstructured, unspecified, and spontaneous and it is over and above the giving to the church. Throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament, you have that kind of giving where the needy person crosses your path and you are to reach out your heart to that individual. Now beyond those two things, the Bible knows nothing about giving to the church and to the needy. Those are the perspectives scripture gives us. Now I have to admit this morning, I'm going to preach to you about giving. Usually people like to know when the preacher's going to preach on giving so they can go visit Aunt Martha or play golf or leave town or do something else.
But I hope you don't have that view. I really think that giving has been an unpopular subject because it's been abused, number one, and number two, because people have the wrong understanding of what it's all about. You see, you have to begin with this. God doesn't need your money. All right? Doesn't need it. Gets along fine without it. In fact, do you realize that God got along throughout all eternity before He ever made you without your money? That's right. Do you know that God ran the whole universe before there were any people in it? It didn't cost Him a penny.
You know, God can do anything He wants. He doesn't need a penny from you. Doesn't need a cent. So don't think you've done Him a big favor. That isn't the point. The point in giving is not that God is up there saying, boy, you know, Michael check the bank book. I mean, can we advance the kingdom according to plan this week or not? God is not in that...he's not doing it that way. God is not at the mercy of us. So you want to know from the very beginning God does not need your money. Now the thing you must realize is that you need to give it. That's all. Paul essentially that to the Philippians when He said, I thank you for your offering. I didn't need it, but you needed to give it because when you gave it you put yourself within the framework of God's blessing.
You see, giving is all about getting. Giving is all about being blessed. God says release it that I may multiply it to your account. It's the blessing that is the issue. There's a cycle of blessedness. And maybe I could illustrate with a couple of scriptures. First, and there are many, but first would be Proverbs 11, verse 25. "The liberal soul shall be made fat. And he that watereth shall be watered also himself." Now there's a principle. The more you give the more you get. You water, you get watered.
The next verse, he applies it to withholding grain. If a farmer withholds the grain and never sows the grain in the ground or never sells the grain to get the money to buy the seed to plant again, he'll starve to death. There is a cycle, right? You grow the grain. You sell the grain. You get money. With the money you buy seed. You plant the seed. You grow the grain. You sell the grain. You get the money. You buy the seed. You plant, and then around and around and around. The whole thing depends upon your faithfulness to sow the seed.
As you scatter resources, do you realize a farmer takes everything he has and throws it in the dirt and operates on faith that God will give him a return. God gives him a return and that's the cycle. That's the illustration. "The liberal soul shall be made fat." Then backing up to verse 24 is the point. "There is he that scatters and increases and he that withholds more than is fitting and it leads to poverty." In other words, as you give God blesses. And when God blesses you out of your giving, out of His blessing you give again. You see?
I give. God blesses. Out of the blessing, I give again. And the cycle of blessing goes like that. Now if you step out of that circle or cycle of blessing and don't give, you don't give. There's nothing for which God to bless. There's no return and it just keeps tending to poverty. Pretty soon you're out of resources. The principle in all giving is not, and I'm not just talking about monetary things, but the whole of spiritual blessedness. The principle of giving is this, you need to give because it puts you in a circle of blessing.
And what you give God blesses, and when He returns the blessing, out of the blessing He returns you give again. In Deuteronomy Chapter 16, verse 10, we read "and thou shalt keep the feast of weeks with the Lord thy God with attribute of a free will offering of thine hand which thou shalt give unto the Lord thy God according as the Lord thy God hath blessed thee." Now here you're picking up the cycle. The Lord thy God has blessed thee so out of His blessing you give. And as you give, He in turn will bless. Verse 17, "Every man shall give as he is able according to the blessing of the Lord they God which He hath given thee. And so there is the cycle. You give. God blesses. Out of His blessing you give again. There's only one way to live people. God says and that's to give, because you put yourself in the flow of God's blessing.
Now the New Testament expands this simple basic principle by giving us some very simple categorical statements relative to giving and I'm going to run them by you quick because we've studied them before and then I want to move to our text. But let me give you just eight simple principles to remember in your giving. Eight simple principles that'll help you to give in a nonhypocritical way. Eight principles, number one, giving is investing with God. All right? Giving is investing with God and that's what I've been saying. It puts you in the cycle of blessing.
Now how many of you and you've all done this. I've done...you got to the market, right? And you're going to buy some, I don't know, crackers, Triscuits or whatever of those things are or Cheez-Its or whatever. Those boxes of crackers or even cereal. And you want to know, you know, you've got a full box, so you feel a box and it's okay. And then you throw it in your cart, you know, and then the bag and across the deal. And you get it in the bag in the back of the station wagon and the back shocks aren't good and there's eight kids bouncing around and by the time you get home you've got this much crackers in the bottom because it's all settled, right? And you open the box and where are the crackers? Way down in the bottom. Because as soon as you shake the thing, you realize what you've got.
But that isn't how God is. Luke 6:38 tells us, "Give and it shall be given unto you." Good measure, press down and shaken together and running over. When God gives you can shake His box and it's still running over. You don't ever get cheated when you give to God. You see returns the blessing multiplied and whatever measure you measure it shall be measured to you again. So whatever you invest with God that's what you get a return on. Giving is investing with God.
2 Corinthians 9:6 says "If you sow sparingly, you reap sparingly. If you sow bountifully, you reap bountifully." God does not need your money, but you need to invest with Him to get into the flow of His blessedness. You want a rich life? That's the way to do it. We could...there are many who do this and you can just give testimony after testimony, sometimes you know, you feel kind of guilty, because God pours out such blessing. But it's out of that that you again invest with Him.
Secondly, giving is investing with God and secondly giving is to be sacrificial. If there isn't a sacrifice involved it's questioned whether you're even giving at all unless there's some sacrifice. David said, "I will not give God that which costs me nothing." "I will not give God that which costs me nothing." That would say nothing to Him. You don't say God here, I don't need this. That isn't any great act of love. It's when you give God that which you do feel you need that you've made a sacrifice.
I think of Mark Chapter 12 where Jesus sat in the temple and He learned a lot about people if He needed to learn anything by just sitting there and watching them come and give their money. And there were so many things going on and after all these rich people came and says they cast in much, along came a poor little widow and she had two mites and two mites today wouldn't be worth anything. In fact, a pocketful of mites would buy you nothing. And this little lady popped in her two little mites which totaled a farthing. And the Lord said she gave me than everybody gave. You know why? Because she only had two mites. That's all she add. It was the essence of sacrifice that made the significance out of her gift.
There's a third principle. Giving is not related to how much you have. People say if I had more, I'd give more. I'm waiting till my ship comes in, then the Lord will hear from me. Your ship won't make any difference. In fact, you'll probably get on your ship and sail away and indulge yourself like you've always done. You know, Luke 16:10 says "He that is faithful in little will be faithful in much. And He that is unjust and little will be unjust in much." It isn't going to change your character to have more.
You know, you must learn when you have a little. That's one of the things we try to teach our children. That's one of the things I learned as a child. When I was a very little child I remember everything I got my dad would say to me now Johnny you want to give to some of that to the Lord. Now you figure out how much you want to give to the Lord and you take that and give that to the Lord. And that was drummed into my head from the time I was a little child. And we've taught our children the same thing that whatever you receive from whatever source it is, you think in your own heart, what you'd like to give the Lord because if they don't learn now when they have little to be faithful over little, they'll never learn it when they have much.
In fact, I remember one night going with my dad, it was my birthday and he had to go preach and he had given me a five dollar bill for my birthday. We didn't have much in those days and that was a lot and I was going to get to buy a baseball glove and a baseball with it which is all I ever used money for, you know, stuff like that. And boy I had that little five dollar bill tucked in my little pocket and I was going off with my dad to his meeting and I'd sit down there and I wanted to be a support to my dad, even when I was a little kid. In fact, if nobody came forward sometimes I'd go forward just to get the thing rolling you know. But I was sitting down there and he went preaching away and after his sermon, they took the offering and, you know, they made such an appeal for the offering that I just took out my little $5.00 and put it in the offering.
And so we were riding home and I got over...I always sat next to my dad after his meetings because lots of time he preached on the devil and I was scared, you know. So we were going on home and I said "dad," and he said, "what?" I said, "I don't have that $5.00 anymore." He said, "what, Johnny if you lost that $5.00," and he went into his, you know, typical lecture, which precipitated a spanking, you know. And I said, "No, I didn't lose it dad." He said, "what did you do with that?" I said, "Well, I put it in the offering." And he was trapped. He couldn't say anything.
But you know, I was so grateful because my parents taught me when I was a little child that I had a responsibility to God and they taught me to be faithful over little. And that's where you begin to learn those things isn't it. Giving is not a matter of how much have, it's a matter of where your heart is and what your commitment is. And so we learn that the New Testament teaches that giving is investing with God. Giving is to be sacrificial, it's not related to what we have.
Fourthly, it correlates with spiritual riches. In other words, if you're not faithful in what you do with money, God's not about to give you the true riches, it says in Luke 16:11-12. If you're not faithful over money, the unrighteousness mammon, then who is going to give you the true riches. What are true riches? Souls, people, ministry, and God is not about to give a strategic ministry to somebody who can't handle money. There are many men who never made it through seminary because they couldn't handle money and the Lord didn't want them in His ministry.
There are many people who have dropped out of the ministry because of their inability to deal properly with money and God wasn't about to give them souls. There are some men who've stayed in the ministry, but their ministry has been small and insignificant because God would never commit to them the eternal soul of a person when they couldn't take care of the temporal characteristics of money. So your spiritual effectiveness, the dimensions of your spiritual influence will have a lot to do with how you handle your money.
Fifth, giving is to be personally determined, personally determined. "As every man purposes in his heart," 2 Corinthians 9 says, "so let him give," verse 7. Whatever you purpose in your heart to give, that's between you and God. The Macedonians gave abundantly out of their deep poverty. The Philippians gave because they chose to give out of their heart of love. It is to be a spontaneous act of the heart. There's not any prescription. It's personally determined.
Sixth, we are to give in response to need. We are to be sensitive and listen to needs. In Acts 4 and Acts 5, the early church shared its resources because there were people who had a need. Paul went all through Asia Minor collecting money from the Gentile churches to give to the saints of Jerusalem because there was a need.
Seventh, giving demonstrates love not law. You're not under any law to give. There's no New Testament law to give in a sense of an amount of a fixed sum. We're not giving to please some legal system. It is an act of love that we give. That's why it's to be cheerful, not grudging and not of necessity. It's not a law. It's an act of love. Now listen, those are simple principles, invest with God, make it sacrificial, remember it's not a matter of how much you have. Another principle God will give you the real riches when He sees how you handle money. It is to be personally determined. It is to be in response to need. It is demonstrate love, not law.
And I might sum it up with number eight by saying all of these things tell us that our giving is to be generous, generous, generous. And the generosity with which you give will be determined by all of these other factors. How much do you want to invest with God? How much are you willing to sacrifice for Him who sacrificed all for you? How much of the spiritual riches do you really want to be worthy of? How much of the need do you want to meet? How much love are you trying to demonstrate.
So the point is this people and I'm hitting it from other ways, God is not saying give because I need your money. He's saying give because it's a spiritual exercise that brings into your life the true blessing of God. Now those principles cover our giving to the church and our giving to the needy, but let's go to the giving to the needy because that's the text we're studying.
The Old Testament made it abundantly clear that the people of God were to give to the poor. In fact, in Leviticus 25:35 it tells people to give to the poor whether they're a sojourner or whether they're somebody who belongs in the land. In Deuteronomy Chapter 15, it says if you come across a poor person, make sure you meet his needs. If he needs a place to stay, give him your house. Make sure his supply of food is met. Make sure all of the necessities of his life are cared for, because that is how people are to act when they name the name of God.
You can read it in Psalm 41:1. You can read it in Proverbs 19, Proverbs 21, Proverbs 29, again and again and again. It says when you give to the poor, you give to the Lord. Why? Because all giving is stepping into the cycle of blessing. All giving is investing with God, you see. And part of our giving is to be directed to those who cross our path who are in deep need, deep need. And so the Lord approaches this matter of giving, because obviously the scribes and the Pharisees and the people following them were not living according to these kinds of principles. They weren't giving to get into the cycle of God's blessing. They weren't giving selflessly. They weren't giving magnanimously out of a pure heart. They were giving to put on a show of piosity.
And so the Lord directs His thoughts at that. Now we had three points last time. Let me just mention what we talked about. First in Matthew 5, rather Matthew 6, the first point was the practice of righteousness. And we said that the practice of righteousness is not to be before men. But God was saying I have a standard for the practice of righteousness and you do not do it before men. Now let's go to point two, the peril of religion. The peril of religion. And what is the peril of religion? We've already said it. It is hypocrisy, verse 2. When you do your alms or when you do your supposed deed of righteousness, beware that you don't do it hypocritically. That's the peril of religion.
Now listen to men, once a person has become a Christian, one thing that Satan loves to do is to shove them in the category of hypocrisy so that they really negate the validity of their witness and they lose their reward. The peril of religion, and we all face it, is that we would play the hypocrite. Now there are two ways to approach this. They hypocrite can be one who's not really a Christian, but pretends to be, and the hypocrite can be one who is a Christian, but is operating within the framework of his Christianity hypocritically.
You can be a phony by being a non-Christian pretending to be a Christian and you can be a phony by being a Christian who's carnal but pretends to be spiritual. And both are really covered in the principles He gives here. Even though the first group is perhaps the scribes and the Pharisees who were the hypocrites. It is also possible that the disciples just as well could have manifested hypocrisy in their lifestyle even though they believed. So the message is for all of us.
Now the peril of religion is illustrated in alms. The word alms there is eleemosune from which we get an English word eleemosynary which means nonprofit or charitable organization. It has to do with being charitable. Whatever funds you receive are for the giving to those in need and so that's where that word comes from. The Greek verb is eleato. And that is the most interesting verb. It means to have mercy upon to succor the afflicted to give help to the wretched, or to rescue the miserable. And I think it would be important to notice that eleato is not a verb that speaks of an attitude. It is a verb that speaks of an act. There is no at