When it Doesn't Pay to Advertise

Scripture Reading

I read from Matthew chapter 6, the 1st 18 verses.

As our Lord talks about reality in the spiritual life, take heed that ye do not your righteous deeds before men to be seen by them, Otherwise ye have no reward of your Father who is in heaven.

Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men.

Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.

That thine alms may be in secret, And thy Father who seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are.

For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and at the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men.

Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy secret place, and when thou has shut thy door, pray to thy father who is in secret, and thy Father who seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the pagans do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

Be not ye therefore like unto them, For your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him after this manner.

Therefore pray ye our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day Our Daily Bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.

Amen.

Introduction

For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Moreover, when ye fast, be not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance.

For they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast.

Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

But thou when thou fastest anoint thine head, and wash thy face, that thou appear not on demand fast, but under the Father who is in secret, and thy Father who seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.

May God help us to have reality in those things that count so much.

All of us have seen or heard the slogan It pays to advertise, and usually it does.

Here in the city of Chicago, the neighborhood newspapers are doing quite a business advertising, garage sales and basement sales.

And if you want to get rid of some of your old junk, you can put the sign antique on it, advertise, and people will come and buy it.

My good friend Howard sugged and recited a poem to me once that I have never forgotten, that deals with this subject.

The codfish lays 1,000,000 eggs, the lowly hen but one.

And the codfish never makes a sound to tell us what she's done.

And so we shun the cod fish while the lowly hen we prize, which only goes to prove the point, it pays to advertise.

There's one area in life, however, where it does not pay to advertise, and that is in the area of the spiritual.

In Matthew chapter 6 and the 1st 18 verses, our Lord warns us against advertising our spirituality and he deals with that ticklish subject of hypocrisy.

Defining Hypocrisy

He uses the word in verse two, don't sound a trumpet when you give the way the hypocrites do.

In verse five, don't pray the way the hypocrites do.

Verse 16 Don't fast as the hypocrites do.

Our Lord is saying something here that it takes a long time for some of us to grasp.

He's saying this we can use spiritual things in sinful ways.

You see, back in chapter five, in the first part of the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord warns us about sin.

He talks about adultery and lying.

He talks about bearing witness.

He deals with those inward attitudes that lead to outward actions.

And perhaps we can read through chapter 5 and say, well, I don't do these things, praise God.

But as you get to Chapter 6, the Lord says, all right, I've been talking about how to stop doing bad things.

Now let me talk with you about how to do good things in the right way.

I want you to be able to give, but don't give the wrong way.

I want you to be able to pray, but don't pray the wrong way.

I want you to fast.

Our Lord didn't say if you pray, He said when you pray.

He didn't say if you give, He said when you give.

And He didn't say if you fast, He said when you fast.

He assumed that you and I would, as a part of our spiritual lives, fast and pray and give.

But he's warning us that even these spiritual activities could become sin.

He's talking about that deadly sin of hypocrisy.

He wants us to be sincere, He wants us to be honest, He wants us to have integrity, and he helps us to do this.

Now what does our Lord do?

Here in Matthew, chapter 6, verses one through 18, Our Lord gives to us three explanations, and if we understand and apply these three explanations, then we are going to have a life that is real, a life of sincerity, a life of honesty, a life of integrity, a life of transparency, a life through which the light can shine and there won't be anything to hide.

Now let's take these three explanations and try to understand and apply them.

First our Lord explains what hypocrisy is, and then He explains what hypocrisy does.

And finally, He explains what you and I can do about hypocrisy.

Now, if you want to substitute for the word hypocrisy, the word unreality, perfectly all right.

Insincerity.

Perfectly all right pretense, go right ahead.

But our Lord is explaining here what hypocrisy is, what it does, and what you and I can do about it.

The Nature of Hypocrisy

Let's take that first explanation.

What hypocrisy is.

Hypocrisy is deliberately using spiritual things to cover up sin.

That's what hypocrisy is.

People come to me and say, pastor, I don't want to come to church.

I'm such a hypocrite and I say, now what do you mean by that?

Well, I'm not living up to what I know.

That's not hypocrisy.

There's not a one of us here in this auditorium today who lives up to all that he knows.

Hypocrisy is not failing to lay hold of all that God has done for us.

Hypocrisy is not failing to live up to our privileges.

Nor is hypocrisy occasionally stumbling and falling and having to get up and say, Lord, I'm sorry, let's get going.

Again, that's not hypocrisy.

Every Christian occasionally fails, and no Christian lives up totally to all that he has in Christ.

Hypocrisy is deliberately using spiritual things in a sinful way to cover up sin.

Hypocrisy is trying to make people think we are more spiritual than we really are.

And so we use money or praying or fasting or singing or preaching or passing out tracks or any number of us of spiritual duties and deeds to make people look at us and say, oh, if only I were spiritual like that.

Hypocrisy is a deliberate sin of deception.

The word that Jesus uses in verse two and five and over in verse 16 was a familiar word to the people In Jesus' day.

He used the word hypocrite and the word hypocrite back in that day meant an actor.

Now, he's not saying that all actors are hypocrites, but he's using this word.

You see, an actor back in those days did not put on makeup.

They didn't have makeup artists such as we have today, who could take a very handsome woman and in two or three hours turn her into an old hag.

They couldn't do that.

They wore masks.

And so if you were going to be the senator in the play, you wore a senator's mask.

If you were going to be the adversary in the play, you wore the villain's mask.

And the word that he uses here is for a play actor who's wearing a mask.

Now, if we know that we can better understand what hypocrisy is, you can just take the Christian life as God wants us to live it and take an actor and just contrast them.

The Christian life is not something you put on and off.

A sincere Christian life is something that we live all the time, whether we're driving the car or sitting in church or singing in the choir or shoveling coal.

No matter what we are doing, we're Christians.

But an actor is one who puts his mask on and off as the occasion demands.

A hypocrite is one who turns his spirituality on and off when he needs it.

There are certain things he wants to do that aren't spiritual, but he covers it up with religious deeds.

So the Christian life is something consistent that comes from within, a hypocrite.

A hypocrite's life is something inconsistent that comes from without.

He puts it on and takes it off like a costume for a masquerade party.

The Christian lives his life before God for God's reward.

The actor does his acting before men for their applause.

The motive is different.

The motive of a sincere Christian life is to please God and get his well done.

The motive for an actor's life is to please the crowd and get their well done.

Now the hypocrite isn't concerned about what God thinks or what God will say at the judgment.

The hypocrite puts on his masquerade when he needs it so that people will say to him, well done.

So the people will applause and he'll get the praise and the glory of men.

To summarize it in one simple statement, the Christian life is lived from within, before the eyes of God.

It is sincerely lived from within.

For God to see the life of the hypocrite is playing a role-playing a part.

It's not sincere, it's not from within.

It leads to a divided life and a distorted life.

This is why people who live this way often have nervous breakdowns and they can't sleep at night because the Bible says a double minded person is unstable in all of his ways.

The Effects of Hypocrisy

Now our Lord tells us what hypocrisy is.

Someone listening to me now says pastor, I don't do all I should do.

That's not hypocrisy.

Maybe disobedience, but it's not hypocrisy.

Pastor, I don't live up to all that.

I know that's not disobedience.

You're losing.

But that's not, that's not hypocrisy.

Someone says, pastor, I'm putting on a front.

I'm playing a role.

I'm wearing a mask.

When I'm with this group, I act this way.

When I'm with another group, I act another way.

My spiritual life is turned on and off, like the TV set.

That, my friend, is hypocrisy.

You know, it's very easy for us as Christians slowly to drift into this kind of a life.

When a person first gets saved, he's excited and he's, he's overwhelmed and occasionally falls on his face.

But they pick him up and get him started and and then after a while he says, you know, I noticed that people talk a certain way around here and they they act a certain way.

So I guess I'd better do that instead of really just letting the Holy Spirit work out through his life.

He adopts a kind of a role, and before you know it, it's very easy to drift into deliberate hypocrisy.

Which leads us to our second explanation.

Our Lord explains not only what hypocrisy is, but he explains what hypocrisy does.

What does hypocrisy do?

It robs us.

Hypocrisy is a thief.

Here is the scribe, the Pharisee, and whenever they gave, they let people know that they were giving.

I understand that in the temple where they had the offering places, they had these huge brass trumpets and you'd throw your money in and it would hit and go down and people would say, oh, he just gave a lot.

Jesus was in the temple one day and saw a woman come in with two little mites, two of the smallest coins you could have, And she gave that.

And people looked and said, well, she didn't do very much.

And Jesus said no, She gave more than everybody.

They gave out of their abundance.

She gave out of her poverty.

She gave all that she had.

Do you recall the story about the hen and the pig?

Remember that story?

They were going past the church where there was a missionary rally going on and people were asking for support of the missionary program.

And the hen said, I think we ought to give something, why don't we give them some ham and eggs?

And the pig said to the hen, I think that's a dumb idea because with you all it is, is making a contribution.

With me, I'm giving my all.

That was the difference.

The Pharisees came and made their contribution.

The woman gave her all.

Now how does hypocrisy rob us?

Well, first of all, it robs us of reality.

Jesus said when you start living the life of a hypocrite, you are more concerned about reputation than you are character.

Oh, they give that.

They might have the praise of man, but all the while their character is eroding.

Oh, they pray that they might have the glory of men, but all the while, while they're praying, their character is eroding and they fast.

You could always tell when a Pharisee was fasting.

He looked like he'd been pulled through a knothole backwards.

He'd come walking down the street with that gloomy look on his face and they'd say, oh, just think of it.

The Old Testament law says only fast, once a once a year on the Day of Atonement.

But look at these spiritual men.

They fast twice a week.

How wonderful.

And all the while their character was eroding.

You see, hypocrisy robs us of character for this.

In this way, when we're more concerned about what people think than what God thinks, then we start adjusting our lives to please people and to impress people.

But we don't take care of the inner man.

Now, the Lord is not telling us to ignore people.

Man looks on the outward appearance.

And because man is looking at us, we ought to be careful.

We've got to be careful how we dress and how we walk and how we talk.

But we don't live motivated by the desire to impress people.

There's too much of that going on.

And so our Lord says when you're when you're practicing hypocrisy, you start living on substitutes.

It's that you substitute reputation for character.

That's a dangerous thing.

Oscar Wilde was not a very godly man.

In fact, he was a rather sinful man.

But he wrote an interesting book called The Picture of Dorian Gray.

There's a story of a Victorian, well, what should we call him, Playboy, who was very handsome and he made a deal with the devil that he would never grow old.

He had in his house a beautiful portrait painted, and that portrait was as real as life.

The Playboy was living a life of sin, but he never got old.

He never got a blemish on his face, never got a wrinkle around his eyes, and he remained young and handsome and conquering people.

But all the while in his house, the picture was getting uglier and uglier and uglier.

Now in that story, Oscar Wilde is saying to us, that's the difference between reputation and character.

I don't have to live with you and you don't have to live with me, but we have to live with ourselves.

And in every one of our homes there hangs A portrait, and we know the truth.

And the sad thing about hypocrisy is it makes you live on substitutes.

You start substituting reputation for character.

You start substituting money for heart.

Here's my money.

This happens in our churches.

There are people who give money to missions, who have no heart for missions.

There are people who every month at the Moody Church make out their their envelope and give their faith promise.

But if you ask them to invite a missionary into their home, they haven't got any heart for that.

You invite them to come to a missionary conference.

They don't have any heart for that.

Hypocrisy means we're substituting money for heart, Saul said.

Oh, I've saved all of this for a sacrifice.

And God said I don't want your sacrifice.

I want your heart to obey is better than the sacrifice.

And I might be speaking to someone right now who thinks that his checkbook is making him spiritual.

It's possible your checkbook is making you unspiritual.

Your money has become a substitute.

Substitute words for prayer, Our Lord says now, when you pray, not if you pray.

When you pray, don't you say words.

Don't just have vain repetitions.

Don't just talk to God in some empty way.

Know what you're praying about.

How easy it is for a prayer to be used to impress people.

I've had folks come to me and say, pastor, I'd like to pray in the public prayer meeting, but I don't know how to pray.

I say, look, you're the ones that ought to pray.

We we would rather have the crying of a baby.

We would rather have the stumbling, faltering cry of a baby that is sincere from the heart than some pious speech.

You may not realize this, but those of us who are in ministry have to fight this thing constantly.

When you're out visiting and you pray with six or eight people a day, how easy it is for prayer to become perfunctory, a speech that we make with words.

And so we substitute reputation for character, and we substitute money for heart, and we substitute words for prayer.

And the Lord says that you're losing.

The sad thing is that all of these precious things, like giving and praying and fasting, these are precious things.

They are valuable disciplines in the Christian life.

They become cheap and empty.

And folks say, well, I'm not going to do any praying.

I don't feel like praying.

I'm not going to go to the prayer service.

I'm not going to give.

All of these things become cheap and empty and we've robbed ourselves of reality.

But the hypocrisy robs you of something else.

It not only robs you of realities that your Christian life becomes hollow and empty and dead.

It robs us of character.

It makes liars out of us.

I've got to ask you to keep a marker in Matthew chapter 6, but to turn back to First John Chapter one.

The theme of First John One is fellowship with God.

Reality verse 5.

This, then is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.

Now our lives ought to be like that.

If we're the children of God, then our lives ought to be light.

They came to Mr. Spurgeon and they said, we want to write a book about your life.

And Mr. Spurgeon said, you may write my life in the clouds.

I have nothing to hide.

I wonder how many of us could say that God is light, we're to walk as children of light.

In Him is no darkness at all.

In the in us there should be no darkness, there should be no areas where we're hiding things.

Now you'll notice that three times in first John chapter one he says if we say, if we say, if we say substituting words for reality.

Verse 6, If we say that we have fellowship with him and we are walking in the darkness, we lie and do not the truth.

Verse 8, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

Verse 10, If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.

Would you notice how this develops?

We have here steps down.

Verse six, we are lying to other people.

Verse eight, we are lying to ourselves.

Verse 10, we're lying to God.

That's the way it goes.

First, we start lying to people.

They think we're walking in the light.

They think that we're serving God, but we're not.

And before long we start lying to ourselves.

We actually believe the things that we say.

We have a way of rationalizing, convincing that inner conscience that what we're doing is right.

And before long we start lying to God and making God a liar.

And when a person gets in that condition, his character has truly deteriorated.

Jesus talked about that when he said the light of the body is the eye.

If the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness?

What he's saying is the outlook on life, the motivation of life.

If we're lying, that brings the darkness in.

And if the light that is in us is darkness, how great is that darkness?

He's talking about the deteriorating of character.

I can't think of anything more sad.

I can't think of anything that's more tragic than the deterioration of character, my friend.

The one thing that you and I are going to take to heaven with us is character.

The praise of men won't make a great deal of difference.

Overcoming Hypocrisy

What does hypocrisy do?

It robs us of reality.

It robs us of character.

It robs us of influence.

We can't influence people.

You see, when a person has integrity, that means his life is put together.

His life is an integer.

His life is 1, No fractions, no divisions.

When a person has integrity, he has power.

When a person doesn't have integrity, he loses power.

The scribes and Pharisees were having a bad influence on people.

Jesus said that they were like whitewashed sepulchers, beautiful on the outside, rotten on the inside, and you can't have influence on people.

One of the greatest blessings in life is the blessing of a godly influence.

One of the greatest thrills in life is for God to use you to influence other people toward that which is good and holy and noble and right.

But if we're deteriorating down inside, we lose that influence and we finally lose reward.

Jesus said they have their reward.

Dear friend, would you believe me when I say this?

You cannot get your reward twice.

Our Lord tells us very clearly here you can't get your reward twice.

If you get it here, you won't get it there.

We Christians walk by faith, and if we give, we give to the glory of God.

If no one knows about it, praise the Lord.

In fact, Jesus points out here that not only can we live for men to praise us, if we aren't careful, we'll live for ourselves, to praise us.

He says, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, because if your left hand knows, it may just reach over and pat you on the back.

There are some people who quietly do what they do, but they don't let people know about it, but they know about it.

And they say, oh, you're a great guy.

Oh, if people only knew how much you give.

If people only knew how much you sacrifice.

You see, fasting isn't just giving up food.

In the Bible, fasting means to give up the good to get the better.

Fasting can mean giving up sleep, to spend time in the word of God and prayer.

Paul wrote to married Christians and said that giving up normal marital relationships is fasting.

You do it for a while that you might give yourself to prayer.

Giving up food is fasting.

America is one of the few countries in the world that has an overweight problem.

Most of the countries in the world have an under weight problem.

People in other countries of the world don't have to carry things for acid in their stomachs.

They don't have that problem.

They don't overeat because they don't have anything to eat.

So giving up food or giving up fellowship or giving up sleep.

This is fasting.

We make a sacrifice.

We say, oh, you're a good fella.

Look how you say you gave up two meals.

Bless you.

You've lost your reward.

You see, our Lord is telling us here that hypocrisy is a thief.

It robs us of reality.

We end up living on substitutes.

It robs us of spiritual blessing because all these good things become cheap.

It robs us of character.

We lie to each other, then we lie to ourselves, Then we start lying to God.

It robs us of influence and it robs us of reward.

Now let's get to the positive part of all of this.

Our Lord thirdly explains what we can do about hypocrisy.

Steps to a Sincere Life

And the solution is so simple.

The solution is so simple, why do we miss it?

It's this.

Start with the part of your life that only God sees.

Don't major on the public, major on the private.

Don't start with you and your wife, or you and your son, or you and Moody Church.

Start with you and God.

The most important part of our lives is the part that only God sees.

The hypocrite you see plays to the grandstands.

The hypocrite is concerned about what men see and what men approve.

But the true St. of God, though he doesn't discount the testimony of men, lives to please God.

Jesus said I do always those things that please him, Paul said.

This one thing I do, I'm pressing for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Had Jesus worried about what men said and did, he would never have gone to Calvary.

Even Peter tried to talk him out of it.

So the first step in conquering hypocrisy and living a life of integrity and sincerity and reality is start with your secret walk with God, the part that only God sees.

He says here you ought to When you pray, you ought to go into your secret place.

The Jewish homes have little storage places where you could just put things, he said.

Now clean that out and make that your Chapel and just go in there and talk to God.

What he's saying is this, nobody ought to pray in public.

Who doesn't pray in private.

Nobody ought to be concerned about public display.

Who's not taking care of the private?

So he says take care of your private life.

Just make up your mind your your whole motive for living is to please God.

You see, the trouble with many of us is we're trying to please mother and dad and brother and sister and the man next door and the employer and this one and that one and our lives are torn apart.

I'm speaking right now to some people whose lives are being shattered by a multiplicity of obligations and loyalties.

And Jesus says that'll kill you.

That'll make a hypocrite out of you.

You have one loyalty, and that's to God.

Now if you've trusted Christ as your savior, and God is your Heavenly Father, and the Holy Spirit lives within you, and you've been born again and you're going to heaven, you have the most wonderful privilege in all the world.

You can get up tomorrow morning and get off to your quiet place and look into the face of God and say, oh God, thou, God seest me.

Oh Lord, nothing is hidden from the eyes of him with whom we have to do now, God, I'm going to start the day with you.

You see my heart.

You know all about me.

Here I am.

And today I want to live to please you.

Then you open your Bible and God talks to you.

And then you pray and he tells us how to pray.

Here's my second suggestion.

Now, suggestion number one, start with your secret life, the part that only God sees.

Step #2, Suggestion #2, Be honest in your praying.

Never pray anything you don't mean.

These dear pious people who get up in the morning, They've got a headache and their arthritis is bothering them and it's raining outside And they come and say, oh Lord, thank you for this day and God knows they aren't thankful for that day.

I confess to you there are times when I've gotten up and said Lord, I want to stay in bed.

Be honest in your praying.

Don't just go through the same routine of praying, saying words instead of the desires of the heart.

That's why he gives us this prayer.

He doesn't say to pray in these words.

Jesus never gave the so-called Lord's Prayer to be repeated.

In fact the thing he had just said is don't give vain repetitions.

Saying the Lord's prayer 25 times doesn't accomplish anything.

What our Lord is saying here is here's a pattern for prayer.

When you pray, start with God our Father who art in heaven.

Hallowed be thy name.

That's God the Father.

Oh help me to Live Today to bring glory to your name.

Thy Kingdom come.

That's God the Son.

Lord, help me to Live Today so that I can hasten the coming of Jesus.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

That's God the Holy Spirit.

It's God that worketh in you both the will and to do of his good pleasure.

Oh Lord, help me to Live Today to get the will of God done.

You see, praying is not getting man's will done in heaven.

Praying is getting God's will done on earth.

Robert Law said that.

And it's right.

And so when we pray, we talk to God first.

We don't come and say, dear Lord, I want to talk to you about my arthritis.

He's concerned about that, but he's more concerned about hallowed be thy name.

Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done.

And so when we pray, let's just be honest and talk to God about what concerns him.

Then he moves into our own needs, our present needs.

Give us this day, Our Daily Bread.

Our past.

Forgive us our debts.

Our future.

Lead us not into temptation.

And you wrap the whole thing up.

Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen.

Be honest and you're praying.

Tell God how you feel.

Tell God you're disappointed.

Do the way the psalmist does.

My God, my God, why thou forsaken me?

Why art thou so far from the From my crying day and night I've been crying.

Lord, where are you?

That's a lot better than a lot of pious talk.

Oh, we're so insincere in our praying.

So step one is to just be honest with God in your secret life.

And Step 2 is to be honest with God in our praying.

And step #3 is all day long.

Live before God's eye.

Not men's eye, God's eye.

Joseph did that always that I can't sin against the Lord.

David didn't do that.

He cast his eye upon Bathsheba and forgot that God's eye was upon him.

Just live all day long before God's eye.

If people criticize you, God sees your heart.

God knows your motives.

There never was a person who lived for the Lord who wasn't criticized, misunderstood, judged and even crucified.

And so start with The Secret Life.

Spend time in that private prayer closet.

The door shut.

Jesus said shut the door.

close out the world.

Take time to be holy.

The beginning of hypocrisy is always with the deterioration of The Secret Life.

No time for the Bible.

No time for prayer.

No time to be alone with God.

No time for worship.

Too busy trying to impress people.

You see, my friends, holiness is to the soul what health is to the body.

When a person is healthy, you know it.

Health touches every area.

And when a person is holy, it touches every area.

There's no need to advertise.

The best way to lose the blessing is to advertise.

Just keep it to yourself.

Just keep it between you and God.

Oh, what a delightful thing it's going to be when the Lord comes back and the secrets of men's hearts are going to be revealed.

That's why Paul says judge nothing before the time.

We don't know who the greatest preacher is.

We don't know what the greatest church is.

Or we can count numbers and know what the biggest ones are, but we don't know the greatest.

We don't know the holiest.

We don't know the best.

We haven't yet discovered who is the most spiritual missionary.

We don't know.

So judge nothing before the time when the Lord comes, and then the secrets are going to be revealed.

And my friend, if you've invested your life and you've given and you've prayed and you've fasted and you've sacrificed and no one's ever said thank you to you, don't worry about it.

You didn't do it for that purpose.

If somebody else got the glory, praise God.

It's all right.

One of these days God's going to straighten out the books.

In one of these days you'll get the reward that comes when you build character.

A life of integrity and honesty and sincerity and reality.

That's what he's talking about.

And oh, what a glorious thing it is.

Perhaps this morning some of us need to praise.

Search me, O God, and know my heart.

Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be some wicked way in me and then lead me in the way everlasting.

For some of you, you ought to come and trust Christ.

For some of you, the first step toward reality in your life would be to come and trust the Savior.

Perhaps you're pretending to be a Christian, but you've never been born again.

I say to you, come and trust him.

For the greatest life in all the world is that life of reality.

When prayer is real to you and the word of God is real, and the spiritual treasures of life are real, they aren't toys to impress people with.

They are the treasures that we invest, and God gets the glory and God builds men and women of character.

Gracious Father, forgive us for wanting to succeed before the eyes of men while we've been failing before your eyes.

We think of King Saul who said honor me now before the people.

Oh God, your eye is upon us.

You are guiding us with your eye.

Help us with Ian to have that beauty and purity and integrity.

May our motive for living and serving be only to glorify Christ.

Deliver us from the snare of the fear of men, or the praise of man, or the blame of man.

May we live only, O God, before your eye for your praise and your glory.

In Jesus name. Amen.