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Kingdom Disciplines: Giving and Fasting
Matt 6:1-4, 16-18
There was a Christian fad a couple decades ago that involved a wristband with the initials WWJD printed on it. It stood for “What Would Jesus Do?” The point of the wristband was to remind you to try and act like Jesus acted.
The problem is that knowing what to do and being able to do it are two different things. Coaches don’t tell basketball players just to ask themselves WWMJD (what would Michael Jordan Do?), or WWLJD (What Would Lebron James Do?). Coaches tell basketball players to practice, to train, to prepare themselves so that when the moment comes, you are able to respond the way you wish.
In the same way that athletes need practice, so do we. We need training so that we can build in ourselves the spiritual muscle memory we need to respond the way we should in the circumstances we find ourselves in. The term for this kind of spiritual “practice” is discipleship. The root at the center of this word means “student.” It means seeing yourself as the student of Jesus and learning from Him. In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus offers this invitation: “28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Jesus invites us to learn from Him. He offers to show us how to live life. When we do so, He promises us we will find rest for our souls.
The section of the Sermon on the Mount we turn to now contains some teaching of Jesus regarding actions Jesus expects His followers to be engaged in regularly. Matthew 6:1 refers to “practicing righteousness.” Though they don’t carry any sports connotations, the actions Jesus mentions are kind of like “righteousness practice.” They are repeated activities that we do in order to train ourselves to become the people whom God wants us to be. And just like practice, the more we practice them, the better we will be able to do them.
The traditional term used by Christians for this “righteousness practice” is Spiritual Disciplines. Like Discipleship, the root of Discipline is “student”. Spiritual Disciplines are the actions of disciples that help them practice living out the righteousness their teacher, Jesus, wants them to have.
The three Spiritual Disciplines Jesus discusses in this chapter are Giving, Praying, and Fasting. We will spend the next lesson focusing exclusively on Prayer. Today we are going to look at what Jesus says about two things we might feel uncomfortable with: Giving and Fasting. We will look at what Jesus calls us to do, how we can obey, and what we are supposed to learn from it.
Kingdom Motivation (v. 1)
Before we look closely at the disciplines themselves, we need to consider the warning that Jesus starts with: “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them.” At first glance, this might seem a little contradictory to something Jesus just said. In Matthew 5:16, Jesus says, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” So, which is it? Are we supposed to do everything in secret, or are we supposed to do everything publicly so everyone can see? How can we fulfill Matthew 5:16, without people knowing what we are doing?
The warning of Jesus here is not about the actions themselves, but about our motivation for doing them. It’s true, our conduct must be visible in order for God to be glorified by others. But we shouldn’t do them to gain attention for ourselves. We are to be focused on pleasing God, not pleasing others or self.
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