We have been living as if the most important things about us are what we perform before others, and it’s making us miserable and anxious. Jesus tells us that the most important things in life are done in secret, before the Father, who loves us simply because he loves us.
One counterargument to this might go like this: “Yes, but doesn’t Jesus also say, ‘Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven’” (Matthew 5:16)? Yes, he does. Why, then, would he say just a few passages later (in the same sermon!) that we ought to practice our good works in secret? Which is it—practice your life in public to be seen by others, or resist that line of thinking and keep your life secret before God?
On the surface, these two verses seem to contradict each other. Either Jesus forgot what he just said and is confused, or he is misleading us and shouldn’t be trusted. Well, don’t worry—there’s a third option.
When Jesus tells us to practice our lives in secret, he is talking about our virtues—giving to the poor, praying, and fasting; things we might be tempted to perform before others to look impressive. But in Matthew 5:16, when he calls us to shine our works before others in such a way that they’ll see and glorify God, he has just finished unveiling the Beatitudes (vv. 3–12): Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who are meek, those who mourn, those who are persecuted, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, and those who are slandered for Christ’s sake.
You can give to the poor, pray, and fast outwardly, but inwardly the substance of your life can still be based on pretense. You can do all these wonderful acts of virtue and still be a hypocrite. But poverty of spirit, mourning, meekness, joy in suffering, and endurance of slander form substance that is deeper than outward impressiveness. Living this beatitude life will produce a kind of attraction that glorifies God rather than you. In other words, it’s hard to perform the Beatitudes. Jesus isn’t concerned about performative meekness; he’s concerned about performative prayer and performative justice.
But the Beatitudes Jesus describes in Matthew 5:3–12 do not just grow from nowhere. A heart that can rejoice in slander must first learn to resist the praise of others and live in secret with the Father. Jesus lived out this pattern in his own life. In John 2:1–11, after he turned water into wine at the wedding at Cana and performed many great signs, a large crowd began to believe in and follow him (v. 23). But John’s gospel shows us how Jesus responded: “But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people” (v. 24).
We tend to think this verse is primarily about what’s inside a person. And it certainly is about that! The rest of John’s gospel shows the frailty of our beliefs. But it also reveals what’s inside Jesus: He “did not entrust himself to them.” Jesus knew how to practice the principle of Matthew 6, resisting the world’s praise. He entrusted himself to something deeper than man’s approval—a deeper reward, so to speak. It’s almost as if Jesus is singing Psalm 102 to himself: “They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment . . . You are the same, and your years have no end” (vv. 26–27).
If you consider the end of John’s gospel when the praises of man were no more and the people cried, “Crucify him!” and wanted to exchange his life for that of Barabbas, Jesus could quietly embrace the cross because his life never depended on the praise of others. And so when Jesus calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him (Matthew 16:24), this pattern of not entrusting ourselves to others must be deep within us.
Do you see? Jesus had a heart that could endure the cross and be slandered for righteousness’ sake because his heart was hidden in secret with the Father who loved him. The heart that takes these small crucifying steps of learning how to resist praise from others can be formed into a heart that follows Christ—even (or especially) when it costs us deeply.
I want to emphasize that these are small crucifying steps. The work of unwinding our hearts is difficult and slow. It’s remarkable that in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus doesn’t instruct us toward grand or famous acts of faith and courage, just ordinary spiritual obedience done in a hidden way. But even so, practicing these ordinary things—these small crucifying steps—in a hidden, intentional way has a transformative effect.
—John Starke, The Secret Place of Thunder: Trading Our Need to Be Noticed for a Hidden Life with Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2023). Available from Christian Book, Logos, and everywhere else books are sold.
