One of the things that has accompanied the rise of the internet and our online connections via social media is an ever-increasing angst over social comparisons – something that has been ringing alarm bells for mental health professionals. The other side of that tends to be the phenomena of “virtue signaling”; expressing opinions or making posts that intimate that a person is deeply concerned and doing something about whatever the latest problem or injustice happens to be (which usually involves posting something or changing a profile picture). Not every accusation of virtue signaling is correct – but there is a very real temptation to try and look a certain way in how we present ourselves online.

Of course, this sort of posery isn’t limited to social media – it saturates politics and workplaces and is present even in family dynamics – but one place that always has a bumper-crop of people trying to look better than they really are is in the realm of religion and the church.

Jesus is going to deal with religious posing in the text we’ll be reading this Sunday as we continue our study in Matthew. We’ll be reading Matt 6:1-18.

Jesus addresses three areas of spiritual devotion and highlights the temptations we face when setting out to put them into practice. He’ll talk about giving, fasting and praying. We’ll sort of jumble up the text on Sunday so as to keep all the themes together (making it easier for a simple-minded teacher to work his way through).

If you were to summarize Jesus’ warnings about giving, fasting and praying , what would you write? Who is supposed to be our primary concern when it comes to these acts of devotion? Why do you think we are so tempted to put the focus somewhere else?

When we look at how Jesus taught us to pray – who are we addressing our prayers to? What title does Jesus give to God? How might we read that differently from God’s other titles, such as Lord or King? How might our trust in a loving, parental Creator help curb our desire for human approval?

There’s a lot we’ll be unpacking in this section – I hope you can join us this Sunday at 10 AM as we dig into the center of the center of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount!

Click here for a pdf of the teaching slideshow.