Three:16 Church Podcast

"Kingdom Practices" Part 4 of "The Greatest Sermon of All Time" Pastor Doug McIntosh

·50 min·4 clips
In a visibility-driven culture, are we measuring kingdom impact or just likes and followers?
The episode is a sermon from Three:16 Church, part of a series called 'The Greatest Sermon of All Time' exploring Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Pastor Doug McIntosh, the student ministry pastor, opens with Matthew 6:1, warning against practicing righteousness for show. He frames the sermon around moving from external legalism to internal righteousness, emphasizing that God cares more about the heart than outward actions. The pastor connects ancient hypocrisy to modern Christianity, critiquing a culture built on visibility through platforms like Instagram, where likes and followers often replace kingdom impact. He then delves into three kingdom practices: giving, praying, and fasting. For giving, he explains Jesus' teaching in Matthew 6:2-4, highlighting how hypocrites gave to be seen, while true giving should be secret to honor God. He offers practical applications like giving anonymously and supporting the local church. For praying, he discusses Matthew 6:5-8, where Jesus criticizes public prayer for recognition and advocates for private prayer. The pastor analyzes the Lord's Prayer as a model for relationship with God, focusing on worship, surrender, and daily dependence. For fasting, he covers Matthew 6:16-18, explaining how hypocrites disfigured their faces to show fasting, while true fasting should be private. He defines fasting as withholding physical needs to strengthen the spirit and shares a personal story about screen time to illustrate how fasting reveals idols like technology. The sermon concludes by emphasizing that these practices are not for earning righteousness but flowing from it, based on Jesus' perfect life and sacrifice. A salvation call and prayer invitation wrap up the message, urging listeners to implement these practices privately.

As heard by us

A direct Matthew 6 sermon on prayer, private righteousness, and faith beyond Sunday.

Matthew 6:1 gives this sermon its main tension: religious devotion can lose its reward when it turns into performance. The teaching then moves into prayer, setting a transactional Amazon delivery or customer-service attitude against a relationship with God, who knows both what…

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Why you'd press play

When prayer starts feeling like an Amazon order, you may need this sermon.

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