“Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet 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 your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:2–4, ESV)

Jesus’ point is that we can do the right thing for the wrong reason. In this case, it is a good thing to help the poor, but it should be done for the benefit of the poor rather than for acclaim. Leon Morris, in his excellent commentary on Matthew, says this about the hypocrites:

“They were more interested in ensuring that they were known as benefactors than in genuinely helping the poor; reputation rather than relief of poverty was what mattered to them.”

We see this played out in our political arena today. One the one hand, some politicians make a great show of helping the poor and on the other hand, some argue that they are poor because of lack of effort. The functional question is whether the poor are actually helped or if they are being used for personal or political gain.

My point is not to make a political statement, but to illustrate that this is a universal problem. We can do what appears to be the right thing for selfish reasons.

The challenge for Christians is that we can make a great show of being willing to help without doing what is required to actually help.

For example, do our short term missions projects provide any lasting benefit? When we parachute in, spend a week and then leave, do we accomplish anything that lasts? Are we going there for our benefit or for the benefit of those who we are visiting? Are we doing projects and giving money because we are prompted by God to do so or are we doing it so that we can be seen as being generous or being spiritual? These are questions that need to be asked.

They need to be asked because we are fallen creatures and our motives are less than pure. Jesus is not saying that we should not give to the poor if our hearts are not exactly right, but we should be aware that our motives may be less than ideal when we do it.

Paul tells us in Romans 12:2 that our minds are in need of constant renewal and an examination of our motives for doing charitable works is part of that renewal process.

Keep doing the right thing and pray that God will move us closer to doing it for the right reason.

In doing research for a talk I’m going to give in November, I ran across this sentence by John Stott:

“The reason why many people give the wrong answers to questions about the cross, and even ask the wrong questions, is that they have carefully considered neither the seriousness of sin nor the majesty of God.”

John Stott – The Cross of Christ

Worse yet, the culture around me is losing its ability to recognize sin at all. It is one thing to fail to recognize the seriousness of sin, it is another entirely to be unable or unwilling to declare any behavior to be sin at all.

I have heard it said that an alcoholic has to hit rock bottom before he recognizes that he has a problem. Perhaps it is also true with all sin. If we are more or less functioning from day to day, perhaps we can explain away our selfishness, pride, impiety or sexual impurity. After all, to be caught up in this things is common to humanity.

It is true that I am no different from the rest of humanity, but that does not make my sin acceptable in my eyes or in God’s eyes which leads to the second of Stott’s assertions.

If we fail to take the majesty and holiness of God seriously, we will also end up in error. While God is described all through the Bible as being slow to anger and abounding in mercy, he is also described as being infinitely holy and unable to look favorably on sin.

God is not a big buddy in the sky. He will not wink at you while you disobey God’s laws or man’s laws.

So stop for a minute and contemplate the chasm that lies between man in his sin and an infinitely holy God.  Even a short meditation on this will bring a much better understanding of the Cross and why Jesus had to die.

In thinking about the idea of reconciliation between God and man, there are those who see a need for God to reconcile his justice with his mercy. The idea is that God’s justice is in conflict with his mercy and some middle ground must be agreed upon for reconciliation to take place.

But this comes from a faulty understanding of who God has revealed himself to be.

When Adam took that fateful bite, God did not look on with shock and begin wondering how he was going to fix this mess.

God had decided long before he created that the mess would be fixed by God. The solution to man’s failure was in place before man failed.

God does not have to reconcile his justice with his mercy because there was a plan in place from eternity to provide a means of reconciliation that is both perfectly merciful and perfectly just. It is the Cross of Christ that makes this possible. It is at the Cross of Jesus Christ that justice and mercy meet and neither is compromised.

Justice and mercy do not need to meet half way because God loved us enough to provide a means of fixing the mess we create. How cool is that?

I wrote this post and set it up to be published before I figured out that I had previously written on these verses. I was about to hit the delete key but after reading the two posts, there are enough differences in the observations, that I decided to publish this one.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14–16, ESV)

When I think of light, I think of two main characteristics:

1. Its ability to dispel darkness
2. Its ability to serve as a guide

Dispel Darkness

Have you ever experienced a power outage where you walk into a room, flick the light switch and then remember that there is no power? We are conditioned to turn the light on so that we can see what is in the room we enter. The light from the electric bulb will dispel the darkness in the room, allowing us to see what is in there.

Jesus is not saying that we glow in the dark and dispel physical darkness. But his is saying that our lives should be lived in such a way that we dispel spiritual darkness.

How can we dispel darkness?

We are told in John 9:5 that Jesus claimed that he himself is the light of the world. When we demonstrate Jesus to the world around us we are reflectors of that light which can change hearts and minds and bring them into relationship with God.

Serve as Guide

A city on a hill can be easily identified at night by the light it emits. If you are traveling through the valley at night, the light from the city will allow you to maintain your bearing and get to your destination.

How can we service as a guide?

Jesus tells us in the verses quoted above that we are such a guide when we demonstrate the effectiveness of the Gospel to change lives. The fact that we are different than we were should be some proof of the claims of the gospel.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:26-29:

“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” (ESV)

What Paul is saying is that God takes men and women who have nothing that the world values and turns them into ambassadors who demonstrate the power of God to change lives. Those changed lives are the light on a hill that should draw others into the power of the Gospel.

What these verses are not saying

These verses are not a mandate for Christians to “take back our country” or to force a moral code on those who are unwilling to be subjected to it. There is nothing in Scripture that tells me that God is satisfied with behavioral modification. God is interested in the heart. Change the heart and behavioral change will follow.

My hope

We are called to dispel the darkness by growing in our relationship to God and being obedient to what he has called us to do. We are to be a beacon of hope to a world that desperately needs something to be hopeful about.

It is my hope that the church will increasingly be that light . . .