Mike Bickle emphasizes the significance of living out the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, particularly focusing on five key kingdom activities: serving, giving, praying, fasting, and blessing others. He explains that these activities are not just duties but pathways to spiritual maturity and deeper intimacy with God, highlighting that God sees our efforts and rewards them generously. Bickle warns against seeking recognition from others, urging believers to live for the audience of one—God Himself. He reassures that every act of kindness, prayer, and service is noted by God, who promises to reward us both in this life and the next. Ultimately, the sermon calls for a commitment to these practices as a means of experiencing God's grace and transforming our hearts.

Turn to Matthew chapter 6, Matthew chapter 6. Father, we thank you for your word. We ask you for living understanding of your word. Lord, come and mark our heart. Come and strengthen our spirit with might. Holy Spirit, we just open our heart to you as our teacher. Come and teach me, Lord, even as I'm speaking. We submit to your teaching ministry right now. Give us something clear, Holy Spirit, as we hear your word. In the name of Jesus, Amen. Lord, we're continuing on the Sermon on the Mount. We're on session 12. Just for a quick review for those that are new with us today, paragraph A. The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus's most comprehensive teaching on a believer's role in cooperating with the grace of God. What I mean by that is that some people read the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus's premier teaching on Christianity, how to live, and because it requires such a response, they wrongly conclude that it isn't the grace of God teaching. Because they have wrong ideas that if it's grace, there is no response that's required. Well, Jesus was the ultimate grace teacher. He understood grace, and he understood the New Covenant better than anybody, and he called his people to this extravagant response. And in this call is the pathway to our liberty. He wasn't calling us to this intense responsiveness just to see if we could do it. But he was saying this is the way to liberty in the grace of God. Now the Sermon on the Mount, it is the picture of what spiritual maturity is. It's the picture of what ministry impact is. I've had folks make comments, you know, after the One Thing conference. You know, they see about 25,000 people in the auditorium. They go, wow, your ministry is really making an impact. And I don't, not being tricky with them, but I ask them a question. I go, what do you mean? They go, look, and look what's happening on the internet, etc, etc. I said, that isn't my ministry impact. My ministry impact is only to the degree that people walk out the Sermon on the Mount in their private life. I go, it's not how many people come into a room, it's how many people set their heart to walk out the Sermon on the Mount. That's the measure of my ministry impact from God's point of view, and I don't know how many of them are doing it. You can jump real high and shout real loud in a worship service and ignore the Sermon on the Mount afterwards. I said, I'm after ministry impact. That's why I teach this. And this is how I measure my own spiritual maturity. Jesus lays out eight Beatitudes. This is the core reality of the Sermon on the Mount. These eight character traits, these attitudes and character, these virtues. Am I growing in them? If I am, I'm maturing spiritually. If I'm not growing in these eight, I'm not maturing. And these eight Beatitudes are the central part of the Sermon on the Mount, the central message. Then after it, in Matthew 5, Jesus gives, he outlines very strategically, six temptations that we must resist. We've covered them. Then in Matthew 6, he outlines five kingdom activities that we have to pursue. And that's what we're going to look at, just a snapshot, because all five of them are quite straightforward. And in the last two pages of the document, I have some stuff on them. We're going to just barely mention the last two pages, because it's so straightforward what he says to do. So there are six negatives to resist, six, five positives to pursue while we are cultivating these eight Beatitudes, these eight virtues in our life. Paragraph B. Now we're going to look at the eight, I mean the five kingdom activities. These are not the only five activities of the kingdom. Why Jesus highlighted these five, I don't know. I mean, if he asked my opinion, I would add about ten more to the list. He did not ask my opinion. But these five are strategic. I've asked him over the years, why these five? They are so central to the kingdom lifestyle. Again, not that they're more important than other kingdom activities, but he highlights them for reasons that are clear to him, because he knows the dynamic they will have on our ability to connect with him and to walk out life as a disciple under his leadership. Now let's read verse 6, verse 4 to 20 in this kind of abbreviated statement here. I just want you to see all of them. But I want you to pay special attention to how many times Jesus references eternal rewards as motivation. Now rewards are not our only motivation, but rewards are part of the biblical motivation. The reason I say that, because many people ignore rewards. They don't ever think about them. And other people, they think they're bigger than rewards. They go, I love God for God. I don't need his rewards. And I think, well, I'd take a different posture on that. This is Jesus' teaching, and he's a real good teacher, and he knows things we don't know. And if he says that they're important, they are more important than we know. So I want to, I want to experience all the rewards the Father has. Let's read this. Again, we're just getting a snapshot of Matthew chapter 6. Jesus said that your charitable deeds may be done in secret, and your Father will reward you openly. So the first point that he highlights, charitable deeds. Now, there's actually two different activities combined in this one phrase. They are deeds. They are acts of service. And they, not all of them, but some of them, have a financial connection where there's a charity dimension. Or the word charity here, or the idea of charity, is mercy, a mercy dimension. And some of it involves giving money. Then later on, in verse 19 and 20, he re-emphasizes the giving of money. So when I highlight giving as one of them, I'm talking about giving money to the purpose of God. Verse 4, he says, your charitable deeds. Now, these are not only deeds done for the poor, by the way. These are deeds based in mercy that sometimes have a financial connection to. We can do these deeds in our home, in our neighborhood, in the marketplace. Maybe it's in pouring our life into a discipleship group of four or five younger believers that we meet with on a weekly basis. It's not only an outreach to the poor. That's the point I want you to understand. These are deeds, acts of service, that's based in mercy, the word charity, and therefore having some kind of connection to finance some of the times. He goes on in verse 6. He says, when you pray, your Father will reward you openly. So we see prayer is the next one. Verse 14, when you forgive men their trespasses. Now you have to read that exhortation in context. About two minutes earlier in the sermon, back in chapter 5, we're right here at chapter 6. In verse 44, he talked about the people we need to forgive, our enemies. And he developed that thought far more extensive than here in verse 14. He talked about those enemies. Not only do we forgive them, but forgiveness, if it's a biblical forgiveness, always includes the proactive blessing of our enemies. It's not only canceling the debt, canceling the offense they did against us, forgiving it, but it's actually doing more. It's blessing them. So because in the larger context, just a few moments earlier, he mentioned that I tie the forgiving of trespasses to the blessing of our enemies. So in this one, I talk about blessing enemies, which includes forgiveness. But it's more than forgiveness. He goes on in verse 17, when you fast, your Father will reward you openly. Then in verse 19 and 20, he again emphasizes the place of financial giving. It makes a very dynamic statement, a statement that we need to take literally. He says, if you give money in this age, this is what he's saying, it will be exchanged for treasure in the age to come, literal treasure in the age to come. This is real. This is not poetry. You give a dollar, you give a hundred dollars, you give a million dollars. Every dollar you invest in the kingdom, God remembers it. And he multiplies it some in this life. I mean a lot of times he multiplies it in this life, and then he again multiplies it far greater in the age to come. It's real. Every dollar you gave to strengthen the kingdom, whether you're giving it to an individual, you're giving it to a missions project, the building of the church, whatever. God doesn't forget one dollar you've ever given. And he multiplies it in this age, and then he ultra multiplies it in the age to come. This is real. I tell people the exchange rate on your money is really high right now. During your natural life on the earth, you can take a little bit of money and turn it into eternal treasure for real. This is not poetry. I think we're gonna be shocked when we stand before the Lord, and he actually remembered every dollar you ever gave into the kingdom. Wow, and he's so generous when he rewards. He doesn't just reward, he rewards generously. Well, he's so rich, and he's so kind, and he's so committed to the relationship. He loves it. He will blow our minds when we see what our little offerings in this age, how they translate to the age to come. It's gonna excite us, and he will be overjoyed at our excitement of how much our love and our giving moved him. I really buy into this. I try to give as much as I can into kingdom purposes, and I know it's up in heaven. The accounting is current. It just continues like, oh, this is good. Paragraph C. We just, and I'm gonna spend most of my time on page 1 and 2, and just kind of give a snapshot on page 3 and 4, because most of that's just so self-evident. But here in paragraph C on page 1, when I think of these five kingdom activities, again, they are not the only five. There's many other kingdom activities, but these five are highlighted in a strategic way for reasons that only Jesus fully understands. But I marvel at the simplicity. I marvel at the accessibility, meaning everyone can do these. You can have no education, no money, no friends, no gifting whatsoever, and still do these five. The guy says, I don't have an education. I'm not trained. Jesus said, well, you can still do all five. I don't have any great wealth. I got a few pennies. Well, the woman with the widow gave her two pennies. He goes, that works. Invest your two pennies. Well, I don't have any great gifting. You don't need to. Just do deeds of service to people, whether they appreciate it or not. Fast and pray. Bless the people who are mean to you. Just do those things. It's remarkable how simple and accessible and doable these five are. And they help people. Now, our acts of service are, most of them in our entire life, are very small. It's like we're helping somebody for an hour or for a half hour. It's a small deed. The money we give, the time we give, it's, most of it's small, but it actually helps people. Incrementally, a little bit, but it does matter. And it moves God, and it changes us. The doing of these five actually changes us. The reason, because when we do them consistently, or I'd rather say this way, the only way we can do these consistently is if we interact with God. Meaning, only as I'm aware that God's eyes are on me, do I sustain these five activities in my life long-term. When I begin to lose kind of that awareness that God's watching me, I give less money. I pray less. I fast less. I bless my enemies less. When I get strengthened in this conviction that he's watching, I do all of these more. I serve more. I do more deeds of kindness, or just practical acts of service. And again, these deeds of kindness can be in your home. A man serving his wife and his children, those are kingdom deeds. You don't have to go on a missions trip to do this. It's whenever you do a deed of kindness that's just being helpful to another, and you're doing it because you want to do the will of God. But anyway, as I do these five, if I want to do them consistently, it always draws me into that interaction or that dialogue with God, because I have the money. I don't want to get it. I think I'll keep it. I think he's looking at me. He says, I'm watching. You don't have to give it. But it moves me when you do, and I will respond back to you. I go, well, since it moves you, and you are gonna multiply it in this age and the age to come, I think I'll give it. My point is this. The more I interact with him, with the idea that he's watching, and he's watching to respond generously to me, the more I do all five of them. And I find that when believers are negligent on these five things, it's only because they're loose, or mostly because they've lost contact with the idea that God's eyes are on them, and he wants to respond generously to them. I mean, our offerings are so weak. Our deeds of service, it's a little bit of time, and it's not very powerful. Our prayers, well, you know, I offer them in weakness. They ascend in strength, but my prayers are pretty weak. My fasting is pathetic. My blessing of my enemies is mostly half-hearted, but it still works. And he looks at that and says, good, this is right. I go, why does this move you, God? And again, it makes me interact with him, so it changes me incrementally in the process. Maybe not in a week or a month, but when I look back over years, my inner man is different because I'm engaging with God, and in the process of doing these five things. Now, these five things are often called spiritual disciplines. Spiritual disciplines do not earn us the love of God at all. God loves us while we are his enemy. He loved us. He loved us when we never thought of him. He doesn't love us more because we engage in these kingdom activities, but we engage in these kingdom activities, we will experience more. He won't love us more, but our capacity to experience God increases, and people are helped. God has moved, and our spiritual capacity increases. It's a marvelous thing. I use the analogy of putting our cold heart before the bonfire of his presence. I'm even a simple act of service. I think I'm not going to do it. I think he's looking. He cares. He will answer generously. Just that gaze of my heart, it's like putting my cold heart in front of his bonfire. It tenderizes us in the process. And we really do experience more. It says here in James 4, he gives more grace. Beloved, there is grace to be saved. There is a greater experience of grace, and the more grace means a greater experience of the grace that's available. And he gives it to the humble, and there's no greater description of humility than the Sermon on the Mount. That's the, that's the response of humility that Jesus gives us more grace to experience more of his presence. Paragraph D. I'll just say this briefly. The eight beatitudes which are the centerpiece of the message. Each of these five kingdom activities, whether it's a deed, whether we're blessing our enemies, we're giving money, each of those five actually has an expression of those eight beatitudes, of all eight of them. You go through the list on your own, and when you give money, all eight of those beatitudes can come into play when you give, at various levels. Paragraph E. Now when you look at Matthew 6, verse 1, 6, verse 1 to 21, that's the passage we're looking at, and mostly, I'm giving you the big picture view of it, rather than breaking down all the details. Some of the details I have on the notes we're not going to cover. But I'm more giving you the big picture view of chapter 6, verse 1 to 21. And here's kind of a summation of how Jesus approaches it. He gives us five simple exhortations. Each of these exhortations are very straightforward. Fast, pray, forgive, or bless, give. They're real straightforward. He doesn't really give us much practical insight on how to do them, because they're so straightforward. What's remarkable is these five is the two things He emphasizes in the context of these five exhortations. He gives one primary warning, and He repeats it over and over. Matter of fact, He restates it eight different times. One warning, the same one, all through the 21 verses. And the warning is this. When you pray, when you fast, when you give, don't draw attention to yourself. He says, when you do a deed of kindness, don't draw attention. When you're in the prayer meeting, don't draw attention to how passionate and fervent you are. When you're fasting, don't draw attention to how dedicated you are. When you're giving, don't draw attention to how generous you are. Don't draw attention. He says it eight times. It's remarkable. I don't know anywhere in Scripture where Jesus says the same exhortation eight times in one passage. That in itself alerts us to how powerful this is. But He doesn't just give us the one warning, eight different application, I mean eight different ways to say it. He gives us one promise, and He says the promise over and over. My Father will reward you. He's watching, and He will respond generously. He's watching, He will respond generously. So we look at these five simple exhortations, these five simple activities, and we, in the backdrop, the warning, don't draw attention to yourself. Know that God is watching very attentively, and He's very generous, and He will respond every single time. In His timing, you can't always measure it, particularly in a short time frame, but Jesus said, I promise you, My Father is watching. So one warning, one promise, repeated over and over in context to the five exhortations. Paragraph F. Now the warning. Let's look at the warning. Let's look at one of the eight descriptions of the warning, because it means the same thing every time. He says, when you do these things, don't sound a trumpet. He goes, don't do it in the synagogue. That's the corporate gatherings. In our context, the church meetings, the prayer meetings. Don't show, don't draw attention to yourself in the synagogue when you gather together, and don't draw attention to yourself when you're on the street. You might put in the mall, the workplace, out in the park. Don't draw attention to how passionate you are for God, how anointed you are, how smart you are, how dedicated you are. He says, do it before God's eyes. Don't do it before men's eyes. Our natural tendency is to blow a trumpet. Now, we'd like to be able to blow the trumpet, but do it so subtle that it's not really blowing the trumpet, but it sort of is. And the Lord says, don't do any of it. Just don't draw attention to yourself. Don't do it that way. And he addresses that. Paragraph 2, I mean page 2. Now we go to the promise, which is the real major truth in Matthew 6. If someone was to ask me, what is the major truth in Matthew chapter 6, I would say this. It's that God sees with great interest. He sees. He's not passive. He's attentive, and He responds with generosity. That's in these five kingdom activities, verse 1 to 21, and then the later part of the chapter we'll look at probably next week, when he talks about anxiety. The whole message is the same. God sees, and He responds generously in His own timing. If we lose this truth, which I do sometimes, I lose my grip on it. And again, when I lose my grip on the fact that God sees and responds generously, I pray less. I fast less. I give less. When I get a hold of this truth, I do those things more. And I don't do them to earn anything. I do them because there's a cause-effect. It moves God, but it changes me, and more happens in my life. God doesn't love me more, but I do experience more. But by nature, we drift away from this truth that He's watching, and He responds generously. By nature. So we hear the teaching of Jesus, and we re-sign back up. Because I was preparing to teach this, Matthew 6, I was thinking, we have heard this message so often in the 13 years of IHOP, but there's no part of the Sermon on the Mount that we're more familiar with, but we lose grip of easier than these five activities. All of us. I have such a tendency to let go of them. One of the guys was asking me backstage here last night, which is the hardest for you of these five? Prayer, fasting, giving, serving, blessing. I said, well, I don't know. My first thought is probably prayer. And he went, oh my gosh, the leader of IHOP, your biggest problem is prayer. That's a problem. I said, yeah, it is. So then a second thought, fasting. Well, serving. Blessing. I do it half-hearted, and I skip a lot of opportunities to bless enemies. Probably that one. I think all five of them are my problem. That's my new confession. Having thought it through a little bit, but as I strengthen my resolve that God's looking, I tell you, I have new energy. New, new zeal to stay steady. And I don't mean for a summer or a year. We want to stay steady for decades. That's our life vision. Paragraph B. Jesus emphasized the Father will openly reward these activities. Beloved, we cannot relegate this doctrine to a second-class importance. Many believers, they think about the beauty of Jesus, the power of Jesus, but the rewards we've kind of relegated it to those guys that have false motives. You know, that only if they get rewarded will they really follow through. And rewards have kind of been relegated to a secondary status of importance in our doctrine. I tell you, this is mainstream, sermon-on-the-mount teaching of Jesus. Don't see rewards as of secondary importance. My point being, we want to study them. We want to understand them. We want to give, fast, pray, bless in light of them. And when we do it, our awareness of them even grows. Now, some of the rewards are external, meaning we pray, fast, give, serve, bless. And our external circumstances, God breaks in and improves them related to our responsiveness to Him. Yes, there is a cause-effect. It's a very clear cause-effect. He doesn't love us more, but we experience more. We receive more, and we enjoy more of the grace of God when we interact in these five ways. So we pray and fast. There's external. We give money. He returns it back. He multiplies it. It's his own time, his own way. Sometimes it's a decade later, but he always returns it back. Then in the age to come, he ultra-multiplies it. But we have the external circumstances where we see the blessing increase. Now, most of us like the external blessings. We go, okay, we can relate to that. Give money, get more money back. Pray and fast, have a little bit stronger ministry. Okay, I'll pray and fast. I'll kind of endure prayer and fasting if I'll have a stronger ministry. Okay, that makes sense. But the rewards are not all external. Some of the rewards are internal. We have a deeper intimacy with God, a greater revelation of Jesus touches our heart, and so we live different on the inside. That's a powerful reward in this age. Some of the rewards are eternal. That the fullness is in the age to come, and this is not, again, poetry. This is literal. Now, my guess is when the Lord rewards us, probably He answers at all three levels every time He rewards us. I don't think He picks one versus the other. My guess, and I'm sure there's some exceptions where we don't see it externally, but it's always He gives us the internal and the eternal, and many times, most times, the external. He says, I will reward you. I promise you I will. There is a cause-effect. You will enjoy more of my presence. My inheritance in you, I will realize it more because you're living more like me. Paragraph C. Now, when we do these five kingdom activities, it's critical we do them with confidence in the rewards. Now, again, that's a missing element in much of the church today. We don't talk about rewards. So when we we fast and pray or we bless our enemies, we're not really thinking much about the rewards, and I think we need a correction on that because Jesus emphasized these, I mean, four times in 21 verses. Look what Hebrews 11 says. Without faith, and faith, you can almost use the word confidence interchangeable with the word faith in the New Testament. Without confidence in God's promises, faith means more than that, but that's a that's a big part of faith. Without confidence in God's promises, it's impossible for you to relate to Him in a right way. That's what it's saying. So Jesus is promising the Father will reward, but it's impossible to live right if we don't have confidence in those promises. For he that comes to God must believe that God is, and he must believe that God is a rewarder to those who diligently seek Him. So when we come to Jesus, we have to come with confidence that what He promised He will do. He doesn't like us having kind of a confused humility, where we come to Him and say, well, we don't really care about your promises because I just am so noble. I just love you for you, and I don't care about your promises. He says, stop. I care about my promises. It would be good if you did as well. Because they're a significant part of our dialogue together as Father and Son. So I would rather you did care about my promises because I care about them. That's why I gave them. And so we come to Him and we believe that He is. That means He's attentive. It's by the word He is, but He's attentive. He's watching. But He's more than just watching. He's a rewarder. He responds generously to diligence. Our diligence matters. Again, He does not love us more when we're diligent, but He responds more in terms of things changing in our external circumstances, in our internal life. Things do improve. Paragraph D. Jesus taught more on eternal rewards than any other man in history. That's a remarkable truth. He taught much more on rewards than all the apostles together combined. Jesus taught more than they did. To combine all of them, He emphasized it more because He understood the power of them, the reality of them more than they did. Notice three times here, verse 4, 6, and 18. Then add the fourth time, verse 20. He says it again. Notice the cause-effect. There's a strong cause-effect. You give charitable deeds, your Father sees. Your Father notices. He sees it. Now, He sees not to judge us. He sees to reward us. See, sometimes when people think God sees, oh no, and Jesus say, no. When I say the Father sees, say, oh, yes. He's not seeing to take a hammer to shatter your life. He's gonna generously respond. That's the point. Oh, oh, okay. He sees. I don't know if I want God to see. Well, God sees the negative, but you know what? He sees the positive too. He sees every dollar you've ever sowed into the kingdom to build it. He has seen every good, every small deed of service you've done. Even a cup of cold water, He will reward you on that day. The smallest deed. Every, I mean, my prayers, I think of them, I, they're feeble. I mean, I offer them in weakness, they ascend and straight. He's heard every prayer, and He likes them. I think because my prayers don't move me sometimes, they don't move God. And I got good news, they move Him even when they don't move us. It says, verse 6, when you pray, He sees. Fasting, He sees. He sees to respond generously. Again, there's a strong cause-effect, and you can't use the doctrine of grace to eliminate this cause-effect. Again, He doesn't love you more, but you get by that fire, that icy heart is going to melt. There is a cause-effect. Paragraph E. Now, our wrong views of God. Some people, well, we all have less than perfect views of God. But there's a small little group I've interacted with, you know, around the body of Christ over the last 30 plus years. I've taught on rewards, and there's always this little group, always there. They, they don't want rewards. They love God purely for God's sake. And that Jesus was a little bit off when He taught on rewards. They're right, and Jesus missed a little bit, but they know He was sincere. They imagine they love God more than God loves them. That if somehow they take a reward, it's something went bad. They have no interest in rewards. And I call them to the Word of God to correction. Receiving rewards. Rewards are a statement of Jesus declaring openly how He feels about the way you loved Him during this life. When He gives you a reward, He is declaring openly, this is how I feel about the way you love me. That cup of cold water you gave when you were 16 years old. Maybe you're 80 when you die. I remember it. And I want you to know how I feel about the way you loved me in that act. I mean, Jesus is so rich. Giving rewards takes nothing from Him. He's so generous. And He has such a commitment to deep partnership. I want you to feel the joy I feel over your obedience. And I want to answer you so that you feel what I feel about your life of obedience in a dark and fallen world. Though our acts were very small and they were very weak and little, but He remembers them and He wants to celebrate that love. That's what rewards are about. Rewards express His loving nature. They enhance our deep partnership with Him. Rewards do not take away from the glory of God. They magnify the kind of person He is. So don't be more humble than God and put His rewards aside, imagining you've got a better deal. Really, it's a religious spirit. Just lay that thing down. See, I'm going with what Jesus says. Son of man will reward each single believer for every single reward. Every cup of cold water you get. Wow! You know why? When you obey Him in the smallest way, in your money, in your prayer, your fasting, your serving, your blessing, your enemies, Jesus takes it personally when you do that. He takes it personally. He says, you did it because you loved me. I want to let you see how I feel about the way you loved me. I want every reward He wants to give me. I want to celebrate Him celebrating my love for Him. I go, Lord, my love was so weak. He says, in the grace of God, it moved me. Paragraph F. Which audience do we live before? Do we live before the audience of one, the eyes of Jesus, or do we live before the audience of people? Now, by nature, we live before the audience of people, meaning we're more dedicated when people are watching us. We're more fervent. We're more passionate. We're more generous. We're more consistent when people watch us. When none of the people that can promote us are watching us, just the folks that can't really help us are watching us, so we don't care about them, what their opinion is about our dedication. But if the people that can promote us aren't watching us, our dedication goes down. That's called living before the audience of men. We're born with that tendency, that propensity. We fight it all of our life. Jesus is calling for a shift in the way we carry ourselves, the audience we live before, the applause that we're after. Paragraph G. Paul calls this Ephesians 6, verse 6. He says, don't live with this, with eye service. Now, that's an interesting term. You can read the rest of the verse later. But paragraph H. Eye service means this. Paul says, when you're living with eye service, it means you're more humble. You're more generous. You're more passionate for God, as long as the people that can promote you are watching. When they leave the room, it goes down. Paul said, don't do that. Live before God. I've had, in 35 years of pastoring, I've had this conversation multitudes of times. The guy comes to me and he volunteered to serve. He was imagining that by serving, he would be recognized a little bit. That's a legitimate thing to happen. And things would go better. So he serves, you know, he pours a year in, diligent service. I could give you a hundred examples of this. A hundred years, I mean a year later, he comes. Nobody recognized anything I did. I completely forgotten. It's like I'm invisible around here. And not only am I forgotten, no recognition, I'm actually criticized. I mean, not only did I put a year of service in, I didn't get any affirmation. I lost ground. I have three critics who were not criticizing me before I served. I've heard that, a version of that story, a hundred times. And the guy says, typically, I wasted my time. I go, no, you didn't. I promise you, you didn't. The audience of one saw every single movement of your heart. Jesus, I'm talking about. He remembers it. If you did it, so we would go, wow, you're getting disappointed. Now, I appreciate saying, wow. And I appreciate people appreciating me. Well, in our human makeup, we like that. But if we demand it, we end up bitter and broken. So there's a shift that Jesus is calling here in Matthew 6, in our deeds, in our giving money, in our fasting and prayer, in our passion for God. He says, don't draw any attention to yourself. Shift the way you perceive life in your inner man. Live before his eyes, not before people's eyes. Now, I've made that shift a thousand times. The reason I've made it a thousand times, because 999 times I shifted back to the eyes of man. The Lord gently says, Mike, your liberty is the other way. Oh, yes. Like today, I'm shifting for number 1,000. This is the last time I'm shifting. I'm never going to go back. Next Sunday, I'll shift again. Beloved, this is where the liberty and the power is in our inner man. Look at top of page 3. I want to make one more key principle. Context, and then again, the rest of it is just straightforward. You mostly read on your own, if you want to. Just the five issues, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. They're so straightforward. They don't need much comment. But here's one more very significant principle. We've looked at the warning. Don't draw attention. Don't sound a trumpet. Don't, every time you're in the synagogue, in the gathering, do stuff that makes people notice you and look at you. Wow, aren't you anointed? Aren't you amazing? Aren't you this? We don't want them thinking about you. We want them thinking about Jesus, and that's what you want them thinking about. Not thinking about you, thinking about Jesus. But there's always those three in the room that make sure the whole room knows they're doing it. And I don't think it's horrible if there's just a better way to do it. Again, it's a religious spirit is what it is. So that's point one he makes. Point two, which is the biggest one, my eyes are on you. I repay you generous. Point three, so there's three main points I'm making to contextualize these five kingdom activities. And here's the third point. It's this voluntary weakness, the embracing of voluntary weakness. That's my third point. Point one's the warning. Don't sound a trumpet. Point two, the promise. He's watching and rewards generously. Point three, the principle of voluntary weakness. Paragraph B. 2nd Corinthians 12 verse 9. I'll just give it to you real brief. I have a little book that I wrote with Data Candler called the rewards of fasting where I developed this principle with a lot more detail and it's free on the internet. If you want it, it's an e-book called rewards of fasting or you get in the bookstore as well. Where we take this voluntary weakness and break it down in detail. I'm going to give you the real short version of it. 2nd Corinthians 12 verse 9. Here's the principle. Jesus is speaking to Paul in some supernatural way. It's maybe an open vision or the audible voice of the Lord. We don't know. But Paul's complaining. He's suffering and he's saying, Lord, deliver me from persecution. Then he plays the second time, the thorn in the flesh, persecution. He goes, deliver me from the persecution, which is the thorn in the flesh. I'm convinced that was persecution. It was the sickness. It was persecution. And the Lord, I'm assuming, appears to him and says, Paul, I have a new principle I want you to grasp. Here it is. My grace is sufficient for you because, the word for because, my strength is made perfect in your weakness. Now just quickly, when he says my grace is sufficient, grace has two dimensions. There's the forgiveness dimension of grace and there's the empowering dimension of grace. Jesus was talking about my power is sufficient. He wasn't saying I'm gonna forgive you. He's saying I'm gonna help you not draw back in your diligence, but to stand steady under pressure. He goes, here's the principle, Paul, of why I'm gonna allow the pressure to continue. It's persecution. Because Paul kept going to those regions that persecuted Christianity. I mean, they'd beat him up. He'd walk right back in, preach again, beat him up again. He'd walk to the other city. He knew he was gonna get in trouble when he went there. He kept going. He said, Lord, let me make a deal. I'm gonna keep going no matter what. But what if you just made them all nice to me when I went? Lord says, no, there's actually another principle you don't understand. And this principle applies to these five kingdom activities. Here's the principle. My strength of my power is made perfect. My power, you will experience a full measure of it. That's what it means. When God's power is made perfect, what a phrase. That means we experience the full measure of it that he ordained. Perfected power, the full measure for that period of our life. Says Paul, my power is made perfect. You will experience the full measure of it in this one context, weakness. Now the key word is the word weakness. He's not talking. Jesus is speaking to Paul. He's not talking about moral weakness. He's talking about voluntary weakness, meaning the weakness that Paul experienced because of godly choices. He invested his strength and he put himself in a position of weakness because of godly choices. So he's not telling Paul, my forgiveness is sufficient with your lust problem and weakness. He's not talking about Paul and a lust problem here. Though I appreciate God's power and forgiveness in a lust problem. He's saying you make choices that subject yourself to weakness. But that's not so bad Paul, because in that context my power is more fully experienced by you. That's the new point you don't get Paul. Paul went, wow. So how does this apply? Paragraph C. There's five types of what I call voluntary weakness or five types of fasting that Jesus outlines in Matthew chapter 6. These are all voluntary weakness, meaning these are things we do that subject us voluntarily in the natural to a weaker position. In the natural we are weaker in our natural strengths because of these five activities, but we put ourself in a position to receive more of the perfected power, the fullness of what God ordained for us in that season of our life. Again, if you didn't follow all of that and you're stirred up and you're interested, you can just again go on the on the website, just get the, it's a free e-book called the Rewards of Fasting. Well, there's five different ways we voluntarily subject our natural strengths to weakness. And we receive God's reward or His power in our life externally, internally, and eternally, all three ways. We, and they're all five forms of fasting. We fast food, we fast time, we fast energy, we fast money, we fast words. That's an interesting concept. And we fast these way, these five ways, by those activities. Each form, each one is a form of fasting. For instance, when you give money, say you have X amount of money, when you give it away, your financial strength, you're giving it away, and you're putting yourself in a financially weaker position. And you're giving the money into God's eyes, because His, I mean, it's God's hands. His eyes are on you. You're trusting Him. You've lost control of the money. You sold it. You gave it to a person. You gave it to the church. You gave it to a missions project. You gave it. Now you don't have the thousand dollars. You're a thousand dollars weaker financially. And the Lord says, it's good. I'm watching it. I promise you, I will multiply it back to you. But I'm in my time. So every time you give money, you are fasting your finances, a part of your finances. When you serve, you are giving time that you can't get back. Every time you go to the prayer room, and I've told this to the Lord for years. I've said it less lately, the last decade or two, but in the early years, I complain. I was in my 20s. I go, God, if you would like, let me free from this prayer thing, I could do so much more for you. It takes hours to do this. That's hours I could be networking. That's hours I could be studying. That's hours I could, or preparing a sermon. That's hours I could be ministering to somebody. Set me free. Give me those hours back. And the Lord says, if you sow, the strength caught your time. You let it go. Give it into my hands. I promise you, I will multiply the impact of your productivity beyond anything you could do if you don't do the prayer. It may take you a couple decades to measure it clearly, but I will give you, I will bring many more things to you, and they will stay together when I bring them. I use the analogy of God, of a magnet. It's like God drops the magnet of favor that draws things to you, and then he sustains them by an invisible force, the Holy Spirit. But you can't get that if you use all your time just networking and building your business and building your company. You can't, you won't be as effective. So the Lord says, take your time, sow it. Prayer. I think, oh, what a waste of time. I could have been doing good stuff at that time. The Lord says, wait and see how I return that time back to you. It's a form of fasting. Now, when you fast food, obviously, we get that. But fasting food is not about the pain of the first day or two. Fasting food is about weakness. When I fast food, my mind is foggy, I'm slurry, I wick my murds up when I'm talking. I'm, you know, like, Lord, I can't make my hand out, I can't leave the staff meeting, when I'm preaching, I get all confused. And the Lord says, I mean, I'm sowing my strength when I fast. I'm giving it to God. He says, I will multiply your productivity. You might not measure it in a year, but you'll look back a decade or two later, it will clearly, your productivity will be higher. Now, the tough one is blessing our enemies. I mean, our enemies, they say, you're bad, you're wrong. You want to defend yourself to show how the enemy's bad and the enemy's wrong and you're right. The Lord says, I want you to restrain your words, bless your enemy, don't expose them, actually bless them. Yeah, but if I bless my enemy, then nobody will know he's wrong and I'm right. The Lord says, I promise you, I will sort that out. Far more effective than you, slower than you will, but far more effective than you will. So I want you to fast your words. Don't answer, don't defend, don't fight, bless them and trust me with your words. Like, oh, Lord, you said you would answer. Where are you? The Lord says, well, you've only been blessed that got your enemy for one day. Give me time. I have a bigger plan. Paragraph D. One of the greatest enemies of the fasted lifestyle, the Sermon on the Mount lifestyles, the eight beatitudes, resisting the six temptations, embracing the five kingdom activities, the idea that people think it's radical. I've had people say, well, you know what you're preaching those, I help young people, that radical Christianity. I said, well, what do you mean? You know, prayer, fasting, you know, giving money. I go, that's not radical Christianity. He goes, yeah, it is. I've heard this many times. That is not optional. That's the only kind of Christianity in the Bible. There isn't radical Christianity than normal Christianity. There's biblical Christianity than non-biblical something or other. The guy, I've had this conversation many times, where will I grew up? We never heard that. I go, well, I don't want to comment on that. This is the only type of Christianity the Bible teaches. This is Christianity 101. This isn't Christianity for, you know, the elite soldiers, you know, the special forces in the kingdom. Everybody prays a little bit, fasts a little bit, gives a little bit, serves a little bit, busts their enemies, and we don't do it well, and we sign back up, then we come up short, then we sign back up, we come up short, and we stay with it for decades. That's normal 101 Christianity. It's not possible to live Christianity without endeavoring to walk out these five. Again, when I look back over the years, I've walked them out in a weak way. I'm not, I look back at, oh, I wish I would do all five of them better, but the fact I'm reaching for it is what makes it biblical Christianity in my experience. Beloved, these five things will put you in the pathway to liberate you. These five things, they're not the heavy yoke that oppress you. These five things are the easy yoke that liberates you. The heavy yoke is an oppressed, dull spirit, condemned and dull. That's a heavy yoke. The easy yoke is a vibrant spirit. We yoke ourself to Jesus, and Jesus said, these are my values. Yoke yourself to me, and your inner man will be alive. Many people, they claim grace in the easy yoke, and they have a dead spirit. They're spiritually bored, spiritually dull. They're oppressed. It's, I go, that's not the easy yoke. You've been tricked. That's the heavy yoke you're living under. Yoke yourself to Jesus's values. These five things, plus other things. Well, let's look at these character things. Again, we're done, but I just want to reference them. Romans number four, the deeds. Page four, Romans number five, pray. Just one sentence I want to make about prayer. I'm amazed that God wants me to pray. Why would a person as smart as Jesus, as interesting as Jesus, want to talk to me so much? I'm blown away by this. He puts it in the Bible over and over, and then he promises to reward us greatly. Here's the most fascinating man who knows everything. He wants to talk to me for hours at a time. Like, Jesus, if I was you, I wouldn't really be that interested in talking to me. Why? Because he's so invested in the relationship. It's amazing. The very fact he calls us to prayer is not a heavy yoke. The fact he calls us to prayer is a statement of how interested he is with us. Paragraph six, the blessing of the enemies. And here I give you the verse 544 that Jesus spoke probably two minutes earlier. Where we restrain our words, we fast our words, we don't defend ourself, but rather we bless our enemies with our words and with our deeds. In Roman numeral 7, the call to fast. Verse 16, Jesus said, when you fast. Verse 17, he said, when you fast. He said when, not if, because it's a normal part of New Testament grace of God Christianity. We don't fast to motivate God to love us. I want to say that a thousand times. We fast because it puts us in a position that increases our spiritual capacity to experience him. He doesn't love us more. We just experience more. Amen. Let's stand. I'm going to invite people to come forward that are saying, you do this in your chair, you don't have to come forward to do this. I want to reline myself up to live this lifestyle, this these five kingdom activities. I want it and I want prayer for it because I I need prayer today. And again, you can stay in your chair and make that same designation, that same commitment. But if you would like prayer for this or if you are sick in your body, you want someone to pray for you, come on up as well. If you need prayer for something burdening you and you would just say, hey, I came to the meeting hoping to at least get one person to agree with me. Go ahead and come on up and stand on the front lines first, just so the folks coming behind you. And now I'm going to ask everyone in the room that loves Jesus, which is 99% of you or more. To come and pray for just two people. Take one minute at a time. I want everybody to pray for at least twice. Just come. God gives more when the church prays for the church. Whether you're visiting or you're new here, just come on, pray for two people. Take a minute at a time and the Lord will give more. Lord, we say yes to your word. Lord, we say yes to the kingdom lifestyle. I love your ways, Jesus. Here I am, Jesus. I say yes to your kingdom, to your ways, to your leadership. If you want prayer physically, mention it to the person when they come up to you. Purify my heart. Jesus, we say yes. We love your kingdom. We love your ways.