[0:00] I am going to be preaching on Matthew chapter 6 today. Specifically, I'm going to be talking about the aspects of Matthew chapter 6 that demarcate reward in heaven versus reward on earth.
[0:19] Another way of saying it is there are aspects of the Christian life that the Lord wants us to do in secret.
[0:32] And that the Lord has a reward for us when we do them in secret. In fact, I was thinking about this topic especially because I think that we live in a day and age where the intimacy that comes from appropriate privacy is almost entirely elusive to this generation.
[1:01] We live in a generation that hides that which should be brought into the light, our shame and our sin, and displays that which should be private.
[1:17] Right? Like, just think about how much on the social media front is a prostitution of things that should be private.
[1:30] Not even just the scandalous side of things, not even just the scandalous side of things, but even the more subtle side of things where, like, the Instagram couple only reads to their kids before bed when they're making an Instagram post about it and posting it online.
[1:49] You know? Right? Right? We're kind of in a day and age where I think partially because of rampant loneliness, everyone's longing for the benefits of intimacy in places where intimacy is actually losing its innocence, if that makes sense.
[2:11] We're addicted to quasi-intimacy where that which is most powerful and rewarding about intimacy is actually being stripped of those primary qualities.
[2:25] Right? We're a generation. We live in a media-centric generation that doesn't know the power and reward of true intimacy.
[2:39] That's what I would say. And I would say that not just for the world, but also even for the church. Even for the church. I was even thinking about this because this whole chapter, Matthew chapter 6, that's where Jesus talks about when you give, do it in secret.
[2:53] When you pray, do it in secret. When you fast, do it in secret. All the, you know what I mean? For instance, let's just use one example. Even like with IHOP here in town.
[3:04] One of the things I've actually thought about for many years is I wonder how different the fruit would have been if they would have exalted this chapter in their ministry. Because exalting prayer, what a powerful thing.
[3:17] Exalting fasting, what a powerful thing. The scripture exalts these things. But unfortunately, the system created in that context was all designed to be done publicly.
[3:29] You know what I mean? For those of you who have been attached to that movement for a long time. The amount of clout that is extended to people who do long fasts.
[3:39] The amount of communication that happens when people spend massive amounts of time in the prayer room. All of these things. The degree to which people see and value these spiritual disciplines in that specific context is enormous.
[3:58] Now, I think the thing is, though, I think that we do this too, if that makes sense. And I think that maybe on our side of things, it's in a more subtle way. But how much of our Christian walk with the Lord, I'm going to use an analogy here.
[4:12] This is an analogy that pertains to me, but I think perhaps some of us would relate with this. I think that sometimes because we do full-time church, talking about us, Christ Church, I think sometimes because we do full-time church, we're not like part-time church, we're like full-time church.
[4:29] You know what I mean? That so much of our life is dominated by church-related, Christian-related activities that a lot of our spiritual practices not only fall under that umbrella, but are swallowed under that umbrella.
[4:45] And here's an analogy. Imagine a couple, husband and wife, that not only are married, but also work together 40 hours a week. Imagine you and your wife.
[4:58] You clock in and you spend your eight hours together. And then you clock out and now you've already spent so much time working together. It's easy to imagine that we're kind of like, okay, we're good.
[5:12] Like we've been in proximity enough. I'm going to go do other things now. Imagine that as an analogy. I think there's an extent to which even in the full-time church mentality that we have, that we are praying in proximity to each other.
[5:29] We are reading the scripture, let's say, at MC. We're coming together for fellowship on Sunday. And so much of that is taking up the umbrella of our Christian walk that sometimes when we're clocking out, we're not really as interested in seeking the Lord in our own time.
[5:45] You know what I'm saying? And that's not to condemn how, let's see, how robust our walk is as a body. I am wanting to highlight this other side of things that's just you and the Lord, that Jesus would, I'm tempted to say the word abandon.
[6:05] Jesus would leave his disciples and all of the crowds that were following him, he would disappear and go be alone with the Lord because that's how important it was. You know, this is the most important human of all time with, let's say, the most important mission, the most responsibility of all time, leaving all of those pressures to go get this one thing, which is, I would call, let's say, intimacy with the Lord, intimacy with the Father.
[6:33] Doing the spiritual disciplines in a way that gets no credit for other people. Only other thing I want to add real quick is I think, too, this pertains, it pertains to many areas, but there is something that we're always fostering by what we're partaking of in our own secret world, in our own invisible world.
[6:56] And one of the analogies I was even thinking of, this is a true analogy, so some of you guys know this, maybe some of you don't. It was the case at one time that I used to play music a lot. In fact, I even went to school for music.
[7:07] But one of the things that's interesting in retrospect, and by way of analogy, is that a lot of my relationship to music prior to going to college for it was one of quasi-journaling and kind of spending time with the Lord playing, like, worship music and, like, doing something that was not really before people.
[7:25] It was just, like, me alone in my room playing guitar or playing piano, and it wasn't really displayed. I wasn't, like, playing on the worship team. I was just having fun with music in the same way that you might enjoy journaling, right?
[7:36] And I went from that to, like, a very intensive program that was scrutinizing, you know, what is it? It's as much the opposite of that as possible. It's completely performance-oriented.
[7:48] It's scrutinizing what you're doing. There's, everything is done through the lens of performance in the stage. And one of the things that was really interesting, people will ask me about this every once in a while, like, why do you never play music?
[8:00] Well, it killed everything I loved about music. That's actually what happened. It killed everything I loved about music. Going to school for music killed everything I loved about music. And I think the things that I loved about music was something that is almost, like, the spiritual aspect about music, which is there's, like, a real intimate reward when you can, like, partake.
[8:19] It's music. Music, like, journaling and praying and reading the scripture can be something that's very worshipful and intimate. But it also can be something that's just on display for other people to see.
[8:33] And that aspect of music was stolen from me by the performance and by the scrutiny. Right? So I just want to get this tension in our heads and then we're going to roll through these passages.
[8:48] So I'm just going to go ahead and start Matthew chapter 6, starting in verse 1. I'm reading out of the ESV. Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them.
[9:02] For then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Which is to say, the reward that you can receive from giving is an exclusive reward insofar as the reward is concerned.
[9:17] If it is done for people, you do not receive the reward that comes from the Lord. Verse 2. 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.
[9:35] Which is another way of saying that they may have a value assigned them, honor assigned them, that they would be puffed up in the eyes of other people. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward.
[9:49] 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.
[10:03] So this is to say, the only way you can receive a heavenly reward is if you give in a manner that only the Lord sees it.
[10:16] In fact, he doesn't even use the analogy. His analogy is not when you give, give in a way that no one sees it. He goes further than that. He says, give in a way where even part of you doesn't see it.
[10:30] Does that make sense? Like he's, he's almost, he's like taking the point to another level. He's saying, don't just do it where nobody sees it. Don't do it where you're like, let your left hand not know that your right hand does it.
[10:42] This is a very high degree of secrecy. This is kind of interesting. The Lord commands us to be secretive about certain things. Verse five. It's interesting.
[11:14] It says that the Lord is in secret. It doesn't say go secretly meet with the Lord, but it says, shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret.
[11:27] It is if that is the place that the Lord resides. He resides in the secret place. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.
[11:40] Do not be like them, for your father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this. As an aside, uh, think about how much we talk about the Lord forgiving us, how much our prayers are seasoned with prayers or seasoned with the topic of Lord, forgive me.
[12:24] But it's interesting that when he's teaching us to pray, he says, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. Like we don't, I don't hear us praying very much and I don't pray very much.
[12:35] Like, Lord, please forgive me my sins as I forgive other people into the amount at which I forgive other people. You know what I mean? There's like this assumption that like, I would expect the Lord's forgiveness to extend beyond that because I'm a very broken man.
[12:48] It's interesting that that is the Lord's prayer. In fact, not only is it the Lord's prayer going on further, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. And then what's he saying in the next verse? For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you.
[13:02] But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive you your trespasses. He actually doubles down on that line. You know what I mean? Like instead of passing, passing over, he goes ahead and just to make sure I was being very clear on that one.
[13:22] Anyway, total aside. All right. Well, before I hop to the next passage, how much is prayer as a specific topic, something that facilitates intimacy in our hearts when it is done in solitude?
[13:44] And how much of it is something that we take for granted when we don't, I would say. And also, as an aside, it seems to me that one of the real litmus tests to how intimate I am with the Lord is how quickly my heart longs for connecting with the Lord as soon as there is solitude.
[14:09] Meaning like as soon as I get in my car and I'm alone, or as soon as I get in the shower and I'm alone, or even when I'm laying down and waking up in the morning, there's something about the Lord's presence that can be so robustly before you when things are, when you're in solitude.
[14:25] And it's a real interesting thing that when I take the word for granted, not only does it take a ding on how much I experience the Lord's presence, but also it also diminishes the amount in which I immediately long for it.
[14:41] Does that make sense? That's an aside. I'm going to keep going. Verses 16. And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces and that their fasting may be seen by others.
[14:55] Truly I say to you, they have received the reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your father who is in secret.
[15:08] Again, by your father who is in secret is as if the secret place is the place in which he resides. And your father who sees in secret will reward you.
[15:21] All right. And I think that this next paragraph is the summary of the purposes and intents of this whole chapter. Verse 19.
[15:33] Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. Which is to say, this world in which we live is not something that has eternal.
[15:53] This world is something that is dying and fading. Don't put your value in something that is only temporary.
[16:05] Verse 20. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroy, where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
[16:19] Very famous verses. I just want to tie this part of the paragraph together before I move to the next part. There is an aspect of our heart that assigns value, that perceives with weight and value what is most important.
[16:38] These verses are saying, what are you growing in your heart as being most valuable? Right?
[16:49] We can participate in a secret place where the Lord is that causes our heart to treasure which is worthy of being treasured.
[17:07] Or we can let our heart become something that most values that which is temporal. Value that which is seen by men.
[17:21] We can become exactly as our generation is. You know what I mean? Even think about this. Even in so far as church is concerned. The most prominent churches that come to people's minds, if we can call them churches, for the most part are mega churches that embrace marketing as their primary strategy.
[17:43] That actually embrace appearance as their primary quality, as how they are perceived. It is a show. It is a show. So much of the precedent, not only in the world, but also in the church, normalizes us caring about what people think or what people see.
[18:03] Right? Even to the point that many of the men that we do not know, but yet influence us, many of the men that we are listening to all the time, receiving teaching from all the time, that are these mega church pastors.
[18:16] We are receiving influence very disconnected from their real lives, assuming many things about them. But the only thing oftentimes that we really know is that the business model of their organization is to garner more attention, to get more book sales, to get the podcast more famous, get the YouTube channel bigger, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
[18:42] And I think that's even part of the irony with like, let's say I have, I'm not trying to dog on IHOP all the time, but it's just very pertinent to this analogy. How much are we taking our Christian walk and letting it be something that's very much on display and like does not have this spiritual depth that comes from secret intimacy with the Lord, that seeks the Lord in a place where no one is ever going to know.
[19:05] You know what I mean? I'm going to keep on going. Verse 22. This is an awesome analogy. Verse 22. The eye is the lamp of the body.
[19:19] So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness?
[19:33] Okay. I believe that there is a secret intimacy with the Lord that transforms what our heart treasures and transforms what our eyes see and perceive in life.
[19:52] Which is another way of saying there is eternal value that can be found in temporary spaces.
[20:03] Because we go about in a temporary world, but our heart can be in a secret place with the Lord that we see what's really going on and the real important things.
[20:14] We also can coast into a place where we are tethering our heart to things that are fading, that things are slowly dying.
[20:29] We can become bound to a temporary world. And in a sense, these commandments are two roads in which we can take. And ultimately, it does come down to what do we want?
[20:47] Because in all of the rewards, it's what the person wanted. You want to be seen before men? What does he say? You will have your reward. What do you want?
[20:57] What do you want? Did you do this because you wanted the Lord's reward? The Father who's in the secret place? Then you get it.
[21:08] So, in a sense, the real choice is, what do you want? What do you want? And I think the reason why I'm making such a big deal about it as it pertains to our generation is our generation is a very lonely generation that has forgotten the weightiness of intimacy.
[21:23] Right? And I think that there's something, there's an appropriate Christian rebellion that does that. You know what I mean? There's something that's so on display about, I mean, like, go down so many bunny trails here.
[21:38] But not only, like, think about this, for instance. Even, I think the average person that gets into a relationship nowadays met them through a dating app.
[21:51] The way they began an intimate relationship is because they created an advertisement. You know what I mean? I can just go on and on. Just think about how much social media is just, the degree to which intimacy escapes us is astounding.
[22:09] And people don't know why they're so lonely, I would say. And people probably aren't even aware of it, I would say. Verse 24. Actually, hold on, one more point about the lamp of the body.
[22:23] A lamp is not just something like a window. He's not using the analogy of a window here. He's not saying the eyes or the window of the body, where you just perceive what's exterior.
[22:36] He's saying it's a lamp. A lamp is something that illuminates reality. The Lord wants us to have an illuminated perspective of reality.
[22:52] Let your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I think that there's a competing theology, which is to say you choose this eternal disconnected world or you choose this physical world.
[23:08] I think that what a lot that this actual chapter is talking about is the Lord's will, the Lord's perspective being bred in our heart that we would see as he sees everywhere we go.
[23:26] I think there's more of an aspect, and this is what it's going to say at the end of this, because it's going to say, seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. I don't think that the message here is this world and all the temporary things are just bad and evil and run from them.
[23:44] I think actually the Lord is trying to transform our heart and our eyes. He's trying to transform our perspective and what we care most about. And I think the lamp analogy is to say, let the Lord's light illuminate your life.
[23:58] Let the Lord's eternity display itself in the temporary brokenness of this world. We need light. We need light. All right.
[24:09] Verse 24. No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
[24:23] I think a lot of times this whole paragraph here, almost all of these verses are oftentimes read in isolation, and they're not read together. And when you read them in isolation, you can come up with like a very different interpretation than when you read them all together.
[24:35] I think they're all talking about the same thing. I think the treasure thing is about treasuring earth or treasuring the Lord. Your heart is a wellspring of treasuring, both for good or for bad.
[24:46] The lamp thing is about the Lord's perspective, that the Lord can enlighten your perspective of all of life. And then I think that the two masters thing, God and money, is about treasuring the things of this earth or treasuring the Lord's things.
[25:01] What is the reward you want? Is it the Lord's rewards or is it this earth's rewards? I think money is what he's talking about insofar as money is concerned is treasuring the things of this earth.
[25:13] I think it's money broadly, not money narrowly, right? I think that's what he's talking about here. We do choose. We do choose. Is the Lord our reward or is the things of this earth our reward?
[25:25] I'm going to keep on going. Verse 25. Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on.
[25:40] Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
[25:53] Are you not of more value than they? Okay. Earlier, when it's talking about being seen by men, it actually says that they may be praised by them.
[26:04] Some other translations say that they may be honored by them. There is an extent to which we can look to people and how they see us as the thing that defines our value.
[26:16] We are looking for their hearts that are these wellsprings of treasurings. And we're looking for their heart to assign us value. Do you value me? Right?
[26:27] It's the question of value. But what Jesus is saying here is when you are anxious and when you worry, you reveal that you are not receiving the value that I am giving you.
[26:44] The birds of the air are not worried. And I take care of them. You worry. How much more valuable are you than they?
[26:55] Look at me taking care of them. How much more valuable are you? We worry because we are like orphan children adopted into a home where we don't believe the father of the home is going to take care of us.
[27:08] We still believe like we have to take care of this ourself. It's actually an affront to the adoptive parents that you're worried that we're not going to feed you. That you're worried that we're not going to clothe you.
[27:20] Give you a place to stay. You're our child. You've been adopted. Our anxiousness and worry reveals that we are not receiving the adoptive value that the Lord has extended to us.
[27:34] That he is going to provide for us. That he is going to take care of us. And which of you, this is a very ironic verse. This is verse 27.
[27:45] And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life? The irony here is when we're anxious and when we're stressed, we are most certainly decreasing how long we're going to live.
[28:01] But the irony there is most of our worry and anxiety is self-protective. So ironic. We are trying to keep aspects of ourself from being destroyed.
[28:17] And so stepping foot onto a hamster wheel that ensures that our life is actually going to be shorter. Isn't that ironic? Not only are we not adding time, we're actually taking time away.
[28:29] Because of our inability to see that the Lord is our provider. That we are his child. He's taking care of us. Verse 27. And which, sorry, verse 28.
[28:41] And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
[28:51] But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
[29:05] Verse 31. Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink? What shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things. And your heavenly Father knows that you need all of them.
[29:19] Verse 33. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.
[29:32] Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Again, famous verse. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. There is a treasuring of an intimate secret place before the Lord.
[29:46] That shifts our desires, gives us a reward, changes our perspective, and wins our hearts over such that the most important thing is received.
[30:06] And the other things of this life are still given to us. And I think that's one of the things that sometimes we get to, our instinct is to be too aesthetic, where we don't realize that the Lord actually is saying that we need all of these things, and that he is going to provide all of these things, rather than treating them as things that need to be discarded, and we just need to live like monks.
[30:34] You know what I mean? The Lord does care to provide for us, but he wants us to be rewarded by his person and on his terms.
[30:44] So just a handful of practicals to wrap things up.
[31:01] Specifically, I want to talk about what is called the spiritual disciplines, or at least the ones that are referenced here, which are giving, prayer, fasting.
[31:13] Notice reading the Bible is not on this list. So I think there is a reward that comes from doing these things in secret.
[31:27] And I would say of all of them, well, actually, we'll just start with giving. Giving in particular, I would say, of all of these things, is probably the hardest one to do in secret, especially for those of us who are married.
[31:44] It's like, man, babe, I could have sworn there was more money in our bank account. What do you do with it? I can't say. Bible says.
[31:59] Oh, as an aside, I was thinking about it because I was preparing for this. I was like, oh, it would be so funny if I just take all the money in our regular account and just put it back into the business account.
[32:13] You can see how long it takes at Angela to figure it out. But anyway, what I was going to say was giving.
[32:27] We put, again, I shouldn't say we because probably some of you guys have a more mature perspective. I'm going to say I, but I think probably many of us struggle with this perspective. I think a lot of times we think of prayer, fasting, reading of Scripture as being something, some things that are distinctly nourishing for our walk before the Lord, the spiritual disciplines.
[32:47] But Jesus puts giving on this list. And I think that it's good for us to remember that when we give, especially to the needy, that this is something that is between us and the Lord, or at least the Lord commands us to be between us and him.
[33:02] Right? In the same way that we should think of prayer and fasting as being between us and him. It's like a husband and a wife being intimate with one another. This is only meant to be between these two people.
[33:12] Right? And I think that there's aspects of our Christian life that the Lord has designed this way. This is like spiritual intimacy with the Lord. I think that giving is probably, for me at least, one of the ones I don't put in this category, number one.
[33:27] But also number two, it's probably the one you have to be most intentional about if you're going to do it in a way where your right hand doesn't know what your left hand is doing. You know what I'm saying? You have to be very strategic.
[33:38] But one of my curiosities is, I wonder how much the Lord enlightens and changes the perspective of our heart when we're extremely secretive about what we give.
[33:54] You know what I mean? In a way that's very godly. When we give in a way that nobody knows about. There is, there's actually one particular person in my life who not only is extremely generous, they do it in extremely sneaky way where nobody knows.
[34:09] And like there's just been a couple instances where I just happened to be able to figure it out. And I was like, wow, that's so cool that they're doing that all the time. Nobody even knows this. Probably nobody even knows how generous a person they are because they're doing such a good job of honoring this passage.
[34:22] That's really cool. And I want to get better at this. You know what I mean? It's a really powerful thing. When we can have our hearts transformed and our perspectives transformed by honoring the Lord in this.
[34:39] Prayer. Think of Jesus making the sacrifice to go and be alone with the Lord. That's of great importance. I think prayer is one of those ones that we probably have in our life.
[34:51] But we underestimate the importance of making a sacrifice to be alone with the Lord. Because he actually, the one, the thing with giving is, give and don't let anybody see it.
[35:03] But the thing with praying is, you actually do have to be alone. He says, go be alone. Close the door. There's a power of prayer when prayer is combined with solitude.
[35:15] And I kind of mentioned this earlier, but I think a really good starting place is in the moments, the natural moments of solitude. Trying to fan into flame and get those to be a place where the pull of your heart, the gravitational pull of your heart is wanting to be intimate with the Lord in those natural moments of solitude.
[35:38] When you're finally driving alone. When you're finally in the shower alone. You know, when you're going to bed. When you're waking up. And I think the next thing too, is that we would schedule time to be alone with the Lord.
[35:49] You know what I mean? Jesus did. Jesus would leave everything and go and be alone with his Father. I think that we underestimate sometimes. Not all of us. But I think we underestimate sometimes. How much we're probably giving into that temptation to be like full-time church clock out.
[36:05] No real intimate time with the Lord. You know what I mean? I wonder sometimes how much, and this is true for me, how much we reactively do the duties as Christians and don't have much experience or have let ourselves coast away from having a robust intimacy with the Lord.
[36:25] You know what I mean? Where this is all work. This is all for other people. Clock in, clock out. You know what I mean? We're really missing that the place from which this flows is the place where the Father is, which is a secret place, as the scripture says.
[36:48] It's a secret place. All right, last one. Fasting. I think fasting is actually maybe one of the easiest ones to do and just to completely do it in silence.
[37:02] Meaning, do it in a way that nobody knows. It's so, so easy to just not eat and then when it's a meal together, be like, yeah, I'm skipping dinner. You know what I mean? Fasting is one of those ones that I think is, perhaps of all of these, the least disruptive because it's a not doing something rather than a doing something.
[37:19] You know what I mean? Again, a lot of our Christian life, I think, orbits around what we're doing corporately. I think that there is one of the costs for me has been clock in, clock out and missing some of these intimate things with the Lord.
[37:36] And I think a good challenge for us is to fast and nobody else know anything about it. It's just between us and the Lord. You know what I mean? And obviously the scripture does corporate fasts.
[37:48] Obviously we do corporate fasts. You know, there's many times in scripture, even the way that the Sabbath is done, there's many times in scripture where people are fasting together. But I think one of the things I would like to encourage us in is to try to practice all of these things in a way that nobody knows about it.
[38:03] Be a spiritual sniper. You know what I mean? Just like be, have a robust secret life that's just in the Lord. Actually, even one more aside on giving.
[38:15] This is just kind of one of the costs of not honoring the Lord in this. There is a congregation that I was a part of previously. It was a large church I was a part of. And it was really interesting. There was this huge falling out between the lead pastor and one of the other prominent pastors.
[38:32] Because with the blessing of the church, this other pastor went to plant a church. But what was unanticipated was that many of the biggest givers to the congregation would go and be a part of his church.
[38:47] These two men had been very good friends for many, many, many years. And there was a huge fallout simply because of the finances. You know what I mean?
[38:58] Which is kind of something that is, what is it? I don't know. I don't really have a strong opinion on stewardship of finances insofar as like knowledge of elders and stuff is concerned.
[39:10] But I know with confidence that's really inappropriate. You know what I mean? That we're having a spiritual fallout between two elders because of we know who's giving what.
[39:23] You know what I mean? That's very strange. That's very, very strange. It's a very strange thing. You know? And again, I think there's so much of this public nature in which has infiltrated the church.
[39:36] And so much of the church can even just be business model Christianity. You know what I mean? That like, of course, if you go start your own competing business and take a bunch of my accounts, I'm going to be pissed. But this is the Lord we're talking about.
[39:48] You know what I mean? We're just treating so much like a business. You know what I mean? And what other analogy than this analogy connecting the power of money to the treasures in heaven? You know what I mean? That's literally what we're doing.
[39:58] You know what I mean? We get upset about these kinds of things is we're literally treasuring the things of earth. We're literally treasuring things of earth. You know? Another thing I think that is really powerful to some extent is for us to practice doing things and having nobody see it.
[40:25] But also even be comfortable in building our ability to not defend oneself and even be misunderstood by people. I think there's something about how people see us that can be very, very corrupting.
[40:38] And one of the things I think is very admirable is when I see people who are being misunderstood and have such security in the Lord, they don't need to defend themselves. And I think there's an extent to which it's really powerful when we are so locked into our identity in the Lord and the value he extends us that we really are okay with people viewing us poorly.
[41:02] You know what I mean? I mean, both the positive and the negative because there is an extent to which we need to grieve being seen in a particular way by people. But also there's an extent to which we need to be okay when people see us in a negative light.
[41:14] Again, I think we live in a generation, I think we should be convicted by this, I need to be convicted by this, where we take the things that should be hidden and we display them for people.
[41:28] And we take the things that should be displayed before people and we hide them. And we can't figure out why the Lord feels so far or why we're so weary. You know what I mean?
[41:39] I just encourage us, let us have a robust, what is it? That we would participate and partake of the secret place where the Father is.
[41:55] That's where he is. And I think that the mystery of intimacy is something that causes the dutiful aspects of the Christian life to come alive and no longer be duty.
[42:14] You know what I mean? And I even say this, I think it's a thing in marriage. You'll see, this is usually the women, who are like the intimate aspects of marriage, our duties.
[42:27] And to me, I've always felt like that's how people talk about the relationship with the Lord. And I see people talk about their marriage like that. And to me, I feel like, no. I feel like we can have a robust intimacy that is what we long for, satisfying to our souls.
[42:40] And it actually is something that's a facilitating of treasuring the right thing. Again, this is, again, an aside, but one of the distinct factors of addiction is hiding.
[42:58] When you're starting to hide something, that is fanning into flame the bondage that is addiction. It's one of the things that causes it to grow more powerful. It's also one of the things that makes it, truly demarcates it.
[43:13] I believe getting what is done in the dark out into the light, but also hiding this reward causes this reverse catalyzing where we're actually growing how we care about the Lord.
[43:34] We're growing the reward that is the Lord so that that's what has control of us in a good way. And we're being free of the things that would dissuade us. Does that make sense? And so I think it's really powerful when we take things that are tempting to display before people and actually just keep them between us and the Lord.
[43:56] You know what I mean? I think that's the mystery here. I think there's a mystery of intimacy that is found when our heart is hidden in the Lord, in that secret place where the Father is. Let's put it in the miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle of miracle