Seen in Secret

Transcript

Auto-generated from the audio. Click a timestamp to jump to that part of the video.

[0:01] Well, it's time for the sermon, and I'm just going to give you a little bit of background. We're in the middle of a sermon series on just—we're in the middle of the middle. We're doing a sermon series just on Matthew 6, which is the middle chapter of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7.

[0:19] And we've seen two blocks of teaching already. This is the third one. The first block of teaching was on giving to the poor. Pastor Victoria preached about that. last week we talked about praying how to pray and it included the Lord's Prayer and in both cases and in today's reading as well so there's a theme that keeps repeating is the idea that these are things that should be done in secret and not for other people to see and so you might be saying didn't he just pray out loud in front of everybody and you would be right to be at kind of scratching your head right now it is a little different because this is Christian worship, and that traditionally has been part of Christian worship. And in another sense, we share our prayer requests with each other, which is a way of sharing our burdens with each other, which is commanded in the scriptures. But we are talking here about perhaps somebody who might go out onto a street corner in a busy town and very loudly and profusely pray on and on and on with many empty words, really for show. So that's really what Jesus is talking about, is is there are things that are part of our piety, which is to say our worship and our way of relating to God, that need to be done in secret because they really

[1:29] are between us and God. And they're not to be done for the sake of other people admiring us. And if we do it for people to admire us, then there's really a problem with our motivation. What are we actually trying to do? Are we trying to get people's praise, or are we trying to connect with God? And so in all three of these passages, of passages, we're going to be introduced to this concept that God sees things that are done in secret, which should frighten you a little bit, you know, in a good way. So God can see things that other people can't, and even the government can't, you know, and the CIA can't, and whoever else can't. So God is a bit like Santa Claus, or you could say maybe Santa Claus is a little bit bit like God, but God's better than Santa Claus on all sorts of ways, you know. But I guess they both have lists, you know. They both have lists, and they care about naughty and nice, but God sees really what's going on inside each of us, and he cares about it in a way that, you know, Santa Claus isn't even real, so it doesn't matter. So not only does Jesus say we should do a thing in secret, but that when we do it in secret, the other half of it is that God will reward us in secret. There's two kinds of secret going on here.

[2:48] One is the secret conduct. The other is the reward. And the reward itself is secret, which makes sense because if God rewarded you publicly for what you had done in secret, people would go, well, what did he do? And then we'd get back to the problem with our motivation. So I want to talk, before I go to our reading, I want to talk a little bit about this concept of secrets in the scripture. This is a bit of an introduction, but also sort of like a little, what we would call a discursus. The idea that there are some things in scripture that are secret. And one, we do claim, and this is important, that our faith is open. In other words, in our proclamation of what the gospel is, in our proclamation of what the Bible contains, we don't keep secrets from the rest of the world. This is very important because there are other religious groups that do have secrets. They have certain parts of their scriptures, certain parts of their knowledge, which you may not access or you're theoretically not able to access until you have joined them and have perhaps walked in that religion for several years, in fact.

[3:53] But we don't do that. The Bible is open. Anybody can read it. and in all honesty these other groups they're gonna have they're having a harder and harder time keeping those secret secrets because the internet you know all the rest i don't have to say any more than that it's just things it's very hard to keep things secret nowadays anyway so our faith is is one of openness but it's more complicated than that because uh there are things that we cannot not see, because of our human limitations, and I'll be honest with you, there are some things that God conceals from us. That doesn't mean we don't share whatever we know with the rest of the world. It means that there are some things that God hasn't completely told us. One perfectly good example I think you'll all understand is Jesus is telling the disciples that the world will end someday and you know how deeply guarded this secret is what does jesus say not even the sun knows when this will be so god is even the part of the trinity is keeping a secret from another part of the trinity it's a deeply held secret we do not know when the world will end there are some signs that maybe we could pay attention to not really worth our time in the the long run. So there are some things that God conceals from us. Another example is that God

[5:15] is so beautiful and terrifying at the same time that to look at him fully in his face as a sinful human being is really, really, really dangerous. Like it's super dangerous. And God says so to Moses, for example. So God says, I'm going to walk past you, but I'm going to kind of cover your face while I walk by, and you're only going to see the back of me as I kind of walk on, and that's going to really is going to protect your life. This is God talking to Moses right around the time that the Ten Commandments are given. And after Moses even saw just the back of God's head, really, when he came down from the mountain, his whole face was shining for a very long time. In fact, it was terrifying everybody else. There was sort of this commutative property or transitive property of it that it just he was God was shining then Moses's face was shining when he came down people were afraid to look at Moses because his face was shining so much so he had to put a veil over his face so that he wasn't terrifying people so God is both beautiful and terrifying and so he does need to even conceal his true appearance from us now there will be a day when we will look at God face to face and we won't be limited by the fact that we're

[6:31] sinful people because when we do finally see him face to face all of our sins will have already been sort of cleansed away from us like a refiner's fire so that there's only this sort of this pure, you know, metal that's left over after all the dross has been burnt away forever. So, but when did secrets start? And this is important. We can trace the secrets in this universe back to the fall in the garden. We just had a sermon series and we started, this was the the second week of this sermon series about the Bible in eight weeks. It was humans that actually introduced secrets into the universe, into the world. Because God one day, God, evidently every day God would, after he created humans, at the end of each day he'd come down, probably in some form where he could walk next to Adam and Eve, and they would walk through the garden at the end of of the day when the weather had cooled down a little bit and and the work was done and a meal was had and maybe there was a little pond in the garden and God would walk with Adam and Eve and say hey how was your day what happened today did you name another animal today what is a zebra what is that you know like he'd be asking them all sorts of questions and they'd be talking and

[7:49] they'd be like we found this other animal it lives underground and you know it's like it's And God's like, you should call it a badger or whatever, you know. So God, one day God went looking for them and he couldn't find them. Why?

[8:02] Because they were hiding. Somebody close the outer doors, please, just because there's going to be a little bit of noise there. Thank you, Eric. So God went looking for them. They were hiding. It was because they had eaten the fruit that they weren't supposed to eat. And it does seem like this is important that God was not able to find them by looking, right? And you may be saying, well, isn't God omniscient? Shouldn't he know exactly where they were? It's possible, this is a little more advanced, that he had set aside his omniscience for the sake of a personal and mutual relationship with them. So that when he walked with them, he was like them in a really important way. It's hard to have a sort of a mutual relationship with sort of the creator of the universe. So on some level, he sets aside his omniscience for the sake of personal and mutual relationships with them. so you know he could be near them and but they hid from them and God couldn't find them and he had to use his voice he said where are you he's a camera where are you guys I don't know where you are you're like and he might have been been genuinely surprised like he doesn't he didn't know what happened and as we keep on reading we see that things continue to get more secret they're

[9:10] hiding because they're ashamed they're modest about their bodies they care how How they look, they care what other people think of them. Now, this is the root, isn't it? Because we've been talking about this the last two weeks. Jesus is saying to people in these passages in Matthew 6, if you care more about what people think of you, then you care about these actual genuine acts of worship, like giving alms or praying, or in this case today, we're going to be talking about fasting. If you care more about what other people think of you, then that's your actual motivation. You're not actually doing this for this sort of pious, this piety that you wanna have before God, this kind of worshipful attitude or the spiritual discipline you could even call it. So they're modest, they're hiding, they're ashamed about their bodies. And so God asks, and then the secrets keep coming. God says, well, what happened? They tell the truth, but they don't really own up to it. Do you know how you can tell the truth but not own up to something? something. So they're like, well, yeah, I did it, but it's because somebody else told me to do it. And this other person told me to do it. And so they were passing the blame. And so there's that

[10:23] sort of inability to kind of face up to the reality of what they've done and their own brokenness. So it's from that point on that secrets are the way things go. And God even gives them clothes to cover themselves. The long walks have come to an end. And from that point on, people can't talk directly to God anymore. They have to guess what's going on in God's mind and they don't know. And there's, except for really rare moments, they don't hear from God much anymore. Like they used to talk to God every day. But after that, if you read in the scriptures, they go on with their lives for years at a time before God shows up again to speak to them. them. They don't see the heavenly creatures anymore. They don't see angels. They don't see the heavenly evil creatures that have been expelled from heaven but are inhabiting the earth. This whole spiritual realm is now obscured from them. They can't see it, right? And there are these long periods of God being quiet as far as we could tell. The longest one, I think, is what we call the intertestamental period. It's from the end of the Old Testament to the beginning of the New Testament. It's about 400 years. We don't have any Scripture from that time. We assume that there is

[11:40] no revelation in that time. The world was changing a lot. At just the right time, Jesus came and Scripture began again. But God is obscured from humanity for centuries at a time, we see. And so, God does deal with humanity in the context of secrets. He cares about what we do in secret. He He rewards us in secret, and He does sometimes have secrets from us. And He does intervene from time to time, but there are these long periods of quiet where we're left to wonder what He's up to. And during those times, it seems that humanity kind of devolves into wickedness. But it says in the Scriptures, it says, at the right time, and always when it's needed most, God does intervene and God does reveal. So, when God reveals Himself, it's because something really important is about to happen. It's because He's about to do a new thing that's important. He's about to call somebody into faithfulness. He's about to start a new movement. So, St. Paul sums this up really well in Galatians 4, he says, but when the fullness of time had come, do you hear that? When the fullness of time had come, other translations say when the time was right or when the appointed time had come. when the fullness of time had come, God sent his son. This was unknown. This was hinted at,

[13:03] but this was God's secret plan. It was not revealed yet until it actually happened. It was hinted at. The prophets here and there said, you know, something is going to happen. There's going to be a new covenant that God's going to make with his people. But that was just sort of a vague form. The actual outlines and the details didn't show up until till the manger. Didn't show up until the shepherds showed up, right? So it says, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law that we might receive adoption as children. God is at the right time, does come in. So at the right time, what is secret now becomes revealed. This is how the Apostle Paul ends Romans in chapter 16. He writes It says, the message about Jesus Christ has revealed his plan for you, Gentiles. A plan, now listen to this, a plan kept secret from the beginning of time. But now, as the prophets foretold and as the eternal God has commanded, this message is made known to all Gentiles everywhere so that they too might believe and obey him. So I'm still talking about secrets. I know this is like the longest introduction we've ever done before a reading, But that's okay, because I kind of want to set the stage that there are secrets that

[14:20] God has that He reveals at just the right time. And there are these things that He notices that we think are secret, but they're not really hidden from Him. And there are ways that He will interact with us that other people will not be able to unless we reveal it to those other people. And all the things that our faith teaches, all the good news of the Bible, all the purposes of God, He has finally revealed. That's all out in the open. bit. I don't think there's any secrets left. Now, you don't know what you don't know. I don't think there are any secrets left except for that one that even Jesus himself doesn't know. I think it's all been finally revealed. And that's great news for us. You can really argue that we're the most fortunate people to live in this time because there were people who lived in a time before all this was revealed. And they didn't know what God was up to. They could only hope for it. If you you read Hebrews 11, which is fabulous, it speaks to this. They're like people who see a city or a place from afar, and they actually know that in their lifetime, even though they're traveling towards it, they'll never reach it, and they'll never see it up close. But by faith, in some ways,

[15:30] they begin to receive its promises, but they still only see in part. Praise God that we live in a time where this has all been revealed. But with that blessing comes what? You know Spider-Man, right? With the blessing or with great, how is it, with great gift? With great power comes great responsibility. Thank you, Spider-Man.

[15:54] Now that you know this, it is incumbent on you to do something about it and to live by it. So you can't claim ignorance anymore. So we're lucky, but we're also burdened by responsibility responsibility because we have this knowledge. So that's the introduction. But here's our reading. We'll go to Matthew 6, 14 through 18. And the first two verses really kind of belong with last weeks, but we were trying to break it up a little bit. But it is about forgiveness, and we're not going to spend much time or any time on that today. It'd be for another day. But let's go to Matthew 6, 14 through 18. It might come up there. Jesus says this, if you forgive those who sin sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins." Verse 16, "'And when you fast, don't make it obvious as the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and disheveled so people will admire them for their fasting.' I tell you the truth, that is the only reward they will ever get."

[17:00] But, when you fast, comb your hair and wash your face, then no one will notice that you are fasting except your Father who knows what you do in private or in secret," that's… other translations have the word secret there, and your Father who sees everything will reward you. Let's pray.

[17:21] Heavenly Father, thank You for this Word and we ask that You add Your blessing to it. in Jesus name amen so by the way our air conditioner is broken we're going to get it fixed this week so I'm sorry for the little stuffy here my my paper just stuck to my hand so I became I became truly aware so yeah I can make it just like glue I'm truly aware of it um anyways true to form we see the same pattern as in the other sections we've been talking about that fasting Fasting shouldn't be done in an obvious way, and we're going to get into why people fasted in a moment. But the people who do make a show of fasting will get the admiration of other people, or at least they suppose so. I'm not sure how much other people really admired it. I guess they thought, oh, well, that's a pious person. And since they're doing it for themselves and not for the real reasons one would fast, That's the only benefit that they get, this supposed admiration from other people. But Jesus says, if they fast in private or in secret, and the Greek word here is crypto, which is a great word. And that's where we get words like cryptic or cryptography, or there's a whole series of words that are based on this word, and similar words. This is done in a way that's concealed

[18:41] from the view of other people, and that there's some reward or benefit that also comes in secret. And we'll get into what that benefit may be. But I want to remind you about how last week we talked about why people care so much about what other people think. And actually, it started, really started in Genesis 3 with Adam and Eve, like, oh, we don't want other people, we don't want God to see us naked. And God says, who told you you were naked? That's not even a thing. Well, it is, but you know, it didn't matter. all of a sudden we care about what people think and we care about it because this this outdated sense that we're living in scarcity when in fact there's overabundance in many parts of the world and I think I'm gonna guess that the zip code we're in is at the top ninety nine and a half percent of the world in terms of scarcity like I don't I don't see hungry people too often there are some no doubt but I think we've got a lot less scarcity here than we do in many parts of of the world. But when there was scarcity, we had to care what other people thought about us just to stay alive. So it was important. But we don't do that. We don't have to do that anymore. And you know, I'm honest. I'll be honest with you. I admit that I care what other people think of me.

[19:59] I want them to think that I'm smart. I think that might be the number one thing I hope they think is that I'm smart. I kind of want them to think that I'm good-looking, but that's harder and harder. And I want them to think I'm nice and strong and all sorts of things, but it is the harder, it gets harder as you get older, you know. And the other day I was looking in the mirror and I said to Christy, you know, I look so old and ugly and fat, you know. I was looking myself in the mirror and I said, said, I just wish you would say one nice thing about me to make me feel better about myself.

[20:36] And she said, well, you do have perfect eyesight, so there's that. Only half of you got that that was a joke, but okay. Because I could see how ugly I was. Get it? All right. Oh, man, I'd explain it. All right. Anyway, so going back to fasting. Somebody just got it. All right, yay, delayed.

[21:03] We do need the rim shot over here, all right. OK, so let's go back to fasting and why people did it. I said we'd talk about why people fast. We have records of the Pharisees stating that they fasted twice a week, right? So among religious people who seemed to care what others thought, it was pretty common for people to fast.

[21:20] Jesus never commands anyone to fast anywhere in the Gospels. He never commands it, all right? And none of the epistles ever command anyone to fast either. So you could ask yourself, from the New Testament on, is it really a spiritual discipline that we need to do? And it's not a requirement. So there are some things that we are required to do.

[21:44] Probably, if we're being commanded by the Apostle Paul to remember the Lord's Supper, that seems more like a commandment. But there's no similar commandment to fast anywhere in the New Testament. Fasting was actually more part of the landscape that was inherited from the Old Testament, and it was linked to two things. Someone would fast when they were lamenting a tragedy that had kind of happened to them or they had seen. And so this was often also accompanied by things like putting on sackcloth and pouring ashes on your head. These things are kind of combined in a lot of places in the Old Testament. So you get the sense of somebody being completely out of their normal routine, changing their appearance as sort of a reflection that things are not right with me right now, things are not right with the world right now, and my appearance is reflecting it and I'm abstaining from food at the same time as a way of lamenting and feeling sort of the physical pain to match my emotional pain in a way.

[22:47] Theoretically, if you look at that, you would say, ah, they don't care. If it was done right, they don't care what they look like, because they look bad. There's ash on their head, they haven't washed in a few days, they look bad. So they don't care what they look like, and they are just doing this as a way of sort of lament, which is great. and but you can see how easily that could morph into caring a lot about what people saw other people saw what it looked like for them do you see how you could actually say I don't care what people think about me so I'm gonna do all this because I I need my outside to match my inside that is not only good but bit by bit that could turn into something else where the motivation could change to go I've got to do this now so other people will admire me and And that's what Jesus doesn't like, right? Now, the other reason to fast was kind of in a similar vein. When one was made aware of their own sinfulness and they wanted to repent, people in the Old Testament would fast. And so King David did this, and others have too. So there is that sort of dual purpose. One is lament because of a tragedy. The other is repentance because I have sinned. And I feel alienated from God and I need to fast as a form of a spiritual discipline to

[24:10] sort of refocus myself on God. So Jesus doesn't command fasting, but He understands that there are actually good reasons to fast. And so I would say even to this day, there are good reasons to fast. Fasting, I guess there's good health reasons for fasting. I don't know all the research on that. Some people say there's good reasons to do it. I'm not sure. I like three square meals a day, but that's just me.

[24:34] But it can be a spiritual discipline where to deprive yourself, if you do it in a certain way, in private, obviously, that's what we're talking about, is that that hunger, that sense of needing something, you could with your mind go, I'm going to turn that sense of need back up to God. And I'm going to say, it's going to be like a reminder to me to rely more on God and to to really connect with God.

[25:04] So we've talked about the value of lament in our preaching here in the church. We've actually had a whole book series on lament. Lament's sort of an under-preached on, under-taught on thing in modern Christianity, especially Protestantism. So we know the value of lament. I think it's there. We need permission to lament, and we need to lament when bad things happen to us and when bad things happen in the world. That's a very good spiritual discipline.

[25:33] And I think fasting can be too, but because these good things have been co-opted and turned into ways of making ourselves look good, Jesus needs to reclaim them and set down a rule for them, which is by all means do them, they're good, you should do them. I'm not saying you shouldn't do them, I'm also not necessarily commanding you to do all these things, but do them in secret. And there's that word again. They're between you and God. They're not between you and everybody else. And in a way, you think about it, this is really bringing the relationship back to the Garden of Eden. Imagine walking arm in arm with God around the scenic lake as the sun is setting and him saying, How was your day? And you go and say, You know, I'm hurting so much right now. So many things have gone wrong. Or I really blew it today. I gave in to temptation. I'm embarrassed. But it's better to tell you than to hide it. That kind of relationship with God where you can kind of tell God anything. and God puts his arm around us and says, I'm with you and I love you. I'll keep walking with you no matter what. That's the reward that's given in secret. That's when we can go to God with these things in secret and then get that reward in secret. But ask yourself, how can that

[26:47] conversation happen if we're doing it in a crowd of other people so that they can hear it? you know so if i'm in a crowd of people and i'm i'm going oh i just lament and i you know i i'm such a sinner and it's really for show then how can god speak those words to us because we're we're actually attuned to other people going oh how brave or whatever else they might say so it really makes sense what jesus is saying if you want to do it for other people that's the only reward you're going to get and you're all the only reward is their admiration maybe but if you do it in secret, then you can only really be focused on God and God will be totally focused on you and there won't be any other interruptions or distractions around it. And that's really the goal of doing those things. That's the goal of lament. That's the goal of all these other things.

[27:38] So one question, should you fast? Right? Who here fasts every now and then? I think it's a good thing. Yeah. Good. Good. How has it been? It's hard, yeah? Does that work? Does it focus you on God, or is that the mental challenge?

[28:02] Yeah. Natalie's saying it. Say that again. Yes. Got it. So she says there's time involved with food, whether it's making it, thinking about it. We have donuts after for fathers. Thinking about it, wait, making it, thinking about it, and eating it. That actually is part of your day. But to use that time to freeze up the time to focus on God. So there's some great things to be done with fasting, and it's a spiritual discipline. And like all spiritual disciplines, anything with the word discipline, there's a little bit of work, there's a little bit of learning. All those things are part of discipleship, right? So, should we come to God? You know, the question is, should you fast? It's not commanded in the New Testament, it can be good. But here's a better question. Should we come to God with our lament and with our repentance? And should we do it in private so we can receive assurance of His love and of His forgiveness without other voices getting in between us so that we can't hear it? And of course, you know, the answer to all that is yes, it's a very rhetorical question. So, there are these secret private parts of our faith, and that's actually good. Most of them have to do with our own prayer life and our relationship with God. And then there are other very public

[29:34] proclamatory parts of our faith. This is praying out loud, singing out loud in worship. That's That's all very good. There's also the gospel, the good news we share with the world about how God does rescue us from sin and death and the devil and loves us so much He sends His Son to die for us so that He can gather us all to Himself. That's all very public and that's also very good. And it's like walking and chewing gum. We need to be able to hold these two things at the same time. There's this intensely private part of our faith where we talk to God and we don't need We need other voices getting in the way of it. And there are these other very public parts of our faith where we need to be speaking into the world and into each other's lives with the good news of what God has done for us. And they don't cancel each other out. They exist alongside each other perfectly if we think about it. And there is this future.

[30:31] Just going back to this question of secrets, there is a future that's still far off and it's like the people from Hebrews. We see it from a distance now. It's not entirely clear. There is a time when everything will be revealed. There is a time when there will be no more secrets.

[30:52] Every thought will be laid bare. Does this terrify you? It should. But it shouldn't, because you'll also be completely cleansed before all of that's laid bare. And you will look at that record along with everybody else in the world and go, what a mess. Praise God that He saved me from that. You know what I mean? And all things will be revealed. All injustice will be judged. All thoughts will be laid bare. All relationships with God will be open. And then that future is looking in the face of God and finding that it is both terrifying and beautiful at the same time, but also completely safe. So, there's a day when all secrets will be gone. But until then, we do these things in secret. We pray in secret, we give alms in secret, we fast in secret. Let's pray in public. Heavenly Father, thank You again for Your Word that You gave to us through Jesus Christ. And whether we fast or not, Lord, we pray that we come to You in private and give You you our hearts each day, confess our sins to you, and ask you for help. And we ask it in Jesus' name.