In the sermon 'The Matter of Motives' by Paul Carrington, the focus is on Matthew chapter 6 from the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus shifts from critiquing the Pharisees' teachings to addressing their practices. The sermon emphasizes 'heart religion' and the importance of pure motives in acts of righteousness, prayer, and fasting. Carrington highlights the dangers of performing deeds for personal acclaim rather than for God's glory, citing warnings from Jesus about seeking earthly rewards over heavenly ones. The sermon discusses the vulnerability of all people, including Christians, to mixed motives and urges self-examination to ensure one's actions stem from a transformed heart. The speaker uses examples of scandals and personal anecdotes to illustrate the perils of hypocrisy and the need for genuine faith. He underscores the importance of living 'Coram Deo'—in the presence of God—and trusting that God sees and rewards righteous acts done with pure intentions.

Please open up your Bibles to Matthew chapter 6. We're going to be back in the sermon on the mount. We're going slowly, slowly through the Sermon on the Mount. I did have to smile this morning when Nate opened up the service and he said that today we will be finishing up verse number nine in Romans 12. We're going slowly through the Sermon on the Mount, but not quite as slowly as through Romans chapter 12.

But God has been good to us so much so that, you know, just to think of that song we just sang that, why should I gain from His reward? I can't give an answer. It's all the mercy and the grace of a good God. And in chapter 5 here of the Sermon on the Mount, just to tie it in, tie it all together, what we found was that the Lord was really demolishing the religion of the Pharisees. He took a wrecking ball to it but in place of it he didn't just leave it the ground just decimated but on that he built and began to build really the foundations of the kingdom of heaven and what it is like to be a citizen there.

And really the emphasis that we found was that it was all to do with heart religion, that that's the Lord's primary interest, his heart religion. And a changed heart is really what he's after. And so what he's done now in chapter 6, he's moving now from their teachings, their false teachings, to some of the practices that were being carried out in those days. And He uses three illustrations in Matthew chapter six. He's going to deal with prayer, and then he's going to move on.

Sorry, he's going to deal with righteous acts, then move on to prayer, and then go into fasting. And it's a tough chapter. In fact, Martin Lloyd-Jones, in his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, he says that this is perhaps the most challenging chapter in the whole Bible. Imagine that. And Matthew Henry, he calls this section highly dangerous for professing believers.

Think about that. So we're in a kind of fearful ground here that we're treading upon. And the reason is is that the Lord is shifting the whole sermon now to the matter of motives. That's what we're gonna be looking at. Why do we do the things that we do?

Is it for men to see and for our own glory or is there a true inward impulse to the glory of God or perhaps like many of us a mix of both? Well, I'm going to read here just the first four verses. This is the words of the Lord Himself speaking. And He says this, take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men to be seen by them. Otherwise, you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have the reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. That your charitable deed may be in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will himself reward you openly. Lord, we come before you this afternoon and Lord these are indeed searching words, searching scriptures for us Father, because you're dealing with the designs and the intents of our hearts.

And Lord, we pray that you would please help us. Help us, Lord, to be those that operate from a more pure heart, Lord. We know that there's all sorts of debris and wrong motives mixed all in what we do, but Lord we pray that more and more we would serve you and do things for the glory of your name. We pray Lord help us to just glorify you to honor you. Lord may you help me and help each one of us as we have this time now before your word.

Search us Lord and correct us and help us in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. Well as I said today we're gonna be we're gonna be spending time examining our motives and you know it seems like it seems like once or twice per year the reformed world is rocked by some sort of scandal or controversy of some sort. Usually it has to do with a man who's been caught up with something usually in the area of money or it could be women or some sort of power.

And then we end up ourselves becoming shocked and dismayed when that happens. Some man falls that we thought, wow, it's just something that takes us totally off guard. And the question we're asking is how could a man be preaching this while at the same time carrying on like this. And I remember when I was a young Christian, maybe a year into being a Christian, and there was a man that we personally knew who had fallen into some sort of sin. And I remember saying to the older man, he was a pastor, and I said, I would have bet money that that man would not have fallen.

And I always remember he looked at me and he says, brother, he says, Today is a day you keep your money in your pocket after serving God for many more years than I had. And this isn't to shed or throw shade on any men that are serving God at all. This is just simply to say that we are Men at best. And just in this most recent of scandals, I was reading Tom Aschall, and he wrote his response to, obviously he was victimized in a recent scandal, slandered and all of that. But What he said really caught me.

There was one little sentence. He said this. He says, we are aware, now he's writing as someone who was victimized, but listen to the wisdom of these words. We are aware that the seeds of those sins live in our own hearts, and we must by the grace and power of Christ, mortify them daily. There's a lot of wisdom there.

And I think what we find when we read verses like the ones that we have in front of us, you know, wise men, wise women, they feel their vulnerability. You know, they pay attention to this matter of motives and they're concerned about those seeds that Tom Askell, he just mentioned. Not whether they're there, Lord Do I have those seeds in my heart? No, no But how do I keep them? Maybe from germinating and overrunning the garden of my heart That's probably a more honest way of thinking because you know our religion as I mentioned our religion It's a religion of the heart right it's a matter of motives And that's what's paramount when it comes to serving God and so as we as we get into chapter 6 here The first 18 verses actually deal with motives.

So the Lord dedicates a huge chunk of the most important sermon ever preached, we could argue, and he dedicates it to motives. And I think the reason being is that if we have heart religion, as individuals, our motives are so sometimes pernicious, so sneaky, that we can be doing a lot of different things but maybe for the wrong reasons. So the Lord's gonna address just these three key areas, righteous acts, prayer, and fasting, as I mentioned, and ask that question, why are you doing the things that you're doing? And notice how he starts off in verse one, He starts off with a warning with these words, take heed. He says, take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men to be seen by them.

Otherwise, you have no reward from your Father in heaven. And so we get this warning right off the bat of this new section, be cautious. We're told give attendance. We're told to beware. To take heed to what?

What does he want us to take heed to? Well, the word charitable deeds or acts is really just, it just simply means righteousness. That you do not do your righteousness before men with the motive of being seen of being applauded of being regarded or congratulated or acknowledged by men that's really what he's after here and on the surface it kind of seems contradictory to what the Lord had said earlier. Remember when he told us in chapter 5, he said, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. But of course, again, it goes back to the motive.

It's not contradictory at all, is it? Because the motive, the end, the design here in the early part of Matthew 5 was what? To glorify your father who is in heaven. And that's entirely different than a motive before men to be seen by them. And so the very thing, the very same thing could be done.

We could do the exact same thing, but from two different designs with two different intentions. And the Lord is really quite concerned with these types of things here. And I think, you know, from the highest to the lowest, from the oldest to the youngest, even from the regenerate to the unregenerate, there's this matter of motives, there's this temptation that assaults us all. This past week I was looking at a magazine, there's a magazine called The Chronicle of Philanthropy. And in their article, one of their most recent magazines, it's an actual physical magazine or you can get it online, it tracks the most generous givers in America and they had their list of the top 50.

And I just learned that Michael Bloomberg, for the second year in a row, he tops the list for giving the most. But when I went to go and click into the article to read it, I ran into a paywall. I'm like, here's a paywall means you got to pay to read the article. Here they are talking about generosity and all philanthropy, and you can't even read the article without paying and I thought how ironic. But we expect this kind of fanfare and grandstanding.

It doesn't shock us when we see it in the world, right? But it's Something that also affects us as Christians, isn't it, if we're honest? He wasn't just speaking this for people that are out in the world, but you remember how at the very beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, how it opens, how we were brought low, how we were made to stoop to enter the kingdom of heaven, blessed are the poor in spirit, those that are acquainted with their own moral destitution and inability and all of that. And we stooped to enter the kingdom, but that root of pride, it does run very deep. And even you children, as unsophisticated as some of our children might appear to be, They know just how to cultivate a view of others that they want others to have of them, you know I remember a few years ago Talking with a young man we meet regularly and you know, he had just become a believer and Every so often or I thought he did and every so often he would ask, how's your soul and what's the Lord teaching you?

He knew all the right questions. But then after a few years, this young man has entirely fallen away, entirely. Not only just fallen away, he denies the faith actively. He says it's not true. And it just it can it opens up the this whole idea of how sophisticated we can be in our religiosity and our ability to mimic or say the right things or even act and play the role.

You know, Matthew Henry, he talks about many sins, but he says here that this sin is a sin that most easily besets those who have escaped the grosser pollutions that are in the world through lust. We're not necessarily drunkards and doing different things like that, but this sin comes up and sneaks up the back way and deceives us. And so Jesus is saying, take heed, watch out, that there are shoals even in these waters as he proclaims the kingdom of God. And there are traps, there's dangers on this pilgrim's progress and Christians must, must take heed. And speaking of pilgrim's progress, Christian, he learned this firsthand.

If you remember, he was just recently passed through the Wicket Gate. He had gone to the interpreter's house and as he was walking along the narrow way, do you remember the account where he looks up ahead and he sees two men that were tumbling over the wall. The name of the one was Formality, and the name of the other was Hypocrisy. And they felt no need to pass through the narrow gate whatsoever. Instead, they found a shortcut.

Their town was just over the other side of the wall and so no pain of conversion, no need for repentance or anything like that. They were content with a form of godliness is the way that Christian described it. And they ended up getting into a bit of an altercation because Christian was insisting that they should go back to the very beginning and pass through that gate. And they said, well, we're on the same path as you. We're on the same route and we're headed to the same city as you and brushed them off and and continued on their way so they thought to the celestial city but what names formality and hypocrisy you know a formalist a formalist is one who who rests on the outward forms of religion and content with perhaps saying the right things and maybe even deeply understanding the right doctrines and being able to debate and argue and different things along those lines.

And a hypocrite, we dealt with that last week. And it's one who appears on the outside to be someone he is not on the inside. In another place, John Bunyan describes this man as a man who can throw stones with both hands. He is like the frogs of Egypt, as content in the water as out of the water." And this is one of the things that we really need to really consider, you know, because this can reach up perhaps even to the finest preacher or to the most generous giver that there's a sense of it being unreal and plastic, our religion being in that kind of frame where God looks at it and says it's not even real. And you trace their pedigree, these two men, go back to their hometown and what Binyan tells us is that they were from the town, do you remember?

The town of vain glory. Their fuel, the thing that keeps up the inhabitants of this town is the praise and the admiration of others. And so Jesus is saying, take heed. And he ends with this in verse one. He says, otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

And so the Lord, I think what he'd like to do is to really bring us up short and again ask us this question, why do you do the things that you do? Why do you do your righteous acts? Is it simply the outworking of a nature that's been transformed and overwhelmed by grace and I can't do anything else? Is it from a principle of love to God? We did see that, by the way.

Remember when we looked at the life of Cornelius? Remember what it said? The angel comes to him and says that your righteous deeds have come up as a memorial before God. So God had taken heed to this man's righteous acts because it was done in a right spirit, in a right attitude. So it is absolutely possible.

But the other side is also possible that we are trying to accrue and gather as much glory as I can, and perhaps even using the Lord's name to do that, to build myself up. And so the wrong motive is what the Lord is really dealing with in verse 2. He says this, Therefore when you do a charitable deed or when you do your righteousness Do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward." You know, the Lord, I don't think he's after, have you heard of the phrase analysis paralysis? Where you just, I'm never gonna do anything again because if I do, what if it's the right, oh, my motive is wrong, and you're constantly in this flux of, I'm not gonna do anything anymore.

I don't think he's after this incessant naval gazing that we just are paralyzed from anything. No, I don't think he's after that because he says therefore when you do, when you do your righteous act, this is assumed that you're gonna do this and it's important that you do, that you're gonna be looking actively for opportunities to serve God. But what is he having none of? He's having none of the religion of the Pharisees that we saw in chapter 5. He says, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogue and in the streets.

And so now we see that the scribes and the Pharisees, they now have a new name. They're called the hypocrites. And Jesus is scorning, just as he did in chapter 5, that religion. Because why? If you go to Matthew 23, what does it say?

That they did all their deeds to be seen by others. They love the place of honor. They love being called others by a rabbi in the streets by others and so on. And so they were motivated from this desire to be regarded as good and holy men, to achieve esteem. And so here they are.

I don't know if this is real or not, but the idea is that literally the idea of drawing attention to yourself by sounding a trumpet as you go about doing good things. And instead of what they thought they were doing or what they were creating the impression that they were doing is perhaps gathering the poor, right? Sound the trumpet, the poor come in, but really all they were doing is sounding the trumpet and gathering praise to themselves. And so just as Jesus says, they were being hypocrites. The world is their stage.

And they were using the most public forums, things like the streets and the synagogues, And their garb was this cloak of godliness that they were using, but all with this design of raising their own esteem in the eyes of others. And so you notice, like chapter 5, they weren't just teaching a mangled theology, a distorted theology, but that theology actually had itself outworking in their lives. And so it wasn't that they weren't doing anything. These Pharisees, they were very, very active. We hear how they were traveling sea and land even to make a proselyte.

But the source of the remotives, those are what the Lord is after. They were entirely wrong. They loved, as we said last week, the God that they made, not the God that made them. And so all of their motives became twisted as a result of the teaching that they had that was twisted also. But what I find, it's easy for me to assess the Pharisees and the hypocrites.

But what about me? I think that's more important and that's probably what the Lord is after. And to be honest with you, I find myself asking not again, not if my motives are twisted, But how twisted are they oftentimes? You know, have I ever, ever done anything solely for the glory of God? Or have I also wanted to siphon away a little bit of glory for myself?

And these seeds that we heard about earlier, those seeds are in me. They're there. Some have grown for a long time. How am I going to manage these things and how can I be violent and aggressive against them to keep them from taking over the garden? Because we really need to think about this, that one of the most clever, I would say, maybe even the most clever and tried and true device of Satan really is to take what outwardly appears good, but to have it come out of a vain motive, to seem to give glory to God while again siphoning away the glory that is only due to his name.

This is one of the grave dangers. One commentator, he says, said, in most religious men, there is probably a mingling of the two motives. And we dare not say at what precise stage the presence of the lower overpowers the higher. It is enough to remember that it is the little speck which may taint the whole character till it loses all its life. And so perhaps the saddest statement of all here is we find in verse 2 he says, assuredly I say to you, or in King James, verily, verily, they have their reward.

You know, you did it for the sake of display? Congratulations, you get the pat on the back from men. You wanted to gain a name in Israel? Well, perhaps you gained a name in Israel, but how passing, how fleeting. Maybe you've climbed up one more rung in this imaginary ladder in the social structure, but to what end?

You know, these are things, maybe you've outdone somebody else, but is that worth anything really? Maybe you've been regarded as so wise, so insightful, but again to what end if it's for the sake of your own glory? These are things really to consider. You know, have you ever been outside like yesterday? It's sweltering hot And then you feel a breeze.

But how long does that breeze last? Maybe two seconds and it's gone. It brings some relief for a second, but then it's gone. Or have you ever gone out for dinner and had a great meal? But then three days later, two days later, you spent a lot of money, you had a great meal, but what do you have to show for it?

From the meal itself, maybe the time of fellowship or the time with your wife or your husband, but the meal itself. And that's what the praise of men is really like. It's fleeting. It's passing. And so the man who performs for that is really impoverishing himself.

And we live in a day that's so dangerous, you know. You think of things like social media. The man or the woman who performs for clicks or comments, guess what you have to do? Tomorrow you've got to go out and perform again to get more clicks and comments. The child who wants to be seen as holy and maybe good and better than his siblings or better than someone else, but it's really rotten in his heart, how long is he going to be able to keep that up?

That's a steep mountain to climb. It's a terrible way to live with pretense. Or the man who studies and preaches, but only with the design to be applauded. It's terrible. Jesus says he's received his reward.

In other words, payment in full is stamped on that act. You've got what you wanted, and you've got both hands, and they're full of nothing. That's kind of what he's saying. You've got nothing to show except for the acclaim and the praise of men, but what he wants to make clear is that You have no reward from heaven. And I hope I'm not the only one, but do you feel that?

Do you feel that innate drive? Maybe this passion, you want to be admired by other people rather than a desire even to honor God, that's maybe secondary, or to try to draw attention to yourself in order to gain respect or affirmation or praise or love or whatever it is, right? You have to think about that and you've got this old man and this new man and there's this war that's going on inside of you and like that man I thought said it so well there's a mingling of motives and mingling of different feelings going on in our heart and it's such a war even for the regenerated man I think if we're honest we'll probably find that to be the case. And so think of this, that the vast numbers of pretenders in this world, and those self-deceived that will be shocked, think about this on that final day. You know, only eternity is going to be able to show just how many of us, how many people in history have been ruined by this careful cultivation of this image of righteousness.

I think that's what the Lord is really saying when he says beware, take heed, be cautious. There's danger on the path. And the Lord, he gives some indication of this danger when he comes perhaps to the most terrifying words that you can find in Scripture when he ends the sermon. He says, many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name and I will then declare to them I never knew you." Can you imagine you spent your whole life thinking that you were on that path doing the right thing you're calling him Lord you're doing all these work and he says who are you I don't even know who you are. Depart from me.

I think it has a lot to do with the motives of the heart. Did you enter in through the narrow gate truly? And are you on the narrow way? Well, the Lord doesn't leave us there. He does tell us the wrong motive, but he also talks about the right motive here in verse 3.

This precept of Christ really jumps out and he says, but when you do a charitable deed, do not Let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret and your father who sees in secret will himself reward you openly." And I think the best way to perhaps take this idea of your right hand and your left hand and them not able to see what they're, what one is doing. I think it's probably proverbial. You remember when he talked about adultery, he talked about plucking out your right eye and then casting it from you, right? It's not physically and actually doing that, but it's, it's talking, it's teaching something. I think he's dealing with this idea of eliminating pretense and eliminating fanfare.

Don't make a big show of not making a show. You know, that's possible. Thanks for the meal. And I go on for five minutes telling you how I had nothing to do with the meal or the sermon or the thing, you know, we can, there's all sorts of ways we're so crafty in the way that we can detract or try to deflect glory only to accrue glory. But it's simply the person who has the view of the glory of God in all the works that he's doing.

And he wants God to be glorified and to be magnified. And I think at root what we're finding here, it's a matter of faith. Do you believe that even if you don't receive any acknowledgement that your Father who is in heaven sees? And are you willing to put in abeyance the reward of man's acknowledgement knowing that God sees? I don't think it's wrong, in fact, it's clearly not wrong to desire rewards.

I mean the scriptures talk about rewards all the way through, but what is that reward? Well, Jesus is saying here that God is going to be the one to reward you. And so while you may be overlooked or not acknowledged or seen or regarded here, it doesn't really matter as long as your heavenly father sees. And I think on that day we're going to see a whole lot of surprises where people who maybe had been overlooked or hadn't done much versus those who might have been more in the forefront. God is the one who does his own math.

He knows exactly the ingredients that make up his calculations And so that we have this phrase in Latin. It's called Coram Dale. You've probably heard of that It's this idea of just living beneath God's gaze You're living in the presence of God. And that's such a beautiful and perhaps very freeing way to live, that I'm not trying to get your glory so that I can build myself up. But I'm going to live and I'm going to do things for the glory of my Father who is in heaven.

And I think one of the things that we get out of the Sermon on the Mount is this very important thing, that you are His. And your identity is secure. And if your identity is secure, see a child who will try to get attention, usually it's because there's insecurity. But adults do the exact same thing, don't we? And no matter how high you go, it can be insecurity that's driving this desire for a claim.

But if you know that you are in good standing with God through Jesus Christ, and he's giving you everything, I think it has an impact on the way and the desire for this worldly acclaim. And so even if no one sees, what if no one says thank you, is that okay? You know, I always say to Melinda, I say as a mother, as a homeschool mom especially, You have perhaps the most thankless job in the world, because children, they don't really understand what you're doing and what you've done, and maybe they won't until they have their own children. But are you willing, are you okay with that? For my job, I get bonuses, I get rewards, I get my name in certain newsletters, whatever.

It's totally different. But are you able to do things simply for the fact that your Heavenly Father sees? Changing diapers or teaching or some of the work that goes on even on a day like this where a lot of people may not even acknowledge what goes into setting up the day. Well as I said there's gonna be a lot of surprises on that final day and the Lord actually He tells us that Himself in Matthew chapter 25 when He has that parable of the sheep and the goats. And do you remember what the sheep do when the Lord welcomes them?

He says, Lord, when did we? When did we? And this is the self-forgetfulness. Don't keep a tally. Don't keep a running total.

Don't worry about the things that you've done that are good. That's what the Lord is, I think, after. That you don't keep your books. Let God keep the books. He's going to keep them right.

And so while you may not be rewarded in this life, is that OK? Because on that great day, everything is going to be made plain. And so may God just really help us in our hearts. This is really the aspect of heart religion that he's after. It's hard sayings as Martin Lloyd-Jones said.

This is perhaps one of the most challenging chapters because it gets right into who are you, what are you doing, why, and not just the outward doing. I'm gonna end with these words from the Apostle Paul when he shows us the more excellent way. This is what he says here in 1 Corinthians 13. He says, Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging symbol. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains but have not love I am nothing and though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

So may God give us that impulse, that pure impulse to do things from a motive of love and a desire for his glory. Let's pray together. Well, Heavenly Father, we do come to you again and just ask you, Lord, to search us with your word and help us, oh Lord, to be the people that you would have us to be. Lord, We want to shun the things that you shun and hate those things that you hate, but also love the things that you love, Lord. And here we see true religion.

We pray, help us to embrace it and to just live for your glory, Lord. There's nothing better than to live beneath your gaze. Lord, may you help me, help us as men, and help my sisters, Lord, in all that we're doing to live for your glory and wait for that day, Lord, to eagerly anticipate that day when you will say to us, well done, thou good and faithful servant. Lord, thank you for the faithful promises that you've given us and Lord help us to believe you and to trust in you no matter how small we might regard things that we would know that you regard them and Lord that you would just increase our faith. In Jesus name we pray, amen.