Best Sermon Ever: The Needy

Find Jesus, community, and purpose. https://southeastcc.org Series about Jesus' most iconic sermon, the Sermon on the Mount. This teaching is so rich and relevant that many have considered it the best sermon ever. Now we're going to take that even a step further. Starting in Matthew 6:1-4. Here's what it says, “Beware of practicing your righteousness”. What's righteousness? Right-standing in relationship. Right-standing relationship with God and right-standing relationship with people. “Beware of practicing that before other people, in order to be seen by them. For then you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy”, by the way, he doesn't say “if” he's like, if you're going to read Torah this way, you're going to give to the needy. This is true. Now, let me say this to you, whatever he's about to say next, and I've heard whole weird theologies built out of this passage in a vacuum, but whatever he's going to say next has to be seen through the filter of what he's already said in Matthew 5, that you're a city on a hill. “So do your good deeds so that people will see them and glorify God on the day that he returns.” He says, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before the people in order to be seen by them for then you'll have no reward from your Father in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do.” Say, “Ypokritis”. That's a fun one. It means “under face” or “hypocrite”. Don't be an “under face/hypocrite”. Don't sound as the “Ypokritis” do. It's the word that's translated “actor”, okay? “As they do in the synagogues and in the streets that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you that they've received their reward. But when you give to the needy”, he says it again. “When you give to the needy, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your giving may be done in secret, and your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you”. Now