What's My Motivation

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, September 13, 2020.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 6:1-8, 18-20.

            Most of us would agree that humility is a virtue.  But in today’s society, it’s not a virtue we value a whole lot.  We’d say we do.  We pay lip service to humility.  But when we look around, we don’t see a lot of it these days.

            After all, we live in the age of the selfie.  We live in a time of self-promotion.  We’re told that we need to toot our own horn, because if we don’t, who will?  How are we going to get ahead if people don’t know what we’re doing?  We need to make sure everyone know all the good stuff we’re doing, so we get credit for it.

            And churches and pastors are not immune to that.  I like it when the conference knows the good stuff we do around here.  I like it when the community knows it, too.  That’s not necessarily wrong, to want the good stuff that’s happening in the church to be recognized, but it sure can be.  That’s especially true if we want it recognized so that people will give us credit, will pat us on the back, tell us what a good job we’re doing, rather than giving honor and glory to God.

            And you know, it’s really easy for us to justify this sort of thing to ourselves.  Not just in the church, but in every aspect of life.  We tell ourselves that we want people to know what we’re doing so we can set a good example.  We tell ourselves we want people to see our Christian faith in action, so it can bring them to Christ.  What could be a better motive than that?  And if people give us some credit, too, well, we cannot stop them.  That’s just the way it goes.

            There’s nothing new about any of this, of course.  People did it in Jesus’ time, too.  That’s what Jesus is talking about in our Bible reading for today.

            He starts out by talking about giving to the needy.  That’s a good thing to do, right?  To give to the needy?  And of course, it is.  Jesus wants us to give to the needy.  But, he says, don’t make a show of it.  Don’t put it on facebook.  Don’t put a picture of what you’re doing on instragram.  Just do it.  Don’t be proud or self-righteous.  Be humble.

            Jesus then goes on to talk about praying in public.  Now that’s one that hits me personally.  I pray in public every week in church.  It’s part of my job.  Should we change the order of worship, so that I don’t do that?  Well, I don’t know that we need to do that.  But I, and anyone else who prays in public, needs to be careful.  We need to remember that we’re talking to God.  We’re not talking to the assembled group.  We should not be trying to send a message to the congregation in our prayers.  

            And I confess, there are probably times when I’ve done that.  Not in a bad or accusatory way, I don’t think.  But it’s tempting, especially in a prayer after the sermon, to try to sort of recap the sermon in the prayer.  And that’s not what I should be doing.  When I pray, even in church, I’m not talking to you.  I’m talking to God.  And I need to remember that.  Everyone who prays in public, under any circumstances, needs to remember that.

            Then Jesus talks about fasting.  And we tend to skip over that one, because how many of us have ever fasted?  Now, I don’t want that to come across as dismissive.  There may well be people here who have fasted.  It’s a time-honored spiritual discipline.  I’m not trying to diminish it at all.  But there are not a lot of people who do it, so we tend to not spend a lot of time talking about it.

            But there’s a common thread running through all of these things, and you probably know what it is.  Don’t do things, even good things, for show.  Don’t do them for applause.  Don’t do them so people will think highly of you.  In fact, if possible, don’t let anyone know about them.  Still do them.  But do them as quietly as possible.  Be humble.

            What’s really interesting about this is why Jesus tells us to do things this way.  It’s not that God’s going to punish us for letting people know the good things we’ve done.  God won’t send us to hell for doing that.  But God’s not going to give us any credit for it, either.

            Let’s take giving to the needy as an example.  Giving to the needy under any circumstances is a good thing to do.  Regardless of why we do it, what we give will still go to help people who need it.  Even if we did it so we can brag about what generous people we are, the money is still needed and still does good things.

            But while what we’ve given helps people regardless of why we’ve given it, why we’ve given it determines what our reward will be.  If we’ve given so people will give us credit for it, if we’ve given so everyone will know what wonderful, kind, generous people we are, well, then once we get that credit, we’ve gotten all the reward we’re going to get.  If we’ve given quietly, for the honor and glory of God, and don’t care whether anyone knows about what we’ve done, then God will give us a reward.  God will bless what we’ve done, and God will bless us.  Because God knows everything we do, the good and the bad.  Nothing we do ever escapes the notice of God.

            And so, when we’re moved to do something good, we really need to pay attention to our motivation.  Are we doing this to get applause from the human crowd?  Or are we doing it to bring honor and glory to God?

            Now that’s not an accusation.  I know there are people here who have given a lot to the church and to the community over the years, and have never wanted to get any credit or applause for it.  You’ve given money, you’ve given time, you’ve given work.  You’ve given prayers, too, and that’s also important.  Some of you have done that stuff and even I don’t know about it.  But I know there are a lot of people here who are very dedicated to this church and to the community.  I don’t want you to think I’m accusing anyone of anything.

            But it is a warning.  Because it’s an easy trap to fall into.  We’re all human.  We like to get recognized for what we’ve done.  We want to know that what we’ve done is appreciated.  Sometimes, all we want is to know that someone noticed what we did, even if they don’t know it was us who did it.

            And none of that’s necessarily wrong.  But it is wrong if we start doing things just to get that recognition and appreciation.  It is so easy, and so tempting, to start playing to the human crowd, rather than doing things to the honor and glory to God.

            Humility is a virtue.  But you know, it’s more than just humility.  It’s knowing who God is, and it’s knowing who we are.  And it’s knowing who we are in relation to God.

            What we forget, sometimes, is what an honor and privilege it is to be allowed to serve God.  We forget how deserving God is of receiving our honor and glory.  God deserves far more honor and glory than we mere human beings are capable of giving Him.

            Think about who God is.  Think about how awesome, how incredible God is.  Think about how powerful God is.  Think about how God created the universe and everything in it just by speaking a word.  When we think about that, we should realize that any good thing we do is so incredibly small compared to the goodness of God.  

            God does not need us for anything.  There is nothing we can do for God that God could not do without us.  In fact, God could probably do things a lot better without us.  A lot of times, you and I probably just get in God’s way.  And yet, God chooses to work through us.  God chooses to allow us to serve Him.  That’s an honor.  That’s a privilege God gives us.  It’s something a lot of us don’t think of often enough.  And it’s something we should never take for granted.

            When we think about it that way, humility should come pretty naturally to us.  We should praise God every day for the honor of serving Him.  And when we do happen to do something right, when we do happen to do something good, we should not take or even want any credit for ourselves.  Instead, we should be grateful to God for the privilege of being allowed to do something for Him.

            It’s a natural human thing to want recognition.  It’s a natural human thing to want to be appreciated.  But Jesus wants us to go beyond natural human things.  Jesus wants us to see the honor and privilege we have in being allowed to serve God.  Knowing that God, as great and awesome as God is, sees and appreciates what we do should be all the motivation we will ever need.