An Audience Of One

Now the chances are pretty good that you will never have heard of it, but in recent months
a film documentary entitled "Odiance of One" has been making the rounds in North America
particularly at film festivals.
It has received fairly wide acclaim, and it's the story of a San Francisco Pentecostal
church who a number of years ago felt it received a division from the Lord to produce block
buster movies.
And so within recent years they have been working on what they believe is to be the grandest
movie of all times a mix of Star Wars and the Ten Commandments entitled "Gravity of
the Shadow of Joseph."
It's a very ambitious project, unfortunately nobody in that congregation, at least not
very many, have any experience in filmmaking, nor do they have the financial resources to
pull this off.
And so last I heard the thing at the very least was in crash mode in the documentary
audience of one highlights the life of this community as persistently they push ahead
claiming to keep their eye on just the Lord.
Critics love the movie because it reinforces every notion they've ever had about the irrationality
of faith.
Now it's not my place or yours to judge this congregation this morning, whether they
heard from the Lord or whether they just had a very vivid imagination.
But there is something about playing to an audience of one that I think is highly
biblical because that is the subject Jesus now introduces here in Matthew chapter 1 when
he says, "Be careful to do your acts of righteousness before men to be seen by them.
If you do, you will have no reward from your father in heaven."
As we take some time this morning to look at this particular verse, there are, if we
have time for it, three things that I want to call to your attention.
The first is this, Christians are expected to perform acts of righteousness, do says
Jesus, your acts of righteousness.
Now an act of righteousness is of course a good deed.
And a good deed biblically is something that a believer does out of love for God and
out of obedience to his will, Scripture says faith without works is dead.
And if we truly love God and are truly in relationship with him, then as the Holy
Spirit lives in our hearts, we are being conformed to the image of Christ and even as
God is a God who does good things for others out of love for them.
So you and I, we begin to perform what Jesus calls here, acts of righteousness.
Now what I want us to notice this morning in the broader context of the passage is that
Jesus then goes on to describe in more detail three acts of righteousness that have traditionally
always been part of believing community.
Let me try to walk you through it. The first is taking care of the poor.
Jesus deals with that in the verses two through four in this particular chapter.
When you give to the needy, he says in verse two.
And again in verse three when you give to the needy, all through Scripture, God has a very
special interest in the poor and the needy.
Why? Because they lack the traditional form of support that enables them to sustain life.
And through that Scripture, if there's nobody to look after you, God Himself steps into
the picture and He looks after you.
And so again, when the Spirit of Jesus lives within our hearts, then He expects that
characteristic to manifest and to demonstrate itself in the life of the believing community.
And so it is that John puts it this way. He says, "If anyone has material possessions
and sees his brother in need, but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?"
Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and truth.
And Proverbs 31 9 says, "Speak up and judge fairly defend the rights of the poor and needy."
And that is why historically, the church first of all appointed deacons in order to look
after the needy ones in the early church.
That's why churches historically take up offerings for benevolence, to be able to extend
its resources to those who are poor. And that is why historically it's been the Christian
community that has founded orphanages and hospitals and other charitable works.
I've often said it's never been the atheists or the ignore sticks that are on the forefront
typically of looking after the poor and the needy.
That's an act of righteousness. The second act of righteousness that Jesus talks about
here is the ministry of prayer. He covers that in the verses 5 through 15. And notice that
he doesn't say, "If you pray," but he says, "when you pray." Prayer in Scripture, as you
well know, is one of the primary means by which the believer communicates with the Lord
who had gone on. One of our old hymns put it this way, "Prayer is the Christian's vital
breath, the Christian's native air, his watchword at the gates of death." He enters heaven
with prayer. And what's unique about the way Jesus approaches prayer is that prayer for
the New Testament believer is not this fearful, frightful communication with a great big mighty
holy God who you better stay out of the way of, but rather it's a conversation with your
Abba Father. And even as a child can go to its Father and share its heart, its needs,
and its joys. So prayer for the Christians is Jesus is an expression of our relationship
with hymn. It is the Christian's vital breath. And so the Bible tells us to pray and to
do it without ceasing. So there's taken care of the poor, there's the ministry of prayer.
And then there is the discipline of fasting. And Jesus deals with that then in the verses
16 through 18. Fasting as a spiritual discipline is to withhold food and/or drink from oneself
for a period of time. And the purpose of fasting, and it's not particularly popular in our
self-indulgent culture, but the purpose of fasting is to help us to exercise control over
our bodily passions with a view of focusing and concentrating on the spiritual. And
that often sounds counterintuitive. And if you've ever gone without food, you get terribly
hungry. At least for the first couple of days and you say to yourself, "How in the world
is going to have this help me get closer to God?" The fact of the matter is that once you
push through that hump, you often become spiritually sharpened. And you can concentrate and focus
that much more on your relationship with the Lord. So those in chapter six are the three
acts of righteousness that traditionally and historically have been part of the Christian
life and the Christian community. I don't think the list is exhaustive. There's a lot
more that we do in terms of good works as believing people. But the list is complete in the
sense that giving alms or taking care of the needy talks about relating to your neighbor.
The Ministry of Prayer talks about relating to God and the discipline of fasting relates
to your own life and to your own body. And so it covers all the bases in terms of how
we live life here in this world. So those are the acts of righteousness that Jesus talks
about. The second observation that I want to make in connection with His verse is that
the human tendency is to misdirect our acts of righteousness. That is to say the tendency
is to play to the crowd rather than to go on. And of course that's what Jesus is after
here in this particular passage when he says be careful not to do your acts of righteousness
before men to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your father in
heaven. Now think this through with me a little bit. Why does the Lord want us to do acts
of righteousness? Why does He want us to focus our attention on Him rather than other
people or ourselves? Well, not because God is some big egomaniac who sits in heaven and
who just wants to be the center of all our universe and He doesn't want to share Himself
with anybody else. No, rather because God is worthy of all our praise, the giver of
all of life, and as we'll see in a few moments, the rewarder of those who seek Him. And so
the Lord wants us to live our lives playing it out before His approval. He is the audience
of one that we ought to seek to please. Now human nature being what it is and you know
this is what I do, we're not always content living just before the face of God or
playing to an audience of one. We don't always feel that He's there. We don't always feel
that He is particularly taking care or affirming us in the good things that we try to do.
And in addition to that, we're surrounded by a lot of other people and they have the
power to bless us and they have the power to make our lives very difficult. And so what
often happens is that at the very least we might keep one eye on God and one eye on people
all around us. And so we readily begin to play to the crowd as opposed to the Lord God.
And the very best acts of righteousness can all be distorted to become very self-serving
and to become all about us instead of the Lord. Let me give you just a couple of examples
you see somebody in need. And so out of a sense of compassion or out of a sense of duty,
you take out of your abundance and you share it with that person so far so good. But then
very often we want at least a thank you don't we? Perfectly normal human reactions. We
wouldn't mind our picture in the paper or at least some notice of how we're stepping
out on a Liam and doing good for other people. How many people do you know that will do good
if it gets no recognition? Or you make a large donation to some cause. And at the very
least you'd like to see your plaque attached or your name on the building. I got to tell
you I was never prouder of our Quindy Christian high community in the early stages of their
building program when they turned down a significant financial offering because it had too
many strings attached to it that they could not in good conscience adhere to. But how
easy it is to sell out for the sake of human value and for the sake of human recognition.
And so we do a lot of work in the church or we spend a lot of time in prayer or we go
out of our way to do good things and how readily we are elevated when we're easy to praise
of man and how quickly we are crushed. If nobody takes notice or Lord forbid somebody should
criticize or disapprove, isn't that true? Isn't that the natural reaction that all of us
have and that's what Jesus is talking about in his context when he says be careful not
to do your act of righteousness before men to be seen by them because if you do you will
have no reward from your father in heaven. And then he goes on to illustrate this from
the life of the Pharisees because the Pharisees of course were the primary example of living
this kind of life they were the religious leaders of their day. They were people who lived
by the letter of the Lord not by the spirit of the law outwardly they looked like they
had it all together in other places Jesus says but inwardly your ravenous wolves you
are a white wash tomb on the outside but inside your full of dead men's bones. And the
Pharisees had made an art out of living for the approval of the public and presenting
an image to the public that was very different from what lived inside. And so yes they gave
alms to the poor but far from letting their left hand not know what their right hand was
doing they announced their giving with trumpets. Jesus is strong in his language do not
announce it with trumpets as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets to be
honored by men. Now I think he's probably using exaggeration hyperbole I can't imagine
that even the Pharisees in the worst of their moments would actually recruit a trumpet
player to go ahead of them you know tooting their horn as we often call it in our language
but you get the picture they were generous to a degree but only if that generosity was
taken notice of and properly respected. And so they prayed oh they prayed up a storm
but what do they do they they pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners
to be seen by men their prayer was not a devotion to God and a relationship with God so much
of it was show so that people could respect them for the wonderful words and their language
and their ability to just express it right before God my land aren't they spiritual people
and it became their way of securing and their reputation. And then of course as the passage
goes on if you read the first 18 verses they knew how to fast in fact they fasted far
more often and more frequently than the Old Testament ever enjoying them to do but it
wasn't because they wanted to please God it became another way in which to carve out
their reputation and their security in their community. And it's easy for you and me sitting
where we are today knowing what we know today. The pointer finger at the fairies season
say my land aren't they a bunch of hypocrites I'd never be like that but I think if you're
if we're honest with ourselves and if we allow the word of God through the Holy Spirit to
shine into our hearts the lifestyle of the Pharisees is not so far removed from our own
hearts that we don't at least periodically fall into that duty. How much of our lives
is really lived before the face of God with God being the audience of one and how much
of our lives and our religious service is governed by the people around us. How many
times do we hesitate to do things before the face of God because we fear the disapproval
of me and and how many times if we're really honest with our hearts are our acts of righteousness
conditioned by the impact this will make on other people and the subtle praise that we
receive in that process and so we're part of a prayer meeting and we're called upon
to pray and if you've ever been in that situation you know that particular living the early
stage of praying in that kind of a setting we often get nervous and clammy and why do
we get nervous and clammy because because we're worried that God isn't going to like the
way we pray or that he isn't going to hear the prayers of our heart I think not. It's
because we're afraid of what other people will think if we don't word it just right and
a lot of us are so busy trying to figure out what will I pray about that we don't even
listen to the prayers of others and will be tied us when they pray what we had planned
to pray because now we're afraid of looking foolish isn't that true and how many times
when we're engaged in ministry is a ministry not determined by whether we get approval
or disapproval from other people we might never admit it it might be a subtlety that lives
deep down in our hearts but Jesus wouldn't say these words to his disciples about the
Pharisees he wouldn't say be careful if this wasn't a temptation that was faced by every
last one of us I'll never forget years ago I was a student at seminary the charismatic
movement was just beginning to get stirred up and the Catholic church in particular was
powerfully being affected by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in what is now known as
the charismatic movement where where the Holy Spirit began to work particularly in denominational
churches rather than just historically in the Pentecostal tradition and two friends from
school and myself decided to visit the Saint Mary's Catholic Charismatic community they had
prayer meetings some weeknight where about 300 of them would gather together in a school auditorium
and they would sit in a number of concentric circles and they would begin to worship the Lord
with spiritual gifts manifesting and and all the trappings of what we now have come to recognize
is part of traditional charismatic worship and I had never been in a situation like that before
and I got to tell you that right away though a lot of people when they step into that kind of
situation they they get really turned off very quickly I knew in my spirit that while this was
something I wasn't used to at all there was something about the fervency of this worship the
fervency of the praise and the devotion to the Lord Jesus that was incredibly pleasing to God
and I remember the conviction of the Holy Spirit in that given situation that is everybody
else was raising their hands in worship to God that I should raise my hands in worship now I
knew that was a biblical thing I knew that from a scriptural point of view it's like a child
reaching out to a father or a tree reaching its branches up into heaven body movements can be
powerful and they can be symbolic and they can have have a powerful impact spiritually there
nothing in and of themselves but they can represent a lot and I will never forget this struggle
in my heart that night as I stood there with my arms along my side one friend from school here
and other friend from school here I didn't know arms could be that heavy
and I said Lord how am I going to get these up in the air and what is this guy going to think
and what is this guy going to think they're going to think viscerous flipped his lead
has become a Roman Catholic charismatic the next thing you'll know is he'll be speaking in tongues
what in the world will this amount here and not only do I remember that battle but I remember
the decision that I had to make at that moment that it wasn't about me and it wasn't about them
it was about the Lord and hard as it was I managed to get my my arms up in the air
because I knew that I was living for an audience of one I wasn't doing it to impress them
I wasn't doing it to impress the Roman Catholic folk because they were too busy doing their own
thing I was just wanting to worship the Lord and I beg you will have found yourself in a similar
situation where you've had to make up your mind while I honor the Lord in this or will I allow
my freedom to be restricted by the people who are around me does that mean you just do anything
that you want to do whenever you want to do it no the point is our motive ought to be the love
and fear of God and not the love and the fear of even our closest companion and our dearest friend
Jesus said be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men to be seen by them
if you do you will have no reward from your father in heaven and that's the third thing just quickly
I want to try to point out to you in this particular verse it's not just about acts of righteousness
it's not just about doing them before the face of God is opposed to the public
but at stake here is the issue of our reward if you had a chance to read this whole chapter at
least up to verse 18 you would discover that seven times in this passage Jesus uses the word reward
and in each instance the context is exactly the same he says if you live for the praise of man
if your acts of righteousness are to be recognized and to be appreciated and to be praised by people
he says you will have received your reward you will not get a reward from God
but he says if you want God's reward the greater reward in the words of Robert Lewis
if you want God's reward then you must do your acts of righteousness to an audience of one
and he says if you give your arms don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing
it's not enough not to want the world to keep track of your good deeds of righteousness
you want not even to keep track of it in your own life because you see there's always the tendency to
say well I've done this now somebody owes me this and he says if you pray don't stand out on the
street corners and pray with big elaborate words no you go in your closet and you talk to your
father who is in heaven and he says if you're going to fast you don't fast so that your community
can be impressed by your great spirituality no you anoint your face with oil you wash it you put
on a happy smile why because this is not about impressing other people this is about doing it right
before the face of God and Jesus says as you miss out this is powerful language as you miss out
on the praise and the acclaim that otherwise would come your way even in believing community
he says your father who is in heaven he's keeping his eye on you and he is going to reward you
one of the translation says he will reward you openly and some of that reward will take place
in the here and now some of that takes place in the life that is to come but the beauty of it is
before the face of God no act of righteousness will ever be ignored overlooked or forgotten
and on that final day when we stand before the judgements he to Christ and he hands out the prize
and he hands out the reward I sometimes think the greatest reward is going to go not to the man
or to the woman who who in Christian community you know rose to the pinnacle of ministry and
publicity and recognition now I think some of the greatest rewards are going to go to nameless man
nameless women nameless boys and girls who forgotten by all the rest of the world struggled
away in obscurity lived for an audience of one and who in that final day will be revealed
as those most worthy of the reward that God has for his children the apostle Paul put it this way
in Galatians 9/6 let us not become weary and well doing for at the proper time we will reap a harvest
if we do not give up why do I mention that because as we launch together or continue to work together
on probably most significant project that we have ever undertaken together there will be times
we're stretched to the Lehman there will be times we wonder Lord why in the world am I doing this
this is costing me my time and my talent and my treasure there will be times when you say to
yourself it feels like I'm doing all the hard work where is everybody else that said they would
join me in this it's not hard to become resentful when you feel that more than your fair burden has
fallen upon your shoulder and there will be times when you've gone all out and you have worked
your heart out and instead of getting a thank you or a recognition or at least some some measure
of appreciation you may not only be overlooked in the praises of me and you might even be criticized
you might even be corrected and if you've ever been in that situation then you will know the test
is really very strong am I playing to an audience of one or am I just playing to the crowd
is it about God is it about the purposes of God or is it just about me Paul and one Corinthians
chapter 15 puts it this way he says let nothing move you always give yourselves fully to the work
of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain and illustrate that this
morning I want to end with this story but a woman named Becky most of you will not know her
but Becky came to this church about 10 years ago was invited by one of the girls in our
church to our then junior high program called conquerors and through the ministry of conquerors
and through a conquerors trip to a Billy Graham crusade 10 years ago now Becky gave her heart
to Jesus she developed a relationship with Marty and Tina Vanderlaun often babysat for them
graduated from high school went off to college University of Guelph and for the first year there
lost her faith then bounced back became involved in campus crusade for christ international
led a number of her friends to Jesus and now has made a decision to go with campus crusade
for christ full time and she's been spending her summer trying to raise support from the Christian
community for her to step full time into that ministry she comes out of a home that was a good
home but not a church going home with that particular period of time and yet here she is today
10 years later seed planted in her heart bearing fruit and multiplying rapidly can you imagine
the impact this young woman is going to have on secular university campuses as a campus crusade for
christ worker bearing fruit for Jesus that is why we do what we do in the Lord our labor is not
in vain and I see these 190 plus kids that have been here this past week and you'd have to be
here on Thursday night to get the full flavor of that but I see these 190 kids and I say to myself
and I say to the Lord Lord God plant seeds in their lives and let it bear fruit as somebody said to
me if even only one of these kids becomes a Christian and a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ
it will have been worth all the effort that we put into it for the glory of God so be careful
don't do your acts of righteousness just for the approval of people when you have those moments
when you feel like nobody cares and nobody sees remember God is watching and when it comes time
to hand out the reward he is not so unfaithful says the book of Hebrews as to ignore our deeds
of righteousness for his glory
be my source be my light Jesus
Jesus be a center be my hope be my song
Jesus be the fire in my heart be the wind in the sand be the reason that I live
Jesus Jesus
Jesus be my greatest hope be my path be my God Jesus
Jesus be my vision be my path be my God Jesus
be the fire in my heart be the wind in the sand be the reason that I live
Jesus be my God Jesus be the center be my soul
it's something I like Jesus be my source be my light Jesus
Jesus Jesus