Made4Good
What does it really mean to do good works? Are they just random acts of kindness, or is there something deeper—something God designed us for?
Join hosts Josh Hudson and Mark Ogles each week as they dive into what the Bible says about good works, drawing from Scripture and insights from their book, Made4Good: A Good Works Study. With engaging conversation, practical takeaways, and a touch of humor, Josh and Mark explore how we are created, redeemed, and equipped to serve for God’s glory.
From Ephesians 2:10 to Matthew 5:16, they unpack how good works aren’t about earning salvation—but living out the faith we’ve been given. Expect thought-provoking discussions, real-life applications, and encouragement to step boldly into the purpose God has prepared for you.
Whether you're looking for inspiration, biblical wisdom, or just a reminder that your labor in the Lord is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58)—this podcast is for you.
So grab a cup of coffee, open your Bible, and join us as we discover what it means to be Made4Good.
Made4Good
To Be or Not To Be (Seen of Men): Balancing Service and Humility
The age-old tension between shining our light and remaining humble sits at the heart of authentic Christian service. How do we navigate Jesus's seemingly contradictory instructions to let others see our good works while also keeping our charitable deeds secret?
This episode delves deep into the motivation behind our actions, exploring the critical difference between doing good works that glorify God versus those that seek personal recognition. Through a careful examination of Matthew 5:16 and Matthew 6:3-4, we unpack what appears to be contradictory guidance but reveals a profound truth about the heart of service.
We contrast two powerful biblical examples: Barnabas, who sold property and gave generously with pure motives, and Ananias and Sapphira, whose deceptive giving revealed their hunger for recognition rather than genuine generosity. These contrasting stories illuminate how seriously God takes our motivations, reminding us that true service flows from a genuine desire to honor God rather than impress others.
The reality check segment prompts honest self-examination: Are we disappointed when our good deeds go unnoticed? Do we feel compelled to share our charitable actions on social media? Have we mastered the art of the "humble brag"? These questions help us uncover whether we're truly serving for God's glory or our own.
This week's mission challenge invites you to practice anonymous service by doing something good where the recipient cannot possibly know it was you. When you do receive recognition, we offer practical guidance on how to graciously accept thanks while redirecting glory to God. Ultimately, this episode reminds us that we were created to reflect God's goodness through authentic, humble service that seeks His approval rather than human praise.
Welcome to Made for Good, the podcast where we explore how to live out our purpose through good works, guided by biblical truth. Hey, I'm Josh.
Speaker 2:And I'm Mark. Today we're talking about an important balance in our faith doing good works while maintaining humility. Jesus calls us to serve and shine his light, but he also warns against seeking recognition for our good deeds. So how do we make sure we're doing good for the right reasons? That's what we'll explore today.
Speaker 1:To be or not to be, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:What are you?
Speaker 1:interrupting. Is this your Shakespeare podcast? No that comes out later. I'm sure that has a lot of subscribers, oh well thanks, but let me finish.
Speaker 2:To be or not to be seen of a man that's really what we're talking about the motivation. Why are we doing what we're doing? Why are we doing good? So people struggle with wanting recognition all the time, and whether it's a small child wanting the recognition and the affirmation and the praise from their parent, or, in the workplace, people wanting doing things to be seen by the boss, it's natural, and we want to feel appreciated, we want to feel valued. But when that becomes the reason that we do good works, we are shifting the focus away from God which should be our purpose we're going to talk about in a moment and onto ourselves. So the warning in Matthew 6, verse 1, is this Jesus says Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father, who is in heaven. It's not that the good works should always be hidden, but here's what's key the motivation matters. So today we'll talk about how to ensure that our actions always glorify God rather than ourselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're going to be looking at Matthew 5 and Matthew 6, which is really the transition right into our Bible basis. And, to be clear, the Bible is clear that our good works should be done for God's glory, not for personal recognition. So look at these verses with us. We're going to start in Matthew 5. This is verse 16. And we've mentioned this on a previous episode, but the Bible says this let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father, who is in heaven.
Speaker 2:So this is very clear to me that the motivation should be glory to God, right, but there's also an implied fact here, and that is they could be seen by other people. In fact, how will a person who's either the recipient or maybe even a third party, somebody who observed something happen, some good thing happened, one person did a good work for another person. How can they give glory to God if they don't see it? See that it happened, and we'll talk about a little bit more in a moment how they may show that glory or give that glory to God.
Speaker 1:Well, but flip your Bible over to another page, to Matthew 6, and look at verses 3 and 4, where it says something different. But when you give to the needy, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret and your father, who sees in secret, and your father, who sees in secret, will reward you.
Speaker 2:So it also, I think, depends on what you're doing right. So in this particular passage it's talking about giving.
Speaker 2:It doesn't say, if you give to the needy it says when and in all this, when you give your all, it's when you do this. So the implication here is that you should be doing these things, and maybe giving, particularly financial giving, really should be done in secret. But there are other acts of goodness that we can do. They're going to be known, they could be seen. Now, this seems like a contradiction, so which is it? Should our good works be seen or should they be hidden? The answer really depends on what's in our heart, what's our motivation, and to a certain degree, it matters what is in the heart of the observer as well. Are they going to impugn the wrong motivation? Well, look at them. They're just doing that to be seen. Maybe, possibly, but maybe not.
Speaker 2:So really, both people the doer and the observer need to check themselves and make sure that their heart, their heart, is focused on giving God the glory. So if our actions are supposed to point people to God, to give God the glory, then you know what they need to be seen. That's right. They need to be seen by other people, not so that it can be reflected back on us, but that the glory is given to God. Now I think that this risk of interpretation may cause a lot of us, josh, to just choose to not do the good deed that we know we need to do, and so I believe that the key here is to do it anyway. The key here is to do it anyway. Again, if your motives are pure, I really want to do this for them. They really need it, but I'm worried about what someone else may think you need to do it anyway.
Speaker 1:There was a time where Jesus rebuked some Pharisees and I think it's helpful in this conversation. In John 5, 44, he said how can you believe when you receive glory for one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? Our goal should never be to impress people, but to serve and honor God.
Speaker 2:You know, when you look at that verse a little more closely, I want to go back to it he's tying their ability to have faith in God with their ability to give glory to God. Yeah, and so if you're only looking to give glory to yourself, then it could really impact your faith yourself. And so he says how can you believe? You're not even in the right mindset to believe because you're focused on receiving glory just from one another and not glory from God. So if you get your mind focused on God, then your belief can happen the way it needs to happen and your deeds can be done with the right motivation. What I want to do in our mission profile today is to explore two examples one with the right motivation and one the absolute wrong motivation. So the first one we're going to look at is Barnabas. So in Acts 4, we see the story of Barnabas. There are people, lots of brand new Christians, in Jerusalem. They obviously have needs. A lot of them are from out of town, so they're hanging out after they become Christians and they're meeting together. They have needs, they have to eat, they have a place to stay. That required funds. It required money and, as far as the Bible says, nobody told Barnabas to go sell some property and give it to the church. He chose to do that. He gave freely, without seeking any attention, because I guarantee you, if he was seeking it, if he was doing it to seek attention, he would have had the same result as our next example, and that's Ananias and Sapphira. It happened, these two things happened, one right after the other. Ananias and Sapphira also got hey look, do you think that Barnabas got some recognition? Probably because Ananias and Sapphira wanted that recognition that Barnabas got.
Speaker 2:Now, barnabas didn't do it for the recognition, but he may have gotten the recognition. His motivation was pure, but he probably got some recognition. And when he got that recognition, ananias and Sapphira said Ooh man, let's go do that. And Ananas and Safar said ooh man, let's go do that. Let's make sure that we don't give all of what we give, but let's give the impression that we sold the land for such and such, and then we'll keep back a little bit for ourselves. So, look, not only do we get the recognition, we get the cash, and that's in Acts 5. And so these two examples are directly opposite. They're next door to each other in the Bible, but they're directly opposite, and I think the message is to be taken together the motivation behind doing good.
Speaker 1:And these two examples you've highlighted motivation, and one of the ways to check our motivation is to ask would I still do this if no one knew about it? And if the answer is yes, then it's probably for the right reason.
Speaker 2:Hey, that's a great point, josh. You know that reminds me of a passage in Hebrews 10, verse 24 and 25. It says Hebrews 10, verse 24 and 25. It says let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works. We can just stop right there, but I'll finish the rest of verse, not neglecting to meet together, as the habit of some, but encouraging one another. That's the purpose of the love and good works is to encourage one another, and meeting together is one way to do that.
Speaker 2:No-transcript, to stir one another up to love and good works. I don't know, can I stir you without you knowing what it is that I'm trying to get you to do? Possibly, but probably not. You need to know. If we're going to go cut one of the widow's yards, you're going to know about it because you're going to be a part of it. I'm stirring you up.
Speaker 2:There's an implied communication about the good work. So as soon as another person knows about it, or maybe two or three or four, depending on how many you get together, then it's not in the scenario of not letting your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Now. That group can still brag about it. Right? That group can still brag about it. Right, they could post on social media or whatever that we did this or did that. But the purpose here is to encourage others to do good works. That's very important. But we got to make sure that we're doing it for God's glory and not for personal praise or even, in this case, group praise, not for personal praise, or even in this case, group praise.
Speaker 1:All right, it's reality check time where I want to with you to talk about our good works. Are they truly about God or are they about us? So just a few things on a bounce off of you, the first one being seeking approval. Yeah, so if we only do good things when other people are watching, then maybe the motivation is is not quite right, or maybe feeling disappointed when we don't get recognition.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know really true godly service. Service that praises God doesn't expect applause, recognition, maybe even thank yous.
Speaker 1:And maybe another thing is making sure people know about our good deeds.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Are we telling others about what we did? One of the things that you will not hear us say on this podcast is post your good work on social media and let us know Hashtag made for good. Ok, there probably is a hashtag, but that's the point to the podcast, not to your good deeds. We're expecting you guys are doing good deeds and that's great, but we're not doing it. To broadcast, we're not doing it. You know what's the term the humble brag. Oh, hey, I need to post this picture of all of us, you know. Again, to use our example at the food bank, it was such a hard day but it was a purposeful day and we were so happy to bless the poor in our community with our service today at the food bank.
Speaker 1:By the way, with a selfie and the food bank picture in the background.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's, you know. So To virtue signal, to say how you look at me and all the good things that I'm doing. That's not the way True humility serves without this expectation.
Speaker 1:1 Corinthians 10 31 sums this up perfectly Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amen to that. Okay, so mission challenge time. So, as we have done in the past, our challenge for you this week starts with a prayer. So what we're asking you to ask God is to search your heart, to reveal any areas where pride may have crept in or the desire to seek recognition. And what we want you to pray for is for God to help you serve with a humble, humble spirit. All right, so the next thing we'd like for you to do is one anonymous good deed, and here's the, here's the kicker Help someone in a way where they can't know that it was you.
Speaker 1:Can you give an example of that?
Speaker 2:So I'll tell you what I'm not talking about. I'm not talking about you're in the drive-thru and you pay for the person behind you, because that person behind you they may not know it at the moment, but they're going to know who did it. They're right in front. Maybe a way to do it is for those of you who've always wanted to be a secret agent is to maybe buy something. You got to be careful. People have ring doorbells, your own video. But if you're going to drop something off to someone's house, maybe you just mail it with no return address or a generic return address. Go on Amazon, as we talked before, maybe some small thing. If you want to do something good, find a way to get it delivered anonymous. I think that, man, it's actually fun, josh, to have you're on a secret mission and your goal is for them to not figure out who did it, and that can be fun. If you've got family, if you've got kids, we're going to have a whole episode about involving your kids in good works. You know, hey, what can we do that? Our neighbor won't know it's us, but it's something really good for them. They're out of town. You go again. People got cameras all over the place. So cutting their grass while they're gone may not be a way to be completely anonymous, but try to find a way to do it where they can't possibly know who did it.
Speaker 2:And then the last.
Speaker 2:The third one is going to be this If someone does know that you did something good and they want to come and compliment you, point them to God as the reason for what you do.
Speaker 2:But be careful. Somebody may be trying to do one of these other good deeds by saying thank you for something that you did, maybe in worship service or maybe in the community. And if the first thing that they hear back from you maybe they're a child or maybe they're somebody just not used to giving feedback to people they may, you know you want to say, well, all glory to God, absolutely appropriate. But they may take that as a criticism that don't you dare compliment me or thank me. You should give glory to God. So here's what you could do. You could say thanks, I really appreciate that, but really, all glory goes to God. And what you do is you affirm what they're doing, you encourage what they're doing, but you're also tacking on the real reason, not just for them to understand, but it's good for you to say it yourself, so that you are not receiving the recognition alone.
Speaker 1:I love that, because not everybody's an extrovert and there could have been someone who hasn't done that, hasn't encouraged someone that way at all ever. And it took everything out of them to do it, and then they could have been someone who hasn't done that, hasn't encouraged someone that way at all ever, and it took everything out of them to do it, and then they could have maybe felt like they were shot down and they may not do it again. So it was already hard for them to go forward and do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so say thank you, say I appreciate it, and then give glory to God, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Well, like always, we are going to put your mission on social media. Hey, by the way, are we going to talk about our side project, the secret project.
Speaker 2:The secret project, yeah, no, I don't think, so We'll probably cut this part out, okay. Well, let him mention that Later. Okay, later, all right, okay. So you said you could find the mission for this week on social media. We've mentioned all those before, so I think that's it for today's episode of Made for Good. Again, if this conversation has encouraged you or challenged you or caused you to look at what you do a little differently, to make sure your motivation is correct, that was our intention. So be sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next one.
Speaker 1:And we hope you found this helpful. Consider sharing it with a friend. Until next time, serve humbly, shine for God's glory and remember you were made for this. Thank you.
