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PROGRESSIVE NARRATIVE SERMON OUTLINE
Date: 2022-02-20
Audience: Grass Valley Corps
Title: How to be Perfect
Text: Matthew 6:1-18
Proposition: Doing good to feel good isn’t good
Purpose: Practice righteousness for the glory of God
Introduction
Grace and peace
-illustration
Used to watch NCIS: LA faithfully.
CFOT – no time – no TV, 2 years.
No NCIS:LA!
Tried to catch up – not available for streaming.
I suppose I could pick up now.
Each episode is self-contained story, right?
Except, no.
I’d only be hearing part of the story – gaps in character development, missing the big picture, not at all what the storytellers intended.
Like skipping chapters in a book!
Or reading them out of order.
Lose a lot.
Same with the Bible… The way we have cut it up into sections with chapter/verse make it easier to look up passages, but harder to understand the intended message.
Replace intended with our own idea based on just reading/hearing a piece of the story.
-proposition (principle/teaching of story)
For example: Jesus is about to explain to his disciples that their pursuit of perfection or WHOLENESS that God has for them requires them to be aware that doing good to feel good isn’t good!
-purpose (application)
Instead, they – and WE – should be focused on practicing righteousness for the glory of God.
-reference to text
Or, to put it the way Jesus put it in Matthew 6, verse 1:
“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.
If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.[1]
I. 1st Part of Story
A. Narration
Why am I picking on chapters and verses again?
If start with 6:1, miss that this isn’t its own teaching – part of the whole.
Your Bible probably has split passage into three or four sections, given each its own little header, as if they are independent from one another.
Truth is, all are illustrations of how to do what Jesus just told his followers they are all required to do.
Which is what?
If you started at chapter 6, verse 1, like we just did, you wouldn’t know.
But if you think back to last week or look back to the end of chapter 5, you’ll see this:
48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
[2]
Why is he saying this?
Because he’s telling them that perfection – again this is referring to a wholeness of being who you were created to be – takes some thinking and working through.
He even gave a way to measure how you’re doing at it.
20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.[3]
Might be: Pharisees and teachers of the Law?
Those pathetic losers?
Not a right understanding of either group!
Pharisees were laymen, but they were completely about living righteous lives.
Believed that people living holy lives was critical to God sending the Messiah who would usher in a new age of following the LORD.
All about doing the right thing the right way!
Good men and women trying to live the way God expected them to.
Same with Teachers of the Law, also called Scribes.
These were priests and temple workers.
Job was to teach and help people understand the Law – God’s covenant passed on through Moses.
Good men and women, trying to live the way God expected them to.
Jesus didn’t use them as an example here because they were bad.
Used them as an example of how you need to seek a higher standard.
Like saying, “These guys are doing really well, but even they could do a little better if they understood this…”
They were the role models he pointed to, but like with all role models, the goal was to exceed their accomplishments.
But when goal is simply to equal or exceed a role model, where is the focus?
On the doing and measuring, right?
So it’s on yourself.
How you did or didn’t do.
How others think you did.
It’s all about YOU.
So before giving his disciples examples of how to live out righteousness, Jesus cautions them against getting caught up in the performance.
That’s what we read before:
“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.
If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
[4]
With me so far?
He’s about to give three examples.
Problem with how we read scripture: We’ve separated these out and given them their own little headers and made it look like they are three separate instructions.
Which they are, in a way, but these individual acts aren’t what matters, and they aren’t given as a list of three essential behaviors or three best practices or even as three requirements for a faithful life.
They are RANDOM examples.
They are drawn from the known public practices of the Pharisees and the Scribes, but they are random.
Why do I say that?
Because Jesus is using a specific kind of teaching here.
And in that teaching, the supporting arguments are three random but on point examples.
They are intended to teach a general understanding of a big idea, not specifics of individual ritual practices.
Here’s the first example Jesus gives of what it means to practice your righteousness as part of becoming who you were created to be rather than doing good to feel good.
Matthew 6:2-4.
2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others.
Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.
3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret.
Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.[5]
B. Discussion (proves or explains this part of story)
Where we now think of a hypocrite as someone who says one thing, but does another, the key here is what the word meant in the First Century.
Hypocrite was word for a type of actor who put a large mask on to convey what character they were.
It was an outward appearance that literally masked who the person underneath was.
If your giving is done for an audience, then it isn’t about the caring and community the LORD instructed us to foster.
It may outwardly look like you’re doing something for others in need, but that’s just the character you’re playing.
It’s actually about the applause.
This is one of the things I hate about the Christmas season – almost all of the giving is hypocrisy.
People say they want to help kids in need or families who are struggling or whatever, but then they only want to help a certain way – one which makes them feel good.
It isn’t that their assistance isn’t still helpful – though sometimes, frankly, it isn’t – but it isn’t really about helping either.
It’s about what they want, not about meeting needs.
Food drives were what sent me over the edge a few years back.
What we needed were a dozen staple items for each of a hundred food boxes we wanted to distribute.
If we had donors give us money directly, we could have bought all we needed at better than wholesale prices.
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