Private Righteousness (Part 2 – Application)

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.

Matthew 6:1

Having opened and studied the text, let us proceed to make several applications.

FIRSTLY, Consider that we do not lose by having our deeds go undetected by others. It is easy to suppose that we have wasted our time and efforts if what we have done is not noticed by others. However, we must remember that one who is much important than any human sees all that we do. A sixteenth century pastor once said, “Those things, which appear to be buried in darkness, are open to his view.”

People forget what we do, but God sees all that we do as vividly many years later as when it was first done. All we receive is perhaps a good thought from people; however, with regard to God, we get a good thought from a most exalted King. Therefore, let us not be kept from doing good because we suppose it will go unnoticed.

Private Righteousness (Part 1 – Exposition)

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.

Matthew 6:1

Chapters 5-7 of the Gospel of Matthew are what is called the Sermon on the Mount. It is one of Christ’s most well-known sermons. By the time He had come to earth, a certain religious group had arisen—the Pharisees. The primary concern and emphasis of the Pharisees in regard to piety was outward holiness. For them an appearance of holiness was all that was necessary to be holy. The inside—the heart—was completely neglected. In these three chapters, in this sermon of Christ, we find a refutation of this idea. Christ proclaimed that holiness was primarily a matter of the heart, not just external righteousness.

In the verse that we are to study, we find the same theme continued. Let us turn to the text and see what gems of heavenly wisdom lay hidden in it.

A Call for Preservation

We live in trying, difficult times. These are times of great decline and decay in the Church. There are more Christians in the world than ever in history and great progress has been made in the missionary activities of the Church. However, regardless of this, the Church is in great decline.

Now, it may be asked, how is decline to be detected or measured? In Genesis 3:15, in an ancient prophecy, it is foretold by God that there would always exist hostility and warfare between the seed of God, the Church, and the seed of the devil, the world. The health of the Church, therefore, is measured by the hostility of the Church to the world. The war of the Church is not against the people of the world, but against the spiritual powers at work in those people.Therefore, we cannot say that the Church is healthy when hatred is expressed to the individuals of this world.