Assignment # 7 Study Lesson New Testament: Matt. 6:1-18

Jesus continues teaching the Sermon on the Mount (part 3)

Matt. 6:1-18

Other assignments from Matthew

Welcome back! We hope you are enjoying these lessons, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact us. Note that in this lesson we are still with Jesus during His Sermon on the Mount.

~ Kassie, Tammy, and Anna

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Read Matt. 6:1-18 then outline the three lessons with any insight God gives you. There is much to discuss about Matt. 6, which we will do a bit later. But for now, I would like to spend this time simply “listening to Jesus” as He continues His sermon.

  

#1 (vs 1-4)    __________________________________________

#2 (vs 5-15) __________________________________________

#3 (vs 16-18) _________________________________________

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So, now let’s look a little bit deeper into Matt. 6.

In the first part of this chapter Jesus illustrated the practicing of righteousness before men (people). Jesus also continued to describe the character and actions of those who will enter His kingdom.

Beware of practicing your righteousness to be noticed by men instead of the Father.

As Jesus continued His sermon, He explained righteousness that exceeded the scribes and Pharisees’ righteousness. He stated that they paraded their “righteousness” in front of men. Which to God they weren’t righteous at all because they did it to impress and be noticed by men. Therefore, they would have no reward from God, because their reward was already being fulfilled here on earth instead.

In verses 2–15 Jesus teaches about giving to the poor. And in doing so, not to brag about it thus making yourself look good by “oh look what I am doing, look what I am giving.”  But instead, let it be done in secret, don’t let left hand know what right is doing. You don’t have to brag about it or point it out, God sees and knows, and His approval is all we need.

Jesus also teaches about prayer. Again, it isn’t supposed to be about making yourself look good, or to make yourself sound good. We are not to pray in a manner so as to impress people. This doesn’t mean we aren’t to pray in public, but when we do, then do so from the heart, and with the right intentions, and right motivations.

And take time to go into “an Inner room” in other words, go somewhere private where you can just pray and have a conversation with God.

There is a contrast we see in verse 7 with the way the Gentiles pray. They use meaningless repetition and many words. This doesn’t mean that when we are alone with God and pouring our hearts out to Him, that we can’t repeat ourselves. What He is saying here, is when praying in front of people, it doesn’t have to be a LONG prayer, and again don’t do it distractedly… if your heart is not in it, then don’t sit there with people going on and on with words that are completely meaningless, because it doesn’t come from the heart.

Verses 9–13 usually is referred to as the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus gave this to us as an example, to show us in what order to pray (like acknowledging God first as GOD). It also shows us topics (for example “give us our daily bread” we can totally pray about our need for provisions). Basically, He gave us a pattern. This doesn’t mean we always have to say this specific prayer word for word and only this prayer. I say that, because throughout the Gospels, we see all kinds of prayers Jesus spoke.

Also, in this pattern Jesus gave it shows us that at the beginning of our prayer and at the end of our prayer, we should worship and praise God, because above all else, He is worthy of that.

In verses 16–18, Jesus teaches about fasting. And again, just as we are not to give or pray to impress people… our fasting shouldn’t be done in a way to draw attention to ourselves… or in a manner where we are all gloomy about it, as in “look at me, pour pitiful me…. I’m so sad and I’m fasting, see how righteous I am…”

So, what is fasting? It’s going with food or drink for a period of time. Fasting was done for several reasons, one being for God to listen when connected with prayer. Because when we are fasting, it shows that seeking God for a very stressful reason means we are willing to be uncomfortable in the flesh, because we want and need HIM MORE that the comfort of the flesh. Sometimes when we REALLY need direction from God, but can’t seem to hear Him, we can take a time of fasting and commit to stronger time in prayer. Fasting can also be done by giving certain things up for a period of time (like NO TV, NO FACEBOOK….) something that we are prone to do a lot of, so giving it up for a certain period of time to REALLY seek God, shows our sincerity.

This is all we are going to study from Matt. 6 for this lesson. We will look at the remaining verses of Matt. 6 next time.  

Kassie

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