MATTHEW | Lesson 5 | Lesson Notes / Talking Points
Matthew, chapter 6
Jesus continues His teaching discourse on how to be His disciples … and by application, how to ‘go and make disciples’ by the pattern He is giving them
CONTEXT & MAKING THE CONNECTIONS
1 / Since Matthew 6 is a continuation of this first of five major discourses Jesus delivered to His disciples, we will connect this lesson where the last lesson leaves off. In chapter 5, Jesus ‘discipled’ His disciples by giving them:
[1] the disciple’s spiritual and personal profile (vv 1-11)—which is a profile of Himself
[2] a synopsis of the influence they would have on the world as they bore witness to Him—that is, the influence they would have on the world and the responses they should expect to receive (vv 11-16)
[3] a proclamation of His own authority and mission to ‘fulfill the Law and the Prophets’—both in His actions and teaching (vv 17-20)
[4] and then giving them six representative ‘case law’ examples of how the Law should be interpreted and applied in their character and conduct (vv 21-48).
This is just a brief and summary review of the contents of chapter 5.
2 / From the beginning of this teaching discourse, we have noted that one of Jesus’ emphases is on ‘righteousness.’ While ‘righteousness’ has many, deep, and broad meanings in Scripture—though they all are related to one another—Jesus’s emphasis on ‘righteousness’ here in ‘The Sermon on the Mount’ zeroes in on ‘right conduct for the right reasons from the right motivations of the heart.’ [see vv 6, 10, 20]
3 / He will continue this emphasis on ‘how to practice our righteousness, or righteous acts,’ in ch 6.1 which is closely connected with ch 5.20. ‘How do we practice and live out our righteous character as disciples of Jesus and citizens of His Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven?
ch 5.20: Over-arching warning that our acts of righteous conduct must be in compliance with the ‘heart of the Law’—which is our hearts; and our obedience must be more than just outward performances—they must be from our hearts.
ch 6.1: Specifically, our acts of righteous obedience to the will of God must not be for fame, self-promotion, or personal recognition “before other people in order to be seen by them,” but for an Audience of One, that is “your Father who is in Heaven.”
4 / Then, Jesus will give us three ‘righteous practices’ (doing the right things for the right reasons from the right motivations): charitable contributions, praying, fasting; and then will proceed to our desires for ‘treasures’ or material possessions and our confidence and security we invest in them … followed by a prohibition to be anxious about acquiring them by teaching us to trust in the loving care of our Heavenly Father and His faithfulness to provide for us.
5 / Activities of Daily Living. If you’ve ever taken care of others—whether in your own home or a nursing home—you know that daily functions you help with are often called activities of daily living or ADL for short. These righteous acts Jesus will teach us about may be called our ADL of the Kingdom of Heaven.
I | vv 1-4 | “When you give to the needy…”
1 / We are always tempted to do the good things we are commanded to do [see 5.16] to make ourselves look good, even better than others; in other words, to embellish our image before others and promote ourselves. If that’s what we’re looking for, Jesus tells us we may, in fact, get that. But that is all the ‘reward’ we will receive. The reward we should be seeking in everything we do is to please our Father in Heaven [2 Corinthians 5.9]. Also, let’s make it clear here—as Jesus does: we do nothing to ‘earn’ the favor and grace of God; rather we do everything we do because God has graciously granted His favor and acceptance in Christ!
2 / So when we give our offerings to the Kingdom ministry through the church, or when we help those who are in need with our financial assistance, we must not ‘announce’ it with an outward show to draw attention to our own ‘goodness.’ The hypocrites often did. Jesus refers here to the scribes and Pharisees He has already warned us about in ch 5.20. [This, by the way, will be the sole focus and target of another one of His five major discourses in ch 23…more on this when we get to it…]
3 / “…do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing” means that we don’t do our giving for the personal publicity and recognition. It doesn’t mean that all giving should be done in secret or anonymously because there are many instances in Scripture where public contributions to the ministry of the Kingdom of God encourages others to give also. See Acts 2.44-45; 4.32-37; 2 Corinthians 8-9.
4 / NOTE ALSO that in each of these three specific instances of ‘righteous practices,’ Jesus will give us assurance that “your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
II | vv 5-15 | “When you pray … Pray then like this…”
1 / Praying in public [Jesus refers here to ostentatious praying—not public, corporate prayers which are commanded as exercises of our corporate church worship] was also a common self-aggrandizing practice by the same hypocrites. They wanted to embellish and pad their own personal reputations for being righteous and holy.
2 / But Jesus instructs us again here about our personal, private prayers: [1] go into your room, the most secret, private, secluded room or corner of their house; [2] shut the door to seclude yourself from the normal traffic and activities going on; [3] and pray to your Father who is in secret…who sees in secret. Again, whether our prayers are private or corporate, we are addressing and appealing to our Audience of One—our Heavenly Father who promises to see and hear us.
3 / Gentiles. In addition to their religious leaders, ‘authorities,’ and self-proclaimed ‘influencers in chief’ whom Jesus calls hypocrites, He also warns against following the pagan Gentiles who prayed to their patron ‘fake gods.’ There were other neighbors in their communities who followed these practices that they knew about. Remember, they were surrounded by communities of Romans or other nationalities who worshiped their gods. Since their ‘gods’ were only imaginary and not real, they would have to ‘impress’ their fake gods with insistent, incessantly repeated words and phrases. Mainly because their ‘gods’ were not pre-disposed to be attentive and gracious toward them to begin with. They had to manipulate their ‘gods’—impress, inform, and persuade their ‘gods’ to give them what they needed. “Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him!”
4 / Disciples’ Model Prayer. We know this as ‘The Lord’s Prayer,’ and it is since Jesus gave it to us. But this prayer is given to us more as a template and pattern than a form to be repeated. Though we can repeat it to guide us into more specifics. We do know that Jesus Himself prayed often and much, and most often alone and privately [see Mark 1.35; Luke 11.1-4; et al]. A more representative Lord’s Prayer is recorded in John 17. But here in ‘Making Disciples,’ Jesus teaches us how and what we should pray for by this model: “Pray then like this….” So let’s look at the elements of this model Jesus gives us:
[1] Address: “Our Father in Heaven…” Our praying should be both familial [Father] and corporate [Our Father]. Even in our private, personal, secret prayers, we should be concerned about the needs of our community and body of fellow believers, as we shall see. We can’t be so ‘ruggedly individualistic’ that we exclude our concerns for the others! But Our Father is God in Heaven, and He is Jesus’ Father! So Jesus assures us of His own participation and fellowship with us as we pray. As He comforted Mary Magdalene outside His sepulcher on the morning of His resurrection, God is “my Father and your Father…my God and your God” [John 20.17]. This is Our Father that Jesus references about eighteen times in this discourse.
[2] God-centered petitions. We are calling these ‘theocentric’ because they all ask for God’s glory and will. This is always our first concerns and desires. (1) May your Name be worshiped, reverenced, honored. This is not only God’s Name by which He is called, but also His character and how He is known. (2) May your Kingdom come. We want God’s sovereign rule to be established in people’s hearts and lives all over the world. This is a salvation and missions prayer. It is also a social culture prayer. (3) May your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. We pray that God’s purposes will be advanced, that God will do what He pleases in every earthly event and activity. Of course, when we pray this, we are also praying for the ‘eschaton,’ the end of all things to come. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! “The kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever” [Revelation 11.15].
[3] Man-centered petitions—both our personal and corporate concerns. (1) Give us this day our daily bread—actually, ‘Give us our bread for tomorrow.’ We prayed for today’s bread yesterday. We are daily dependent on God’s gracious provision. We provide nothing for ourselves apart from God’s gracious Providence. (2) …and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. Our ‘debts’ are both financial [defaulted, unpaid], but more so, moral and spiritual [see Luke 11.4]. God’s grace has forgiven us every moral debt we owed Him by our transgressions against His Law…and that through the perfect obedience and righteousness of Christ. And, since God has freely and graciously forgiven us, we must also forgive everyone who is indebted to us by their offences against us [see ch 18.21-35; Mark 11.25; Ephesians 4.32; Colossians 3.13; et al]. Anyone who is unwilling to forgive someone else who has sinned against him/her evidences that they do not know God’s forgiveness of their own sins. (3) And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil [or, the evil one]. We can’t avoid being tempted [or being tested and tried by adversities], but we can avoid succumbing and falling prey to, or yielding to the solicitations to sin by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Himself was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, but He was delivered from disobedience in His temptations by His obedience to the Father.
III | vv 16-18 | “When you fast…”
1 / Fasting was another common religious practice among the hypocrites of the scribes and Pharisees, but again, they fasted to be seen by others and to be commended by others for being so ‘holy’ [see Luke 18.9-14]. Jesus teaches us to fast in God’s Presence and for God’s attention, again “…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.”
2 / Fasting is not for the purpose of either impressing God to be favorable toward you, nor to ‘coerce’ God to do what you are fasting to receive from Him. Fasting is not a manipulative ‘power play’ with God. “To fast is to deny physical desires in order to devote oneself to prayer, repentance, and petition. To fast is to battle the tendency to satisfy every appetite; it is to sense that no one lives by bread alone. In fasting, the body grows weak and the spirit remembers that no one lives by his own strength. Disciples fast in order to nourish their hunger for God and to diminish their hunger for the world.” ~Daniel M. Doriani
IV | vv 19-24 | “Lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven…”
1 / All throughout ch 6 here, we have the ‘struggle lines’ drawn between competing gods in our lives and life’s experiences—or maybe we should say the struggle is between the One True God and the gods we naturally worship in our fallen sinfulness: [1] the ‘god’ of self, fame, and quest for recognition in vv 1-18; and the ‘god’ of Mammon, money, earthly possessions, ‘stuff’ in vv 19-34
2 / Here is another prominent and essential ‘activity of daily living,’ and that is, providing for our financial daily needs. However, when Jesus forbids “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth…,” He is not forbidding us to take responsibility for providing for the needs of those who are in our care [see 1 Timothy 5.7-8]. Nor is Jesus condemning making prudent provisions for future needs as we are able to do so. What Jesus is forbidding is making an idol or god out of material possessions or our sole responsibility to make our necessary provisions [see 1 Timothy 6.17-19]. We do this when we place our confidence, trust, and security in how much ‘treasure’ we have laid up for ourselves. Rather, Jesus is commanding us to place our priorities and trust in the Father’s providential foresight and care for us.
3 / Where we place the priorities of our desires, values, confidence, and trust—whether it is money and possessions or in faithful, obedient stewardship of the resources we have—will reveal where our true desires, ambitions, values, and faith lie: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
4 / “The eye is the lamp of the body….” Jesus’ logic continues here when He uses the ‘eye’ illustration. Our ‘eye’ is what we are seeking, looking for, looking at with desire, and wanting more than anything else. If our desires are fixed only on ourselves, ‘looking out for #1’—whether it be our desires to acquire and accumulate or with confidence in ourselves—then we are seeking the true values of life “full of darkness.” The ‘eye’ of our desires and ambitions must be lit by the light of commitment to serving Christ, following Him as faithful disciples, and trusting God to take care of our every need. That is how we “Lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven.” “You cannot serve God and money [Mammon].”
V | vv 25-34 | “Do not be anxious about your life… But seek first the Kingdom of God…”
1 / This passage is a follow-up to the previous teaching. Again, we need to interpret with caveats: Jesus again is not saying we shouldn’t be serious about all the stresses that are involved in providing for our daily needs. The very responsibilities that faithful, obedient discipleship after Jesus will bring with it heavy burdens of concern and stress. But, even in those frequent ‘anxieties,’ we must learn to live by faith in our Heavenly Father’s loving and providential care for us and provisions for us.
2 / The anxiety that Jesus forbids here is that anxiety that labors under the stress of thinking we are solely ‘on our own,’ and that ‘if it is to be, it’s up to me’ only—without trusting God to make good on His promises to take care of us. Like we live our daily lives in a ‘closed universe’ in which God is absent and does not participate.
3 / Jesus supports His prohibition of this kind of anxious worry by illustrating from the lesser to the greater: “Look at the birds of the air…your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? … Consider the lilies of the field [wildflowers that no one cultivates or tends]…If God so clothes the grass of the field…will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?”
4 / Then Jesus reinforces these ‘negative arguments’ with positive commands to trust God: “…your Heavenly Father know that you need them all. But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
5 / Added in there in v 27 is a rather humorous [but dead serious] question for our self-examination—like Jesus is chiding us: “C’mon…are you seriously wasting your life by needlessly and uselessly worrying about things you have absolutely no control over? ‘And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?’” There is no amount of straining or exercise of human will power on our part that can either make our body grow or add an hour of life past God’s sovereign allotment. So we should not waste our time or energy stressing about things we can’t control.
6 / When we compare Luke’s parallel account of this same passage, Luke 12.32 records Jesus as putting our anxious fears and worries to rest in the sovereign, loving Providence of our Heavenly Father: “Seek God’s Kingdom by your faithful obedience and discipleship after Christ; lay up all of your treasures in Heaven where they will be safely and securely kept for you—even with the compounding interest of God’s Grace; and ‘Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom’ when He comes in the fullness of His power and Glory in the Last Day.”
7 / Yes, it is true that “Sufficient for the day is its own trouble,” but everyone of us should strive to live by faith in Christ and follow Him in faithful, obedient discipleship, waiting … longing for that Day when Jesus promises us He will say: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” [Matthew 25.34].
~Dave Parks 