Matthew 6:1
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.
If we are living lives empowered by the Holy Spirit that show signs of the counter-cultural attitudes that Jesus has described in Matthew 5 then it is inevitable that people will see what we do. In fact, that is what Jesus is getting at when he describes his followers as the light of the world. The key to Jesus' warning here is that we are not to be behaving "righteously" in front of people in order to be seen by them. Are we turning the other cheek out of love and mercy or because it will impress someone else? Are we going the extra mile as a response to the grace God has shown us or because we know that's what we should do? Are we really serving ourselves when it appears that we are serving God and others? The actions may be exactly the same in both cases but God sees the motivation behind the actions. Again, it is back to the heart. It is possible to resist God's grace by disobeying him but it is also possible to resist God's grace by following the rules.
There is no reward from God for self-serving service. He is not impressed by your token generosity or appearance of love. He looks at the heart, and shows mercy to those who recognise they need it. That mercy is what sets us free to serve him without thinking about what we can get out of it.
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