We now move in our series on the Sermon on the Mount from moral righteousness (kindness, purity, honesty and love) to the religious practices of righteousness (almsgiving, praying and fasting). The fundamental warning which Jesus gives is against practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them. This may seem a contradiction to that which Jesus had earlier said, namely, let your light shine before men that they might see your good works, but Jesus is, in fact, speaking against different sins. It is our human cowardice which makes Him say that we should display our good works, and human vanity which leads Him to warn us against making a public display of our piety.

v       Both instructions (being open -Matt 5:16 & being secret -Matt 6:1) have, according to the Scriptures, the same objective. What is it?

v       In each of the three “acts of righteousness” in our text Jesus uses the same formula. Can you identify the three parts of the formula?

a.      ?

b.      ?

c.       ?

Almsgiving (giving to the needy)

There is much teaching in the Bible on compassion for the poor but generosity is not enough. In our text, Jesus is primarily concerned with motivation. It is not so much about what the hand is doing (passing over some cash) as to what the heart is thinking while the hand is doing it. We can be seeking the praise of men, or be quietly congratulating ourselves or we can be seeking the approval of God. The seeking of men’s praise was the besetting sin of the Pharisees –He paints an amusing picture of a pompous Pharisee on his way to give his gift with trumpeters blowing a fanfare ahead of him. Jesus calls this hypocrisy. Of such people, Jesus says, “They have their reward.” Instead Jesus tells us that our left hand must not know what your right hand is doing”. In other words it must not be self-conscious because then it could become self-righteous. Our almsgiving must be in secret so that your Father will reward you. Our Christian giving is to be neither before men (waiting for the clapping to begin), nor even before ourselves (our left hand applauding our right hand’s generosity) but before God, who sees our heart and rewards us with the discovery that “it is more blessed to give than to receive.”

v       In this teaching, almsgiving is clearly different to tithing (or giving to the church), discuss this difference and how you could develop your own plan of almsgiving.

Prayer

In this second example of “religious” righteousness, Jesus depicts two men at prayer. Again the basic difference is between hypocrisy and reality. Jesus cautions us to go into “the secret place” rather than to “babble like pagans on the street corner”. This obviously does not exclude the need for public prayer for even then righteous prayer is not hypocritical, it seeks God as the only audience and does depend on the approval of men. The word for the secret place is tameion and it is used of a closet or storeroom where a household would keep its treasures. The idea might well be that there are already treasures awaiting us when we pray aright, whether in private or in public.

v       Discuss the kind of treasures which might come from prayer. Give some practical examples from your own experience.

Fasting

Most Christians lay stress on daily prayer and sacrificial giving but there is seldom any stress on fasting. Yet fasting (the total abstinence from food) is an important spiritual exercise. The Pharisees fasted, making a big show of it –even painting their faces so that they looked gaunt, but Jesus says that instead we must comb our hair and put on aftershave so that no-one will even know that we are fasting. Certainly He expected us to fast –He, Himself fasted for 40 days. It is true that when questioned about why His disciples did not fast He said that they did not need to fast when He was with them but “when the bridegroom is taken away, then they will fast”. This did not however deny the practice of fasting. Perhaps we can see it this way –fasting is essentially a humbling of ourselves before God. It is necessary, and was practiced as such in the Bible, at times when God did seem to be far away –in times of distress and in penitence for sin (separation from God). It is a way of acknowledging that we cannot cope on our own or have failed in our own endeavours. Fasting then is an admission before God of our need for Him (because He is absent from us). Its reward is not in the compliments of men but in the response of God to our humility.

v       Discuss fasting as a spiritual exercise. How does the abstinence from food become a humbling experience before God?

We can bluff a human audience but we cannot fool God. We need always to choose God as our audience (the audience of One!) –God watches us as we give, as we pray and fast, God is with us in the secret place. He hates hypocrisy but loves reality –when we are aware of His presence our giving, our praying and our fasting will be real.