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(The Rewarder: Matthew 6)

Read Matthew 6. Note any repeated words, ideas, or themes and jot them down.

Are you more likely – when you are not thinking it through – to picture God as a rewarder or a critic?

How might people who hold these two mental pictures of God (rewarder and critic) differ from each other?

Read 2 Chronicles 16:1-9. Do you see any connection between what you read there and Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 6? Explain.

What evidence do you see in Scripture that our motives are important in God’s response to us?

 

Do you agree that God is more concerned with getting people done than with getting things done? What difference might this make in our lives?

 

Why does God not give his reward to us when we do good things for the reward people can give us?

 

Shayne said that ordering our behaviors to win a reward from people is a kind of idolatry. Why might this be so?

 

Why do we fall so easily into doing things “with a view toward being seen by people”? What can we do to change this?

 

Read what the Bible has to say about the God-given “reward.” What insights do these passages provide? (Col. 3:23-24; 1 Cor. 3:12-15; 9:24-25; Matthew 10:41-42; 16:27; 2 Tim. 4:7-8)

 

How would you respond to someone who said that how we live is not the important thing; that the only thing that matters is whether we believe in Jesus?


What immediate benefits are there in choosing to live for God rather than for people’s approval?


Read Matthew 6:18-19. What is the connection between these verses?

How do we store up treasures in heaven?

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