Hidden Righteousness

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.”

Matthew 6:1

We live in an age of voluntary public disclosure. Facebook began in 2004 and the iPhone was introduced in 2007 with Android a year later. Around 2012 or 2013 I began to hear about a new psychological disorder about the compulsive need to post the minute details of life on social media, particularly among Millennials. One article I read at the time said that many felt that the experience was not complete unless they had a chance to post it on social media. Facebook is quaint now, but we have Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and TikTok and a host of other apps to fill in the gap. There is even a popular app called, “BeReal” where people post real, non-fake photo ops to counter all the sanitized, photo-shopped pictures of the perfect life. But post they must.
 
Bottom line, we like to be seen. We like to be noticed. We want to be recognized by others for our accomplishments. What’s wrong with that? God is, of course, concerned about our behavior, but he is also concerned about the heart motivation behind that behavior. We have already seen this in the Sermon on the Mount. It is not just actually having an affair that is sinful, but the very lustful look means one has “already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matt 5:28)” Think about it in terms of an apple tree. The fruit of the tree is like that actual sinful behavior. But the nature of the tree goes down to its roots. Long before an apple produces fruit, it is an apple tree. The same goes with behavior. Long before we act out, we have sinful desires that flow from the heart. (Mark 7:21-23)
 
Often, we have different motives for wanting to be seen and noticed by others. Perhaps we feel insecure or inferior and being seen by others is a way to get noticed and promote our hard work and effort. Maybe we want people to think of us a certain way, so we craft a public persona including selectively chosen pictures to give the exact image we want. There might be an emptiness or loneliness that is filled when we post things online and we receive a bunch of “likes.” We could also want people to think we are living an exciting and glamorous life. I am not saying that it is inherently wrong to post things online or I would be a blazing hypocrite. But it is worth thinking about why we post online and what our motivation is.
 
You may be thinking, “Whew, I don’t even have Facebook or the hundreds of other copycats, this doesn’t apply to me.” Fortunately, Jesus spoke this long before social media existed. We all have an inherent desire to have others think well of us. We might drop hints at all the hard work we have done or all the accolades we have received. It may be that we want others to think we are a good husband or father so we leave little clues in hopes others will discover them. It might not be about ourselves, perhaps it is bragging about our children and their accomplishments. How many back windows of minivans announce their child made the honor roll? (Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend. Or maybe I did.)
 
Jesus’ point is simple, we should live before the “Audience of One.” (This is not original to me, but I have heard it from so many different places I have no idea who originally said it) For millennia the church has said we should live “Coram Deo” which means, “in the presence of God,” or “before the face of God.” We should be constantly aware of God’s presence and live before the face of God. Everything we do, we do it not to be seen by men, but to be seen by the Audience of One. God is the one who sees what we do in secret and rewards us. (Matt 6:4) We will see this again over the next few weeks as we examine what Jesus says about giving, praying, and fasting.