Rod Gomez: One of the coolest things that you'll get to do with your family
is to go find some of the best decorated neighborhoods, or in this case parking
lots, where lights are on full display.
My family and I, during my time off, we went to the light park, which is
right off of the Dallas North Tollway.
They have transformed the Rough Riders parking lot into
a drive through lights display.
So you go through you turn your radio station to a certain frequency and they're
playing music and then all the lights Work in synchronization to the music
that you hear on the radio, but beyond places like this You can go to other
places neighborhoods I'm here Highland Park does some really cool stuff But
people really go all out for Christmas and this is one of the best things ever
In fact, there are TV shows dedicated to Christmas lights displays In fact,
people can win money by setting up their house to do really cool things In fact,
I saw this guy this week He, I don't know where he lives, but he's got a large
lot and on his lot, he programs lights to go off at certain times with fire.
So he's got lights, he's got LCD displays.
I didn't put the video out here for you cause I thought it was too good.
It'd make my sermon not be as good.
So he has lights, LCDs, and then he's got fire that shoots up in the air.
And if that weren't enough, he actually has fireworks shooting in the
air as his lights display goes off.
So people take this really seriously.
This is all over our neighborhood.
In fact, North Texas has, is known for being.
Uh, full of light shows and displays Salina.
If you haven't gone to the Salina town square yet, they have some
pretty cool lights in the, in the town square, which is super impressive.
But think about this with me.
Imagine you drive up to a home just like this and the lights are spectacular.
They're playing music and it's all synchronized and there's happy
people in the front and they're, and they're so nice to you.
The whole thing is lovely to behold.
The husband and wife come out.
Mom and dad, they have pearly white teeth.
He's smiling.
He's laughing.
She's saying, come on over kids.
Watch my cool display.
The kids come out and they're perfect.
They stand with upright posture.
None of them are looking at their phones.
They're paying attention to you.
They are the perfect family.
Spotless.
You've never seen a better family.
And they say, why don't you come on inside our house, little kid?
They're talking to you, of course.
This gets weird really quick.
But you, lacking better judgment, you say, Okay, I'll come
inside the house with you guys.
And you walk inside the house.
And you, and you walk in and you find the house is completely dark.
There's no heating.
There's no lights.
There's no furniture.
There's no nothing.
You've just walked into a horror film.
You're about to die.
That's about what you're thinking, right?
If you see a light display like this and you walk inside and there's nothing
inside, that would be terrifying because you know, something is woefully wrong.
Well, interestingly enough, a lot of people do this.
They have a lot of lights and a lot of show and they have the perfect smile
and they have everything going on.
But if you just go a little bit deeper into their lives, you find out there's
really not a whole lot going on.
In fact, there's a lot of darkness.
A lot of scariness behind the scenes.
They put on a really good show, they look really good on the outside, but on the
inside, things aren't looking so hot.
In fact, Jesus talks about this, he said it's kind of like having a
cup, and on the outside of the cup, you have a really clean exterior.
You see sometimes cups in the sink, you'll see that inside the cup there's
like food particles and there's caked, uh, you know, stuff like this.
There's caked things on the inside.
Outside though, if you were just to look at the cup, it looks pretty good.
It's kind of like if you've ever been to Universal Studios, when you
go to Universal Studios, Hollywood in particular, you'll notice that
they have what are called facades.
Facades are exteriors that are meant to look really impressive on the outside.
They look real.
And that's because they're made for TV or for movies.
And so you'll see on the outside, there are these really impressive displays,
whether it's the old west or whether it's something like this, where it looks like
downtown New York or something like that.
But once you walk around the facade, you'll notice that what's behind
them is just, you know, steel beams and there's nothing else going on.
It's all for show.
A lot of people live their lives like this.
Challenge with this, So what I'm trying to say is, is that if you present
something to people, you present a life like this, which is a lot on the outside,
but not a whole lot going on the inside, there's really no benefit to this, right?
There's no, there's, there's no benefit.
It looks great, but if you were gonna invite someone in your house, you
don't have a kitchen to take them to, you don't have a bedroom to show them,
you don't have a, you don't have a stove to make them some tea or some
coffee, if you were to take them in.
Right.
If you were to give them your, your cup, the cup that you, you just showed that
that cup looks great on the outside, but you can't serve people with it.
Can't put coffee or Mountain View in it.
You got no purpose for it.
If the lights on the outside of the house look wonderful, but the house can't
keep you warm at night cause there's no gas or there's no electricity on
the inside, then the house is useless.
All of the things that I just showed you right now are examples of what
it looks like to have a really great outside, but a really empty inside.
Jesus is concerned about this because if you live your life this way,
what you end up doing is creating a really interesting outside, but
you lack what's most important.
You lack a really good inside.
Now here's what that means for you, practically speaking.
If you have on the outside, everything put together, but on the inside, you're
missing what God wants you to have.
If you're not, then really you have an empty life.
You have a life that's not purposeful, a life that's not useful
in the way that God designs it.
In fact, God wants you, I'm going to, I'm going to make
a bold claim for you tonight.
God wants you to pursue good things from him.
God wants you to pursue rewards from him.
God wants you to want the good things that he has for you.
But to get to the good things that God offers, he doesn't just want you
to pretend to be good on the outside.
He doesn't want you to just have a really nice Christmas lights
display while on the inside.
It's dark.
God wants you to pursue His rewards in His way.
God wants you to get the good things that He offers you in the way
that He wants you to go for them.
Paul talked about this, Paul the Apostle, talked about it
like a race.
He says, if I race, I don't want to run and get disqualified.
I want to run to win the prize.
I don't want to get disqualified.
In the same way, as you live your life, don't live your life in such
a way where you don't win the prize, where you don't get the reward.
God wants you to have the reward.
It's up to you, though, to play by the rules.
The rules are important.
We don't like the word rules because it has a negative connotation, but
the rules are really important.
I put it like this.
You get God's rewards by doing it God's way.
It's another way to say it, right?
I want you to play by the rules.
I want you to do what God wants you to do the way God wants you to do it.
I don't want you to set up Christmas lights and not have an inside the house
that's just as warm and as accommodating.
I don't want you to have a coffee cup, you to And only the outside is clean.
When I tell my kids to wash the dishes, I don't expect
them only to wash the outside.
I want them to wash the inside as well.
You're playing by the rules.
When someone builds a house, when your, when your parents contracted a
builder to build your house and build your room, they didn't say, Hey, we
just want a really nice exterior.
No, they said, Hey, we want sinks and toilets.
We also want bedrooms in a garage.
That's playing by the rules.
All this to say, tonight we're going to see through a long
text how we get God's rewards.
God wants you to have his rewards.
It's up to you to play by the rules to get them.
And for that, we're going to look at Matthew chapter six, Matthew chapter six.
We're going to look at 18 verses one through 18.
And it's a lot.
We're going to go through it really quickly.
And I'm going to promise you that if you listen closely to this message,
one of the things you'll walk away with is how God wants you to approach him.
And consequently, what God will do when you approach him the right way.
Amen.
Take a look with me again, Matthew chapter six, where are we?
We're in the Sermon on the Mount.
We're still there.
In fact, Matthew chapter five through seven is still the Sermon on the Mount.
We're going to see from Jesus how we, uh, how we live in his kingdom,
how Jesus wants us to relate to him and relate to his word.
Jesus fulfills the law by expanding upon it, by teaching what it
really is supposed to mean.
Our job is to obey him and respond accordingly.
And so he starts off with this.
Now, when you think about religion, when you think about getting right
with God, one of the first things you might think of is prayer.
But Jesus actually says, you know what, if you want to know if someone's truly right
with me, he goes right to something that most of us wouldn't think twice about.
He talks about your money, what you do with your money.
You're going to, you're about in a couple of weeks, 17, 16 days, 15 days,
you're going to get probably a couple of presents from grandparents, or maybe
from people that know you guys are going to say, Oh, here's a, here's, here's 50.
Or here's a 50 Amazon card, or here's a hundred bucks for Christmas.
They're gonna give you things to dispose of, money you get to choose
what to do with, and here's what Jesus says when it comes to money.
He says, look, Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people, before
people in order to be seen by them.
For then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
This one verse governs everything else you're about to look at.
And this is super important.
So track with me for a second.
Hang with me and understand this.
When you do good things for God, they must be for God and not for
something else, not for someone else.
Goes down to your motivations.
What are you motivated for?
What drives you?
And if it's not, I'm doing this for God, then you're
probably going to miss the mark.
Jesus says, when you're doing things for God, Whether it's giving money
or praying or fasting, he says if you're doing it to be seen by people,
well, then that's all you get from it.
That's your only reward.
If you're doing something just to impress mom or dad, or just to impress
your coach, or just to impress the girl that you like, or the guy that you're
into, if you're doing it just to impress people, that's all you get from it.
But if you're doing it for God, that's when you get rewarded.
In fact, a few weeks ago, we talked about this.
Remember when Jesus says, look, in the same way, let your light
shine before others so that they may see your good works.
Jesus is not against people seeing you do good.
What He is against is you doing good so that people see you.
There's a difference.
If you're saying, I want to do it so that people give glory to my Father in
Heaven, to give glory to God, great.
But if you're doing it so that people look at you and say,
look how awesome that girl is.
She's so nice.
She's so spiritual.
He's so handsome.
He's so wonderful.
He's marriage material.
I love you.
He's the kind of guy I want to have a family with, maybe.
If you're doing it to impress people, you're missing the
mark, is what I'm saying.
Jesus is okay with people seeing your righteousness, but He's not
okay with that being your motivation.
He says, He continues on in Matthew chapter 6, He says, Thus, or so, when
you give to the needy, when you're giving money away to people who are in a bad
position, He says, Sound no trumpet.
Um, you've heard the term tooting your own horn?
When you start talking about how awesome you are?
I've got a 4.
5 GPA.
I speak four languages.
Really good at math, too.
Tooting your own horn.
Jesus says, don't do that.
He says, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues
and in the streets, that they may be praised by others, that you go again.
There's the motivation.
He says, truly, I say to you, they have received the reward.
If you're, if you want the praise of people versus the praise
of God, he says, there you go.
You've had your reward.
So, verse three, but when you give to the needy, that is you as a Christian,
when you give, don't even tell your left hand what your right hand is doing.
In other words, be so secret about it, so discreet that you're not telling
anybody or even keeping things away from yourself, which is impossible.
But Jesus is saying, go out of your way not to make a big deal out of it.
He says, verse four, so that your giving may be in secret.
And then he gives the rationale, the motivation.
This is the motivation.
He says, When you do this, your father, who sees everything, he
sees your waking, he sees your sleeping, he says, not Santa Claus.
This is the real God of heaven.
He sees everything about you.
And when you do what he wants for him, he will reward you.
You want God's rewards.
You got to do it God's way.
Here's God's way in a nutshell.
Point number one, if you're going to do it God's way, here's why you do good.
Here's why you pray.
Here's why you fast.
Here's why you give.
You ready for it.
You're going to be surprised when I tell you point number one,
you're ready for point number one.
Here goes.
Point number one.
Do good for God's glory.
Oh, man, I'm shocked.
This is brand new.
I've never heard this before.
I know you have.
I get that.
So please forgive me for the repetition.
But there is no formation without repetition.
So I'm doing this on purpose for your benefit.
When you do good, when you work hard in math class, when
you treat your sister nicely.
When you make your bed because your parents have asked you to do that, when
you do the dishes because you were told to do the dishes, when you work hard at
your instrument, when you labor strong in practice, when you read the book that your
English teacher told you to read, when you go to church and you pay attention
because your parents asked you to do that, when you do any good thing, what God cares
about is that you're doing it for Him.
I want to be rewarded by God and so ultimately I want to do
all of this for God's glory.
When I preach for you and you take notes, great notes, and you're giving me good
eye contact and you're nodding when you're understanding something, or you're
saying this, when you don't understand something, you're giving me feedback.
I appreciate that.
I really do.
That's, that's helpful for me because then I can kind of adjust along the way, which
is why I look at you when I'm preaching.
But I hope that you're doing that because you want to ultimately glorify God and not
just swing points with the youth pastors.
Does it benefit you anyway?
I really have nothing to give you.
But when you do things for God's glory, everything changes.
I remember when I, I used to work at McDonald's.
I don't know if I ever talked to this.
I used to work at McDonald's.
I worked there for I think two, maybe three years.
It was a long time.
I hated it.
But one occasion, it was a, I think it was a Saturday.
There was a homeless lady kind of camping out in front of the McDonald's.
I was a, I would call myself a Christian at that time.
I don't know that I truly was.
But I called myself a Christian.
So I felt The need to go out to this lady during my break.
And so that's what I did.
I have my 15 minute break.
I walked right outside through the double doors.
And I went to this lady and said, Hey, um, are you hungry?
Simple question.
And she said, yes, yes, I am.
I said, okay, well, can I buy you some food then?
And so she acquiesced.
She said, yeah, yeah, that'd be great.
I was always told never to give money to people that are, Because you never
know what they're going to use it for.
But if you want to be generous to somebody who doesn't look like they have
the same privileges you do, then one of the things you can do is buy them
food because probably going to eat it.
So I took her inside and I brought her in and she smelled, I remember
that much she was, she had a very pungent odor, wasn't wearing nice
clothes, obviously, but I brought her in and Rosa was at the register.
She was my manager at that time.
And I said, Rosa, I'd like to buy And a meal.
Um, It'd really be really great if I get my employee discount too, Uh,
but I'd like to buy them, and so I said, okay, whatever you want.
And I let her order and she got a ton, I don't even remember what it was.
Um, I remember though, when I, when I did that, uh, I felt the
pain of it cause she, she got a lot of food more than I expected.
Uh and I didn't make a lot of money, I was making minimum wage.
I mean, I'm doing Donald's after all.
But she ordered, and I paid whatever it was, the 15 bucks, which today
feels like a normal meal, but back then it was like 1, 000.
So I paid the money.
My boss is looking at me a bit quizzically, but also approvingly.
She was confused about what I was doing, but she was also proud.
I noticed that.
I clocked that pretty quickly.
Anyway, I waited with the lady, tried to make some small talk with her.
She got her meal, and then she went back outside, and that was it.
Um, I felt something.
That I've only felt a few times in my life where I just felt like,
man, that was really, really cool.
Jesus said it's more blessed to give than to receive, and that, that day
I felt it for one of the, one of the first times in my life, feeling what
it was like to give something away that actually really hurt, but I loved it.
It was awesome.
Rosa saw that, my boss at the time, Rosa.
She was a, she was a big Hispanic lady, one of my coolest bosses
ever, and she didn't, she didn't mention it, and I didn't bring it up.
I was okay with that, because I wasn't doing it for Rosa.
I wasn't doing it for McDonald's.
I wasn't, I was wearing my McDonald's uniform, but I wasn't trying
to make McDonald's look good.
I was trying to say this is what's what's good for God.
This is what's good for God's glory.
And I cared about the lady, at least enough to say, I want to feed you.
Let me help you.
And so many times people will do good things like that, but not for God's glory.
In fact, there's a whole industry of people that give a lot of
money away, but not for God.
These people are called philanthropists.
These philanthropists have made millions upon billions,
if not trillions of dollars.
You might notice some of those faces up there.
Bill Gates is knowing, uh, known for having given away lots of his money.
In fact, I think one of the challenges for Bill is that he's trying to
give away everything before he dies.
Him and, and, uh, Berkshire Hathaway guy.
What's his name?
Bennett.
Yeah.
Warren, Warren, Warren Buffett rather, not Bennett.
Uh, Buffett, uh, Gates, George Soros.
These guys have Bill, these guys are going to make more money than
everybody in this room, probably, unless you become one of these people.
He's going to make more money than everyone in this room combined
in five minutes than we'll ever see in our whole lifetime.
These guys will give away tons of cash.
But the question you should ask yourself is why do these
people give away all this money?
What's behind that?
And here's, here's the thing.
Some of them are giving away money to organizations that promote
health care, clean drinking water, which we could say that's great.
Some of them, actually a lot of them, give away money to educational organizations
where they're trying to educate people that don't have the same money that you
and I do, where they struggle with that.
So they provide money for those things.
These guys are giving away to some really neat organizations.
But is this good?
Is this a good thing?
Is there philanthropy, which by the way, philanthropy, uh, philo,
or philo, that's a form of love.
Um, And Anthropos is the word for man.
So a love of man, a philanthropist is someone who
loves mankind with their money.
So these guys are giving away tons of money.
Is that good?
Is that a good thing?
Part of you might say, well, yeah, of course it's good.
They're helping people, right?
They're giving away, you know, clean water and, and food and education.
And they would say, yeah, that's good.
But is it really good?
Is it truly good?
And here's my answer for you.
The answer is no, because it's not done for God's glory.
John MacArthur once said.
The good that people who are not Christians do is called bad good because
they don't do it for God's glory.
It's bad good.
So they're doing good, but it's bad good because it's not for God's glory.
There's some other reason that provokes them to do that.
Whether it's, I want people to remember me, which by the way, Bill
Gates has the Bill Gates Foundation.
It's actually called the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
So when he dies, he has a foundation with his name on it that dispenses the money.
Some of these other guys also have organizations that have
their names on it as well.
So there might be even an element of pride in their giving away.
For you then, I wonder if you ever even thought of this.
Like when I give stuff away, when I buy presents for friends, when I give money
to the church offering plate, if you do that, which if you do, good job for you.
Now, when I do nice things for friends, am I, am I doing it for the right reason or
is there maybe an element of pride in it?
Am I doing it because of, because of me?
I want people to know my name.
When I celebrate in the end zone, am I doing it because I want people to know
who I am or am I pointing up and doing the Jesus thing or the Tim Tebow and
what am I doing and why am I doing it?
And if I'm not doing it for God's glory, I'm missing the mark.
If you want God's rewards, if you want to know what it is to be rewarded by
God, you have to do it God's way and God's way is do all things for my glory.
Be okay with doing it in secret because it's not about people
giving you the accolades.
It's about God's glory.
Jesus now continues.
We talked about giving what you do with your money, what you do with your money
reveals so much about your heart, but he also says how you communicate with
God also reveals a lot about your heart.
There are some churches that teach people to pray for things
like, Hey, give me the big job.
God give me the red convertible car.
Give me that brand new, whatever it is.
They teach something called health, wealth, and prosperity.
Jesus actually tells you how he wants you to pray.
And how you pray, again, revealing your heart, tells you a lot.
Here's what he says, take a look with me here.
How Jesus wants us to pray.
In these few verses, Matthew 5 through 8, let's take a look at this first.
Jesus says, when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites.
And a hypocrite, by the way, is someone that wore a mask
and played a part on a stage.
Um, and so they would pretend to be something they were not.
He says, don't be like those people.
They love, listen to this, they love to stand and pray in the
synagogues and out the street corners.
Here we go again, that they may be seen by others.
Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
That is, they don't get anything else.
If you want man's praise, that's all you get.
You get nothing more than that.
He says, but when you pray, you as a Christian follower, as a
disciple, he says, go into your room.
, shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret.
In other words, don't make a big show of it.
Just do it quietly.
Don't, don't need to go to the kitchen table and show
your mom that you're praying.
Don't need to have your dad.
Notice what you're doing.
She says, do it quietly.
Do it privately.
He says, and your father who sees in secret, that's God the
Father, he will reward you.
Your reward's gonna be better than just having people say, what a,
what a religious person you are.
He says in the next few verses here.
When you pray, don't heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for
they think that they're going to be heard for their many words.
There are some people, Jesus says, that like to try to manipulate God
by just saying a lot and having big, flowery sentences that go on and on.
And he says, look, if you think you're getting God's attention just because
you have a pretty voice, or you have pretty sentences, or have long paragraphs
of information to communicate, it doesn't mean that God's listening.
He's listening.
God doesn't care about how many words there are, per se.
He cares about something else.
He says, verse 8 here, Don't be like them.
Where am I?
Verse 8?
Is that still up here?
Yes.
Verse 6, 7, 8.
Yes.
Don't be like them.
Don't be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
God already knows.
You come to God in prayer, He knows what you need.
That ought to change the way that you pray, He says.
And then he's going to tell you how to pray.
Now, we're going to go through this rapid fire.
I want to give you some pointers on this, but I need you to go in your
Bible and look along with me, because I don't have it on the screen for you.
So, go to your Bible.
Yeah.
There you go.
So go, go to Matthew chapter six, and we're going to look at
verses nine to 15 in your Bible.
So open your Bible.
I'm going to read it along with you.
Make a few comments as you, as you read, here's what he says.
When you pray, Jesus says, pray like this, that is don't pray
exactly this, but pray like this.
He starts off here in verse nine, our father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
So first of all, he communicates who you're talking to.
He's not just God generally.
He's our father in heaven.
And notice the inclusive pronoun.
It's not just my father in heaven.
He's assuming that you're praying with other Christians.
Our father in heaven.
Hallowed be your name means make your name holy.
Make people honor your name is what he's saying there.
Verse 10.
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Jesus says when you pray, your prayer should reflect a God centered focus.
A sense of I want God's will to be done.
I don't want my will to be done if it conflicts with God's will.
You should be asking for God's will to be done.
Verse 11.
Jesus wants you to reflect your neediness.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Feed me, God.
Here's something interesting.
Think about this for a second.
You've never, probably, you've never had to ask God to feed you.
And yet, every single day of your life, God has fed you.
And some of you, he's fed really well, right?
He doesn't just give you enough to get by.
He's not just giving you bread.
He's giving you Gigantic turkeys and cheesy potatoes and cinnamon rolls and
all sorts of wonderful gooey deliciousness that we all ate for Thanksgiving and
we're about to eat again for Christmas.
You've never prayed for God to give you your daily bread and
yet everyday God does that.
Why do we not pray for that?
Well, because we think we're going to get it no matter what.
Jesus doesn't want us to think that way.
Jesus doesn't want us to take for granted his provision.
And so he says, look, ask for that.
Ask God to provide for you daily.
He continues verse 12, forgive us our debts as we also
have forgiven our debtors.
Jesus is saying you need to ask God for forgiveness on a regular basis.
You need to approach God recognizing you've sinned against God.
Probably even right now you're sinning against God in some way.
He wants you to acknowledge that and say, Lord, please forgive me.
And what's interesting is that Jesus wants you to anticipate God's forgiveness.
If you're the kind of person who's willing to forgive others.
If you're the kind of person who forgives others, Jesus is saying, You're probably
going to get God's forgiveness then.
You get God's forgiveness.
Someone who's been forgiven by God is willing to forgive others.
And says, he says here in verse 13, lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Again, dependent upon God to protect us, to guard us.
Verse 14, for if you forgive others, their trespasses, your heavenly
father will also forgive you.
But if you do not forgive others, their trespasses, then neither
will your father forgive yours.
This is the template that God gives you for how to pray.
Now, I told you, if you want God's rewards, you gotta do things God's way.
If you want answers to your prayer, you gotta learn to pray
the way that God wants you to pray.
If you want to know how to approach God, you need to approach God
in the way that He prescribes.
So many times, people pray in ways that are just not that helpful.
Have you guys ever seen those commercials, uh, the Snickers commercials?
You're, you're not, you're not yourself when you're hungry?
Shows people acting in weird ways like this, this, this
linebacker or whatever he was.
He was whining and complaining.
This is Betty White, by the way.
She's an old school actress and she eats it and then he turns back into himself
and he's this big, buff, burly guy.
Really brilliant advertising.
In fact, Snickers has, has great advertising.
Your, your hunger level, where you put the tattoo, so you're
not you when you're hungry.
So if you eat a Snickers before you get to the point of being so ravenously
hungry, you won't make the mistake of putting a tattoo on the side of your head.
Okay.
Which as a rule of thumb, probably should not get a tattoo on your face.
Just hear me say that.
Okay.
That's not the point of my sermon, but don't do that.
Yes.
You'll avoid the, you'll avoid the problem.
Last one here.
You're not you when you're hungry.
Uh, I guess zebras chase down lions when they're really hungry and that's
how that, that's a big mistake.
Obviously don't do that.
You're not you when you're hungry.
That's it.
That's their tagline.
You're not you when you're hungry.
Most Christians are not them when they pray.
I think Jesus might say that to you.
You're not you when you pray.
And the same way that Snickers is like, hey, when you're hungry,
you're not the same person.
Jesus, I think, probably would point to a lot of Christians and
say, you're not you when you pray.
You're somebody else.
Which I'm not saying you shouldn't, you shouldn't respect God and revere God.
Obviously, please do that.
But when you pray, so many times the reason you struggle in prayer
is because you're approaching God like he's not a person.
You're approaching God like he's just this figment of your imagination
that only requires respect.
I hope when you hear mature people pray, you hear them
interact with God as a person.
Point number two like this.
I would say treat God as a person, not a performance.
Some people treat prayer like a performance.
I have to say the right thing.
I don't want to be embarrassed.
I don't want to pray the wrong thing.
When I pray in front of people, I don't want them to think
I'm, I don't know anything.
I don't want people to think I'm weird or strange or that I'm a cultist.
And so I, I perform when I pray.
I try to say the right thing.
And to the point where I'm not even focusing on God anymore, I'm just
focusing on saying the right thing.
treat God as a person, not a performance.
God doesn't want you to pretend.
And then I, I, I feel like this would be one area where if I could encourage
you to approach God with this, this could change your relationship with God.
I, I wish I could, maybe I don't, I I wish you could hear me pray
though, not in this setting.
I, I, I'm honest and I think you hear me pray all the time and
you can hear the way I, I do it.
Um, but my private prayers are even more, not casual, but familial.
I talk to God much like I talk to you guys.
Um, again, not this casual.
I'm still respectful, but I treat God like a person, and I would
love for you to do the same.
I'd love for you to see God as someone who's right in front of you.
God is omnipresent, obviously, so He's not only in one location, but
God is willing to hear your prayers.
He wants you to pray.
One of the rewards that a Christian looks for is the reward of intimacy
with God, and the way that you get that is by drawing near to God as
a person and not trying to perform for Him, not trying to pretend that
you're something that you're not.
Here's a couple things here.
Keys to prayer that God accepts.
Number one, pray to God, not people.
Okay, when you're praying, don't pray to people.
I know sometimes it's hard to pray when people are listening.
I get that, but you have to pretend that they're not there.
If you can do that, pray to God, not a person, your prayers
are already going to be better.
God will love that prayer, because it'll be real, and it won't be you trying
to pretend, and trying to perform, and trying to impress everybody else.
Next, pray with these three ingredients, and this is all coming from what
Jesus just encouraged us to do.
First of all, ingredient number one, reverence for God.
I don't want you to call God, Daddy God.
I don't want you to pretend like God is your best friend.
This is not a Jesus take the wheel situation.
God must be revered.
Honor Him, esteem Him, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't pray to
God with a sense of He's my Father.
He wants to hear from me.
Second, knowledge of your neediness.
Jesus said Uh, ask for your daily bread, ask for forgiveness of sins,
ask for deliverance from evil.
So you got to come to God knowing you need a whole lot more,
even what you think you need.
You need more than that.
If you can come to God with your neediness, you'll come with appropriate
reverence and appropriate awareness.
Number three of your responsibility toward others.
So you're coming to God with reverence.
You're coming with a knowledge of your neediness and you're coming with
awareness of your responsibility.
Here's what I mean by that.
Jesus said, ask for forgiveness as you forgive others.
Jesus wants you to always think of yourself in light of your
relationships with other people.
You can't have a close relationship with God if your
human relationships are broken.
Now there's exceptions to this rule, but here's what I mean by that.
Let's say your parents get you upset for some reason.
They ask you to do something, you're not having it, you don't like it, you
don't like the way they said it, so you're really mad at your parents.
Is it easier or harder for you to pray to God when you're really
upset with your mom and dad?
Easier or harder?
Much harder.
Thank you.
Appreciate you answering.
The only one.
Oh, that was you?
Thank you, Ezekiel.
Should have joined him, Carson.
Much harder.
That's because when you have a broken human relationship, it's
much harder to relate to God.
Especially when you know it's a relationship that God wants
you to have in good standing.
When you pray to God, you need to come with an awareness of who
God is, an awareness of where you are and an awareness of how
am I doing with other people?
Am I, am I holding bitterness with my siblings?
Am I angry at my mom and my dad?
Am I, am I mistreated friends at school?
Am I, am I picking on people that I shouldn't pick on?
Am I treating people around me the way I should?
Accepting my responsibility before God comes means I'm coming to God
with an awareness that I'm not where I need to be and I need to change.
God, please help me.
This is the kind of prayer model that Jesus wants us to adopt.
It's not just thinking of ourselves, it's thinking about our
relationship to God and others.
Profoundly relationship centered.
Okay, last, one more thing that Jesus brings up.
We talk about, if we want God's rewards, we need to do things God's way.
Remember, God's way is for His glory, treating Him like a person, with humility.
We're not performing for Him, we're being authentic with God.
The last thing, though, is something you probably haven't done before.
So let's take a look at it real quick.
He says here, and when you fast, this means going without food
in this particular instance, but you might say going without
something in order to focus on God.
It's meant to convey humility.
It's meant to convey dependence upon God.
It's a way for you to relate to God.
So he says, when you fast, don't look gloomy like the hypocrites.
There are some people, Jesus says, who when they fast, they
want you to know, Oh, my stomach.
Oh, oh, this is so hard.
Oh, what's the matter pastor?
Oh, I'm just, I'm just fasting.
Don't worry about me though.
I'm okay.
I'll be all right.
Please don't worry about me.
It's silly, but this is what Jesus is calling out.
He doesn't want people to pretend like they're doing some great thing
for God when all they're really doing is trying to get you to look at
them and say, man, that dude, he's, Pastor Rod is serious about God.
Wow.
They should get an award or something.
Well the award is human approval, human approbation.
He says they disfigure their faces.
So they make their face like, Oh, I have a stomach hurt, you
know, they want you to see.
Disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others.
Truly I say to you, as Jesus said before, they have received their reward.
That's all you get.
You get human applause.
Good job.
Good.
Yes.
No.
Good job.
He says, but when you fast, Christian.
When you deny yourself something that is good, in order to focus
on God and show humility, anoint your head, wash your face.
We might say, take a shower, young men, shave your face,
put on some clean clothes.
Verse 18, that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by
your father who is in secret.
And your father who sees in secret, he will reward you.
God cares deeply.
About you having integrity.
God wants your authenticity.
God wants your motivation to be on him and not for other people.
You ever see these TikTok videos where someone does something like this.
They're like, they're crying in front of the camera.
They're, they're showing that they're really bothered by something, but they
have the wherewithal to set up their tripod, turn on their lights, and
then perform in front of the camera as though they're really experiencing that.
I mean, so.
So cringy, right?
Cringe.
In fact, there's one guy on TikTok that I love because he takes videos like
this and he points out the absurdity.
I just had to show it to you.
Okay, so just this, just this one, just one, right?
This is it.
That's all I got is one.
You ready?
Okay,
I don't know the gal.
I'm sure she intended it and meant well, so I don't know.
I guess I don't know.
But you get how silly that feels, right?
After you're like, oh, yeah.
I'm watching her cry, but she had to set up the video.
She had to, then she had to do, do her thing in front of it to make sure
that you saw her being distressed.
And it's, it was naturally just off putting.
Humans are not meant to act and play.
We're meant to be, to be real.
And that's what, that's what God wants from you.
You want to do things God's way.
He wants you to do everything for His glory.
And He wants you to do it in a way that's genuine.
I put it like this, point number three, let's pursue
authenticity instead of acting.
If you are far from God, Better for you to just say that.
If you're struggling with something that you hear from me, better for
you to say that than to pretend that you're tracking or that you love
God when in reality you're really struggling or that you're not with Him.
Better for you to be honest with where you are than to,
than to pretend like you're not.
Christians respect truthfulness.
And the reason why is because God respects that.
You want God's rewards?
You gotta do things God's way.
And God's way is authenticity, being real with where you're
at, being real with who you are.
Now, some people under that same guise will say, Well, then who I
really am is the opposite gender, or I'm really a cat, or, you know,
I identify as the Eiffel Tower.
That's not what I'm talking about.
Being real with where you're at means just being honest, truthful.
That's what God wants.
Authenticity instead of acting.
Gotta be real with yourself and with God.
This is the way that God wants us to interact with them.
When it comes to fasting, hopefully at some point we'll do this, but God
wants you to fast in the right way, which means I'm doing it for His sake.
I don't need you to tell me I'm doing a good job.
I'm doing it for God and for God alone.
I've been dancing around this the whole time.
Now let's talk, let's unpack this just a bit.
God says when you do things His way, what do you get?
What do you get?
When you do things God's way, you get God's rewards.
You might be asking, well, What kind of rewards do I get then Pastor Rod?
What do I do if God's gonna give me something?
What do I get out of this thing?
It's a good question.
Let me try to answer that briefly as we close Sometimes you'll see things
like this on on the Facebook post or something like this the community boards
There's like oh I lost my dog or I lost my cat If you find my dog or my cat,
this is what they look like And if you call me and you see you see my cat get
them turned into me I will give you this guy I think is offering 500 bucks 500
reward or free dog grooming for life.
That's actually a good deal I might buy a dog just to get that.
Because Lord knows, you don't need another cat in the world.
Just kidding.
Cat lovers.
People will try to incentivize, like, Hey!
Get me back my cat.
I'll give you 500 to get my cat.
Look out for my cat.
Give me 500.
By the way, this is real.
If you've seen this cat, maybe you'd get 500 out of this.
that's good Christmas money right there.
But what about the people that are like you know I don't really care about
500 bucks I got everything I need.
I don't need your 500.
I don't need your dog grooming because I don't have any dogs.
I don't have any cats.
I don't have any kids.
I don't need them.
For some people, this might be super interesting and engaging for others.
And they're like, no big deal.
I don't need, I don't need more money.
I don't need more, whatever that is.
When it comes to the way that God rewards us, it's not like God saying, Hey, if
you find my cat, I'll give you 500.
It's God saying, I know you better than you know yourself.
I care about you more than you care about yourself.
I can give you precisely what your soul needs, which is me first and foremost.
One of the rewards God gives is not the intangible benefits of money.
He gives you the tangible life enhancing relationship with him.
That's the first thing.
One of the rewards God gives you is more of himself, more joy, more gladness, more
connection with the God who made you.
I can't overstate that.
That's one of the best blessings you get.
But on top of that, in addition to God himself, God depicts himself as
a good father who's very generous.
And I kind of alluded to it already.
Think about this.
Every day of your life, for as long as you've been alive, you've
never just had bread for food.
You've never just had water.
You've never just had one pair of shoes.
You've always had plenty.
And this is God giving you this in this life.
And I'm not saying that, I'm not saying that heaven is
going to be all material gain.
I'm trying to make a point.
God is generous.
And if you can see God's hand of generosity in this life, just wait
till you see what He gives in the next.
Again, the most important thing God gives you?
Himself.
But because God is generous, He gives you not only Himself, but so much more.
And it will be worth it in the long run.
You want God's rewards, you gotta do it God's way.
Which means you're doing it for His glory.
You're doing it, not as a performance, but with a person.
God, the person, a real person.
And thirdly, it's authentic and not acting.
This is Matthew chapter 6 verses 1 through 18 in a nutshell.
So much more here, but we can't cover that.
So I would encourage you to read this.
Go back after tonight and read this again.
Make sure you understand what's being, what's being said here.
There's so many good things.
Next week when Matt preaches, we're going to put a pause in
the book of Matthew, ironically.
Matt's gonna preach, but not for Matthew.
We're gonna put a pause in the book of Matthew.
We'll pick it up back again in the new year, but there's so much here.
I would love for you to see all that Matthew has to offer.
There's much more to come.
Thank you for paying attention.
Let's pray, and then I'll dismiss you to your small groups.
God, we are grateful for the opportunity to open your Word, to learn from
it, to study it, and ultimately to be impacted and changed by it.
Please help us not to quickly forget what we just heard.
So easy for us to, to hear things and even to say, oh, that's
interesting or I like that.
And yet to walk away and forget about it, not to think about it, not to
engage it in our brains to turn it over and to figure out ways to apply it.
In fact, Lord, that's one of the reasons that we're going to small groups.
We want to apply what we just heard.
So help us with that.
Give us grace to do it.
Lord, give us the ability to pay close attention, help us to honor our
leaders and to honor one another as we try to work through some of the
questions that we're about to encounter.
We ask all of this in Jesus name.
Amen.