Scripture: Matthew 6:1, 5-13
Today we’re beginning a six-part series on Matthew chapter 6 entitled, “The Father Who Sees in Secret.” This will take us up to the first Sunday in Lent. And I’m going to spend two weeks on today’s scripture. Next week we’ll look more closely at the Lord’s Prayer—with an emphasis on Jesus’ sobering words about forgiveness in verses 14 and 15. But for today, in Point Number One, I’m going to introduce the recurring theme of the chapter, and in Point Number Two, I want us find great encouragement to pray. So I know the back of the bulletin shows three points, I’m only going to cover the first two. Number One: The Secret Reward. And Number Two: Amazing Grace.
But first… the secret reward…
In December of 1980, when I was ten years old, John Lennon was murdered. It was all over the news—as many of you remember. And even us kids in fifth grade were talking about it, whether we knew anything about John Lennon or not. And in the wake of Lennon’s death, I and a few of my classmates fell in love with the Beatles, and my lifelong passion for music began.
A few months later, in the spring of 1981, I was excited to learn that the animated Beatles movie Yellow Submarine was coming on TV. I tuned in to watch it, and I heard for the first time a song called “Eleanor Rigby.” Paul McCartney wrote and sang it in 1966. When I first heard this song in the spring of 1981, at age 11, it struck me as the saddest song ever! Many of you know it.
The song concerns two “lonely” people: One of them, Eleanor Rigby, is a churchgoing woman—someone who would have been called a “spinster” back in the day… She spends her life volunteering at the church, working for the church, without fanfare. She’s someone, Paul says, who “picks up rice in the church where a wedding has been.” But she herself, of course, never had a wedding. She is all alone. And when she died, Paul says, no one even attended her funeral. Except for Father McKenzie, the church’s pastor, who is busy “writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear.” Because he’s alone, too. The refrain of the song wonders aloud, “All the lonely people/ Where do they all come from?/ All the lonely people/ Where do they all belong?”
Sad song… Right?
But not so fast… Maybe Paul’s perception of these two is all wrong. After all, here are two beloved children of God, loving God and loving neighbor, showing self-sacrificial, Christ-like love, without the benefit—not to mention the temptation—of a human audience.
Why is that a bad thing? At the very least, aren’t they potentially avoiding the temptation that Jesus describes in verse 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.”
Of course, getting back to that song, I don’t expect Paul McCartney, who wasn’t a professing Christian at the time, to appreciate that these two people described in the Beatles’ song were not alone… were never alone… that they did have an audience… the best audience of all, in fact: they had the audience of angels, of course—as scripture teaches elsewhere. But even more they had an audience of their heavenly Father, who “sees in secret,” according to verse 6. And he will reward them! His reward may be their only reward, but isn’t it enough?
After all, if Eleanor Rigby and Father McKenzie had discovered—as I want all of us to discover—that Christ was their greatest treasure, exactly what other treasure did they need? Who else did they need… in order to be happy in a lasting way? What else did they need to be satisfied, to be contented, to be fulfilled? Certainly not a human audience to recognize and praise and appreciate them!
And verse 6 isn’t the only place that Jesus mentions the Father who “sees in secret and rewards us.” He says the same thing about charitable giving in verse 4 and fasting in verse 18. So one important recurring question we’ll keep coming to for the next six weeks of this series is this: Is the reward that our Father gives us—as opposed to any reward we receive from others… is the Father’s reward enough for us? Is what God gives us enough. Or to put it in terms of our church’s vision statement—“Treasuring Christ Above All and Helping Others Do the Same”—is Christ our greatest treasure? Are we satisfied by the treasure we have in Christ… or do we still need some other, worldly treasure?
Let’s sympathize for a moment with these hypocrites that Jesus condemns. They’re using otherwise good spiritual practices like prayer, fasting, and charitable giving to try to satisfy a deep need for love, acceptance, encouragement, recognition. God’s Word says that this deep need can only be met in Christ alone.
Satisfying this deep need is part of the “reward” that Jesus says our Father gives us. Right now!
Because make no mistake: the treasure, or the “reward” our Father gives us isn’t merely something that happens in eternity—when we die or when Christ returns. We are meant to enjoy it… We are made to enjoy it… in part… right now… as so many of us can attest from our own experience.
Last week, I said something risky about myself… I hope it didn’t sound too crazy… But I said that God had given me a breakthrough in my life when it came to fear. That he had overcome a demonic stronghold in my life that had been there for decades. It’s kind of a risky thing to say out loud because now everyone will be watching: “Has Brent really become so fearless? We’ll see…” But no, I’m not saying I’ll never again be afraid… Of course we all experience the emotion of fear. But my point is, I am confident, and I praise God, that something within me has changed. By the power of the Holy Spirit, something has changed when it comes to giving in to fear, or being controlled by fear. Praise God!
How much money is a change like that worth to me? A small fortune? And that’s at least a small part of this reward that our Father gives us—for instance, when you and I make a practice of going into our prayer closets, locking the door behind us, and praying!
Just last week in my Wednesday night Bible study, as we looked at the Global Methodist Church catechism—which is all about what we believe as Global Methodists, we looked at Question 54: “What is salvation?” Answer:
By salvation, we mean more than the promise of eternal life, but a present deliverance from sin, a restoration of the soul to its original purity; a recovery of the divine nature; in righteousness and true holiness, in justice, mercy and truth.
Do you see what that answer is getting at? Salvation isn’t something we simply wait for until heaven or the Second Coming. It’s so much more than a future promise, although it includes that. And it’s infinitely more than so-called “fire insurance,” as I’ve heard some skeptics describe it. It’s infinitely than praying a “sinner’s prayer” when we’re eight years old and getting on with life as usual. No, as we Wesleyan Christians emphasize, it’s something that’s happening within us right now. We are being transformed right now. We are experiencing the fruit of the Spirit right now—including ever increasing love, joy, peace, and patience—right now. By God’s grace, that’s what we’re aiming for. If you’re not experiencing those things, let’s talk about it!
Regardless, I hope you can see, this is a reward worth receiving!
And that’s Point Number One: the secret reward…
Point Number Two: amazing grace…
One place that we see grace, when it comes to prayer, is in verse 7: “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.”
The main reason these Gentiles, these heathens, used so many words when they prayed—the reason they prayed for such a long time, and prayed so strenuously—is because they were desperate to prove to their gods that they were worthy to receive something from them!
We’ve seen this with heathens before in the Bible. Think of 1 Kings 18, when the prophet Elijah has that contest with the prophets of Baal. Remember? These prophets of Baal were praying that their god would send fire from heaven to consume a bull that they had slaughtered and put on the altar. Believe it or not, after hours of frantic prayer, Baal did not perform this miracle. Then verses 28 and 29 say:
So [these prophets] shouted louder, and following their normal custom, they cut themselves with knives and swords until the blood gushed out. They raved all afternoon until the time of the evening sacrifice, but still there was no sound, no reply, no response. 1
They cut themselves—as a way of showing how “serious” they were about their prayer request. And they “raved all afternoon” until evening.
Say what you will about these prophets of Baal… They showed dedication to their god. They showed commitment. Again, the idea is, they needed to prove to their god that they were worthy to receive this blessing they were asking for.
Why would their god do anything special for them… if they didn’t prove that they deserved it?
And we see this same idea lived out in the New Testament, in a parable that Jesus tells, the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, in Luke 18. Remember the “righteous” Pharisee’s prayer: “I thank you, God, that I am not like other people—cheaters, sinners, adulterers. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.” 2
What is the Pharisee trying to do here? Like the Baal-worshipers in 1 Kings 18, he’s trying to prove to God that he was righteous, and that he deserved whatever he wanted God to do for him. It’s like he’s trying to show God his credentials, his resumé, his C.V. “Let me remind you, God, of my record of achievements, so you can know that you’re not just dealing with some ordinary human sinner like that tax collector. You’re talking to me. You should feel fortunate to have me on your team! I deserve for you to do this for me, as anyone can plainly see!”
But remember, by contrast, the notoriously sinful tax collector? He knew that if he were going to be accepted by God, it would be based on one thing only: sheer grace. He couldn’t “show off” his righteousness before God, even if he wanted to, because he knows that he has none—respectable society reminded him every day that he was an unworthy sinner. God wouldn’t show favor to someone like him!So all he can do is fall on God’s mercy and hope for the best! He doesn’t even pray a long prayer: “O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.” And Jesus says of him, “I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God.” 3
In other words, the tax collector, not the Pharisee, left the temple in a right relationship with God.
So when Jesus tells us, when you pray, don’t babble on like these heathens, he’s saying, in so many words, that our Father is not choosing to answer our prayers based on how good we are.
Our Father will answer our prayers on the basis of grace alone… through faith!
Do we believe that?
Probably no one in this room is tempted to think—like the heathens in Jesus’ day—that they have to use “many words” when they pray—you know, in order to get God’s attention, to win his favor, to ingratiate themselves to God…
But not so fast… While none of us believes we have to use “many words” of prayer… in the present… in order for our Father to answer us and give us what we ask for… We often fear that because we haven’t used “many words” of prayer in the past—i.e., because we haven’t prayed enough in the past… because we haven’t been faithful enough in prayer in the past… we fear that our Father will be less receptive to our prayers today…less generous in giving us his gifts today… less likely to answer our prayers today.
We fear, in other words, that our Father is holding a grudge. He’s secretly mad at us. He’s disappointed in us. And we’re ashamed… because we know we haven’t prayed the way we’re supposed to.
And that shame and fear, like Adam and Eve running away from God in the Garden of Eden after they’d sinned, makes us not want to go to God in prayer in the first place!
See, I know I’m talking to more than a few people who struggle to pray… You’ve told me so! I’m talking to many people who find it difficult to pray—or at least to pray with regularity and discipline… people who, even when they do pray, find it about as pleasurable as flossing their teeth, or taking out the trash. It feels like a chore. So you feel guilty… You feel unworthy… You feel like something is wrong with you… Why would our Father give you anything with your bad attitude… He’s certainly not going to answer your prayer after you’ve been so unfaithful in prayer over the years! So why bother praying?
We need to get over this! God is not giving us what we ask for in prayer because we deserve it. It’s grace alone!
When I was 13 years old, a classmate of mine named Paul H.—I won’t use his last name—was distributing a hand-drawn picture of the inside of a cable box. You remember the cable box, right? If you had cable back then, you only had one choice for these extra channels, so everyone had the same cable box from the same cable company. And this drawing that made its way around the school illustrated the way in which you could twist a particular solid-state, I.C. chip inside the cable box in a certain way, and if you did it correctly, suddenly you would get every single channel that the cable company offered—including all the premium subscription channels like HBO, Showtime, and some others I won’t mention!
All the channels for free!
I’m not proud of what I’m about to say, but my older sister Susan and I carefully opened the cable box and followed my friend’s drawing and instructions, and, voila! It worked! Suddenly we had all the channels!
So even then, I was showing potential as a future electrical engineer!
Well, our adventure in stealing cable lasted exactly one evening before my parents uncovered the truth of what we had done. To make a long story short, they wanted us to put it back the way it was. And we did. Or we tried to. Turns out we broke the little prongs on the chip, which meant that we went from getting all the cable channels to getting none of the channels, even the ones we paid for. Whoops!
So my parents called the cable company. This was a terrible mistake to call the cable company. I was sure of it. I was worried because there were stories on the six-o’clock news about how illegal it was to tamper with one’s cable box, and I didn’t want my mom or dad to go to jail.
To make matters worse, I was looking at this little monthly magazine that came from the cable company. And there was a blurb inside about how—if you called the cable company this month and reported that you’d tampered with your cable box, you would receive something called amnesty. I didn’t know what that was, but it sounded bad!
So now I’m more convinced than ever that my mom and dad were going to jail!
See, from my 13-year-old’s perspective, the last thing you’d want to do is call the cable company. You’re in trouble with them. In fact, they’re going to give you amnesty.
Then I looked up the word in the dictionary… It actually meant that the cable company would replace the cable box no questions asked… They’d act like you’d done nothing wrong. It was as if Susan and I had never tampered with cable box in the first place!
So I had nothing to be afraid of…
Speaking of fear, remember Queen Esther, in chapter 4 and 5 of the book that bears her name. She is afraid for her life to go to her husband, the Persian king Ahasueras, and ask him to save her people from genocide… because she worries that she’s fallen out of favor with him. And there was this law in the empire, which everyone knew about, that you couldn’t simply go in to see the king unless you’d been summoned—it applied even to his wife, the queen. If you showed up without a summons, you could be executed… unless he extended his golden scepter.
And remember her cousin and guardian Mordecai appeals to her to overcome her fear and risk it anyway. Finally, she agrees: “Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.”
To her great surprise, the king is delighted to see her! Chapter 5, verse 2: “And when the king saw Queen Esther standing in the court, she won favor in his sight, and he held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand.” Then he said, verse 3: “What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request? It shall be given you, even to the half of my kingdom.” Then again in verse 6: “What is your wish? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to the half of my kingdom, it shall be fulfilled.”
Notice two things: Esther “won the king’s favor.” He loved her. And he was an incredibly wealthy, powerful, and generous king, wasn’t he? He was willing to give her anything, up to half his kingdom.
It’s nice to have friends in high places, isn’t it? Don’t you kind of wish you were as highly favored by someone like King Ahasueras as Queen Esther was?
But don’t you see… You are even more highly favored by a King whose power and wealth and generosity puts Ahasueras to shame! Because you are a beloved and highly-favored son or daughter of our heavenly Father, Almighty God—you are a sibling of Christ our King!
He will give you anything, so long as it glorifies him… and is in your best interest… and will serve your ultimate good. Notice, please, in case you’re worried, I have just ruled out the prosperity gospel. Some of these prosperity preachers are being spiritually ruined by wealth and its many temptations. If God doesn’t make you rich—even if you ask—it’s because he knows that wealth won’t be in your best interest, it isn’t something you can handle, it won’t glorify him, it won’t be for your ultimate good.So I’m not preaching prosperity here.
But I am challenging us to imagine what God can do for us… what God wants to do for us… what God will do for us…
If only the children of our heavenly Father, people like you and me, will pray.
Esther would not have been able to save her people if she didn’t ask her king…
What blessings might you and I be missing out on—as individuals, as a church—because we don’t pray as we should?
So… Highly favored and infinitely beloved children of our heavenly Father, please… pray!