Giving to the Poor, Prayer, and Fasting – Sermon on the Mount – Part IV
In
Matthew 6:1-18 Jesus is now going to turn his attention to religious practices
and the heart condition needed in giving to the poor, praying, and
fasting. Matthew 6:1 serves as the
thesis statement for this section on religious practices although Matthew 6:1
is still subservient to the wider theme of needing surpassing righteousness
from Matthew 5:20. The point of
Matthew 6:1 and this section of the Sermon is that we should conduct all our
religious practices for God and God alone. We should do nothing in the name of the Lord to build our
standing in the eyes of men. We
should have an audience of one, God.

Following
the pattern described above in Matthew 6:2-4 we are called to give to the poor
in secret. Giving is an assumed
practice for the believer in the Bible as well as the rest of the spiritual
disciplines described in this passage.
We give freely because God has freely given to us. In response to God’s great love in
Christ, we give; not under compulsion but as one that knows God will see our
good deeds and reward us. We are
symbolically speaking “not [to] let [our] left hand know what [our] right hand
is doing,” meaning that our giving not only needs to be done in secret around
other men but in our own hearts we need to protect ourselves from pride and
self-righteousness as we give.
Jesus
moves on in Matthew 6:5-15 to speak about prayer. This seems to be the highlight of this section of Christ’s
concern for proper religious practice as Matthew devotes extra space to Jesus’
teaching on the subject. The
familiar pattern is seen in Matthew 6:5-6; we should not be like the hypocrites
that pray to be seen by men, but should rather pray in our closets for the One
who sees what we do in secret. In Matthew 6:7-8 we have the same pattern
repeated about prayer, although slightly modified using Gentiles as the
anti-example instead of hypocrites.
Here Jesus teaches us that we should pray with faith knowing that God
loves us and knows what we need before we ever ask. In contrast the Gentiles pray the same prayers over and over
again trying to be heard. One can
think of Elijah making fun of the prophets of Baal telling them to pray harder
and louder since their god may be asleep or on a journey (1 Kings 18:27). One can think of other modern day
religions that try to get God’s ear through rote repetition. Instead, Christians are to see God as a
loving Father that not only has the best interest of His children at heart, but
has promised to listen to them already knowing what they need.
In
Matthew 6:9-13 Matthew records Jesus’ words that have come to be known as the
Lord’s Prayer. Jesus has given two
examples of contrasting prayer, the way in which hypocrites pray and the way in
which Gentiles pray, all compared to proper prayer expected from believers. Now Jesus is going to give us a pattern
for prayer. This is very
significant and we should take special note. God in the person of Jesus is telling us how we should pray
to the Father. Many times this
prayer has been given special significance in and of itself. It is ok to pray the Lord’s prayer as
it is, but we should not fall in to the trap of praying like the Gentiles in
Matthew 6:7-8 as Jesus has just described. Rather we should fill this prayer with content from our heart
to our Father in Heaven. The
prayer opens with the first two verses (Mathew 6:9-10) being concerned with
God. We are to begin our prayers
to the Father by ‘hallowing’ His name.
This means we should praise Him and recount all the ways He is God and
the ways He has moved among men from the beginning of time until now. We then are to pray that He would
accomplish His purposes in reestablishing His reign in this world as He all
ready reigns in all time and eternity.
As we revere God in this way, we are agreeing with His plan for the
world and are joining Him in what He is doing. We are aligning our wills with His. This becomes particularly important as
we begin to make requests of the Lord.
The second half of the prayer (Mathew 6:11-13) deals with our needs and
desires. We are to ask God for our
daily provision, both in terms of actual bread, and the bread of life that
comes from Christ. We need God
both physically and spiritual to renew us and provide for us daily. It is here that we can fill our
requests to Him. Next, we confess
sin to the Lord. We do this
because we known He is merciful and loving. We come to Him knowing that He has promised to forgive us of
our sin if we will confess it to Him (1 John 1:9). Finishing our confession we turn to forgiving others in a
pattern after the way He has forgiven us.
When we display forgiveness to others we are showing the fruit of
salvation in our own lives. This
point is reinforced in Matthew 6:14-15.
Finally, we pray against the temptations that will come our way by
asking for God’s protection and deliverance from evil. May we learn to pray in the pattern our
Lord has given us.
In
Matthew 6:16-18 Jesus turns to fasting.
Again the familiar pattern is incorporated: don’t be like the hypocrites
who fast for the eyes of men, they have received their reward, rather fast in
secret for the Lord who sees in secret.
When I have fasted I have taken great joy in going about my day as if it
was a normal day while knowing on the inside that I am depriving myself of food
for the Lord. What a great way to
keep the Lord front and center.
Fasting is not only a great way to focus on the Lord but it also helps
us to overcome the lusts and desires of our body. Fasting is an excellent way to develop our spiritual gift of
self-control.
Again
in this section of the Sermon on the Mount the message is the same; we need
surpassing righteousness. In the
religious practices of the believer this means performing acts for the Lord and
the Lord alone. This of course
assumes the believer to be engaging in these spiritual disciplines. If we are engaging in these disciplines,
we are not to seek out the renown and revere of men. If we desire the revere of men we will receive that reward
in full when they cast a glance our way, but the true reward lies with the Lord
who sees what is done from the heart in secret. What a sad reward it is to receive praise from men. I want the reward that resides with the
Father. What about you?
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