Sunday message · That’s What He Said series
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Message Summary
In the thirteenth message of That’s What He Said, the church’s sentence-by-sentence study of Matthew, Pastor Phillip Santillan reads Matthew 6:1–18 and asks what it is really about. He recalls a 1995 worship song that many called It’s All About You, which his youth group jokingly sang to tease anyone acting selfishly. Yet nothing is more anti-Jesus than living for what I want. Some treat following Jesus as a mutually beneficial partnership, but Phil finds no such thing in Scripture. We have nothing to offer, and Jesus asks for all of us; as missionary Hudson Taylor put it, Christ is either Lord of all or not Lord at all.
The good news is that God is not surprised by our selfishness. Israel built a golden calf soon after leaving Egypt, and still God loves the world. Jesus had told his followers to be perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect, but he knew some would turn that into a way to find identity in accomplishments. Quoting Scot McKnight, Phil explains we try to take God’s place at the center of the story, judging one another and seeking people’s approval, because people give us what we want while God gives what is good and right.
Jesus uses three chief acts of Jewish piety, giving, prayer and fasting, to show how even the most religious can make righteousness about themselves. In each, the wrong motive, such as seeking applause, brings its own reward: those who want to be seen get exactly that, and nothing from God. But Jesus is not banning public devotion. D.A. Carson observes that if Jesus forbade all public prayer, the early church misunderstood him, and McKnight notes that Jesus read Scripture in the synagogue, went to the temple and praised the widow’s gift, which he had to see. The warning is against using our deeds to win approval; the goal is to live for an audience of one.
The passage is ultimately about resisting the self-centered life. Paul, once a devout religious leader himself, wrote that whatever we do, we should do it all for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). Jesus’ younger brother James describes the wisdom from above as pure, peace-loving, gentle, willing to yield, merciful and sincere, while jealousy and selfish ambition bring disorder. James learned this from watching his older brother, and Phil asks what it would take to believe a sibling is God incarnate: “It would take him actually being God.”
Phil challenges everyone to ask how self-centeredness might be hindering God’s mission through them, beginning with an inventory of their prayers. Do we approach God in awe as a perfect Father, or as a cosmic vending machine? Of the roughly 60 words in the Lord’s Prayer, he notes, only six ask for our needs; the rest seek God’s glory and his holiness, mercy and grace. God will accomplish his mission, and one day every knee will bow, but we can join it or resist it. He closes by asking: who will you serve, yourself or Jesus?