Matt 6.1-6, 16-18
clickbait righteousness
(matthew 6.1-6, 16-18)
Jason Procopio
See if this sounds familiar for you. You’re new to this church. You come in here, and you spend some time getting to know the people. And you like the church, you like the people…but you get the feeling that these people are just on a different plane of existence from where you are. They’re always smiling, while maybe you’re struggling to be happy; they seem to know the Bible really well, while maybe you don’t; they seem to always do the right thing, while you’re struggling with things you think are pretty basic.
So what do you do? You don’t want to leave, so instead, you fake it. You put on a smile you don’t really feel; you nod your head when they’re talking about the Bible, so they think you know what they’re talking about; you start doing the right things the best you can, but you do it so that the people around will see you as being on the same “level” as them.
There are a million variations of this type of story. Maybe you don’t feel inferior to others, rather superior—you know the Bible really well, you’re able to obey where other people struggle. And so you feel great: and a part of you wants everyone else to see how great you’re doing.
The temptation to act like this is huge. The temptation to do what the Bible says, to obey the Bible’s commands, in such a way that others might see us doing it, is massive. Because when people see us doing these things, we know that they know that we belong here. They know that we are a part of this family. And if ever they didn’t see us doing these things…what would they think of us?
There is a very fine line between being a model for other believers, between doing the right thing for the right reason…and allowing ourselves to become prideful because we think other believers see us as models. That needle is difficult to thread.
But Jesus helps us thread it in today’s text.
Before we get started, let me explain what we’ll be doing and why.
We’re actually going to look at v. 1-6 of chapter 6 first; then we’ll skip v. 7-15, which we’ll see next week; then we’ll go straight ahead and look at v. 16-18. We’re doing this because in v. 1, Jesus sets up a new theme in his teaching, and then he gives a few examples. In one of these examples, he makes a brief detour into another topic, before coming back to the main theme he set up in v. 1. So rather than just hitting these verses straight through and having to repeat ourselves later on, I thought we’d hit these two themes separately, rather than doing a kind of thematic U-turn this week. (This is the only time in this sermon that we’ll be doing this, but that’s why.)
Counterfeit Righteousness (v. 1)
How many times has you seen this? You’re scrolling on Instagram or Facebook, and you see someone has posted a picture of their time with their Bible in the morning. The Bible’s open on a table, there’s a cup of coffee next to it, maybe the sun is rising in the background. The caption talks about how wonderful their time with God was this morning.
Now, I don’t want to pronounce judgment on anyone here—it is quite possible that these people were just overjoyed in Christ that morning and wanted to share their joy with others. But it’s also possible (and you should ask yourself the question if you’ve ever done this) that this picture was posted for another reason. It’s possible you posted that picture because, somewhere in the back of your mind, you wanted people to know that you had read your Bible—because you knew they would see you as a “good Christian” if you did so.
This is the theme of today’s text, and Jesus lays it down in no uncertain terms in v. 1:
“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.
You see, he’s addressing what we could call “clickbait righteousness”—righteousness that is done so that other people will notice it. So he says, Don’t do this—don’t practice your righteousness in order to be seen by other people—and then he gives the reason why we mustn’t do this…and it’s not the reason we would often give. We would encourage someone not to obey God in order to be seen by others because that’s not why we obey God; we obey God to be happy in him, and because he deserves it.
But that’s not what Jesus says. He says, Don’t pratice your righteousness to be seen by others, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
That is a pretty shocking thing to say. Why would this be the case?
Well, in order to understand why Jesus would say something so frankly shocking, we need to understand what it means to practice righteousness.
A lot of people would assume that “practicing righteousness” is simply doing what the Bible commands us to do. “Righteousness” is the word used to describe the moral character of God. When we speak of God’s moral attributes—his goodness, his love, his justice, his wrath against sin, his mercy, his grace—we’re talking about his righteousness. Practicing our righteousness means doing those things which are in accordance with his righteousness.
And that is very different from simply "obeying God’s commands”.
Fundamentally, naturally, we are not able to truly practice righteousness, because our sinful nature rejects God’s righteousness. So what does God do? He sends his perfect, sinless Son, who lives a perfectly “righteous” life (always in accordance with God’s righteousness). Christ takes our sin—our rebellion against God—on himself, and is punished on the cross in our place. In exchange for our sin, he gives us his righteousness: the perfect life that he lived.
So in essence, our sin is dead: it was nailed on the cross with Christ. Christ broke the power of our sin on the cross, so our sin no longer has the power to control us.
And then God goes further than simply canceling our debt. When he saves us, his Spirit gives us a new nature. He shares his righteousness with us, and helps us to become more and more righteous, like his Son: to act in accordance with his righteousness.
Growing in righteousness will necessarily drive us to do certain things. Everyone who knows me knows that I love movies. No one has to force me to watch movies: it’s my default mode. I watch movies because I love to watch movies.
In the same way, as we grow in Christ, we’ll find ourselves naturally gravitating towards certain attitudes and actions, certain ways of living, that weren’t necessarily natural for us before. We will do these things, not to be seen by others, and not to score points with God, but because he has given us a new nature, and we’re beginning to love what he loves.
Do you see how that is different from practicing righteousness before other people, in order to be seen by them? Everything we do could be perfect on the outside, but if we do it for this reason, it’s not the result of faith, but of pride—we want other people to see us as righteous. That is very different from doing these things because the righteousness God has given us in Christ actually makes us want to do them.
You see, Jesus’s point here is to say that practicing righteousness to be seen isn’t really practicing righteousness. Clickbait righteousness is counterfeit righteousness; it has the appearance of righteousness, but none of the substance.
We have to understand this, because Jesus clearly says that God does not reward counterfeit righteousness. He does not honor counterfeit righteousness. He does not applaud counterfeit righteousness.
He hates counterfeit righteousness, because it is righteousness strictly for our benefit, to elevate our social standing. It is an affront to his grace.
Now after having established that pretty sobering principle in v. 1, Jesus gives three examples of what this looks like, and what the alternative looks like in each of these situations. He talks about giving to the poor, and then praying, and then fasting. The goal of each of these, when we do it for the wrong reason, is to say to the world, “Look how pious I am!”
But there is a different goal, a better goal, when these things are practiced out of faith.
So let’s take these examples one by one.
Giving for the Reward (v. 2-4)
2 “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.
When you read the rest of Matthew’s gospel (or the others), it becomes clear that when Jesus talks about “the hypocrites,” he’s almost always talking about the religious elite of the day. These groups of men prided themselves on their piety and their righteousness, because they knew the law and they followed the law…and they let everyone know it.
When they gave to the poor, they would do so in such a way that everyone in the immediate area knew that’s what they were doing. People would see them and, they thought, admire them for their generosity.
And Jesus says: Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. What is their reward? Recognition and admiration—being praised by others.
That’s the first thing to see; Jesus will repeat it in the next two examples. Practicing one’s righteousness to be seen by others is not entirely fruitless—there is reward in obeying the commandments in this way. It’s just that the reward is temporary, only lasting as long as the people who saw it remember it, and it is not ultimately that valuable.
So what is the alternative? V. 3:
3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
It may not be easy to grasp just how strenuously Jesus insists on this point. He says to not let your left hand know what your right is doing. Now of course this isn’t possible to literally do this; if we make a decision to do something, of course we will be aware of it. But when we give, we can choose not to dwell on it, we not to draw attention to it, even in our own minds—to give naturally, simply because God has been generous to us, and to turn our act into an act of thanksgiving rather than an act of pride.
John Stott writes: “We are not to be self-conscious in our giving, for our self-consciousness will readily deteriorate into self-righteousness. So subtle is the sinfulness of the heart that it is possible to take deliberate steps to keep our giving secret from other people while simultaneously dwelling on it in our own minds in a spirit of self-congratulation.”
What, then, is the alternative? Why do we give, if it is not so that other people might see us, or so that we might feel good about ourselves by giving? Jesus tells us why at the end of v. 4—a phrase he will repeat in v. 6 and 18: And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
So if you’re trying to wrap your brains around this and you keep running into the idea that there will always be a self-serving motive to our obedience, stop trying to avoid it—that’s right. No righteousness we perform is not purely altruistic. It’s not that there is no self-serving here.
Jesus encourages us to focus on reward when we obey…as long as it’s the right reward—the reward which doesn’t come from others, or from ourselves, but from God. (If this seems weird to you, don’t worry; we’ll come back to this later.)
Praying for the reward (v. 5-6)
The next subject Jesus turns to after giving is that of prayer. He says (v. 5):
5 “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 have received their reward.
OK, so once again—what do the hypocrites do? They pray loudly, that they may be seen by others (v. 5).
Even if we grew up in church, it’s likely that these days, few of us have seen people giving to the needy while blowing trumpets and being seen by others. But this one? This may hit home a little easier.
When you spend enough time in church, you learn how to pray in such a way that makes your prayers sound good. We incorporate Scripture we’ve memorized into our prayers; we formulate our prayers in ways that inspire others, that almost makes it sound like we’ve rehearsed it ahead of time.
Now we should never presume on anyone’s motives when they pray, so we want to be careful not to assume that if someone’s prayers sound good, they must be hypocrites: that’s simply not true. Jesus is calling us to examine our own motives here: what’s wrong with the hypocrites’ prayer isn’t their prayers, but rather why they pray. They don’t just pray in the synagogues and on street corners; they love to do so, because they know they will be seen by others.
In some prayer meetings you go to, it can almost sound like a competition to see who can pray the best. Many of us know how tempting it can be to engage in that kind of mental competition.
But we mustn’t, because once again, Jesus says that the hypocrites pray to be seen by others, and “they have received their reward.” They have received the recognition from man that they craved. If you pay attention to your prayers so that other people will hear you pray and be impressed, good for you. People will be impressed…and that will be your reward.
What, then, is the alternative? V. 6:
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.
This makes so much sense, doesn’t it? Prayer is, by definition, speaking to God. We pray so that God hears and answers our prayers. We seek a reward that comes from him. How silly is it to pray for any other reason?
Now of course this doesn’t mean we can’t pray with other people; prayer meetings are good. But when we pray together, we don’t do it so that other people might hear us or admire us; we pray to encourage one another to seek from God that which only God can provide, to seek the reward that comes from him alone.
Fasting for the reward (v. 16-18)
We’re going to drop down to v. 16 in a moment, but before we read it we need to talk about something. Jesus is going to talk about fasting. If you’re new to the faith, this may not be very clear. Even for Christians the how and the why of fasting can be difficult to grasp. Many Christians don’t do fast because they don’t see the point of fasting.
So very quickly, here’s the point. Fasting is intentionally depriving yourself of something (most often food) with the intention of reaping some spiritual benefit.
We all know what it feels like to be hungry, to go without a meal. There’s a kind of ache inside that can only be satisfied by the thing we’re refusing to give ourselves: a hunger we feel which can only be satisfied by eating.
Well, remember what we saw a few weeks ago about hungering and thirsting for righteousness? When we fast for reasons of faith, we are intentionally giving ourselves that ache in order to give ourselves a kind of physical hook on which to hang that spiritual concept. We fast so that we might feel hungry, and then say to God, “I’m hungry for you like this. I’m thirsty for you like this. As much as my body needs food, my soul needs you infinitely more.” We are teaching our heart to understand something our bodies understand already.
That’s what fasting is. And Jesus expects that his disciples will do it—he doesn’t say, “IF you fast,” but “WHEN you fast.” So when you fast, he says (v. 16):
16 “And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
Even though the Law of Moses only required one fast a year, the religious leaders fasted often; and they would often fast in such a way that everyone knew that’s what they were doing. They wouldn’t wash their face; they would sprinkle their face with ashes, in order to make public the pain they were feeling—so that, as Jesus says, their fasting may be seen by others.
And once again, they have received their reward. You want to be admired for your piety? If that’s the reward you want, that’s the reward you’ll get.
But that’s not what Jesus’s disciples will do. V. 17:
17 But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 18 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.
Just like with giving, and just like with prayer, when we fast, we fast for ourselves, and we fast for him. We’re not doing it for anyone else. I’ve been in churches where, when people fast, the men don’t shave, the women don’t wear makeup; they don’t iron their clothes because they’re “so exhausted from their fast”. At lunchtime they look longingly at their neighbors’ plates, and then when someone offers them some, they say in a longsuffering voice, “No no, I’m fasting. But thank you. I’ll be okay.”
NO—when you fast, shave your face. Put on makeup. Iron your clothes. Do whatever you normally do, look like you usually look.
We don’t fast and pray and give so that others will see us; we do it because he sees us. We’re not looking for reward from anyone other than him.
The Reward and the Mission
There are two massive questions I’ve put off answering until now.
In every example Jesus has given, he’s said, “And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” So what is the reward? What’s he talking about?
We’ll come back to this in a couple weeks, but to put it simply, we fast, we pray, we give, so that we might see God more clearly, and know him more deeply. That knowledge and that view of God are imperfect for now, but they won’t always be. The reward we are hoping to receive from God is imperfect knowledge of God in the present, and perfect knowledge of God in the future; an imperfect view of his glory in the present, and a perfect view of his glory in the future.
And this reward is the very thing for which he created us.
Everyone who’s ever stumbled into their perfect job knows what this feels like. You start doing something, and you get this feeling that says, “Now I know what I was put here to do.” There is a deep satisfaction that comes from knowing that what you’re doing is perfect for you, that you are uniquely suited to a particular task.
Some of us might experience this to some degree, in one or two areas of our lives. But one day, all of us who belong to Christ will experience that completely.
Why? Because this is what we were created for.
6 I will say to the north, Give up,
and to the south, Do not withhold;
bring my sons from afar
and my daughters from the end of the earth,
7 everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory…
We often think of the glory of God as being something that benefits God, but not us. How did we miss that if we have that for which we were created, we have everything?
And not only do we have it, we have it forever, and completely. Habakkuk 2.14:
For the earth will be filled
with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
When we are on the new heavens and the new earth with Christ, we will always know that we are doing exactly what we were created to do. Perfect satisfaction, perfect pleasure in perfect holiness, beholding the glory of God for which we exist…for all eternity.
And even now, we have part of that satisfaction in Christ. It’s no accident that Jesus began his sermon by saying, HAPPY are the poor in spirit… HAPPY are the meek… HAPPY are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…
J. C. Ryle wrote: “Let us feel convinced, whatever others may say, that holiness is happiness. . . . As a general rule, in the long run of life, it will be found true that ‘sanctified’ people are the happiest people on earth. They have solid comforts which the world can neither give nor take away” (Holiness, 40).
This is the reward. Growing to be like Christ in order to see him more clearly, and being infinitely and eternally happy in what we see.
And this brings us to our second question. If you take these passages individually, they seem simple enough. But if you read them in context, right after chapter 5, that changes things a bit. Because in 5.13-14, Jesus gave us a mission: You are the salt of the earth… You are the light of the world… This mission is not about us. It’s about showing the gospel to the world—we’ve spent the last several weeks on this subject.
But now, he turns inward, telling us (in a way that seems almost selfish) to seek reward—a reward that has nothing to do with other people, but is for us.
So here’s the second question: How does the reward that Christ promises equip us for the mission that Christ has given us?
Both of these images Jesus gave to describe his disciples—salt and light—have more to do with experience than knowledge; it’s not just about what information people can learn, but rather what they can see (light) and what they can feel (taste).
In other words, Christ never meant the gospel proclamation to be only intellectual. Sharing the gospel cannot be only helping people to know and understand the contents of the message. Those things are absolutely essential…but they’re not enough.
Essential to the gospel proclamation is helping them to understand not just how Christ saves us, but why they should want the salvation Christ offers. You can give a perfectly accurate explanation of the gospel, only to have the person in front of you say, “Yeah, thanks, but I still prefer football. I still prefer my friends. I still prefer sex. I still prefer Netflix.” Or whatever it is they love the most.
If people don’t see in us why they should desire what we are trying to share with them, there’s a good chance they won’t desire it. It’s possible—God does what he wants—but it’s not the norm, because God calls us to be salt and light, that people might see us and glorify him.
When people come to Christ, it is because they finally see him as desirable. But how can we expect people to see Christ as desirable if the Christians they know don’t seem to desire Christ? We will never show others why they should want to follow Christ if we don’t enjoy following him ourselves.
Now I know that may seem like bad news for some of you, because right now you don’t enjoy him all that much, and you don’t really want to. But here’s the good news. The reward that God promises is that we would enjoy him. The reward he promises is that we will see him, and know him, and love him, forever. We won’t enjoy Christ as we ought if we’re practicing our righteousness for any other reason than that—to receive the reward which comes from the Father alone.
How good is our God? To call us to things that are so huge and difficult…and then to tell us that the only way to do these things rightly is to do them so that he will reward us?
Remember what the author of the letter to the Hebrews said? Hebrews 11.6:
And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
Our obedience is worthless if it is done for any other reason but this reward: that we might see him, and know him, and love him. And knowing God in this way, enjoying him in this way, makes us want to be like him. So what do we do? We obey—we obey because we love it, and because through our obedience we will know him even better, and love him even more.
Christ is calling us into a never-ending cycle of joy. And brothers and sisters, this kind of joy is palpable; it is easily recognizable. People will see it, even though they may not know why it’s there. So when they see it, and then they hear us tell them why we have this joy, it will make sense. They might still refuse it, but they’ll at least understand why we don’t.
Seeking the reward that comes from our Father in heaven is the greatest tool God has given us in our mission to go and make disciples of all nations; the joy that we have in knowing him and becoming like him and loving like him is the best possible proof we can give that what we are saying is real.
So don’t seek the approval of men; don’t do anything to be recognized or applauded. Seek the reward that comes from our heavenly Father. And show the world your joy in the reward he has promised.
