The Sermon On The MountExemple

If Jesus ends the first third of his Sermon, Matthew 5, with “Be perfect,” he begins the second third, Matthew 6, with “Be careful.” He does so because he knows that our desire for “true righteousness,” which he depicts in Matthew 5, can be easily traded with “false righteousness,” which he depicts in Matthew 6. Jesus knows that the line between pleasing God and pleasing man is a thin one. 

The one word for this clear and present danger that every follower of Christ faces is – hypocrisy. And hypocrisy is, in essence, about making the approval and praise of man our top priority.

Jesus’s warning about hypocrisy is this: What you seek is what you get. Whether it is in praying, fasting, or giving, if your motive is about getting the attention and praise of men, well, you will get that. Nothing more. Certainly not the attention and reward of God. And you shouldn’t be surprised; for you were not seeking the attention or the reward of God. What you seek is what you get. 

For Christians, life is to be lived Coram Deo – before the face of God, in the presence of God, under the authority of God, and to the honour and glory of God. It is only this kind of life that is bound to the ultimate reality of God and freed from the fleeting praises of man.