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Serving Those in Need: You can't read the Bible and miss God's heart for the poor. It's no surprise then that the way of Jesus would include the responsibility to give to and serve those in need. However, Jesus warns his disciples that there's a way of doing good works, even religious works, which is spiritually dangerous for those who are trying to help. How can we meet needs with both wisdom and generosity without falling into this trap? Listen here. Recorded on August 21, 2022, on Matthew 6:1-4, by Pastor David Parks. This message is part of our sermon series "The Unexpected Way," from the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5-7 in the Bible. The way of Jesus is totally unique; it's different from every other way of life, philosophy, or religion. Why? Because the teaching of Jesus — emphasizing holiness, humility, justice, faith, and sacrificial love — leads to a whole new gospel-centered ethic. This ancient ethic, if actually practiced, has the power to bring abundant love and joy and peace to anyone, anywhere today. This is the way. Sermon Transcript All year, we’re focusing on Learning the way of Jesus, which means that all year, we’ll basically be answering the question, “If the gospel is true, how then should we live?” For the past two months, we’ve been working through a very famous teaching of Jesus known as the Sermon on the Mount in a sermon series called, The Unexpected Way. And we’ve said that the teaching of Jesus leads to a whole new gospel-centered ethic, but it’s a different way from the other philosophies or religions of the world. It’s counterintuitive, it sometimes seems upside-down. It’s the unexpected way. For the past few weeks, we’ve considered a number of examples of Jesus for how the moral law goes way deeper than what it allows or prohibits. It goes all the way down to the heart level and has underlying principles for how God intends for us to live. And it’s been hard teaching! This is serious stuff. But it’s so good. In each case, we saw both a beautiful vision for the type of people and society that we would enjoy if we actually lived like this, but also our desperate need for God because of how often we fail to live like this. Today, and for the next few weeks, Jesus turns the focus from morality and what it truly means to do right and wrong to religion or religious practice. Today, we’ll consider the giving of alms (charity) or more simply, serving those in need. Almost every culture and religion says this is a good idea, and it is! But Jesus gives us some unique insight into how this can become a trap for us if we aren’t careful. In fact, there’s a way to be religious without it having anything to do with God. If you have a Bible/app, please open to Matthew 6:1. We’ll read through this and unpack it together. Matthew 6:1-4 (NIV), “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. 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.” So again, for the past month or so, we’ve seen again and again that being righteous or being a good person is much harder than it first seems. And this is because God wants us to follow his way whole-heartedly, with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. It turns out this is true for not only the way we treat other people, as we saw in our commitment to value/love them, to be faithful in marriage to them, to speak the truth to them, even to love our enemies — but also in the way we worship/serve God. This is really what Matthew chapter 6 is all about. Look back at v.1.