Matthew 6:1-4

In this chapter Jesus continues to call men to a righteousness that exceeds that of the religious experts.  But He now moves from common issues of life (like hatred, revenge, adultery) to what we might call religious practices.  In 6:1-18 He talks about giving, praying and fasting.  In each He calls into question the way people called attention to themselves as they performed these duties or disciplines.  Instead Jesus calls men to do them in secret before God.  

Verse 1 is probably an introduction to the entire section.  Jesus says, do not do your acts of righteousness before men to be seen by men (NKJV says charitable deeds both here and in v2).  The acts He refers to are giving of alms, praying and fasting.  Note that He does not eliminate the need for acts of righteousness.  God created us for good works (Eph. 2:10).  Christ redeemed us that we might do good works (Titus 2:14).  True faith produces good works (James 2:20).  

Rather the issue is doing dead works (Heb. 6:1; 9:14; Phil. 3:4-11).  A dead work is a religious activity done so as to earn the favor of God.  Even more, the issue is with doing works for the favor of men (v1: to be seen by them).  Do we not understand this?  We are to live lives of good works that those around us might be turned in their attention to God (Matt. 5:16; 1 Peter 2:12).  But we are not to do those works in such a way as to turn their attention to us.

Take the matter of charity.  We are called to give to the needy.  It is part of loving our neighbor.  The act of charity, done in the name of Christ, can be used by God to draw the heart of the needy to Christ.  But in the process of doing this work we can, in fact, draw attention to ourselves.  We can announce in some way to others what we are about to do.  We can make sure we are seen as we do our work.  But to do this is to be a hypocrite.  The Greek term speaks of an actor, one who plays the part on stage, a pretender.  Thus the one who honors himself by his religion is a pretender; he is not serving God, regardless of the size of the gift or the sacrifice involved in the work.

Jesus calls people to an intentional privacy in the matter of giving.  His words imply we are to be as secret as possible.  Obviously our actions will at times unavoidably be known by some, but as in the previous chapter, so here, Jesus is concerned with our hearts.  We know down inside why we are doing what we are doing in the matter of charity.  And so does God.  The one who simply serves Him He will reward openly.

Perhaps you are a person who attends church regularly.  This is certainly the right thing for a Christian to do.  So now we must ask ourselves:  why are we there?  Why are we involved in ministry in that church, or in our neighborhood or community?  Is there even the hint of pride, of hoping to be seen by men?  Jesus calls us to own up to our hypocrisy.