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Seen by Men or Seen by the Father: Fasting Without Hypocrisy (Matthew 6:16–18) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed Thinking, the deep dive into the substance
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  of obedience and devotion. Today we're getting into
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  attention that I think really stands at the heart of Christian
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  practice. It's that pressure to turn what
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  should be sincere piety into, well, a public performance.
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  Our source material calls it a kind of religious branding,
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  which feels very modern, but the problem is ancient.
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  It's completely inescapable, isn't it?
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  I mean, it goes right back to the fundamental question of who
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  we're trying to please. So our mission today is a a
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  really rigorous look at Matthew chapter 6, verses 16 to 18.
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  This section comes right after Jesus teaching on giving and
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  prayer. So it completes this little
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  sequence on essential religious duties.
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  And what's fascinating is that Christ doesn't question the
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  practice itself. He just assumes his disciples
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  will fast. The whole focus is on preventing
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  that discipline from becoming a show.
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  So the question is all about the audience.
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  It's all about the audience. Are you playing to the crowd, to
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  people who you know can't save you?
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  Or are you living your life before the Father who already
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  knows you and in Christ already accepts you completely?
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  And the placement of this in the Sermon on the Mount is so
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  critical. It's not just a random moral
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  teaching. No, it's entirely dilemma.
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  The the thread that ties giving prayer and fasting together is
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  that opening warning in Matthew 6 verse one.
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  Beware of practicing your righteousness before men in
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  order to be seen by them. Jesus is isolating a single
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  spiritual sickness here, the corruption of our motivation.
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  Every good act, every spiritual discipline can be infected by
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  this desire to use devotion to feed our own vanity.
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  He's calling out the spiritual actor.
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  OK, let's unpack that right away.
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  We have to start there with that central conflict, because it
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  really requires us to define our terms carefully.
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  The source material points out that the Greek word for
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  hypocrite is hypocrites, literally an actor in a mask.
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  We tend to think of a hypocrite as someone who just lies about
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  their standards. But what Jesus means when he
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  forbids doing things to be seen? It feels like a much deeper,
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  more internal problem than just lying.
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  It is much deeper. The diagnosis Christ gives is
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  it's precise. It's surgical.
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  Hypocrisy in this context isn't blatant unbelief or, you know,
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  obvious immorality. It's the really sophisticated
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  sin of turning God ordained devotion into a tool for self
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  promotion. It's taking duties that should
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  point up to God and bending them sideways toward the crowd.
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  You use holy acts to satisfy an unholy pride.
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  And these aren't outsiders. He's talking to you.
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  Not at all. These are professing
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  worshippers. They've figured out how to use
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  external piety, the visible parts of religion, as a kind of
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  social or spiritual currency. They're investing their
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  obedience, hoping for a return and reputation.
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  That makes perfect sense for giving our public prayer, where
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  the action is visible. But fasting is by its nature a
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  private discipline. It's an internal, physical
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  thing. Why does Jesus pick fasting to
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  make this point so sharply? Well, I think fasting is the
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  ultimate test case for motive precisely because it's naturally
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  hidden. Nobody has to know you're
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  skipping a meal. So it becomes this, this really
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  sharp test of whether your piety is truly God word or if it's
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  just man word. If you have to go to the effort
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  of making a hidden discipline visible, your motives is laid
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  bare. We see that self advertising
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  spirit. So clearly in the Pharisees
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  prayer in Luke 18 where he boasts I fast twice a week.
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  He's just reading his spiritual resume out loud.
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  He's taking his claim on his own self denial, not on God's mercy.
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  Exactly, and Christ is targeting that precise spirit, the
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  determination to make sure your spiritual struggle is seen so
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  that you can get the applause, the admiration for yourself.
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  Control. I feel like I have to jump in
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  here with a point of tension though.
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  How do we square this command in Matthew 6 to do your
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  righteousness in secret with what Jesus said just one chapter
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  before in Matthew 5.16? He says let your light shine
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  before others so that they may see your good works and give
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  glory to your Father who is in heaven.
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  Sounds like a contradiction. Be visible but hide your
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  devotion. What separates the lamp from the
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  mirror? That is the right place to push
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  because the whole distinction comes down to your intention and
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  the direction of the glory. Jesus isn't giving contradictory
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  commands. He's clarifying the orientation
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  of the heart. In Matthew 5.
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  Your visible obedience is supposed to be a lamp.
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  When you live rightly, your actions should point away from
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  you, guiding everyone's attention up to the Father.
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  The goal is that they see the good work and the praise goes to
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  the source of that goodness. Right, that's the gospel
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  orientation. But Matthew 6 flips the script.
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  Here, the publicized devotion becomes a mirror.
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  It points back to the disciple, reflecting all the praise and
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  admiration onto the self. The difference is the Let's call
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  it the gravitational pull of the motive.
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  Jesus isn't forbidding corporate worship or even someone
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  happening to notice your obedience.
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  He's condemning the intention to be noticed, to be admired.
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  This passage, at its core, is a direct strike against the fear
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  of man. So visibility might happen, but
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  it's the craving for visibility that's the real sin.
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  It's the heart saying I want to use my righteousness as a
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  pedestal for my own reputation. That's it.
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  If you feel deeply disappointed when your act of service goes
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  unnoticed, that little feeling of disappointment reveals the
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  true audience you were serving all along.
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  OK, so before we get into the verses themselves, we really
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  need to clarify some of these keywords, fasting, secret, and
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  especially reward because these terms can be easily
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  misunderstood today. Yes, that clarity is crucial.
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  So first, fasting. In the Bible, fasting is a
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  voluntary of staining, usually from food, for a specific
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  spiritual purpose. That purpose could be humbling
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  yourself, or maybe intensifying a season of prayer or expressing
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  deep repentance. It's the body's way of saying,
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  Lord, you are more necessary to me than bread.
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  And just to be clear, for a modern listener, it's not a diet
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  plan. Absolutely not, and it's not a
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  trick to manipulate God into giving you what you want.
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  It's not a spiritual hack, and it can become completely empty
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  if the heart's not in it. Isaiah 58 and Zechariah 7 both
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  rebuke the people for fasting while their hearts are far from
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  God. An empty stomach means nothing
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  if the spirit is arrogant. Now let's go back to hypocrisy.
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  You mentioned the actor in verse 16.
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  Jesus says they disfigure their faces.
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  What would that have looked like to someone listening then?
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  That image would have been very vivid.
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  The hypocrite is posturing. In that culture, public mourning
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  involved things like wearing sackcloth, putting dust on your
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  head, showing distress. So the hypocrites when they were
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  fasting, would deliberately neglect their grooming.
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  They might put ash on themselves, not wash their face,
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  maybe even contort their features to look miserable and
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  gaunt. It wasn't real repentance.
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  It was a stage performance designed to advertise their
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  piety. They were curating deprivation.
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  Perfectly said they were curating it.
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  So if that's the sin of being seen, what's the command when
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  Jesus says to anoint your head and wash your face and do it all
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  in secret? This is the remedy.
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  The phrase in secret defines the environment.
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  You need a place where the human audience is just completely
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  removed. That forces your heart's true
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  aim to come to the surface. If the duty is only worth doing
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  when someone is watching, then your real loyalty is to the
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  crowd. Secrecy is a protective
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  discipline and the positive command a night your head and
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  wash your face. This is a command for normalcy.
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  Right, oil and washing were just basic grooming.
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  They were signs of ordinary, healthy daily life.
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  You did that when you were not mourning or fasting.
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  Jesus is essentially saying when you fast, blend in, look normal,
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  refuse to wear the public badge of deprivation.
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  He's shutting down the spiritual theatre.
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  That's a cultural detail we can easily miss.
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  It's not just don't look sad, it's look exactly like you do on
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  any other day. Correct.
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  It means you actively work to hide the physical signs of the
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  discipline. And the reason is to keep the
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  heart honest. We have to remember this.
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  Yeah, you can be starving your stomach while at the same time
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  you are feeding your ego. Let's move to the last term, and
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  it's probably the most sobering. The reward, the last phrase,
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  verse 16 is just devastating. Truly.
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  I say to you, they have received their reward.
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  What are they getting in return for all this effort?
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  Well, we have to see that Jesus talks about two very different
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  rewards. The hypocrites reward in verse
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  16 uses a commercial Greek word epishoozen.
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  You'd find this term on a receipt.
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  It means paid in full. The transaction is complete.
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  The hypocrite shows their payment, the temporary applause
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  of other people. They traded their devotion for
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  praise and they got their payment in full.
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  And the verdict is just so final because they asked for something
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  so small and worthless, and in getting it, they forfeited
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  everything that actually matters.
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  The account is closed. That's a terrifying picture of a
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  bad spiritual investment. It is.
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  In contrast, the believer's reward in verse 18 is completely
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  different. It's not commercial.
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  It's fatherly and gracious. It's not a wage you earn by
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  merit. It flows from God's delight in
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  the sincere obedience of his children.
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  It's not the basis of our acceptance.
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  Christ is, but it's the beautiful result of our
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  relationship with Him. And this all comes back to that
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  central figure, your father. That covenant family language
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  changes everything. Jesus is speaking to his
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  disciples as sons and daughters, living under the gaze of the God
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  who has adopted them and knows them.
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  This is both a serious warning to the performer and a huge
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  comfort to the sincere disciple. OK, with those definitions in
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  place, let's walk through the verses themselves, tracking how
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  Jesus moves from diagnosis to command and then to promise.
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  Verse 16 starts with a simple assumption.
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  Right, it starts with when you fast.
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  This confirms fasting is a legitimate thing for a follower
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  of Christ to do. But the subject immediately
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  pivots, pivots to motive. The condemnation is swift.
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  Do not look gloomy. Like the hypocrites.
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  They're staging sorrow for applause, not actually feeling
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  repentance. That gloomy face is an
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  advertisement. The text even says their
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  motivation is that they may be seen by others.
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  And the consequence, as we said, is final.
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  Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
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  The word truly a minona just underlines the finality.
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  They got their reputation and that's it.
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  Then verse 17 gives us the pivot.
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  But you when you fast. If we have to admit that our
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  motives are always mixed, what does it actually look like to
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  fast sincerely? Well, Christ doesn't command
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  perfect motives. He commands the refusal of
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  performance, and his remedy is so practical.
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  Anoint your head and wash your face.
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  It's a command to be ordinary. We have to understand that
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  Christ is protecting our inner life here.
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  He knows how poisonous human praise can be.
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  A key point is that our desire for human praise is so strong
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  that we almost have to hide our devotion from ourselves to keep
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  from turning it into a boast. The external command to look
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  normal is there to guard our internal motive.
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  So secrecy is a tool for humility, not really a virtue in
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  and of itself. Precisely.
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  You can get so caught up in the physical feeling of hunger that
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  you miss the subtle inflation of your pride.
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  The empty stomach leads to a swollen ego.
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  But the secrecy, the intentional normalcy, it starves that ego.
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  And verse 18 wraps it all up by stating the ultimate purpose.
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  The goal is a total change of audience.
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  The goal is right there so that you may not be seen by others,
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  but by your Father who is in secret.
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  This is about dethroning the human audience and enthroning
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  God. And the fact that the Father
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  sees in secret works on 2 levels.
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  For the spiritual performer, it's terrifying.
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  Your mask is useless before the God who sees your heart.
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  But for the disciple who is genuinely trying, even with
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  mixed motives, that has to be the greatest comfort imaginable.
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  It is the ultimate comfort That hidden place is not empty.
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  You're quiet, messy, often interrupted.
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  Obedience, when it's offered sincerely, is not wasted.
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  The Father sees it, and this reality is cemented by the
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  promise. And your Father, who sees in
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  secret, will reward you. And we have to keep saying this
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  is a gracious covenantal reward. It's not earned, it's given.
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  It's the privilege of being a child of God.
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  The moment you realize that even something as good as fasting can
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  be polluted by this craving for approval, you're left just
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  staring at the state of your own heart.
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  It has to drive you to ask where does a Sinner find a
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  righteousness that is actually pure?
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  It forces you into that spiritual corner.
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  Matthew 6 is a mirror, and it shows us that our core sickness
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  is that we hunger to be noticed even more than we hunger for
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  God. And if our best works are
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  poisoned at the root, then salvation can't depend on our
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  performance. And Christ is the perfect answer
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  to the hypocrisy he condemns. He's not just the teacher.
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  He's the perfect Son whose whole life was lived before his Father
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  with 0 pretense. Think about his own fast in the
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  wilderness. It wasn't a public stunt.
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  It was quiet spiritual warfare and total dependence on the word
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  of God where we twist devotion into vanity.
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  His was perfectly holy. That truth changes how you read
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  the command. It's not just a call to try
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  harder to be sincere, because then we just start boasting
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  about how sincere we. Are you're exactly right.
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  We'd be trying to achieve the impossible, a pure motive.
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  But the gospel steps in. God accepts us not because our
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  secret life is finally impressive, but because Christ's
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  life was perfect and his death was substitutionary.
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  The cross is where the actor's mask gets ripped away.
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  The constant repetition of your father is so important here,
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  especially from a reformed perspective.
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  What changes when we approach disciplines like this as adopted
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  children? The doctrine of adoption is the
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  guardrail against legalism. Reformed theology, following the
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  Westminster standards, insists on the proper order.
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  Justification comes first, then sanctification.
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  We fast under God's smile because we're already accepted
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  in Christ. Our efforts don't purchase His
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  favor. They are practiced from a
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  position of secure favor. And that clarifies the nature of
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  the reward. It does.
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  The Westminster Confession says that God is pleased to reward
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  the good works of believers. But this reward is never a debt.
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  It's God's free, fatherly pleasure.
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  He is, in a sense, crowning his own grace at work in his child's
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  life. So if my obedience is only
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  accepted because it's united to Christ's, then the Father is
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  really rewarding His Son's perfection being worked out in
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  my weak, fumbling efforts. That is the essential insight.
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  It takes all the pressure of performance off.
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  Fasting becomes a confession of need.
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  Lord, I am weak. Feed me with yourself instead of
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  a negotiation. I'll do this if you do that.
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  And this protects us from two big errors.
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  It saves us from legalism, which measures our worth by our self
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  denial. And it saves us from
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  antinomianism, the idea that since we're saved by grace,
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  disciplines don't matter. Grace purifies the motive, it
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  doesn't get rid of the duty. What's so amazing about this
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  passage is how relevant it is. The rude idol, that craving to
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  be seen. It's timeless.
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  Let's talk about some of the errors, both old and new, that
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  Jesus corrects here. First, this is just a complete
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  takedown of legalism and merit thinking.
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  The legalist sees fasting as an item on a spiritual Ledger.
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  Christ's response is just brutal honesty.
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  If you're doing it to earn, the applause you get is the only
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  payment you'll ever receive. Second, it challenges prosperity
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  religion. That's the error that treats
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  fasting as a lever to pull to get what you want.
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  Healing, promotion, whatever. Jesus is concerned with your
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  allegiance, not giving you a technique to get leverage over
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  God. And the modern parallel to the
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  hypocrite's disfigured face is just impossible to miss in our
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  world. I'm talking about virtue
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  signaling. Oh, absolutely.
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  The impulse is identical. The hypocrite used his face to
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  broadcast hardship. Today, that's done with a
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  curated Instagram post or a strategically humble tweet.
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  The command to be in secret is a profound mercy.
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  It's designed to starve the ego that's constantly asking, did
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  they notice me? Did they see my good deed?
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  If you do something kind and your first thought is how to
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  post about it, you're tasting that hypocrite's wage.
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  It also seems to correct a kind of ascetic extremism, doesn't
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  it? It does the command to wash your
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  face refutes the idea that holiness is proven by how
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  miserable you look. Godliness is not about visible
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  self punishment, it's about sincere love for God when no one
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  is watching. So for you listening, how do we
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  apply this? Let's use a head, heart, hands
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  framework. OK, so in the head belief you
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  have to truly believe that your life is not an audition.
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  Your status as a child of God is secure in Christ.
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  This truth dismantles both pride, which says my discipline
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  makes me impressive, and despair, which says my weakness
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  is too much. And then in the heart,
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  repentance. This is where we have to
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  confront that desire for praise. This is the hard part.
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  You have to name the idol, the love of human praise.
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  Ask yourself honestly, when I do something good, do I feel a
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  little bit of disappointment? If no one notices that
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  disappointment is a sign your desire was pointed at the wrong
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  audience. And when you see those mixed
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  motives and you will, don't run from Christ and shame, run to
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  Him in confession. Finally, in the hands practice,
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  How do we actually do this? If you fast, do it with a
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  purpose. Connect it to a specific prayer
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  burden or a search for wisdom. Let the hunger be a reminder to
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  pray, not a billboard for your piety.
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  And keep the wash your face principle.
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  Be normal, don't advertise, and of course, be prudent.
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  This isn't about harming your health.
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  God is honored by sincerity, not by severity.
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  We have to be careful not to become proud of our secrecy
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  either. That's just another costume.
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  What a clarifying passage. It presents us with two
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  paychecks, the shallow, fleeting applause of the crowd, or the
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  enduring, gracious pleasure of the Father.
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  And it's just a terrible bargain to trade the Father's smile for
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  a moment of human clapping. You can stop auditioning.
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  You are already known and fully loved in Christ.
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  The command to do things in secret actually becomes freedom,
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  because you no longer need to impress the one who matters
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  most. The source material we looked at
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  points out that this whole question of your audience in
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  verses 16 to 18 flows right into the question of your treasure in
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  the verses that follow. So if you think about this week,
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  consider this, how does living for the Father secret gaze
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  reorient where you store your treasure and what you worry
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  about? Think about how freedom from
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  performance leads directly to freedom from anxiety.
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  Thank you for joining this deep dive.
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  We look forward to having you with us next time on the Deep
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  Dive.