“Living the Righteous Life”

Scripture: Matthew 6:5-18

In our journey toward Lent, we have seen how God is constantly at work in and through our lives, and how our emotions, in particular anger, lust and revenge, can trip us up in our walk with the Lord. Knowledge of both God’s love and our failure to show him love are vital to our understanding of the way he works in our lives, and today, we take one more look at our relationship with Jesus.
Jesus is still preaching to the crowd during his Sermon on the Mount, and they are still listening intently. And as he moves further into his instruction of what the Father expects of those who would follow him, he comes to our passage for today. In this, he addresses three issues that are important in our expression of love for the Almighty – prayer, forgiveness, and fasting. And as we will discover, scripture has quite a lot to say about each of these.

It’s been said that the things that keep marriages and relationships fresh and alive is the ability to change, to be flexible, to adapt.
- Homiletics OnLine

And since God is unchanging, that means, apparently, that we are the ones who must change. And rightly so. God never moves away from us – it is humanity who has done the side stepping. So without further delay, let’s begin our movement back toward our Lord as we go to his Word.

Read Matthew 6:5-13

The need and power of prayer? Over and over again, prayer plays a dynamic part in the lives of Israel and the early church. 1) Remember the plagues in Egypt? 4 of them - frogs, flies, hail and thunder, and locust – were relieved only by prayer (Exodus 7:14-12:30). 2) Prayer has always been the means of repentance for the people of God. In the Hebrew texts, prayer can seem to be the sole right of Israel, but God was always hearing and responding to the prayers of all people (2 Chronicles 6:32-33). 3) In Jeremiah, we read of several instances when God told the prophet that he shouldn’t pray for the people because they had lost all love for him, and had, instead, turned to other gods (ex. Jeremiah 7:16-20; 11:14-17; 14:11-12). 4) But in Jeremiah 29:11-14, God says that if the people will turn back to him, he will, once again, listen to their prayers. The Lord hears the prayers of the faithful, and is deaf to false prayer.
In the New Testament, Jesus begins to put a whole new spin on prayer. 5) In Matthew 5:44 and Luke 6:28, he tells us to pray for blessings for our enemies. 6) In many passages, we see the Lord slipping away from his disciples to spend personal time in prayer with the Father – for Jesus, prayer was as much a time for communication and relationship building as it was for petition (Luke 5:16; 6:12). 7) He told the parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector who were in the temple praying, and that the humble prayer was received, and the arrogant one was not (Luke 18:9-14). Prayer should serve to glorify God and never ourselves.
And the examples could go on and on. Jesus tells us that hypocritical prayer – that which is done solely to impress others and has little to do with God – will receive no recognition from heaven, for they have received their glory from earth and you can’t have it both ways.

Read Matthew 6:14-15

The Hebrew writings seem to center more on God’s forgiveness than on ours. If a person wanted to offer forgiveness to someone else, many times it would be by asking God to forgive them. The general teachings, though were that you had to forgive another person 3 times, and then they had to depend on the mercy of God. Forgiveness was seen primarily as God’s action, not ours (Zechariah 13:1). And the Pharisees were focused on this teaching when they confronted Jesus in his offering forgiveness to the paralytic (Luke 5:17-26). But in Matthew 18:21-22, we see Peter asking how many times we should forgive each other. He suggests that it might be the “perfect” 7 times, far more than the law required, but Jesus tells him that it is far more – that we must forgive until our forgiveness is complete. As a matter of fact, Jesus tells us that we must forgive completely, or God will be unable to forgive us (Luke 6:37-38). And even on the cross, Jesus seeks forgiveness for those who hate him so much (Luke 23:34), and we are to do the same in our lives.
Forgiveness is a blessing that has been placed in our hands, and we have the power to forgive or not forgive, and whatever our decision is, it will be final (also John 20:19-23). And the implication here is not that we get to choose, but that we are to forgive, regardless. Not 3 times, not 7 times, but as much as is necessary! Quite a responsibility that the Lord has placed on us, isn’t it! And we need to use it wisely.

Read Matthew 6:16-18

Fast, but don’t let anyone know that you are doing it. Sounds strange, but think of it this way - fasting has been called a form of body prayer, and a few verses ago, Jesus told us that the best prayer is when we do it in solitude. Fasting, however, isn’t actually done in solitude, but simply in a personal way. In Isaiah 58, the prophet chastises the people for not letting their days of fasting make a difference in their lives. Perhaps the best way to get a feel for this issue is by comparison. Here are just a few that I recently read:

Fast from criticism, and feast on praise.
Fast from self-pity, and feast on joy.
Fast from ill-temper, and feast on peace.
Fast from resentment, and feast on contentment.
Fast from jealousy, and feast on love.
Fast from pride, and feast on humility.
Fast from selfishness, and feast on service.
Fast from fear, and feast on faith.
-- Source unknown

And there can be many more if we think about them. When we fast, we set the world aside for a period of time, and feast on the things that God would have in our lives. Now normally, fasting includes a time of abstaining from food, but today, there are many who are unable to do this for medical reasons. But the lack of food is only a portion of the purpose of a true fast. It’s about intentionally initiating a new and better way of life.
As we read though Isaiah 58, we discover that it’s the breaking of our normal, everyday routine that is important. He says that we should be sharing the food we didn’t eat with those who are hungry; we are to do something that will break the chains of injustice; to show love to the oppressed; to have some service project that you wouldn’t normally be involved in; to spend time in prayer and study - it’s about making this day a day that is holy in the sight of the Lord.

When I fast, I try to choose a day that has a particular significance to me, and dedicate it to God by doing many of the things that Isaiah suggests. 24 hours is not a long time to go without food, at least it isn’t for me, and at meal times, I try to drink a bottle of water or some clear fruit juice. I even give up coffee for the day, believe it or not (!), and there have been several times that I have broken my fast with communion. And no one knows why or what I do, even those who I may be helping, so that I can give all honor and praise to the Lord.

Jesus teaches us about these things to inspire us to become someone different. A new way to pray, a complete way to forgive, a holy way of fasting – all of it intended to lead us in his righteousness. Remember Nicodemus and his night time visit to Jesus? (John 3:1-21) Jesus told the Pharisee that he had to be born again – he had to become a new creature, he had to begin a new way of life, he had to be created anew in God’s image.
As we continue in our journey toward Lent, I want to encourage you to try some, if not all, of these acts of righteousness on a regular basis. Take time to get off by yourself to spend time in prayer and meditation with God. Place an emphasis on a relationship that has been damaged, and begin to bring healing to it by, first, asking God to forgive your part in the injury, and then to complete the healing by forgiving the other person for their part in the separation. Select a day, and without anyone else ever knowing why, spend some time in personal prayer and in serving the needs of others, and fast during that time, if at all possible. And if you make this a regular weekly focus, and even continue it right through Lent and up to Easter, I expect that you will be richly blessed.

My friends, we have to start breaking our routine of earthly living, and begin fresh by living as Jesus would have us live, and this season is the perfect time to do it. And when you do, the new life that you will soon discover will become your witness to the world.