Built To Last: Practicing Righteousness Rightly

We're going to continue in our Build the Last Series. Now we're going through the Sermon on the Mount. If you have a Bible, please go ahead and open up to Matthew chapter six. I'm going to continue in the passage that Pastor Paul was in last week.

And I'm actually going to read the verses that he taught on because really as we look at verses one through 18, they're very comprehensive in themselves. So please follow along with me. Jesus says that, he says, be aware 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.

Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no entrapment before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that you're giving maybe in secret and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites.

For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. Pray then like this, our Father in heaven, how will be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites.

For they just figure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face 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. It's the word of the Lord.

That's pretty good. Father God, we are thankful for the gift of your word. We're thankful that Jesus, you came down and you wrapped yourself up in flesh and you walked among us and you taught us. And we have the great privilege to read your very words that you taught thousands of years ago and we find them so impactful and so needed and so relevant to us today.

So what I pray that the words that I say would be the words that you want me to say or to help us to hear your truth. So Spirit, teach us tonight. We look forward to the work that you're doing in us and among us and through us as we grow up into you. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.

So okay, so with this passage, typically what I like to do is really gonna work through it almost kind of verse by verse. It's a big passage with some big themes and really there's a lot of repetitive themes. So we're gonna have a little bit of a bigger view to this. As I was preparing, I'm like, man, I wish I could really work through like the Lord's Prayer but I would need like four weeks to do that.

So maybe we'll come back around and do that. One thing you need to understand is that verse one really is an overview of the whole teaching. Okay? Or it says, be aware of prassing your righteousness before their people and it ought to be seen by them.

Jesus keeps coming back to that theme a few times as well as the rest of that verse where it says for then you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So he keeps coming back to that as well. So verse one is really the umbrella for the rest of this passage that we're looking at tonight. And the other thing we need to understand is this, is Jesus says, be aware of how you do these things.

He uses this term of practicing your righteousness. Now, what I want us to understand is that that's a good thing. Jesus is, he's giving us good things here. He's reframing some things because they are being done wrongly in a lot of ways.

So he's not telling you to say, don't do these. He's saying, no, do do these. But I'm gonna teach you how to do them the right way. So really, this is really this passage.

I'm calling it lessons on practicing righteousness rightly. It's kind of like my title for an like, practicing righteousness rightly. Do them but do them rightly for the right reward from the right person. That's where we're going.

A couple of things I want you to see right away. Okay. Can someone track, I don't have an eraser. Can someone track down an eraser?

I think there was, yeah, Pastor Allen, I don't know if he knows where they are. That'd be awesome. Thank you very, very much. There's a few people groups we need to understand here.

One group that you hear a lot is the hypocrite. Okay. That's one person that we meet a lot in these passages. Another person we meet is the Gentile.

Now, I'm going to loosely categorize these a little bit. Really what Jesus is, when he talks about hypocrites, most often he's talking about the religious leaders of the day. Most often the Pharisees, sometimes the Sadducees. But that's really who he's talking about.

So he had these religious leaders. Okay. And then you have the Gentiles, those who are not Jewish, those who are outside of that faith. And when we look at this, I think some general categories we can make is, you know, we see this whole idea of this religious category here.

People who are just doing these acts, they follow certain ways of living, certain ways of worship, certain rules. These Gentiles, we can think of them as the irreligious. You know, they may talk about having no faith. You know, they're just, they're humanists.

They're in that kind of category. Now, what we need to understand here is that Jesus compares these two groups to a third group. And the third group is us. Does it mean he says, remember, he says, you know, when he talks about giving alms, when he talks about prayer, when he talks about fasting, he says, don't do it like these people do.

He says, but you do it this way. So you have this third group of Christians. Okay? You have this third group of Christians.

And this is really people who are driven and motivated by the gospel. So I think when we look at the world, based on what Jesus is teaching here and we see this in our lives, we have these three main categories of people. The religious, the irreligious, and Christians. You know, the gospel.

And so what we wanna do, I'm gonna try to move so many ways so people can see. I'm gonna unpack this in a little bit. Christianity is religion. But our motivation for how we do our religion is very different than everybody else in the world.

Our motivation is very different. We're gonna unpack this. I want you to understand, we need to understand some categories in our passage. The religious, the irreligious, and the Christian.

Okay? You guys follow me? Cool, it's gonna be fun. So chapter five, as we look back through this, chapter five in Matthew, that part of the Sermon in the Mount, Jesus is really talking a lot about moral righteousness.

He talks about love, kindness, purity. He unpacks those sorts of things. In chapter six, we're getting into the more duty of things, the duty of righteousness. There is action that we are to live out as Christians.

There is a duty in which we live our lives. Jesus highlights three common areas here in almsgiving, which we can kind of consider our duty to others, caring for the needy, giving alms. And this is really rooted back in Deuteronomy, chapter 15, verse seven. It says, if among you, one of your brothers should become poor in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, Deuteronomy 15, seven.

So this whole idea that God's people have always been called to give to those who are in need, to serve the need. That's part of who we are. And the reason that we learn that we do that is really Jesus unpacked in the beginning of the beatitudes. Because we are poor, without Christ, we're all poor in spirit.

There's a poverty about all of us that unifies us that Christ is the ultimate solution for. So almsgiving is the first area, our duty to others, and Pastor Paul unpacked that last week. The second area he talks about is prayer. And we can think of this as our duty to God in a sense, showing our dependence upon him, a practice of dependence.

Now, I'm still digging through. So I'm kind of a little bit hesitant to teach this and to say this, but I've been looking through the Old Testament all week. And I can't find a single command, like in the law, in the Torah, where we're told to pray and how to pray. Like I said, let's not make this an ironclad thing.

But what I noticed is this. Prayer was just a part, a natural part of following God. This conversation, this dependence, this asking for wisdom. It was just a part of that.

We see many commands and exhortations to pray in the New Testament in particular. Pray without ceasing. We see that. Jesus taught here how to pray.

But I just found that very interesting. I couldn't find a clear verse or passage on that. So we have one area that Jesus addresses, as almsgiving, the second area is prayer. The third area is fasting.

It's fasting. And we can think of this as almsgiving as duty to others, prayer, duty to God. And fasting is a sort of duty to self, a denial of self for us to grow in godliness. Now in the Old Testament, there was only one clear command, one time to fast.

You know what it was? It was one of the big festival days. It was the Day of Atonement, the Day of Atonement. Leviticus 16, Leviticus 16, verse 29 says this.

And it shall be a statute to you forever that in the seventh month, on the 10th day of the month, you shall afflict yourselves. Another translation for afflict yourselves is to fast, to deny yourself. You're denying yourself sustenance of food, to remind yourself that your main sustenance comes from God. You shall afflict yourselves, or you shall fast, and you shall do no work, either the native or the stranger or the sojourners among you.

That was the only fast commanded in the Old Testament. Now there was other fasting described in the Old Testament. So people would fast when they were in mourning, like when someone died. David fasted when the baby died.

So there was fasting that was described. People would fast over remorse of sin. That is described as well. So we have fasting being described, but only one prescription of fasting on the day of Atonement.

And by the time we get to Jesus' day with the Pharisees, because there we had the rules left and right to everything, because they didn't think God's rules were enough. Hey, let's add some more of our own. That's what they did. And so the Pharisees in Jesus' day, they fasted twice a week.

Jesus references this in his teaching. And they fasted on Mondays and Thursdays. What we would call Mondays and Thursdays. Those were their two days and they fasted.

So, but the thing we need to understand here is that Jesus isn't saying fasting is bad. He isn't saying fasting often. He's not saying fasting multiple times a week is a bad thing. He's saying, you need to watch out for why you do this.

That's what he says with all of it. Okay, you guys follow me so far? Great. So why do we do these things?

Why do we give to the needy? Why do we pray? Why do we fast? Ultimately, we do this for the love of God and the glory of God.

You know, for the expansion of his kingdom. That's what Jesus talks about in the Lord's Prayer in verses nine and 10, in Matthew six. Your kingdom come. We also do it for reward.

Jesus talks about that. We're gonna unpack that a lot. But from whom do we most deeply want to be rewarded by? God or man?

That is a very real question that hits every single one of us right between the eyes. We're gonna unpack both of these motivations as we go through tonight. All right, let me clear my board off. You guys always know what's me because when you see the board, right?

So hopefully that makes a little bit more fun for you. So let's start unpacking some of these themes that we see through Matthew six. The first thing we're gonna talk about is the expectation of prayer and fasting. The expectation of prayer and fasting.

Jesus uses the word when, right? He uses the word when. You fast, when you pray, when you give. It's contrasted, in our minds we can say, it's contracted with the word if.

He doesn't say, well, if you do this, if you pray, if you give, if you fast. No, he says when. So there is an expectation about this, that this is a right practice, a good practice for followers of God to do. These practices were and still are a part of normal, religious life.

There are time honored ways that are good and beneficial when they're done rightly. And that's what Jesus keeps getting to. Remember the whole sermon on the Mount. We see it clear as day all through Matthew five.

We see it through here. Jesus keeps going through this whole thing about being a disciple. It's about our heart. It's about our motives.

It's about our why we do what we do. That's what Jesus keeps getting at here. We need to understand and we need to agree that religion by nature is restrictive. What do I mean by that?

It means that certain things are done and not done. Would you agree as Christians, there are certain things we do and certain things we do not do? There are certain things that are said and certain things that are not said. There are certain things that are worn, certain things that are not worn.

Now I don't care what religious system you're in, this is common with all of them. This is what I mean. Religion by nature is restrictive. There are things you do and things that you don't do.

Every religion is like this. They all have their own set of rules. They all have their own expectations, their own traditions, their own practices that sets them apart. But what makes Christianity different than all of them?

What makes Christianity unique? What I'm gonna tell you is this, is that we are the only religion and Christianity is religion. We grew, if you're like me, you grew up hearing a lot, oh, it's a relationship, not religion. Well, you know what, everybody?

It's both. It's religion motivated and driven by relationship. Because God loves us, because we love God, we do. We say, we think, we act.

Our motivation comes from a very, very different place than everybody else and that's what makes us different. And that's what Jesus is saying, right? Because he's saying, hey, they're religious folks. They give, they pray, they fast.

The Gentile, irreligious folks, they do these things. These are, but when you do them, make sure you do them this way for this reason, because of who God is and who he is made to be, okay? So what makes being a disciple of Jesus different than any other religious system, any other belief is that duty and activity are expected in our commandment. Because this book, both a front and back are full of commands, right?

Right? But that's not all God is looking for from us. Nor is it what ultimately pleases him, is it. You see, our duty and our activity doesn't earn us a pass into heaven.

You can't give to the needy enough. You really can't pray enough. You can't fast enough to get to heaven. You can't do that.

Nobody can, because it's not about that. It is the love and the faith and the devotion and the thankfulness that lies underneath our duty, that lies underneath our activity that pleases God, that blesses others, that ultimately fulfills us. That's what it's about, our love, our faith, our devotion, our thankfulness. Hosea 6.6, Jesus quoted the prophet Hosea on this verse a lot.

Hosea 6.6 says, for I desire God speaking, for I desire steadfast love, not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings, and God said this in the Old Testament. So even then, God's saying, no, it's about your relationship with me. I want your heart more than I want your activity. Far more than I want your activity.

I want your heart, because he knows when he gets our heart, everything else follows it, right? Out of the overflow of our heart, our mouth speaks. What we really trust in and faith in our hearts is how we practically live. Hebrews 11 says it clearly, without faith it is what?

Impossible to please God. I don't care what side to cross you're on, that's true. Because Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as what? Righteousness.

You guys with me? Good stuff, right? Fantastic. Okay, so that is the expectation.

This when, the expectation of prayer and fasting, and this practice is a righteousness. Let's talk about our foundation. This guys, I'm telling you what, this is life changing here, what we're gonna talk about, the foundation. Here's the foundation, it's two words.

Everyone read this together? That's our foundation. This is transformational. Jesus refers to the Father eight times in these verses.

The sheer volume of the use of the word father, lets us know that that unlocks everything. It unlocks everything for us. It demands that we stop and consider what he means by saying our Father over and over again. You see, when we say our Father, it tells us two things about ourselves.

The first thing it tells us is about our identity. Identity is who we are, who we are. Now, when God saves us, something very special happens. We become children of God.

The Bible talks over and over about being adopted into God's family. Now there's one sense in the world where everybody's children of God. We're all, everyone is made in God's image, Genesis one, but for the Christian it's very particular. Because faith in Jesus doesn't just make us children.

You know what faith in Jesus makes us specifically? Anyone wanna guess? What? Eris, that's part of it.

There's something before the heirs though. Who's the heir in the family? The son. You see, I don't care what gender you are here.

Jesus shares his sonship with us. We are sons of God. Now ladies, don't take that as any kind of slight or anything, because what that means is something radical, transformational, more for you than for me in a sense. Because the daughter, there was one case I can think of in the scripture to where the daughters were given the inheritance of the Father.

Only one special time that Moses is being allowance for. But the full rights of the family were to the son. So ladies, you get to share in Jesus's sonship. It's a much more powerful word than just saying children.

They're both true, but one is a deeper truth. We are adopted by him through faith in his son. We are sons of God because Jesus gives us, he shares with us his sonship with the Father. It's who you are.

And it's all over scripture. The second thing is that what this tells us is the first thing. The second thing talks about our position. And they both go together, our position.

As a son of God, we have a position now in his family. Where we stand. We stand as a son of God. We have immediate access to our Father and the position in his family that is indelible with awful rights to inheritance, Ruth.

Like you said, it's wonderful. It's wonderful. You know, my kids have permission for things about me and in my life that none of you guys have. Right?

My kids can talk to me and can call me. I mean, I could be talking with, you know, I mean, this happens a lot, you know, if I'm up here in a prayer team or whatever and I'm talking to someone and one of my kids comes up and wants to hug my leg, I'm not shooing them away. That's their right to be there. Right?

I mean, so there's a, because that's their position, they hold a special position in regards to me. And because of Jesus, we hold that same special position with Father God. That is, let that sink in on you for a minute. The King creator of the universe, who by his very word spoke everything into existence.

That's who we call Father. Think about that. I'm like saying this is a transformational truth in your life and what you need to do is you need to get past whatever picture of Father you have in your head that this world has put on you. It's not about your dad.

It's not about that. You know what, we get our minds warped. You know, I mean, we are in a terrible time. I just heard a statistic on the radio that in America, there are 20 million fatherless homes.

That's gonna mess a lot of kids' perception up of Father. Now I'd like to describe a lot of you guys and how you grew up, I don't know. But we're talking about a good perfect heavenly Father here. Okay?

So a lot of your growth as a Christian, as a disciple of Jesus, is getting this. And this might be a place where some of you really need to camp out for a long time. Because if you don't get this thing right, it's gonna mess up everything about your walk with Christ. We're gonna talk a little bit more about that.

We have a familial relationship with God. We're not just servants. We're not pawns. We're not robots.

We're not pets. Okay? We're sons. You know, and here's some things that kind of make this hard for us.

Some things that make this hard for us is our own insecurities, right? We're insecure people. Everyone's insecure about something. We're insecurities, you know, our painful experiences that we've had.

Some of us in this room have had some terribly tragic. painful things that have happened to us. Our unrepentant sin also messes this up, right? And there's a lot of things that can mess this up.

But here's the thing about this whole Father. If we don't view God as Father, that means we don't view ourselves as sons. If you don't view God as Father, you don't view yourself as a son. And if you don't view yourself as a son, what that says is that your faith is weak at best and not even there at worst.

That's a sobering thought. Do you see how much hinges on this? Do you see why Jesus makes such a big deal to keep talking about Father God? You see, if we don't view God as Father, all our religious activity is gonna be driven by fear.

It's gonna be driven by fear. We're gonna hope that we can just appease an angry or disappointed Lord God Almighty. That's what's gonna motivate us. And that is a terrible way to live everybody.

That's not a full life. Do you pray to God as your Father? I mean, can you pray? Do you refer to Him as Father?

Or do you refer to Him as some distant removed Lord, God Almighty? I'll tell you what, there is a time in my life not too long ago, within the last decade. I really started to kind of dive into this because the number of circumstances going on in my life. And it hit me one day.

I'm like, you know, I pray reverent prayers to God is what I pray. Lord God, holy, I mean, I pray reverent prayers. I didn't pray God my Father. At least not very often.

I'm like, that's saying something. I'm trying to earn something then. That showed me something about my faith and my walk. Now I'm not saying we never refer to God as God or Lord or Almighty, I'm not saying that.

But I'm saying the primary position that we're coming to Him with. Jesus says it's our Father, it's what it should be. And I realized in my life, it wasn't that. And I began to deal with that and it unpacked a deeper meaningful relationship with my Lord and Savior is what it did.

It's a beautiful thing to be released from that expectation, to be released from the pressure, to be released from the fear. Some of you need to do a really deep dive with your Father. Galatians chapter four, I love this verse. Galatians chapter four, six and seven.

And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God, amen. Man, life changing, absolutely life changing.

Let's talk about our motivation now. We've talked about expectation. We've talked about the foundation. Let's talk about our motivation for these practicing righteousness, prayer and fasting in particular tonight.

The relational foundation with our Father properly sets a stage for talking about rewards. It properly sets a stage for talking about rewards. Because they are promised for those who rightly practice righteousness. James chapter one verse 17 says, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

So what are these rewards? What are these good and perfect gifts? Let's just look at the scriptures and see what they are. We're not making it up, we're looking at the book.

The first one is this. First reward is the reward of approval. The reward of approval. We see this in verse six and verse 18.

Verse six, but when you pray, go to your room, shut your door and pray your Father who is in secret and your Father who sees in secret. Well, reward you, verse 18, that's repeated again. Your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret and your Father who sees in secret. Well, reward you actually says in verse four as well.

Your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And so this whole idea of being seen, of being seen by your Father, the Father who sees, he notices you, he beholds you, he doesn't turn away to look somewhere else. And he is engaged with you. And when he is engaged with you and he sees you, he is approving of you because you're his son sharing the Son of Christ who he greatly approves of, right?

This is the heart of the struggle of ministry. Isn't it? It's the heart of the struggle of ministry. And really living on our faith because every single one of us has a need for approval.

And what do we typically do? What's the easiest thing to do? We go for the low hanging fruit of other people's approval. It's the easiest fruit to grab, right?

That's what we do. So I'm not, I'm not, I tell you what, I have to repent and be prayed up every time I'm doing anything. You know, you guys are gracious and good job. I mean, I'll tell you what, I gotta guard my heart against that low hanging fruit.

You know, we're told to encourage each other but man, we need to encourage each other in the Lord, okay? So, but approval, our Father sees us and approves of us. The second reward that we get is that our needs get met. That's a reward, our needs get met.

In verse eight, do not be like them for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. That'll change your prayer life. God, you know what I'm gonna say? It's gonna change your position a little bit.

You know how you come to Him. But your Father knows what you need. In verse 11, give us this day our daily bread. James 1, he gives good gifts.

He meets our needs. This is about security is what it's about. It's about security that your heavenly Father knows exactly what you need and He's gonna give you what you need and He's gonna protect you from what you want because what we want will bring us down a lot and it will drive us further away from Him. God will not withhold a true need of His child.

You may be feeling like you have an unmet need or a whole in your heart somewhere. But as a Christian, I want you to know that's not the truth. You have all you need. I'm gonna venture to say you're looking at the wrong place to get it filled.

You just got your eye off the ball. And Jesus has given us this. We get to study this together tonight to get our eye on the ball, to be reminded. God has provided all you need through His Son, through His Spirit, through His Word, through His church.

He knows what we need before we ask. That's a personal and it's encouraging. We have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms, Ephesians 1. Met needs.

Okay, second, we gotta move. Freedom of forgiveness is the third reward. Freedom of forgiveness. Okay?

Verses 12 and verse 14. Forgive us our debts. We've forgiven our debtors. If we forgive others or trespasses, your heavenly Father, we'll also forgive you.

Amen, we all want to be forgiven. We need to be forgiven. We need to be reminded that we've been forgiven. Okay?

The weight of shame and guilt is unbearable, but Jesus finished working on the cross. A tones for our shame and guilt and sin. We need to remember what Jesus has already done. We need to confess our sins, repent of those sins, and enjoy the forgiveness of the Father lavishes on us.

Okay? Next reward. Fourth is healed relationships. Reconciliation.

It's in the mystery of reconciliation. Second thing is, but healed relationships. We see it in verses 12 and verses 15. Forgive us our debts.

We also forgive our debtors. Verse 15. If you do not forgive others or trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Here's the truth with this.

We are communal creatures. We are communal creatures. We are created to exist in relationships. And because of that, when a relationship is damaged, when it's broken, it hurts, doesn't it?

It does. It hurts. The destructive power of sin damages this and it's painful. And we desperately want the relationship to be healed.

And we start doing whatever we can to heal the relationship. And the more intimate the relationship, the more it hurts. Parents, couples, right? Now so much of the healing that needs to take place comes from the forgiveness that we can offer.

We gotta take responsibility of this, okay? An unforgiving spirit enslaves not the one who committed the sin, but it enslaves the one who won't forgive. The person who hurt you that you're holding on to, tell you what, they're gonna move on more often than not. So if you said they're stewing, if you said they're all hurt, if you said they're all begrudging and holding on that and get bitter, guess who's sitting in a prison cell?

You are, the other person's not. They're all doing whatever they're doing, probably hurting somebody else at this point. But listen, the healing, it starts with the forgiveness that we can give because of the forgiveness that we've gotten from God. Our unforgiveness will always, always, our unforgiveness will always prevent us from enjoying the forgiveness that God the Father has for us.

I don't wanna miss that out. I wanna be as forgiving as I can, because I wanna fully enjoy the forgiveness that God has given us. All right, the fifth reward is, big word, consummation of the kingdom. How are you on time?

Confirmation of the kingdom versus 9 and 10. Our Father in heaven, how would be your name? Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. God is king now.

You cannot show me in the Bible that God is not king now. Psalm 103, 19. The Lord has established his throne in the heavens and his kingdom rules over all. Now, is there a kingdom of this world?

Is there, does the prince of the power of the air have his own kingdom? Whose kingdom is it under though? It's under God's kingdom. Let's not think that God is any less king because sins run in while.

Let's not think that. That's not right. Keep in mind, Satan still has to ask permission, God's permission to do stuff. Job, right?

He went to God. Hey, can I mess with your servant Job over here? Okay, Ryan, that's Old Testament. Okay, Peter, Satan, Jesus told Peter, hey, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat.

He asked, you don't ask if you don't need permission. Let's keep the packing order in the right packing order. God's still at the top of the food chain. No questions asked.

But we live in a place where his kingdom isn't fully realized yet, is it? You see, this is when it was already not yet things. Already God has king, but not yet. We fully experienced the fullness of it.

In heaven, let his will be done in heaven, right? There's perfect submission to his will. Perfect submission to his will in heaven. Is there perfect submission to his will here on earth?

Do you perfectly submit to his will? Do I perfectly submit to his will? No, but that's what we want to get to. Do you want to get to that perfect submission of his will?

So as we live from the heart that God gave us as sons, more and more rightly, we live more and more in his kingdom every day. And we look forward to the glorious reward of the consummation of his kingdom when Christ returns. And wipes all those sub-kingdoms out that we settle for. All right?

And the sixth reward is an intimate relationship with God. That's a G, everybody. Trust me, I'm a doctor, I'm kidding. And really, this is the Father thing, right?

Or back to that, or back to that. God himself is our reward. What did God say to Abram? Genesis 15, the NIV actually puts it better than the ESV.

I'm gonna read the NIV. Genesis 15, verse one, do not be afraid, Abram. God says, I am your shield. I am your very great reward.

God is your reward. God is your ultimate reward. So as you live, as you practice these righteous deeds rightly from the heart God gave you the position, the identity that you are, God is your ultimate reward. All right, I have nine minutes, I'm gonna use them.

Well, I actually have four minutes, so we're gonna fly, okay? Because this is really important, this is the last point, the manner of how we do all these things. Okay, the manner and how we do them. They're gonna be done in four ways.

The first way they're gonna be done, these practicing righteousness, they're gonna be done in secret. They're gonna be done in secret, it's the first thing. We don't do them for public applause, okay? Your father sees in secret, practicing things in secret.

He uses the word hypocrite a lot. Hypocrite is an ancient word for actor, ancient word for actor, playing the part for the applause of an audience. And that's what Jesus called the religious leaders, okay? You don't show off your spirituality.

If you show off spirituality, you're not spiritual. You're not, okay? So you're done in secret. They're also done in simplicity.

Simplicity, they are done simply. You don't beg for attention. You know, Jesus says, don't pray like the Gentiles, because they use many words. And the Greek there is where we get the word babbling from.

They babble. How many people pray prayers like this? Oh Lord, Lord, Father, Father, I just Lord, Father, thank you Father, Lord, just really, come on. Don't talk to God that way.

Don't do that. You're babbling. Don't do Christian babble, all right? Let your words be few.

Your father already knows what you need. Let your words be few. Ecclesiastes 5-2, do not be rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God. For God is in heaven and you are on earth, therefore let your words be few.

Remember the story in 1 Kings 18? Elijah the province of Baal? All day long, the province of Baal? They raved on, the scripture says.

All day, Elijah is prayer, two verses, fire. Put your words be few, okay? Play, do these things simply. Do them in submission.

Do them in submission. Not your, not my will, but your will. You don't want, you wanna release your control, your power, okay? Prayer is not getting God to do your will.

Prayer is about bending your will to God's will. That's what prayer is. That's why we pray. And the last thing, they are supposed to be done with joy.

Don't support your face when you're fasting. Look at me, take pity on me. That's a form of pride. Trying to get attention.

Joy comes from trust in a good father whom you are close with, because he has called you his son. This is the manner in which we give, the manner in which we pray, the manner in which we fast, in secret, simplicity, submission, joy. So here's some closing questions for you. Do you pray?

This is like, this is your self-diagnostic, okay? Do you pray as fervently and private as you do in public? Is your public praying an overflow of your private praying? Do you willingly deny yourself for more of God?

Do you even regularly practice these acts of righteousness? Do you regularly practice giving to the needy? Praying, fasting. Do you even do that?

To be built to last, you will practice acts of righteousness as a duty to God to others and yourself, but you will do so with a heart engaged to your father, God. To please him, to be rewarded by him and him alone. Let's pray. Father God, thank you so much for your word.

Thank you for being our father. Thank you for making us your sons. Lord, help us through your spirit. Lord, help us to encourage each other to practice our righteousness rightly from the heart that you've given us.

We love you, help us just to love you most, to grow to become like Jesus, that we may indeed be built to last. In Jesus' name, we all said, Amen, you guys have a great night, love you. Amen, you guys have a great night, love you.