Secretly Great: Matthew 6:1-15 (Ep. 109)

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Good day. Dave here. Welcome to stories of a faithful god for kids. A big shout out to Kelly and her family who just became club members. Guys, thanks so much for supporting the show.

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I hope you enjoy all those new episodes you'll be able to listen to. Now, everyone, let me ask you a question. Do you like pretending? Pretending can be fun. Sometimes I like pretending to be a pirate.

[00:00:30] - [Speaker 1]
Arr. I'm pirate Dave. And if you don't shine those toilets so clean, I can see my face in them, I'll make you walk the plank. Arr.

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Sometimes, I pretend to be a French spy. Ho ho. They must be very quiet. I'm sneaking into the hideout of the bank robbers where I'll trick them into playing monopoly until they all fall asleep. Sometimes, I pretend to be a really, really, really good singer.

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This is the greatest song you'll ever hear. Sung by the greatest singer in the world, which is my funny. A lot of people seem to run away when I'm doing that. Oh, well. Pretending can be fun, and there are certainly times to do it.

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But there are times where we really shouldn't pretend. We shouldn't pretend to be kind to someone when we're really being mean. We shouldn't pretend we've done a job we were asked to do when actually we didn't do it. Most importantly of all, we shouldn't try to pretend with God. And that's what Jesus talks about in the passage we're looking at today.

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Get ready for our next episode of stories of a faithful god for kids. At the end of our last episode, we were hearing from Jesus about how to live well. He'd just told us who we should try to be like, our heavenly father. If we trust Jesus, we're in God's family. God is our heavenly father, and we should try to be like him.

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What we shouldn't do is pretend to be like him, pretend to love him, pretend to live for him. People who do that love being seen by other people. They love it when people say, oh, you're so good at following Jesus, or, oh, I'm so impressed by the way you love God. In fact, they do good things in front of other people just so those people will say things like that to them. Sadly, they don't really care about God.

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They only care about what other people think of them. Jesus says in Matthew chapter six verse one, be careful. When you do good things, don't do them in front of people to be seen by them. If you do that, then you'll have no reward from your father in heaven. You see, Jesus doesn't want us to pretend to love God so we can make people happy.

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He wants us to actually love and live for God. He gives some examples of ways that people can pretend to love God. Jesus calls these people hypocrites. A hypocrite is a pretender or actor. They look like they're doing one thing, but it's just pretend.

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The first example Jesus talks about is giving money to poor people. Helping poor people who don't have enough money to care for themselves is something God loves. If God's given us lots of good things, we should want to share those good things with people who don't have them, just like God shares with us. Jesus says that the hypocrites, people who pretend to love God and live for him, they do give away money to poor people. But when they do it, they make sure everyone knows about it.

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They love people to know they've given money. They love people to know how much they've given. They love people to see them give. Jesus says in verse two that the reason they do it is that they want other people to honor them. They want everyone to think they're great, and a lot of people will think that.

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But God won't. He knows they're not doing it out of love for other people. And Jesus says, those hypocrites already have their full reward. Their reward is people saying how great they are. Their reward is here on Earth.

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What they don't get is the reward in heaven. The reward in heaven is when God is really happy with you, and that is so much better than people saying how great you are. You can't pretend with God. You can't fake it. He knows when you're trying to love people and love him or when you're just trying to impress other people.

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So Jesus tells his disciples the best way to give money to people. The best way is to do it secretly in a way that no other human sees. That way, you won't be tempted to try and impress them. You'll just be doing it for God. In fact, Jesus says it in quite a funny way.

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He says, when you give money, your left hand shouldn't know what your right hand is doing. Can you imagine your hands talking to each other? Hey. What are you doing over there? Don't worry.

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It's none of your business. Oh, come on. I really wanna know. No. It's secret.

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Aw. It's a funny kind of idea. Jesus says it like that, though, so we really get the idea. In verse four, he says, your giving should be done in secret. Your father can see what is done in secret, and he will reward you.

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Another example Jesus gives for how people can pretend is in praying. In verse five, he says, when you pray, don't be like the hypocrites. They love to stand in the synagogues. Those are a bit like churches. They love to stand in the synagogues and on the street corners and pray loudly.

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They want people to see them pray. I tell you the truth. They already have their full reward. Now Jesus isn't saying it's wrong to ever pray with other people or have someone lead prayer in church or at home. In fact, Jesus is about to teach a prayer that's made to be said together with other people.

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But for pretenders, that's the only time they pray. They'll do it in a way that'll sound really impressive. They'll use long sentences and an impressive voice and fancy words, but they're not really speaking to God. They're just trying to impress the people around them. Most of the time, do you know how Jesus wants us to pray?

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He wants us to pray secretly, pray in a time and place where the only other person who can hear you is God. Jesus says in verse six, when you pray, you should go into your room and close the door, then pray to your father who cannot be seen. Your father can see what is done in secret, and he will reward you. You see, when you pray secretly, there's no chance you'll be trying to impress other people. It'll just be between you and God.

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So do you pray when you're alone? One of the great things about praying is that we're asking things from our heavenly father who loves us very much. The pretenders don't care about God. They don't know what they're missing out on. Other people who don't really know God as their heavenly father think they've got to beg God to get him to do what they want.

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Oh, please, God. Pretty please. Pretty please with a cherry on top. I'll go to church five times a day. I'll give lots of money away.

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Just do this one thing. They use lots and lots of words, thinking that if they do, somehow, God's more likely to hear them. Other people repeat the same prayer over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. They think they have to do that to get God to listen to them. But you know what?

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God loves us. He's our heavenly father. You don't have to beg and plead or bore him into listening to you. He loves it when you ask him things. He also knows everything.

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He knows what you want to ask even before you ask it, so you don't have to ramble on with lots of impressive sounding words. Instead, just say what you want to ask. So Jesus teaches his disciples an example of how to pray. He starts in verse nine with these wonderful words, our father in heaven. If it wasn't for Jesus, we wouldn't be able to call God our father.

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But because Jesus saves us, we can. Then Jesus tells us the sorts of things to ask for, and he says we should start by asking not for things for ourselves or even for other humans, but for God. Ask for God to be treated and respected as God, to be obeyed as God. He says, our father in heaven, we pray that your name will always be kept holy. We pray that your kingdom will come.

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We pray that what you want will be done here on Earth as it is in heaven. In heaven, there's no sadness or badness because people do what God wants. On Earth, there's heaps of sadness and badness because people don't. God is so good, and so it's great to ask that people will do what God wants. Then Jesus teaches us to ask what we need, not for heaps more than we need, just what we need.

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He says, give us the food we need for each day. We're gonna talk more about how God does that in the next episode. Then Jesus tells us how to ask for forgiveness for doing the wrong thing. Verse 12 says, forgive the sins we have done just as we have forgiven those who did wrong to us. One of the things pretenders do is they're happy to be forgiven by God, but they don't wanna forgive other people.

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Forgiving people can be really hard. When God forgives us, he's choosing not to treat us the way we deserve. In fact, Jesus had to take what we deserve so we wouldn't have to. God knows how hard it is to forgive. No one's forgiven people more than him.

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As hard as it is, though, he loves to forgive. He loves to bring people back into friendship with him, but he will not put up with pretenders, people who are happy to be forgiven but won't forgive others. Jesus says in verse 14, yes, if you forgive others for the things they do wrong, then your father in heaven will also forgive you for the things you do wrong. But if you don't forgive the wrongs of others, then your father in heaven will not forgive the wrong things you do. Don't be a pretender.

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If you like being forgiven, make sure you're willing to forgive other people. The last thing Jesus tells us to pray for is protection, not from fire or sickness or sharks, but from something much worse, protection from being encouraged to sin. God is so good, and it's the worst thing in the world to go against him. But Satan, the devil, the evil one, he wants to trick everyone into sinning and disobeying God just like he did with Adam and Eve back in the garden, just like he tried to do with Jesus. And so the last line of the prayer is, and do not cause us to be tested, but save us from the evil one.

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You know, it's really sad that there are lots of people who pretend to care about God but really just care about themselves and what other people think of them. It's sad for God, but it's also sad for them. They end up missing out on being in God's family. They miss out on the happiness that comes from loving and obeying God. They miss out on the life we'll have forever with God in heaven.

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It's actually quite easy to pretend. You can go to church, go to Sunday school or the kids program at church. You can say amen when people are praying. You can do all of that and not really care about God. I hope for something so much better for you.

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I hope that you'll pray secretly when no one else is watching except for God. I hope you'll do good and kind things secretly, not trying to please people, but living for God. I hope you'll enjoy your heavenly father because he is so good. In fact, Jesus is about to tell us more about how good he is, how he cares for us and makes sure we have everything we need. But that's a story for next time.

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Hi, everyone. Dave here. Thanks so much for listening. If you wanna hear more amazing stories of a faithful god for kids, why not become a club member? You'll get access to heaps more episodes.

[00:15:46] - [Speaker 0]
And if you sign up to become a super club member, you'll get even more. Just go to faithfulgod.net/membership. That's faithfulgod.net/membership. It might even make a good birthday present. If you sign up, you'll not only get more things to help you and your family grow in knowing and loving Jesus, you'll also be supporting my gospel ministry, sharing the truth of God's word with thousands of people around the world.

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If you want to give more towards that, just head to the donate page at faithfulgod.net. Keep trusting Jesus. Bye for now.