Religious Hypocrisy
Notes
Transcript
Orion’s belt is a big waste of space. ITs not that funny, just a three star joke.
I think big foot is blurry, thats the problem. Its not the photographer’s fault. Big foot is blurry and thats more scary to me.
Today we start chapter 6 of Matthew as we continue looking at the Sermon on the Mount. The important thing for us to remember is all of this is building on each other, last week leads into this week. Jesus told us it wasn’t enough to just love our neighbor but we must also love our enemies.
The truth is, it is difficult enough to love our neighbor, but love your enemies? Are you kidding me, that is even more difficult. For some of us the enemy feels like your own family and that has problems in and of itself. Jesus point for us last week was how could we possibly just hang out with the people we like, the people we are always in agreement with. The true test of discipleship he says, is hanging out and loving your enemies. All of that leads into today’s scripture.
1 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.
2 “So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.
This is instruction directly from Jesus, but in the middle of all of this, there is this implied in all of it is this warning for everyone. Jesus is about to hit on religious hypocrisy. The thing we need to realize is if we have grown up in church, we know exactly what you are supposed to say in certain situations, or around certain people. For that matter we know the things we aren’t supposed to say, and what we have done is convince ourselves if we do those first things God will love us, but if we do those second things, He won’t.
When we start thinking, talking, and even acting this way, this is religious hypocrisy, because there is no delight in God - only duty. Truthfully, for some of us engrained in the church this is the way we were raised, “Check all the good things off of your list, leave all the bad things off the list.” The problem is, if this is all we are doing and only for checking it off the list, we don’t really know Him. Jesus comes into the middle of all of that and says, “Beware, when you think you know God, but you don’t, because what you really know is religion and rituals, but not me.”
Did you know the word Hypocrite means play actor in Greek? It mean you are just playing the part but not really the person or the thing, and what happens too often is we play a part but its not really who we are. Sometimes in our lives, we are so self deceived that we think one thing about ourselves but its not exactly true. Sometimes when you have nice friends they will quickly let you know it isn’t true.
I have a really good friend, and bless his heart, and the moment you say that you know its bad, but bless his heart he can’t sing. He may be one of the best guitar players I have ever met, just extremely talented he started playing about the same time as me, but he just devoted a lot more time to it. But he cannot sing, and no one has ever really told him, we just listen and keep your mouth shut, you know how it is after a few years you can’t bring it up because its been too long. I remember when Jenn and I were dating and he saw this flier on campus offering free voice lessons, so he went. He told us he walked in and the guy told him to sing I think it was happy birthday for him. He said, “I got done, and can you believe it B-man, that guy told me, ‘You can’t sing.’” I told him I was shocked.
This same thing happens on idol all the time, people think they are really good at something but it turns out they are just self deceived and not as good as they want to think they are.
This is similar, Jesus is saying, “Beware of your hypocrisy because you won’t be aware; you will think you and God are great, and that in and of itself is the deception.” So Jesus tells us this is may be the way we can see we are headed for this terrible place: you judge other people because they aren’t as good at religion as you. He says if you are looking at other people and judging their religiosity versus yours its a good indication that you are self deceived. When we start to do that it kind of gives us this religious spirit. It doesn’t have to be something huge either, you may get really angry at the person who syas The Book of Revelations, because you know, there is only one revelation, not a couple, and you hear them say it and you almost roll your eyes and think, “what is wrong with this person,” and because they aren’t as smart and well polished as you you start to think you are a big somebody.
Into this type of mix Jesus comes in and says be careful when you think you are better than other people because they do things differently than you. We can’t think that everything has to be the exact same way.
Here is kind of how we think the enemy works with us, we think what he is doing is you and he, are sitting down playing this game of battleship and you think his entire goal is to pick the places where all your ships are and destroy you completely. For the most part that is not how he works, his goal isn’t to just destroy you, because if we are being honest, most of us are too smart for that, to allow him to just destroy us. His goal is to distract you, he wants to get you to take your eyes off of what is really important. He’s not going to get you when you are paying attention, he’s going to get you when you are tired and distracted.
Listen, his goal isn’t to get you to join the local coven, and I am not sure if there is one of those around here or not, but his ultimate goal isn’t. “I know, I will get them to completely turn their back on God and go join the witches.” Most of us are too smart for that, but what he will do is distract you enough to make you believe your own religion. He will get you so distracted doing good things, maybe even things you could say are for the kingdom, but you aren’t doing it out of love for God and his people, but out of duty - not delight, all of that went away years ago with the weight of duty. Now have yourself thinking you are this amazing person and you are so much better than everyone because you do so much more, but you are deceived because you don’t even love Jesus or the reason you started anymore.
There are some of us we need to be snapped out of our self deception and be helped to see we have no Joy in Jesus or his works anymore, and we aren’t moving out of love and gratefulness, but we are burdened out of the weight of duty we have put upon ourselves. For some of us we have become like the people in the Valley of Dry Bones in Ezekiel’s vision in Ez 37.
Maybe you don’t follow along and its hard for you to get to this place, but let me remind you of what Jesus says to this church in Revelation chapter 2. He says, “you have left/abandoned/forgotten your first love. Repent and go back to the way it used to be, do the things you did at the beginning; Remember,” he says, “how it was when you first loved me.”
Think about your spouse, remember when you first got together and you would spend hours talking and talking. Like you spent hours on the phone or in person, and all you wanted to do was just to be together and talk. Thats all you really needed and you loved it, but now things are cold and you feel like you have become roomates instead of life partners, and the question some of you in that place right now and you may question, “how do we get it back?” You have to remember! Remember, all those times together, remind yourself of all the good things, the good times. Remember all of the nights you spent praying God would make this person yours, remember when you said come hell or high water. REMEMBER!
The same is true with our relationship with God; If God has become a duty instead of a delight, remember back to when it first started. When you loved him and you restructured everything in your life around Him and what he was calling you to do in your life. Remember those days! Don’t forget how important he was and how much you loved Him and how you wanted to live your life for him, don’t forget.
Here is the thing, the problem in life is we can just go through the motions and say the right thing and be completely good looking Christians but totally off the mark in our hearts. There is this fear that we put our Christian lives in this bubble and we say all the catch phrases correctly and it can deceive us. When we get to this place we have to ask ourselves the question, are we just jumping through the hoops. Are we just living a life that is checking all the boxes but isn’t out of delight for Jesus?
The fear for me is we can become completely different people from here and in the week. I don’t want us to live two different lives, the one here, or even the ones around our Christian friends, and the one we live at work and around other people in general. Don’t play, don’t be a hypocrite as the Greek tells us, don’t be an actor; be real
So Jesus starts off saying, “beware,” and we need to listen and head those words. We can’t take it easy so there is this warning to make sure our heart is in what we are doing and it isn’t just empty pursuit. Then he starts giving illustrations on what he is talking about, and he says how will you know if that is what you are doing. Here is the first:
2 “So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.
Jesus does a lot of talking about money, and truthfully if our wallet doesn’t follow our faith you got it all wrong. Let me just say when a pastor starts talking about money it makes a whole lot of us uncomfortable, but that is not the goal here, the goal here is to get us following Jesus the way he wants us to, and if you ask do I believe the Bible teaches us to give, I will say, “Absolutely,” but I also know there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. Do I think you are going to Hell if you don’t give to the church, of course not. But I think Jesus tells us to give, and do so generously, without a remorseful or angry heart. One way Paul tells us we can do that is through the local church in Romans 9, he says faithfully and sacrificially later he will tell us in 2 Cor 8 that we need to feel it when we give; it should cost us something. That’s why its harder for the rich man to achieve it, because what it takes for them to feel it is a whole lot more than the average person.
So verse two says WHEN you give, there is no IF, so he expects it of us. He expects for us to give to the needy and help the sick and the poor and help to advance the Kingdom. Jesus doesn’t say give if you feel like it, he just tells us to do it. The same is true when it comes to baptism. I cannot tell you over the years I have heard people say something similar to, “oh, I am just waiting until I feel like its the right time to get baptized.” No, that’s not it, Jesus didn’t say, “Be baptized if you feel like it,” he commanded us as believers to be baptized. Listen, there are so many of us that pray about things and we have already been told to do, and we keep waiting for an answer and I feel like sometimes God is sitting there like, “I’ve already told you.” We don’t have to feel something to follow a command, we just do what we were told and listen its not because he will smite us down if we don’t but because we love him so much we couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
Here’s the beauty he tells us of when we give:
2 “So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.
3 “But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
Listen, he is saying you should never give solely for the attention of it, do not make a big deal and sound the alarm and let everyone look at you so people will think something great about you and what you are doing. If what you are looking for is the honor among men, when you get it, that is your reward, you have received exactly what you are looking for, but don’t do that.
I have a lot of trouble thinking about this passage in our current environment, because when we hear this our first thought for people we see who have these big social media channels where they give tons of money to people could be, “Oh, well there you have it, they are just doing it so people can see them, and they have their reward.” But, as I thought about it, I knew that wasn’t true for all of these people. For some of them they create the following so they can get the views, yes, but the reason they want the views is so they can have more money to give away, and I don’t think Jesus is telling us we are supposed to judge those peoples hearts. Listen, even if they are doing it to line their own pockets, for the most part the people they are giving to are still blessed by the giving.
Instead, Jesus is telling us to check our own hearts. He doesn’t want us to be giving just so we can get the pleasure and notoriety of it, he wants our hearts to be close to Him, to give to Him out of our desire and love for others, not because we want people to think we are awesome.
Now he will move on to a second example
…
5 “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.
6 “But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
A few weeks ago I talked about how we needed to breathe prayer into everything we do here, and in our personal lives and I mean that, and it could be some of dealing with the scripture I knew was coming, but I share sometimes about the most miserable prayer meetings I used to go to. We were all pastors or in ministry to some capacity, and the entire point of the meeting was to just pray, and I don’t mind it, but it seemed like everyone here was trying to one up the last guy and make sure their prayers were even deeper than the person before them; more passionate, more specific, and it pained me. So when it got to my turn I’d always so Lord, we come and quiet ourselves before you and wait to hear, and I would just stand quietly for a few moments before ending my part of the prayer.
7 “And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.
There are so many people who hear this and feel convicted, and this is not about being persistent in prayer, because we should continuously bring to God our needs and desires, but this is more about trying to persuade God with our words so we say it fourteen different ways hoping he hears us and is moved. We should get to the point and allow your heart to talk to the father like a kid who is trying to get closer to Him.
Tim Keller gives this image that in christianity the king is sleeping and the little kid can run in and wake him up at any time.
6 “But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
But when you go into your inner room, the greek word there is the word, taminos. It was this room they would keep their treasure in so even if you go and ask God and it didn’t happen you got the treasure in the room from being in his presence and the prayer was the reward and treasure, because you got to be in the presence of God.
And Jesus says the Father who is in secret, and God is a god who exists in secret which means he is the ultimate example of who we are trying to be; give but be in secret; pray in secret.
IT doesn’t mean we are admonished for praying in a group like this, the word tells us we are supposed to tell our sins together and pray for one another so we may be healed, but its all about our heart, in all these things are we wanting people to think better of us, or are we wanting to get closer to the heart of God?
This morning, Jesus warned us all of being hypocrites, and maybe you are here…
Maybe you are here and you have never called on Jesus to save you, understand…
Maybe you just need prayer, or you know someone who does, feel free to move about the room and pray.
