Following Jesus: Focus On The Message – Matthew 6

Contents

1 Description
2 Purpose
3 Matthew 6
4 Resource Lists (for your convenience)
- - 4.0.1 Has This Material Been Helpful To You?
5 Acknowledgements
6 Advance to Matthew 7

Description

Welcome to Focus On The Message – the first component of our Following Jesus discipleship program. This web page contains the lessons for:

Matthew 6

Purpose

Follow this link for information about these key aspects of our training: Purpose, Goals, Habits, Ministries, and Assignments.

Matthew 6

This chapter has 5. lessons. You should ideally cover one chapter (with all of its lessons) in a week, but please don’t let a week go by without completing at least one lesson.

Lesson 1: Acts of Righteousness: Giving to the Needy

Main text and related passages:

Acts of Righteousness – Matthew 6:1 – Matthew 6 (Bible Hub)
- The Jews of Jesus’ day acknowledged 3 key “acts of righteousness”: giving, prayer, and fasting. Jesus begins this teaching by explaining that these are not to be done for show.
Giving to the Needy – Matthew 6:1, 2-4

Checkout the following:

Bible Project: Sermon on the Mount – Warnings About Religious Practices (00:06:43)
Watch: Generosity Biblical Theme Video | BibleProject™
Video from from Life Church Discipleship Resources – YouTube
- Explained | Racial Wealth Gap | FULL EPISODE | Netflix – YouTube
  (some brief profanity at 04:10 – 04:22 in the video)

Topics to explore:

Who are the needy in your community? What kind of help do they need?
What factors affect who becomes needy? How else can we help the needy in addition to giving?

Additional resources to check out:

Matthew for Everyone, Part 1 (The New Testament for Everyone) by Tom Wright – Amazon.com
Video from from Life Church Discipleship Resources – YouTube
- Explained | Racial Wealth Gap | FULL EPISODE | Netflix – YouTube
  (some brief profanity at 04:10 – 04:22 in the video)
- Opinion | It’s Time to Dismantle America’s Residential Caste System – POLITICO
Read the main passage and related passages above.

Training assignment (do this yourself, and use it to help train someone else):

Read the main passage and related passages above.

Lesson 2: Acts of Righteousness: Prayer

Main text and related passages:

Acts of Righteousness – Matthew 6:1 – Matthew 6 (Bible Hub)
- The Jews of Jesus’ day acknowledged 3 key “acts of righteousness”: giving, prayer, and fasting. Jesus begins this teaching by explaining that these are not to be done for show.
Prayer – Matthew 6:1,5-15 – Matthew 6 (Bible Hub)
- Matthew 6:5-8 – Prayer: The Right Approach
  - Pray simply so that others can simply pray!
    - Church life subjects you to subtle and not so subtle pressure to pray in ways that result in recognition and affirmation. If you don’t deal with this pressure, you will eventually find yourself praying fancy, religious prayers in church settings.
    - When your prayers are “fancy” new believers who hear you will be inclined to think of public prayer as something that they could never do. This is actually bad for the Kingdom.
    - When you pray publicly, pray simply so that new believers listening to you will think: “I can do that!”
- Matthew 6:9-13 – Prayer: The Right Pattern
  - This passage contains a section popularly known as “The Lord’s Prayer” which is often used as a rote prayer in public and private meetings. We should instead view this as a template:
- “Our Father in heaven”
  - What this teaches us:
    - Jesus is teaching us (his followers) that God is our Father and has his headquarters in heaven. Note – the underlying text actually refers to “Our Father in the heavens”. This means the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd heaven.
    - We should approach God the way children in healthy families approach their father expecting him to care about them and to have their best interests at heart.
  - What we should do with it:
    - Pray to the Father.
    - Pray in Jesus’ name (John 16:19-24).
- “Hallowed be your name”
  - What this teaches us:
    - This phrase gets us started with an attitude of reverence and worship towards the Father!
    - Hallowed is just an older English word for holy which means “set apart”. For many people this will bring to mind the various dress and behavior rules found in holiness churches, but there is a better way to understand the fundamental meaning of this word. We have items in our home that are “set apart” or “holy”: your toothbrush, your silverware, your underwear. In hospitals, surgical instruments are “set apart” or “holy”: scalpel, forceps, etc. In the Bible, the implication is that items that are “holy” are set apart for God’s use. When we say that God’s name is “holy” we are making a commitment to treat his name (which represents his person and nature) with great respect rather than treating it as a common thing. We don’t “take his name in vain” by associating it with statements that he has not actually authorized.
    - Watch: Holiness Biblical Theme Video | BibleProject™
    - Take some time to worship and appreciate the Father before you move on to making requests! You may want to use other passages from the Bible (especially the Psalms) to develop language that expresses your love, appreciation, and gratitude to the Father.
  - What we should do with it:
    - Be reverent and respectful in how we handle God’s name!
    - Begin your times of prayer with praise and thanksgiving:
      - Praise God for who he is. Build a list of God’s attributes as you discover them in the Bible. Use this during your times of praise and thanksgiving.
      - Thank God for what he has done. Build a list of what God has done both from your Bible reading and from your personal experiences. Us