Root Out Hypocrisy

You know, for a lot of people, coming to faith in Jesus requires getting past certain hurdles. Sometimes they're intellectual hurdles, like questions about God's existence or the reliability of the Bible, or how can a good God allow suffering? Sometimes our pride and our desire for control stand in the way of surrendering to Jesus. Sometimes what holds us back is just a fear of what following Jesus might cost us. And sometimes people shy away from faith because of the way professing Christian people equate faith with a specific political affiliation, or the way that people of faith act judgmentally, or sometimes for the way that professing Christian people make excuses for the hypocrisy of corrupt leaders.

Now, hypocrisy is nothing new. Throughout Jesus ministry, he faced opposition from the Jewish scribes, Pharisees, and teachers of the law. And these were men who often took the word of God, which they knew very well, and they supplemented it or sometimes replaced it with their own traditions. And they resented the way that Jesus disrupted their power and influence. So there's a moment in the Gospels where Jesus, in a really bold and honest, almost uncharacteristically harsh way, publicly confronted them.

And it's after that moment that they conspired to kill him. We're going to look at those words this morning, and I want to stress, as we jump into this, that it is incredibly easy for us to critique dead guys who aren't here to defend themselves, Right? But because it's also easy for religious people in any generation to act like Pharisees, I want us to, instead of casting stones at ancient Jewish leaders, to examine Jesus words to those leaders, and in the process, search our own hearts for any hint of the attitudes that he addressed. For starters, Jesus confronted the religious leaders for valuing information over application. Information over application.

Now, I like to think and I like to learn. I frequently ask Google when I want to know the meaning of a word that I don't recognize, or when I'm trying to piece together historical events, or when I hear a figure of speech and I don't know exactly what it means or where it came from. Anybody else do that? I reach into my pocket multiple times a day to get helpful answers to questions. We live at a time in history, and we live in a part of the world where we have unprecedented access to tons of great books, speakers, studies, websites, podcasts, tools like RightNow Media that we've been talking about for the last couple of weeks.

But all of that being said, the measure of our spiritual maturity is not how much we know it's whether we look like Jesus. In Matthew chapter 23, we read these words. Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, the teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.

You'll notice Jesus didn't criticize the Jewish leaders for their lack of biblical knowledge. What he took issue with was the massive disconnect between what they taught and how they lived. That's the definition of hypocrisy. Now, are there false teachers who distort the truth for selfish reasons? Of course there are.

But I suspect there are actually more believers who know the truth well and could teach it accurately, but who just don't live it out. And I'm capable of being one of them, and so are you. The book of James says this. Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. When we walk by a mirror, most of ourselves, or most of us, we give ourselves a quick once over, don't we? How's my hair? Is my shirt buttoned? Do I still look as fantastic as I did when I left this morning?

And if we notice something out of place, we don't just walk away, do we? We fix it. Fun fact. When I blow my nose, I always open up the Kleenex afterwards to make sure that what I just expelled from my nostrils has been captured. Anybody else do that?

Okay, you're in good company here. I mean, if I find myself breathing better, but the tissue in my hand is empty, that's a problem. A few years ago, I was getting ready for work one morning and I had that mysterious empty tissue experience. I looked everywhere, I mean everywhere, for that fugitive nasal nugget. I mean, I had almost come to the conclusion that I had blown my nose so hard that I just vaporized whatever was in there when I just took an off kind of corner of my eye glance at the mirror.

And that's when I discovered that. That I had a booger stuck to the end of my nose.

And I thought, what are you gonna do? And I just left it there and went to work. Right. Of course not. To see yourself in the mirror and notice a problem and not do anything about it, that would be ridiculous, wouldn't it?

Well, James goes on to say this. He says, but whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it, they will be blessed in what they do. What James is saying is that we find freedom and blessing not just by knowing what God's word says, but by doing it. So with every one of these observations we're going to share this morning, I want to accompany it with a question for us to ask ourselves. And the question in this case is, how does my obedience compare to my biblical knowledge?

Do we obey what God teaches us? I mean, we might ace those Bible questions when they pop up as a category on Jeopardy. But are we living what we know? Because that's really what Jesus is after. Now, there's a second place where Jesus took issue with the Pharisees and it was their fondness for convicting people without really helping them.

I sometimes learn some valuable things about people from the very first things they share when they come to our church. You know when, when somebody walks in and they express shock that the roof didn't collapse when they entered the building, that tells me they probably haven't been to church in a while and they feel some apprehension about being here. A woman several years ago told me that she was looking for three things in a church. She was looking for weekly communion, biblical teaching, and no hellfire and damnation. Well, how do you do biblical teaching if you don't talk about certain things that scripture talks about?

I've sometimes met people from ultra conservative, more fundamentalist leaning backgrounds who don't seem to feel like they've been to church unless someone has just beat them up one side and down the other with a guilt stick.

And I think of those folks when I hear the next thing that Jesus said about the Pharisees. Jesus said they tie up heavy cumbersome loads and put them on other people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. The Pharisees put themselves on a pedestal and they stood on top of it, looking down at everybody else shouting more, Try harder. You call that righteousness? They knew the Old Testament and everything that it emphasized about the holiness of God.

And they enjoyed loading people down with all those meticulous regulations. Follow the law, obey the commands, dot your I's, cross your T's. But they offered no help and no hope. And that prompted Jesus to say something that I don't feel like we can fairly read just in a pleasant sing songy tone of voice. This is what Jesus said Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites.

You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. Now, the bar of God's holiness is incredibly high, but that's all the Pharisees could offer. Now, the Apostle Paul, who was actually educated as a Pharisee himself, wrote in the Book of Romans that. That all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

In other words, God's holiness is intense and none of us, not one, measure up. But that's only half of the Gospel. See the very next verse Paul wrote, and all are justified, all are declared righteous freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. See, it's because our sin and our unholiness are such bad news that the Gospel of Jesus is such good news. We've all blown any chance of earning God's approval with our good behavior.

So he graciously stepped in. The good news of the Gospel is that God's grace, not our performance, is what enables us to receive everything he wants to give us. Paul wrote in Colossians, the Father has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light, for he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. So here's another question. Which am I more passionate about condemning sin or telling others about Jesus?

Now, to be sure, the Gospel message includes both judgment and redemption. But as we approach people and as we engage in spiritual conversations, are we quicker to point out other people's sins or to point them to the grace and the forgiveness that are found in Jesus alone?

There's a third place where Jesus went to the mat with the Pharisees and. And that was their proficiency at making disciples of the wrong things. It was not that the Pharisees didn't make disciples. They were avid disciple makers. But they put their students on the wrong path.

So Jesus said to them, woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You travel over land and sea to win a single convert. And when you have succeeded you, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are. Zero punches pulled. There are leaders who point people to Jesus.

There are other leaders who prefer to point out everybody else's flaws. Several months ago, for some reason, I began to receive these regular emails from a watchdog organization that is dedicated to calling out hypocrisy, especially financial mismanagement and sexual misconduct in ministry circles. Now, hypocrisy dishonors God and it turns people away from faith. So accountability matters. Unethical ministry leaders need to be corrected and confronted and in some cases removed from their positions.

But I would also add that it is dangerous to make the flaws that you perceive in other people your entire life's focused. Back in 2022, some of you may remember the multi million dollar he gets us ad campaign. Do you remember those ads? In its own words, he gets us aim to invite all people to consider Jesus and why he matters. I think that's a worthy goal.

You may have seen their ads during the super bowl or at some sporting events. A year later in 2023, this two week revival of worship and prayer and repentance erupted on the campus of Asbury University in Kentucky during a chapel service. And over the next two weeks it drew thousands of people from all over the world. And as you might imagine, in the world we lived in, both of those events sparked questions and then critiques. Now, to be clear, it's good to ask discerning questions.

But as critical Christian voices began to question and dismiss both of those movements to Jeff Surratt wrote a blog that I still resonate with each time I receive an unsolicited political text. Anybody else having that problem right now? 362 times a day. Every time I go to the mailbox right now and I find a new stack of mudslinging campaign ads, I think about this statement Jeff Surratt wrote. Leadership isn't the airing of grievances or the removal of I specs.

Leadership is pointing to a better destination and illuminating the path to get there rather than pointing out how everyone else is doing it wrong. Leadership is finding those doing it right and joining them on the journey. Name calling and finger pointing are not leadership, and Jesus called attention to that. Truth matters because wrong teaching misleads people. There is a place for ideological dialogue.

There's a place for healthy debate. But it's sad when people who profess faith in God become known more than anything else for attacking and condemning anyone who disagrees with us. So let's ask ourselves another question. Am I more concerned with loving God and others or proving people wrong?

Do you understand what I'm getting at? I'm not saying that loving God and loving others is never going to entail correcting someone. But if we thrive on arguments, if we thrive on putting people that we think are intellectually inferior to us in their place. There's something about the character of Jesus missing from that attitude. Seth Wilson, who for years was the academic dean at Ozark Christian College, was where I did my undergraduate work, used to say, who we teach you to love is more important than what we teach you to know.

Who we love matters more than what we know. It's not enough for us to hate evil. It's not enough to be able to identify wrong and call it out. We also have to embrace and promote and live out what's good. Now, there's another charge that Jesus leveled at the Pharisees, and this one had to do with caring more about looking righteous than being righteous.

The expression virtue signaling hadn't been invented at the time when Jesus spoke these words, but the Pharisees practically invented that. Jesus said about them, everything they do is done for people to see. They make their phylacteries, and we'll pause long enough to explain. A phylactery is a small leather box that Orthodox Jewish men often wear. They strap one on their arm and they strap one on their forehead, and it contains a tiny little scroll of scripture.

Jesus said, these Jewish leaders make their phylacteries wide because they want you to see them. And the tassels on their garments long. They love the place of honor at banquets and and the most important seats in the synagogues. They love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called rabbi by others. Now, Jesus didn't fault the Pharisees for doing things that other people saw.

Remember, it was Jesus who said, let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds. But the next part is the sticking point. And glorify your Father in heaven. It's good to be seen doing good. I hope that we are people who are committed enough to living out the words of Jesus that people who interact with us are going to see us doing good.

But our motivation matters. The problem was that the Pharisees loved the spotlight and they wanted attention for themselves rather than for God. So here's another question to ask ourselves. Why do I do good?

Is our goal to honor God? Is our goal to bless other people and add value to their lives and show them that they are loved? Or is our goal to be admired and to be applauded? Are we willing to do what's right, even if no one else sees it or knows anything about it?

Do you ever go into your kitchen and unload your dishwasher and pull out a plate or a bowl that looks perfectly clean, and then when you flip it over, you discover that there's dry, crusty food that's still caked to the inside of it. Anybody else ever have that happen? I had that experience just this morning.

Jesus said, woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self indulgence. Blind Pharisee. First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites.

You are like whitewashed tombs which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. See, this gap between the Pharisees outward image, the Persona that they worked so hard to cultivate, and what was actually going on in their hearts was so vast that Jesus hit it repeatedly. He specifically called out their habit of inventing convenient loopholes to excuse their lack of integrity. The Pharisees knew the Old Testament law of Moses forward and backward, and they were experts at manipulating the law to their own advantage.

Jesus said, woe to you, blind guides. You say if anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing, but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath. You blind fools. Which is greater, the gold or the temple? That makes the gold sacred?

Jesus said, you also say if anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing, but anyone who swears by the gift on the altar is bound by that oath. You blind men. Which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? See, the Pharisees had devised this clever way of sounding sincere as they made promises they had no intention of keeping. They could say, I swear by the temple or I swear by the altar, and it sounded legit.

But later they would say that that oath wasn't binding because they didn't specifically swear by the gold in the temple or by the sacrifice on the altar. It was fine print, like when you're a kid and you cross your fingers behind your back as you say something you don't really mean. We shouldn't need to swear on a stack of Bibles or on our grandmother's graves in order to be taken seriously. Jesus said, all you need to say is simply yes or no. Anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

If we live with integrity, people can take us at our word without any oaths or embellishment. So here's another question sparked by Jesus words to the Pharisees. Do I say what I mean and mean what I say? Are we people of our word? Can we be counted on to speak the truth?

If I say I will be there, will I be there?

Do I say what I mean? Do I mean what I say?

Now there's another facet of the Pharisees hypocrisy that Jesus confronted. And this one really jumps out at me because of the way social media in the day and age we live in encourages self promotion. Jesus accused the Pharisees of prioritizing image over authenticity. Jesus said, be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

And in this department, Jesus called the Pharisees out for two very specific habits. The first of them was their their pattern of giving to make themselves look good rather than to help others. The Pharisees had a mentality that preferred not to give without first calling a press conference. Jesus said, so when you give to the needy notice? He said, when not if.

Jesus assumed that his followers would care about the needs of others and would share our financial resources with them. He said, when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets to be honored by others. Truly, I tell you, Jesus said, they've received their reward in full. The Pharisees self promoting approach to generosity was such a big deal that Jesus called it out twice. He said, woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites.

You give a tenth of your spices, mint, dill and cumin, but you have neglected the more important matters of the law, justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter without neglecting the former. The Jewish leaders gave meticulously. I mean, they tithed from their spice racks. When was the last time you put some cinnamon in an envelope and dropped it in the offering out here?

I mean, they were serious about this stuff, but they lost sight of why they did it. I'm grateful for every person who financially supports ministry, whether here at GCC or in other places where work is being done around the world. But as much as I appreciate and value and encourage generosity, I think we need to ask ourselves why. Do I give?

Do I give because I care about people? Do I give because I value ministry? Do I give because I recognize that Every resource I hold in my hands is actually God's and I want to honor him with it? Or do I give because I need a tax deduction? Do I give because I like to be thought of and I like to think of myself as generous?

See, the other side of the same coin was the way the Pharisees could often be found praying to impress others rather than humble themselves before God. As a preacher, there are some things I sometimes experience in life that may not be common experiences for everybody else. One of those things is that when you're a preacher, people often apologize when they swear around you. What they don't realize is, I'm not really fazed by it because my wife cusses like a sailor.

Now, when you're a preacher, one of the other things that goes along with that is you often get asked to pray at events. If you're at a public gathering and there's a meal involved or someone is going to pray to start a meeting or to end something, more often than not they're going to ask the preacher. And I'm great with that. I'm happy to pray anytime. But if you are that person who frequently becomes the designated prayer, it is dangerously easy to turn prayer into a form of public relations.

So Jesus said something that really jumps out at me. He said, and when you pray again, not if, but when. When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly, I tell you that they have received their reward in full. That's all they're gonna get.

But when you pray again, not if, but when, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them. For your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Now, is Jesus saying that it's wrong to pray publicly? Not at all. But if we pray because we enjoy others compliments on our prayers, or if we pray because we see an opportunity to showcase our speaking ability, we miss the point. Our Heavenly Father loves us and he knows what we need before we say a word. So we pray not to impress him.

We certainly don't pray to inform him of anything he doesn't already know. We pray to honor him as God. We pray in reflection of the reality that God has a wisdom and a Power and an understanding that is far beyond us. And we pray to remind ourselves of our dependence on Him. In a really similar vein, Jesus also said, when you fast again, not if, but when you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting.

Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, Jesus said, put oil on your head and wash your face so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father who is unseen, and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. When the Pharisees did something religious, they wanted others to know. They wanted there to be an audience, so when they fasted, they advertised it. And social media, for many of us, creates a very similar temptation, doesn't it, to post about our Bible reading and our prayers and our church activities.

And to the extent that we're doing that because we see something we believe will benefit and bless someone else, then that's a good thing. But it's also possible in our social media world for us to begin posting spiritual things because we like hearing people say, I admire you, you inspire me. I applaud your courage and your boldness, your so godly. There's a real temptation in that, to work harder at looking spiritual than actually seeking God. So we need to ask ourselves, do I value private time with God or do I prefer to have an audience?

Are we willing to seek and serve God even when nobody's watching, even if we do it alone? Friends, everything Jesus called out about the Jewish leaders comes down to this reality. Jesus calls us to inner surrender, not just outward posturing. And that can be difficult to wrap our heads around because outward posturing is a great deal of what our world is about. The truth is, Jesus knows everything about us.

Nothing is hidden from him. Jesus knows the things that I don't want you to know about me. He knows the things you don't want me to know about you. And he loves us anyway. He has already given his life in our place on a cross for our sins, so that we don't have to be separated from our Heavenly Father by all of that garbage.

And because he has done that, there's no need with him for us to act like we have it all together. He values our obedience more than our expertise. He values our devotion more than our religion. He values our authenticity more than our polish. He values our humility more than our credentials.

And he values our private integrity much more highly than Our public Persona. Jesus isn't looking for pretenders or posers or self promoters. He is looking for disciples who are willing to give him inner surrender, not just outward posturing. These words of Jesus to the Pharisees are strong words. They're.

They're not easy words to read. I don't know what exactly you need to do with those words, but before we move on, before we call this time together a wrap and walk out the door, I want to invite you to take just a few quiet moments with me. If you've been taking notes or filling in some of those blanks, you have each of those questions there in front of you. I want to allow us to take just the next few moments in silence. Just to ask God, Lord, what is it in Jesus words to the Pharisees that you want me to hear?

Where is it that I need to give something to you that is preventing me from being completely authentic? I'll lead us in prayer in just a moment, but before we do that, let's take a quiet moment and just ask, lord, show me what you want me to do with what we've heard today.

Sa.

Father God, you know us inside and out, and you love us anyway. And we thank you for that. God, we're grateful that you don't expect us to perform up to a certain standard before you're willing to love us. We're thankful that in a way that we could never earn, that we absolutely don't deserve, you have already dealt with the sin in our lives. You've made it possible for us to.

To come to you and to be adopted as your children. And God, because you've shown us that kind of welcome, we ask that you would help us to be as. As genuine, as open and honest with you and with ourselves as we possibly can be. We pray that you give us the courage, Lord, to be open and honest and authentic with one another. And we pray, Lord, that you would help us to live our lives in a way that allows people to see your heart.

Not our best attempts to convince them that we have it all together, but your heart and your compass, compassion, the purpose and the hope that you offer to us through your son, Jesus. God, we're grateful for this time together and for this place where we're able in community to unpack some really difficult and dangerous words in a safe and compassionate environment. And we ask that you would help us, God, to continually spur one another on to greater, more complete surrender to you than ever before. Lord, we love you and we thank you for your amazing love for us and we pray it all in Jesus name. Amen.

Well, we've had a great time of worship together today, but when we leave this building, our worship shouldn't stop. We should be living a life of worship. That's what we are called to do. And so that's why we like at the end of the service to just allow a little bit of time to think about what your next step is in your walk with Jesus, how you can advance that and continue in worshiping him each day. We have next week at 11 o' clock our next steps follow Jesus class and this may be a great starting point for you to just learn what it means to truly follow Jesus.

And so we'd invite you to that class again. That's next week on Sunday, May 10th at 11 o' clock in 502 A&D which will be to your right as you leave the worship center. If you're online, you can text the word next to 317-707-9997 and you'll receive a link to be able to look and see some options of things that might be a next step for you. If you're unsure, I'd like to invite our next steps team up to the front. If you're here in the room, we'd invite you to come and talk to me, one of my friends down here at the front.

Maybe you're unsure what your next step is, but they would like to help have that conversation with you. Maybe you have a prayer request that you would like to share and they can certainly pray over you and lift you in prayer. You can always submit prayer requests to greenwoodchristian.com prayer and our staff prays over those each week. We also have a really unique opportunity today. This might be a next step for you you to think a little more globally.

Sometimes we kind of get stuck in the things that are going on right here around us. But we have the opportunity to host Migo Remmel who is from Estonia and He is with TCM International Institute which is a global mission partner of GCC. And he'll be here this evening at 6:30 in room 502A and D and he's going to share the disciple making movement across TCM and how GCC connects with that mission. So that's just an awesome opportunity for us to see how God is moving in a global way. So we'd invite you back this evening at 6:30 for that.

Whatever your next step is, we also want to move beyond just thinking about what it is and we want to be moved to action. So may we just be courageous in taking whatever next step that is. We're so thankful that you are with us this morning. And may you go in peace.