Understanding Our Lord’s Father Context
NOTE: We must grasp our Lord Jesus’ Father context or we will take His words and turn them into a “duty context” which will only lead us down the path of guilt, frustration, and failure. We must grasp, learn to live in, His Father context that we may see that His purpose is to bring us into the “family context”!!!
Matt. 5:45 “Love your enemies……that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.” “be”=#1096 ginomai-come to pass, be made, be done, be finished. (Key Study Bible—show yourselves to be) Same word in Phil.2:15 “that you may be blameless”. Matt. 5:48 And then there is this impossibility, “Be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. Perfect=#5046 teleios—complete, brought to its end, finished; lacking nothing necessary to be complete.
Jesus speaks of His Father 13 times from 5:45-6:34, 7 times as our Heavenly Father, 4 times as our Father Who sees in secret, 17 times of His Father in the whole of the Sermon on the Mount. Remember Psalm 22:22, “I will declare Your name to My brethren, in the midst of the congregation I will praise You.” Also, consider John 17:6 & 26--"O Father,.... I have manifested your Name, I have declared unto them your name." The High and Lofty One Who Inhabits Eternity (Isa. 57:15) is now revealed as the Loving Sufficient Father in the Words and Life of Jesus, (John 14:6-11) Who Is the Word spoken to us in these last days by the Father, this Jesus Who is the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His Person. (Hebrews 1:2-3)
This relationship, Father/Son/sons and daughters is what this sermon is all about, yea, this is what all of revelation is about. Ephesians 1:5 (the Father) “having predestined us to the adoptions as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” “And because you are sons (& daughters), God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba Father.” Gal. 4:6 This is the context from which we must consider these next words.
Living before the Father Who sees in secret. Matt. 6:1-4
“Jesus rejects the motive of notice!” (Fredrick Dale Bruner)
I. Vs 1 Jesus states the principle that governs the Kingdom—we are not to do our “good” before men, to be seen of them. We live exclusively “before our Father in heaven.
A. Phil. 2:15 A seeming contradiction. Paul says we are to “be blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked & perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.” The point is, men are to be mere observers of our good works, not the rewarders of them.
B. Any motivation of human notice or reward cancels out the only reward that counts—from our Father in Heaven. Remember, all of our riches are in GLORY by Christ Jesus. (Phil 4:19)
1. Don’t forget I John 2:15--All that is in the world is not of the Father!!! Our fallen nature, our flesh, knows no other context. Ask the Spirit to acquaint you well with your flesh so that you may recognize it’s motivations. The world is passing away, don’t be satisfied with it’s rewards. They are the devils’ deception!
II. Vs 2 Hypocrisy is showy! Even its “humility” is for show.
A. Romans 12:8 On the gift of giving: “he who gives, with liberality”. KJV—simplicity. #572 haplotes means singleness, sincerity, without self-seeking, simple. And note from this passage, this spirit of giving is a gift of grace.
1. II Cor. 9:6-15 God loves a cheerful giver. “His faith is wreathed in smiles when another opportunity for giving greets him.” (Lenski) The giving is of grace, the multiplying of the gift is of grace, and the thanksgiving unto the Glory of God is of grace. This is the only kind of giving that our Lord recognizes.
III. Vs 3 This is giving out of the heart, not out of the hand!!!
A. There is no “record keeping” to gracious giving. The Father alone keeps the records and will one day open His book. (Matt. 25:31-40)
“The left and right hand represents me. The right—me with my good deed; the left—me with my good opinion of my deed.” (Lenski)
IV. Vs 4 This is the “hiddenness” of true spirituality. (Secret occurs 12 times in the Sermon) We live before the Father, in His very Presence as is detailed in Hebrews 10:19-45. This is the relationship which our Jesus came to bring us into (Hebrews 2:10-15, Romans 8:12-17) It is this Relationship that drags us out of “the motive of notice.”
This “hiddenness” is speaking of an internal, heart driven motivation that governs all behavior in the Kingdom, the evidence of the implanting of the New Covenant heart in the children of the Father. The Father’s children don’t need the accolades of man to feel secure or to have a sense of worth. The Heavenly Father Who dwells in the “secret place”, His Smile is the only motivation they need, whether it be in giving or anything else for that matter.
NOTE: We must grasp our Lord Jesus’ Father context or we will take His words and turn them into a “duty context” which will only lead us down the path of guilt, frustration, and failure. We must grasp, learn to live in, His Father context that we may see that His purpose is to bring us into the “family context”!!!
Matt. 5:45 “Love your enemies……that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.” “be”=#1096 ginomai-come to pass, be made, be done, be finished. (Key Study Bible—show yourselves to be) Same word in Phil.2:15 “that you may be blameless”. Matt. 5:48 And then there is this impossibility, “Be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. Perfect=#5046 teleios—complete, brought to its end, finished; lacking nothing necessary to be complete.
Jesus speaks of His Father 13 times from 5:45-6:34, 7 times as our Heavenly Father, 4 times as our Father Who sees in secret, 17 times of His Father in the whole of the Sermon on the Mount. Remember Psalm 22:22, “I will declare Your name to My brethren, in the midst of the congregation I will praise You.” Also, consider John 17:6 & 26--"O Father,.... I have manifested your Name, I have declared unto them your name." The High and Lofty One Who Inhabits Eternity (Isa. 57:15) is now revealed as the Loving Sufficient Father in the Words and Life of Jesus, (John 14:6-11) Who Is the Word spoken to us in these last days by the Father, this Jesus Who is the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His Person. (Hebrews 1:2-3)
This relationship, Father/Son/sons and daughters is what this sermon is all about, yea, this is what all of revelation is about. Ephesians 1:5 (the Father) “having predestined us to the adoptions as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” “And because you are sons (& daughters), God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba Father.” Gal. 4:6 This is the context from which we must consider these next words.
Living before the Father Who sees in secret. Matt. 6:1-4
“Jesus rejects the motive of notice!” (Fredrick Dale Bruner)
I. Vs 1 Jesus states the principle that governs the Kingdom—we are not to do our “good” before men, to be seen of them. We live exclusively “before our Father in heaven.
A. Phil. 2:15 A seeming contradiction. Paul says we are to “be blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked & perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.” The point is, men are to be mere observers of our good works, not the rewarders of them.
B. Any motivation of human notice or reward cancels out the only reward that counts—from our Father in Heaven. Remember, all of our riches are in GLORY by Christ Jesus. (Phil 4:19)
1. Don’t forget I John 2:15--All that is in the world is not of the Father!!! Our fallen nature, our flesh, knows no other context. Ask the Spirit to acquaint you well with your flesh so that you may recognize it’s motivations. The world is passing away, don’t be satisfied with it’s rewards. They are the devils’ deception!
II. Vs 2 Hypocrisy is showy! Even its “humility” is for show.
A. Romans 12:8 On the gift of giving: “he who gives, with liberality”. KJV—simplicity. #572 haplotes means singleness, sincerity, without self-seeking, simple. And note from this passage, this spirit of giving is a gift of grace.
1. II Cor. 9:6-15 God loves a cheerful giver. “His faith is wreathed in smiles when another opportunity for giving greets him.” (Lenski) The giving is of grace, the multiplying of the gift is of grace, and the thanksgiving unto the Glory of God is of grace. This is the only kind of giving that our Lord recognizes.
III. Vs 3 This is giving out of the heart, not out of the hand!!!
A. There is no “record keeping” to gracious giving. The Father alone keeps the records and will one day open His book. (Matt. 25:31-40)
“The left and right hand represents me. The right—me with my good deed; the left—me with my good opinion of my deed.” (Lenski)
IV. Vs 4 This is the “hiddenness” of true spirituality. (Secret occurs 12 times in the Sermon) We live before the Father, in His very Presence as is detailed in Hebrews 10:19-45. This is the relationship which our Jesus came to bring us into (Hebrews 2:10-15, Romans 8:12-17) It is this Relationship that drags us out of “the motive of notice.”
This “hiddenness” is speaking of an internal, heart driven motivation that governs all behavior in the Kingdom, the evidence of the implanting of the New Covenant heart in the children of the Father. The Father’s children don’t need the accolades of man to feel secure or to have a sense of worth. The Heavenly Father Who dwells in the “secret place”, His Smile is the only motivation they need, whether it be in giving or anything else for that matter.