Stop the Show | Matthew 6:1
Jesus confronts our impulse to perform with three challenges that lead us to live by faith in him: (1) perfect makes practice; (2) for his eyes only; and (3) eyes on the prize. This sermon is part 1 of "Messiah's Reward," Bryan Craddock's series on Matthew 6 & 7.
When I was eight years old, a circus came to town. I kept begging my parents to take me there until they finally gave in. So, we made our way to the big top with its three rings and bright lights. The ringmaster introduced the show with his booming stage voice. We saw death defying acrobats and tight rope walkers in their sparkling costumes. There were clowns, jugglers, elephants, lions, and tigers. The action was non-stop!
But as impressive as it was, something felt off to me. Behind the glitz, it seemed seedy and worn. Many years later, I learned that a lot of those old circus companies were run on a shoestring budget. The animals were kept in terrible conditions, and the performers worked long hours for meager pay. They said, “The show must go on,” and it did until people gave up on it.
Something similar can happen with how we approach the Christian life. The conditions in our hearts and homes might be terrible. But we dress up, switch to our church voice, and go through our act. We even recruit others to join our circus. Some may be impressed by the spectacle of it all, but I suspect that everyone can feel that something is off. How long can the show go on until we all give up on it?
Jesus warned his followers about this problem in his Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 6:1 tells us that he said,
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.
This statement is a pivotal point in his sermon. In chapter 5, he defines what it means to be righteous. Then in chapters 6 and 7, he shifts his focus to why and how we should pursue righteousness, and this idea of the Father’s reward is key. He goes on to speak of laying up treasure in heaven, seeking God’s kingdom, entering by the narrow gate, and building your life on the solid rock of his words. So, I am calling my series on these chapters, “Messiah’s Reward.”
As we begin, we need to start by unpacking this first verse. Jesus wants us to stop the show and give up on that distorted approach to spiritual life. He confronts our impulse to perform with three challenges that lead us to live by faith in him. So, I urge you to take his words to heart and to let them shape the way you approach the Christian life. His first challenge contradicts one of our fundamental assumptions about how life works.
Perfect Makes Practice
I spent countless hours practicing guitar, piano, and drums when I was growing up. I was always told that practice makes perfect. But when it comes to music, there are problems with that slogan. Some musicians do everything technically right but come across as mechanical. After all that effort, their heart is not really in it. The other problem for me was that I could never afford a high-quality instrument. So, even my best performances still sounded tinny and out of tune.
We face similar problems in trying to live a righteous life. Even when we are technically in the right, we often miss the heart. Plus, we are broken instruments that are spiritually tinny and hopelessly out of tune. So, our attempts at righteous practice will never make perfect. Jesus challenges us to believe that he grants us his perfect righteousness as a gift so that we can begin to practice and grow.
This revolutionary idea flows from what Jesus said in the first part of his Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. He shows the heart behind several Old Testament commands. True righteousness does not just stop short of murder. It overcomes anger. It doesn’t just avoid adultery. It resists the temptation to lust. It is truthful, forgiving, and even shows love to enemies. So, in verse 48, he says,
You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
God’s standard is nothing less than perfection. So, we all fall short, because we have all sinned. But Jesus prefaces his explanation of righteousness with a word of hope. In Matthew 5:17, he says,
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
Initially, his disciples probably took this statement to mean that he would fulfill the Old Testament hope for a Messianic king. But there is more to it. Through his death, he fulfilled the Law’s demand for a sacrifice so that we can be forgiven for our sins. Through his perfect sinless righteousness, he satisfied the Law’s requirement for experiencing the blessing of eternal life in God’s kingdom. So, we receive the perfect righteousness of Jesus through believing in him.
Our English translations of the Bible call this action, “justification.” The Greek term is just a verb form of the word righteous. It is a legal declaration that someone is not just free of guilt but is positively righteous. We find it in Romans 3:21-24, where Paul says,
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it--the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
Some people resist the idea that sinners are fully and forever justified as a gift by God’s grace the moment you believe in Christ. They fear that it leaves people with no incentive to obey. Why bother devoting yourself to practicing righteousness, if you are justified and your eternal destiny is already secure?
Paul answers that question a few chapters later. In Romans 6:12-14, he says,
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
Believers in Christ can and should live righteously because Jesus sets us free from slavery to sin. We are united with him in his death and resurrection. Our old sinful self is crucified and buried with him, and we are given new life. By God’s grace, we are both justified and regenerated. So, we should take full advantage of this new life of spiritual freedom by living for God.
Paul also encourages us to practice righteousness in response to the gift of God’s grace because of God’s plan and purpose for us. In Ephesians 2:8-10, he writes,
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Apart from Christ, all our attempts at righteous works fall short. They don’t please God or gain us any favor with him. Our only hope is to be saved by his grace through faith in Jesus. From a human perspective, it seems as if this decision to believe is all my doing. But then we discover that God’s plan and purpose for us stretches back before our decision and even before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4). He has laid out a path of good works for each of us, and he will lead us through it step by step.
So, the freedom and the purpose that comes from being clothed in the perfect saving righteousness of Christ enables us and motivates us to devote ourselves to the practice of living righteously. We still play out of tune, but he is preparing us for the day when we will stand in his presence to serve him forever in perfect harmony. So, keep practicing, and as you do, consider this next challenge.
For His Eyes Only
Many people are terrified by the thought of standing before an audience. We call it stage fright. But it’s not really the stage that scares us. It’s the people! We worry about what they will think of us. Of course, you don’t have to step out on stage to experience that. The pressure is always there wherever we go. So, how do you deal with it?
Some people rebel against popular expectations in how they look and in what they say and do. But there is always a group that applauds that response. So, it’s still a performance. It’s just intended for a different audience. In one way or another, most of us try to put on a good show. Those who succeed might boast about it, but bragging is just another way to impress the crowd.
A lot of people think that the only way to escape the show is to focus on pleasing yourself. But the unrestrained sinful heart is quick to descend into dark deeds. So, Jesus challenges us to live for an audience of one, for our heavenly Father, doing everything for his eyes only. Look again at what Jesus says in Matthew 6:1.
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.
In some ways, it’s far easier to practice your righteousness before people. They’re not always around. You can hide parts of your life from them and behave differently in secret, while still appearing righteous. So, your righteousness doesn’t need to be consistent or even genuine. You can show off with phony over-the-top spirituality, and a lot of people will be thoroughly impressed.
As we continue through Matthew 6, we will see that Jesus gives examples of this performative righteousness. The scribes and Pharisees of his day were known for it. They even imparted it to others. When you live to please people, you inevitably pressure others to please you. You use guilt and approval like a carrot and a stick to motivate them. You might justify it as encouraging them to be righteous. But this approach often distorts that person’s spiritual life. In Matthew 23:15, Jesus said,
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
The crowd-pleasing approach to righteousness doesn’t work with God. It doesn’t impress him. He isn’t fooled by it. He sees right through it. Proverbs 15:3 tells us,
The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.
In theological terms, we say that God is omnipresent and omniscient. That means that he is everywhere and knows everything. David describes the implications of these aspects of his character in Psalm 139:2-4. He says,
You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.
God is our true audience. He knows our thoughts and intentions. Furthermore, his opinion is the only one that ultimately matters because he is our judge. So, rather than fearing what people think we should fear him. Matthew 10:28 tells us that Jesus said,
And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
We saw in Matthew 5:48 that God’s standard of righteousness is perfection. He knows all the ways that we fall short, and we deserve eternal condemnation because of it. But in his grace, he sent his Son to live a perfectly righteous life, to die for our sins, and to rise from the dead so that we can be forgiven and clothed in his perfect righteousness by faith.
As I said earlier, perfect makes practice. We should respond to God’s gracious gift of salvation by pursuing the practice of righteousness. As we do so, we still need a healthy fear of God. Peter puts it this way in 1 Peter 1:17-19.
And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
All who trust in Christ are ransomed by his precious blood. So, we should not fear God’s rejection or condemnation. But we should fear that our conduct might show disregard for the price he paid. When we who are redeemed give in to temptation, we are in effect saying that Christ’s sacrifice doesn’t matter enough to keep us from doing this sin. We are treating his blood as if it’s cheap.
To honor Christ’s precious sacrifice, we need to stop the show and strive to please God. We must live for his eyes only. To help us do that, Jesus gives us one more challenge.
Eyes on the Prize
Even before we say our first words, we learn to clap. We see our parents or siblings do it, and we like it. So, we imitate them in the hope that they will do it again and again. We learn to do all sorts of things to get more approval and affection.
But sometimes it doesn’t work. You do something good, but no one notices. You try to get their attention, but they get irritated, even angry. It might get better. The person’s responses might be up and down. But they also might choose to be negative all the time.
Those experiences shape us. They might even impact the way you view God. Does he bother to pay attention? If so, is he just looking for an opportunity to punish me? God is just. He does not overlook sin. But he desires to reward us. So, in his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus presents him as our good heavenly Father, and he challenges us to keep our eyes on the prize of God’s ultimate reward.
Before we look at Jesus’ words, let me direct you to a passage from the New Testament Book of Hebrews. The author is talking about the importance of faith in the lives of Old Testament believers. Now the Old Testament does not really speak of God as a Father. That begins with Jesus. But God’s desire to bless and reward people was already clear. So, Hebrews 11:6 says,
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.
This might not fit your impression of how God works in the Old Testament, but it’s true. He blessed Adam and Eve with paradise. The problem arose when they disobeyed him. He sought to restore his blessing through Abraham. But Abraham’s trust often wavered, and there were consequences. We see the same thing happening with other Old Testament believers.
So, as Jesus calls people to stop the show of performative righteousness, he identifies a similar consequence. Look again at Matthew 6:1.
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.
Later in the chapter, he says that those who do seemingly righteous things to put on a show for people have already received their reward in full. They get the respect, the applause, or even the envy that they seek. But they are not doing it for the Lord, so why would he reward it?
The Lord still wants to reward people, and in the rest of his sermon Jesus explains the righteous deeds that God rewards. We will work through those passages in the coming weeks. At this point, we should consider what it means for God to reward someone. Is the reward salvation and a place in his kingdom, or is it something more?
Paul speaks of a reward in 1 Corinthians 3:12-15. He likens the Christian life to a building project with Jesus as our foundation. Then he says,
Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw--each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
Our salvation is based entirely upon God’s grace and the saving work of Christ. But as we build upon that foundation as believers, we do some things that have eternal value and some things that don’t. On the day that we stand before the Lord, he will reward us for those deeds that pass the test. But it will become clear that our other deeds were a missed opportunity and a waste of time.
The nature of the reward is not entirely clear, but Jesus’ Parable of the Talents may give us a hint. He tells the story of a man going on a journey who gives his three servants various amounts of resources to carry on business while he is away. A talent was a measure of weight used for precious metals like silver or gold. Upon the man’s return, he requires an accounting from his servants. In response to one of the faithful ones, Matthew 25:21 tells us,
His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.'
The reward may relate to some kind of opportunity to serve the Lord in his kingdom and for eternity. It might simply be his recognition and commendation that we have been faithful and done well with our time in this world. Either way, it is only possible because of God’s grace, and it shows that our heavenly Father cares about us and wants to reward us. So, keep your eyes on that great prize and let it inspire you to live for him.
__________
Jesus has much more to say in his Sermon on the Mount about the reward and about what truly matters in life, but we must heed these three challenges. Perfect makes practice. We all need the perfect righteousness of Christ that we receive through faith. Only then can we begin to practice righteousness, and we must do so for God’s eyes only and with our eyes on the prize of his reward.
So, if you think of Christianity as simply being a good person, you are missing the point. We can never be good enough. We fall far short. We each need to be saved. We must trust the promise that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us by God’s grace through faith. Are you trusting in him? If not, I urge you to start today. If you want to learn more about the life of faith, you might want to read Philippians 3 where Paul shares his story.
If you’re trusting in Christ, are you living to please God? Has it become a show or are you just living to please yourself? If so, I encourage you to repent and refocus your heart. Use your freedom in Christ to walk in the good deeds that God has prepared for you. Do what you can to encourage others to please God too. Don’t pressure them to put on a show but point them toward living for the Father’s reward.
May God help us walk in his truth!
Reflect
When are you most tempted to put on a good show for people? Why?
What could you do to stay focused on living to please God?
What could you do to better reflect these challenges in how you relate to others?