Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

How well do you follow instructions?

How well do you follow instructions?

Washington Biological Survey

Wash.

Biol.

Surv.

The US Department of the Interior once funded a study of migratory birds called the Washington Biological Survey.

Each bird in the study was carefully tagged with a metal ring around its foot bearing the mark “Wash.

Biol.

Surv.” so that they could track the birds’ migratory patterns.

Some time later, the tags had to be changed after a farmer wrote to Washington.

His later stated, “Dear Sirs, I shot one of your crows, that was eating my corn.

My wife carefully followed your cooking directions—she washed it, boiled it, and served it.

It was the worst thing we ever ate.”

Jesus left us a set of instructions for righteous worship.

How well can you follow His instructions?

We’ll continue today with our series on the Sermons of Jesus.

We are continuing with the Sermon on the Mount in chapter 6 today, beginning in verse 1.

What is Worship for you?

We come to “worship” week after week on Sundays.

What do we do here?

We sing songs, we pray and praise God.

We listen to insightful and meaningful messages pulled directly from God’s word and applied to our daily lives...

But how do you worship once you leave this place?

Does worship even enter your mind on Monday morning?

We’ll look into this a little bit more in just a few minutes, but once scripture that I absolutely guarantee that you have memorized is ...

I want to see your hand if you eat every single day.

How many of you ever go a single day without thinking about eating something?

You eat daily, right?

Why not go before God daily and worship His name daily as if you depend upon Him daily like you depend upon your daily bread?

Don’t we need God in our lives every single day, like we need food to eat, water to drink, air to breathe?

Why not go before God daily and worship His name daily as if you depend upon Him daily like you depend upon your daily bread?

Jesus Himself said for us to deny ourselves and take up His cross daily...

Jesus Himself said for us to deny ourselves and take up His cross daily… NOT take up His cross daily and parade it around town making sure that everybody notices how great a guy you are for carrying such a heavy burden.

[Have you noticed this cross I have on my back?

Boy, is it heavy!]

Daily Worship Disciplines of the Pharisees

There were several worship disciplines for the Pharisees during Jesus’ time.

Jesus chose to highlight a few of these disciplines and put them in the perspective of righteousness.

Gifts

Prayer

giving alms to the poor

Fasting

praying publicly

Our Wealth

fasting weekly

I realize that “wealthing is not a word...

Jesus did not condemn any of these practices, but he did speak to each of them in such a way that we could see that people will corrupt the intent of these elements and make them self-serving rather than God-serving.

Of course what the Pharisees were doing lacked this true righteousness that we’ve been looking at in recent weeks...

because he knew that people could corrupt the intent of these elements and make them self-serving rather than God-serving.

Righteousness

As we’ve been working through the Sermon on the Mount, we have keyed in on the theme of righteousness that runs through the entire message.

The Pharisees had a way of doing things so that they would gain the attention of man rather than doing things to please God.

Jesus makes that point in verse 1 of chapter 6...

It’s no great surprise that this is exactly what Jesus was calling out the Pharisees for… But it might surprise you to hear me say that Jesus could just as easily have been calling out Baptists or Methodists for practicing their righteousness before men… because we all still catch ourselves doing this from time to time.

This is built into our DNA… it is our human nature.

because we do

PRAY

still see this practice in today’s modern world.

PRAY

And here we go, right here in the introduction as we’ve barely gotten started with today’s message, is the first principle:

Father,

PRINCIPLE Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them.

Father God, we praise Your righteous and holy name.

We thank you for allowing us into Your presence, God.

Father please forgive us for being Pharisees.

Forgive us when we put our pride and arrogance before You.

Forgive us when we are so focused on the bustle of activity around us that we forget You and what You did to draw us back in Your presence.

God, we thank You for the supreme sacrifice that Jesus accomplished on the cross.

May we ever lift Your name on high and praise You before the eyes of man.

Father please forgive me of my sins that might not grieve Your Holy Spirit and impede the proclamation of Your words before this gathering today.

God, please give me precision of speech, clarity of mind, and a heart for Your people as I bring Your word today.

In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, we pray.

Amen

I. Giving -

As a reminder, we never see Jesus condemn any of these practices that he addresses.

These are all still valid forms of worship for us today.

What we will see today is that Jesus is condemning HOW these are practiced.

Giving to the poor is called almsgiving in scripture.

As I said earlier, almsgiving (that is giving money to the poor) is not a form of worship that we practice today.

When we give, we give to the church through our tithes and offerings.

Alms - charitable gifts

Almsgiving is not a form of worship that we practice today.

In the Old Testament, almsgiving implies an expression of compassion in the presence of God.

In fact, the Hebrew word for “almsgiving” is tzedakah and this word is used interchangeably in Hebrew for “righteousness.”

The connection between righteousness and almsgiving is made because God commanded His people, the Israelites, to care for those who were less fortunate: the widow, the orphan, the refugee, the prisoner, those who lived in poverty.

During Jesus’ time the Pharisees had developed the pretentious practice of drawing attention to themselves so that all those around them could see when they were giving money to the poor.

The practice of blowing the trumpet may likely have been a metaphor, much like our saying “Don’t blow your own horn.”

It is possible that the Pharisee’s were dropping their coins into the collection boxes ostentatiously or doing something else that might draw attention to themselves.

But no matter what they were doing, Jesus counted it as hypocrisy because of the motive of the heart on the part of those who would give in this way.

During Jesus’ time the Pharisees had developed the pretentious practice of drawing attention to themselves so that all those around them could see when they were giving money to the poor.

The practice of blowing the trumpet may likely have been a metaphor, much like our saying “Don’t blow your own horn.”

It is possible that the Pharisee’s were dropping their coins into the collection boxes ostentatiously or doing something else that might draw attention to themselves.

But no matter what they were doing, Jesus counted it as hypocrisy because of the motive of the heart on the part of those who would give in this way.

I should note here that Jesus makes an assumption here that WE will give to the poor.

But his primary point is to say that the practice of calling attention to our giving is not truly righteous, but self-serving.

This is because acts of worship are intended for Father God in Heaven, not for the purpose of gaining the attention and respect of man.

Our motive for giving should always be centered around our service to God as we seek to love Him and please Him.

When the attention of other men is our motive, then we unravel any good that we might be doing with the good work.