Take Heed of Religious Hypocrisy

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  Take Heed of Religious Hypocrisy

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  The text we have this morning in Luke 12:1-7 is a wonderful text to prepare our hearts. It's the kind of text that when we're called to examine ourselves, 1 Corinthians 11:28 Paul says, when you take the Lord's table to examine yourself, this is the exact kind of text that you would want to be sitting under. It may not be the exact kind of text that you would think to preach right after the crowds of Easter. You know when you want to keep people around, when crowds show up, as they do in church. Attendance spikes every year around Easter time. If you really want to clear the room, you know, show up two weeks later with a sermon called Take Heed of Religious Hypocrisy. And that's just probably going against the grain of any church growth expert. You get a big crowd, you fill your church, you know, maybe give something a little more positive and encouraging. But actually, the truth of the matter is, for the disciple of Jesus Christ, who is the target of today's sermon, according to Christ's own words. It's exactly what we need from time to time. You could say all the time, but from time to time, a particular text that is for us to look on the inside. And, you know, drop the externals, drop the facade, and really examine the heart as this text does today. It's obviously not 1 Samuel, the series we've been in, we'll be back there in a few weeks. But I was just out of town helping at a church. I preached there since 2017 when they planted in Texas, and now they've finally found a pastor, so I wasn't candidating there, once again, clear up any rumors there. But I did, as I said weeks ago, double check that Whataburger is a legit establishment, and now that you see it out on route 70, it's a reality. I will let you judge for yourself. I mean, is this what we've all been waiting for in Hickory all these years? You know, just finally. And we're not getting to Trader Joe's. We're not getting an In and Out, but we get a Whataburger so we can be content with that. And we have a car wash, a 40th car wash now that, I checked yesterday. Today is the last day for the free car wash. So please, if you haven't enjoyed that one, it's all yours after church. Um, maybe it'd just be a line of HBC people inviting the guy at the window. He gives you the thing. Come back again. You say, hey, here's HBC. Come back and see us. But, it was down at that church. They're preaching through Luke that I was assigned this passage. And after spending time in it a few weeks ago and then preaching it last week, I did really just come to the point of saying, Lord, this is a wonderful passage for our church to hear. Uh, it was wonderful for my soul, and it was good for their church. And they took communion that day and we \are taking it today. So we will get back to 1 Samuel. That was a long walk for a short drink of water. Uh, so turn to Luke 12 1 to 7 and follow along as I read Christ's words to his disciples amidst a mass of moralists.
  "Under these circumstances, after so many thousands of people had gathered together that they were stepping on one another. Jesus began saying to his disciples, first of all, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed and hidden that will not be known. Accordingly, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in the inner rooms will be proclaimed upon the housetops. I say to you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear. Fear the one who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for $0.02? Yet not one of them is forgotten before God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear. You are more valuable than many sparrows."
  Father, it was your Son who said to his disciples. He who has ears to hear. Listen up. So may we listen up to your very Word this morning. Amen.
  As we enter this scene, parachuting in to Luke chapter 12. Just to give you a quick glimpse of where Jesus is at. He's rounding third. This is the last year of his life. He's been ministering for two years. And crowds like we see in verse one of chapter 12...so many thousands. Uh, they could be there for any number of reasons by this point in his life. Some are there really still amazed by Jesus. Who wouldn't be by this point. The miracles that he's done, the works that he has done to prove that he is God, the words that he has said that he is sent by God to save the world, that would draw a crowd. And for some whose hearts were longing for that amidst the empty shell of Judaism...any love for God, buried under the law...man made, extra biblical by the Pharisees. Externalism to the extreme. Anybody that was looking for the truth was there to hear Jesus, because he offered the truth. But there were those who the Pharisees were saying, no, this Jesus is actually demon possessed, and he is not from God. He's the exact opposite. And you know what? He makes himself out to be God, so we should kill him. So it's a blend...the crowd is.  He has just gone scorched earth on the Pharisees in chapter 11. He was invited into their home, one of their homes, in chapter 11, verse 37. And, I mean, he wasted no time to get into it when they were judging him for something very external that had nothing to do with loving God. He didn't wash his hands the way that the Pharisees washed their hands. And the perfect teacher. He utilizes that opportunity in chapter 11, verse 39 to say, oh, you Pharisees, you clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but inside of you this is what a wonderful way you know to welcome yourself into somebody's home for a meal. By the way, you're full of robbery and wickedness, and he launches into six woes. Three to the Pharisees, three to the scribes. Scribes were those who wrote the law. Pharisees enforced it. They were in cahoots, all against Jesus. Uh, three against the Pharisees. Three against the scribes, pronouncing woes of judgment on them, because they missed the point entirely. They didn't get it. And when he leaves in verse 53, right before we get into our section, it says, the scribes and the Pharisees together began to be very hostile, so that it ramped up. The hostility was maybe at a seven, now it's at a ten. And they're questioning closely on so many subjects...why?...they wanted to catch him in something he might say so they could kill him. That's their mission at this point. They're no longer curious, interested on the fence. What is this new teacher have to say? Kind of like Nicodemus in John chapter 3. He came to them in the darkness of night. Teacher of the law....nobody. These are not those guys. These are not like Nicodemus, I should say. They are out for his head and he knows it. And so this crowd comes around him, and they want to hear him teach. And like I said earlier, you know, in the aftermath of Easter, when you have the big crowds that show up, you don't know exactly why people are there. Usually the crowds dissipate after that. But you would think that you would want to really capture the frenzy of the moment if you're Jesus, by saying something that would kind of win them over to you, especially those who would even purport to be your disciples. That would make sense, according to Adam, I guess. What does he do there in verse one? He actually looks at his disciples. We don't know if that was the 12 or 70 or more, but it says he begins saying to his disciples first. So he squares up on those guys and says, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.He calls them out. He gives a warning to his own followers in that moment, because what he's trying to help them see is look in the midst of all of this happening around me. There's something that could be happening within you. You might have a little leaven in your own heart. Those guys that I just lit up and pronounced curses and woes on them. Don't think disciples, you're not susceptible to the same exact thing because we're all susceptible to religious hypocrisy if we're honest with ourselves. And that's the warning for us today. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy, because it spreads so easily. Matthew Henry, famous Christian dead guy, wrote, "Jesus Christ said this, this warning in verse one to his disciples in the hearing of a great multitude, rather than privately, when he could have them by themselves, to add the greater weight to the caution, and to let the world know that he would not countenance hypocrisy. No, not in his own disciples." Catch that. He could have done this privately. He chose to do it in the midst of the crowds, the first thing out of his mouth. In the aftermath of meeting with these Pharisees and scribes, when thousands are literally trampling over top of each other to hear him. He's got a captivated audience, and he looks at his own disciples. And in order for them to get it loud and clear with one year left in his ministry before it's all over. Fellas, I'm not looking for fan boys. I'm not looking for people that just want to, on the outside, look pretty and nice. I want people to examine their hearts and love God with everything in them, not relating to the law for their righteousness, but relating to me. So the warning that starts a discourse in chapter 12 into 13 is beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, its hypocrisy and what he does that probably shocked their ears and hopefully wakes us up today is just...we know it's true, but do we think of it often enough that when it comes to our relationship with God, no one in the history of creation has ever fooled him once. That's the weight of God's glory that needs to rest on us today. Nobody has fooled God once. Nobody pulls the wool over God's eyes. Nobody dupes God. Nobody cons God when it comes to external performances, as if he doesn't see right through them to our heart. So nobody sang in here this morning, whether with the greatest expression or no expression, and faked God out about what was going on in here (heart). Nobody is listening to this sermon right now, whether sleeping already or intently, with notes out. He sees right through whatever you're doing on the outside to your heart today. He sees right through my preaching to my heart today because that's what he's after. He's always after our heart. And so this is a wake up call in the same way it would have been to these disciples, these followers. It's a wake up call to us to say, look, if you have just been in kind of the fog of externalism, of outward performance, ceremony, whatever you want to call it, this parts, the clouds, it drives away the fog and the clear light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the warning that comes with being amidst religious fervor in crowds and sitting in a church. It just blows it all away in such a refreshing and helpful way, particularly on a day that we are to take the Lord's table. So that's my word on how to listen to this sermon this morning. It's perfectly painful for self-examination. C.H. Spurgeon said of this verse, "He who is true, as in a true follower, will sometimes suspect himself of falsehood, while he who is false will wrap himself up in a constant confidence of his own sincerity." He who is true will sometimes a true believer, feeling the weight of the all-seeing and all-knowing and all wise eye of God, will feel the weight of that and sometimes suspect himself. Am I just putting on a show? What am I doing here? But the false...it never crosses their mind, wrapped in the confidence of the sincerity of their own lips, while their hearts are far from him. That's a self-examination passage. So that's why you would say. Yeah, Adam is probably not the one you want to preach two weeks after Easter. No, it's exactly the type of sermon a church needs to hear, because it's a kind of sermon that puts the focus on you. And especially when we're talking religious hypocrisy and of all sermons to be thinking of somebody else right now, you realize you've already given the game over. Because at the start of religious hypocrisy is everybody else needs this but me, Right? I mean, if you're just being honest, what's more external and judgmental than that? I've got somebody else in mind that I'm going to say, you need to go listen to this sermon. So let it hit you now, as you prepare for the Lord's table and examine your own heart, and then by all means, pass it on.  
  Back to verse one. Let's talk about hypocrisy. Let's first see the disease before we get the cure. So he gives the disease in verse one. Then he will give actually three cures in two through seven. He will talk about the everything's going to be revealed. Everything will be judged because everything is known and accounted for. So shortcut to the end. We'll get to those cures. But we want to spend a little more time about this disease, the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. That word, borrowed from secular Greek was one that meant the play actor. I know some are like...Ashoff...there you go, or you didn't because you were the worst at it. And that's my point. Borrowed from the sophists and the philosophers and the Greek speakers of the day, they would come out on a stage and don the mask, and people would come and want to be fooled. You go to the theaters paying good money to be full. Had I ever made it in my failed career as an actor, you would have wanted a refund. You would have said, that guy. He's not convincing. He doesn't make me believe the unbelievable. That's what this word hypocrite was borrowed from. It was speakers that would go around and come on a stage and put a mask on and deliver lines, and then put another mask on and deliver lines. Epictetus, stoic philosopher in the Time of Christ, wrote the art of the actor is that from the moment he dons the mask, his whole conduct on stage keeps with his allotted role. So Jesus takes that idea and says, watch out for religious people who do the same exact thing. It's an act. Leaven...bakers know about the power of leaven...a little bit leavens the whole. But I'm not that guy. But I understand it when I look at my lawn. Five years ago I had grass. I have not intentionally planted one weed. I now have weeds. 80% of my lawn is weeds. And you know, I never saw it coming. I had one ne in the middle five years ago. I was taking care of babies, you know, twins came and new it through the church and Covid. And I look out and, man, that's a good looking lawn. And I needed a warning like, beware of the weeds of the Pharisees, which is ugly lawn. And now I just have weeds. And that's when I think of the warning of leaven, something that's underground under the surface. You can't see it, but it spreads. And then when it pops up, you're like, what do I do with this? It's taken over the whole thing. And that's the leaven of the Pharisees. That's what religious hypocrites do. They get so far into it. They're so immersed in it they don't even see it anymore. They have bought their own act. The Pharisees bought their own act. They actually believe they knew the way to God. So much so that God comes down to earth and they want to do what with him?...kill him. He could do the works of God. He could speak the words of God. You don't have a thing you can get on his life. Except, hey, did you wash between your pointer finger and your middle? Did you get that Jesus? Oh, that's what you're going to do with the Son of God, who can raise the dead and heal the sick and give sight to the blind. You're going to get him on his knuckle. You're going to strain out the gnat to swallow the camel...religious hypocrite. So that's the disease. If you want a good working definition from Jesus, it's this in Matthew 23:28. So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. I can't improve upon that definition. It has hypocrisy in it, and it draws the clear contrast. Externally righteous keeping the law, moralist clean on the outside, inwardly lawless meaning you don't actually want to keep God's law, but you'll do it because you fear man and you want to impress man, and you want to impress others, and you want to get praise. And if you're in a group of religious people like the Pharisees were the ruling body of Judaism at that time, whoever keeps the law the best and is the cleanest on the outside wins. Now that's nothing like us Bible Belt people, I know. And that's religious hypocrisy, simplified. The outside is kept clean. The inside is filthy. I thought about that yesterday, going to get my free car wash. That new place and the one deal. There's the Ashoff deal which is the cheap one for ten bucks. But then there was this one that does it all. I mean, but I was looking at my dashboard, and I'm long overdue for an oil change, but I can keep taking my car through that car wash and my engine's going to blow. Stupid isn't it? We do the same spiritually. We know we're hiding stuff here. We know we're faking it. We know we're putting on the outside. And so we clean ourselves up before lifegroup, before church, before whatever it is. We get the express wash and the inside is about to blow. And the warning lights are going on and you know it. Your conscience tells you that, Christian. But it's much easier just to go through the wash, isn't it? Just to work on the outside until you run into this verse. And why this is so deadly and damning and despised is because religious hypocrisy is lying and deception at the highest level. I mean, I get we don't like hypocrites generally speaking, phonies, but we tolerate them because life and death doesn't hang in the balance. When I was in Dallas last week, I was a hypocrite. I wanted to go on a run on last Saturday and some friend of mine in this church gives me hand-me-down running stuff. I think he's trying to drop a hint. Adam, I don't want you to drop dead. I want you to stay in shape. You know, I want to get a lot of mileage years out of you here. So he gives me nice stuff. Cool shoes, like futuristic shorts, you know, made of high quality material. You know, that wicks sweat away and stuff. I would never buy it for myself, but I look like a runner...until I run. And for further proof, I went out at 11:30. I had found a course next to the hotel that was two miles. I completed said course at noon. Thank you. That is approximately four miles an hour, which is the speed of a buffalo, not a running buffalo. They can get up to 25 miles an hour. I was four miles an hour walking buffalo. When I googled it Google actually wanted to add on and AI told me running two miles in 30 minutes is considered slow, especially for an adult. I didn't disagree, and so I had that physical picture in my mind, running, thinking I am faking people out. And then the spiritual happened. So I get to the end...30 minutes later. I'm sweating. I just want to get a drink of water. But sitting at the entrance of where I came to run are two Jehovah's Witnesses with the sign that says, you want to learn about the Bible. I'm like, yep, let's go. And the one kind lady looks at me and says, you look like a runner. I'm like, all right, Lord, you have set me up. So I said, no, ma'am, I am a hypocrite. I am not a real runner. And I'll tell you my time to prove it. And I said, but I have a question for you. You have this sign about believing the Bible. Can I tell you the verses I've been thinking about? And I'm not making this up. This isn't a bait and switch. I said, I've been running for the last 30 minutes, plodding, thinking about Luke 12:1-7. And I'd like you to help me understand how a religious person gets to heaven, you know. Help me with this. Because I read this and I said, it sounds like there's nothing we can do. And I know what they believe. And so we talk for two hours. And they were convinced that because they believed the Bible and I believe the Bible, you know, it's just kind of like we can agree to disagree. And I said, no, see, because here's the problem. All false religions are built on religious hypocrisy because you claim to know a God you don't know. You claim to know a way to heaven that you can't find. And it's not just bad enough not to know it and can't find it. You're trying to tell other people. That's hypocrisy at the highest level. It's one thing if I, the runner, just fake it, it's another if I would have stood at the gates and said, hey, can everybody let me tell you guys how to run...four miles an hour. And I tried to help them see that, that what they're doing and what I'm doing aren't the same. We can't both be right at the same time. And every false religion...bottom line, if you make it about anybody besides Jesus Christ as your salvation, and that his work isn't sufficient enough to get you all the way to heaven, it's religious hypocrisy at the highest level. It promises you heaven and it walks you into hell. You saw it last weekend at the Pope's funeral, didn't you? You're not going to find a more ornate, amazing, beautiful exterior than Saint Peter's Basilica. It's worth $5 billion if you were to build it today with the money they spent on it. 5 billion for the most beautiful building. Perhaps one of the most beautiful buildings ever built in the name of religion. And it's full of what? Dead men's bones because it promises a God that it doesn't know. It promises a salvation that you have to help get to. So when we're talking about religious hypocrisy, every false religion is built on the same lie, a lie of the highest order that will lead to the most hellish result. That's why it's serious for us. Because, again, I could talk to those ladies and I could watch the Pope's funeral and be like...and this is kind of the impulse most of us would have. Yep. They got it wrong...theologically, 100%. But experientially. I may be no different than them if I'm not careful. Because the hypocrisy that's like leaven that they believe is actually the truth, which is I got to work. What Christ did wasn't enough. Or in other false religions. Christ isn't even the Savior. But if I'm not careful, I will work just like all those other false religions and become so calloused to what's in here (heart) that I just think I'm fine because of everything I do out there. Right? Elders, we just went away for two days and we went through a battery of questions. Each of us, all eight, have an hour apiece to share about our lives. And these are the questions you got to answer. And they went through everything we could think of externally, internally, whatever. And I could have lied the entire time. I could have deceived them. I could have not told the truth about what goes on in here. And they could have done the same to me. You could go to life group this week with a battery of questions, mutual ministry time and you can deceive the people in your small group. This has to be something that God works from the inside out. Do you understand that? No amount of external pressure checked boxes, they're not bad in and of themselves, but they're not enough. If you're not willing to say and look inside and actually take this warning seriously, the danger of just adapting to outward external religion and not being worried about what goes on in my heart. Why do I do what I do?  Young people, kids in the room, your parents, they want you to behave like we want a civil society. We don't want anarchy in our schools. I get it...on our teams, in our homes. So we have rules for you children. But trust me, if your parents are in Christ and they understand the warning here, they want your heart far more than they just want your behavior modification. I mean, if you just think that's what raising your kids is about, parents...behavior modification, you will raise a religious hypocrite. You will. And if you don't understand what I'm talking about, maybe that's what happened to you and you're just passing it on. It's the heart. Do you love God from the heart? Do you want to obey him from the heart? If you love me, you keep my commandments from the heart. But if we just live in a world in our church and in our homes where we're just always evaluating by the externals, and over the course of time, out of fear of man, like these Pharisees, they wanted the glory of man more than the glory of God. It just became external. And it was dead on the inside. That's the disease. Macarthur says about this warning, "Jesus said more about false religion than he did about specific sins."  I.e., when you go back and read the Gospels, you'll see way more time Jesus spends warning of religious hypocrisy than he does of just calling out individual sins. And this is what MacArthur says. Why? "Because false religion provides a damning deception that sin does not provide." Let's run that back again. Jesus said more about false religion than he did about specific sins, because false religion provides a damning deception that sin does not provide. So hypocrisy is more dangerous to your soul than carnality. Because carnality I can see and you can see...hypocrisy you can't see because it does a good job of cleaning itself up on the outside. That's why it's more dangerous. It's more damning. It's not saying we should go around living according to the flesh at all. It's saying which the greater danger to a religious person. It's when you just try to live such a clean life. But that's all you evaluate yourself by...clean living. And there's nothing going on in here anymore. And Christians can be subject to this because that's what leaven does. It starts small in us, and we might grow up in a certain church subculture that just focuses on the externals. And before we know it, that's all we've ever known. And so we've just conformed to it. And we know the sinner's prayer. So we conform to the sinner's prayer because I guess that's our ticket out of jail. Religious hypocrisy provides a damning deception that sin does not. We hide it and it spreads. And the insidiousness of sin that is...awful in the sight of God. But when we try to cover it and we try to deceive, we have doubled down on our damnation. Because you don't even know who you are anymore. Have you ever thought about that in light of Matthew 7? Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father who is in heaven, will enter. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name cast out demons, and in your name perform many miracles? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Do you know what that moment is in a person's life? It's the great unmasking. He who dons the mask. The religious person that put on the mask and wore it his whole life will, on that day, stand before the Lord and he'll say, wait a second, hold on. I don't recognize you. And you go, no, no, no no no no no, this is me. I did all these things. And he goes, no no no no no. This is you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness that was all the time still on the inside. That's the warning Jesus gives. The sobering warning of the damning deception of religious hypocrisy. That's the disease. David had it for a season. Committed adultery with Bathsheba. Tried to cover it up with murdering Uriah. Lived a lie for however many months until God sends Nathan. The sinfulness of what he did was one thing. And you hear about that in Psalm 51. But Psalm 32 has another interesting revelation of David's heart before the Lord. It's also a Psalm of confession. But listen to what he says differently in Psalm 32. How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. If you uncover your sin, God can cover it. If you try to cover your sin, you're saying, God, I don't need you to cover it. How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. Where's that talking about? It's talking about the inner person that when I try to cover up my sin, I try to be somebody that I'm not. In my spirit there is deceit. The only way out of that is confession. I acknowledged my sin to you and my iniquity I did not hide. This is David finally coming to grips with the fact that he was a religious hypocrite. He wasn't just an adulterer and a murderer...for the months he tried to cover it up and keep it quiet, this man who had a heart for God, a man after God's own heart, it says about David. He was a religious hypocrite because he tried to cover it, and in his spirit there was deceit until he confessed it. And he said, until I did that day and night, your hand was heavy on me and my vitality was drained away, as with the fever heat of summer. God, if you are in Christ, he will not let you rest until you get real about it. And notice who David's getting real about it with...God. Get real with God first about it. He didn't say anything yet here about I needed to go back and tell everybody what I did and own it. He needed to confess it to God. Meaning from the time he committed adultery and he murdered Uriah, he wasn't even going to God anymore. But I promise you, everybody walking around the kingdom is going. I mean, there's, you know, there's David. Hey, we're winning victories, man. Kingdom's expanding. That guy's good. Best king we ever had. When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away. God will do that to you, child, because he loves you. And he doesn't, as we said at the beginning, the quote of Matthew Henry. He doesn't want to countenance any hypocrites in his midst. So that's the disease.
  Now let's get the cure. Back to Luke 12. Three cures for the disease of religious hypocrisy.
  First, verses two and three. It'll all be revealed one day before God. If that's the God with whom you will deal and in whom you fear. One day it will all be revealed, verse two. Nothing covered up will not be revealed. Hidden that will not be known. And it's not just the external outward stuff. It's the hidden, behind the scenes gossip, slander, speech, whatever it might be, verse three. Whatever you said in the dark will be heard in the light. Whispered in your rooms, proclaimed on the housetops. What is Jesus teaching here in totality? He's saying inside or outside, inside your mind, on your lips. Mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. He's doing a total audit of everything that makes us who we are, by what we feel and what we say and how we think, he says, it's all going to be revealed before God. That's the first cure. Hebrews 4:13 there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.  
  Cure number one, he knows our hearts. There is nothing you or I do externally, in so-called worship that fools him. Know that it will all be revealed. God alone will expose all that we conceal. That's the first attempt. The first assault on a calloused conscience and a hardened heart, even of a disciple. Sure, there were Pharisees in this crowd, but he's speaking to the disciples in the first crack in the facade is to say it will all be revealed.  
  Second cure. God will judge it all, verse four and five. I say to you, my friends, which is comforting, isn't it? He's still speaking to his disciples as if they're disciples. He calls them his friends. My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body. Maybe he's...he might be giving a nod to those Pharisees who they could be fearing...who they know when the hostility is ramped up in verse 53, that Jesus has said, I'm going to die, I'm going to be handed over and killed, and I'll rise three days later. So he could be trying to give them like a quick, hey, don't be afraid of those religious guys who can kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. I will warn you whom to fear. Fear the one who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Because what is going to happen to you at the judgment when all is revealed? If you've been concealing it. It's going to be all laid bare before him with whom we have to do. And he not only has the authority to take life, he has the authority over your eternal life. And he says, that's the thing you should fear. It was interesting when I was talking to the two Jehovah's Witnesses. Um, one of their claims is I was talking about this. They were like you know, cast into hell. Hell's not a real place. That word Gehenna is just a word for the grave. You just go to the grave and die. And I just said, wait a second. If that's all there is, then why would Jesus say, fear him who has the authority to do...if he doesn't have the authority to cast us in eternal hell...punishment, all that it says. Then we should just fear man, because you're essentially saying all that God can do to us is the same that man can do to us. They can kill us. Your heretical view of hell, Jehovah's Witness, you say it's just. It's just over then. Well, then you've just made God equal to man. And you say Jehovah is all...but right here it says we don't need to fear man because that's the worst man can do. But if the worst God can do is take our life, but he can't cast us into hell, then why should we fear him? Doesn't add up. But to the one who, after he has killed, has the authority, as Jesus said in Matthew seven. Depart from me. You're going to live on after this. You worker of lawlessness! I didn't know you. That's the judgment that we are to fear. God alone will judge our eternal destiny. And that's what helps us to live with a healthy fear of God and zero fear of man. It was said of the Scottish reformer John Knox as he was being buried at the graveside. One friend remarked, here lies a man who feared God so much that he never feared the face of man. So that's the second cure.
  Third cure. There's all will be revealed. All will be judged. All will be accounted for. He's not going to miss one thing, verses six and seven. Are not five sparrows sold for $0.02 yet not one of them is forgotten before God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are numbered. He picks two very inconsequential things. Sparrows...five for $0.02. In Matthew 10:29, they're sold two for a penny. They were the cheapest thing you can buy in a marketplace, maybe where Jesus was preaching right now in this context, some people were selling some. The cheapest thing you could buy for a meal, two for a penny. And, here's like a real blue light special here, he says. Now you can get four for five, meaning that fifth one has absolutely no value. And he says, you want to think of the most valueless thing. That sparrow, that means nothing. Not one of them is forgotten before God...not one of them. They're all accounted for. They're all known. And then he says, indeed, the very hairs of your head are numbered, and you know, that's a good thing. Um, we track that some of us in the room are worried about the hairs of our head. And he says, look, he knows every single one of those. Some of us make it an easier count than others for him. He says he knows that number. But then again, he's saying, my disciples, my friends. He ends with this in verse seven, which feels like it doesn't fit at the moment. All this, everything's going to be revealed. Everything's going to be judged. All of it accounted for. Do not fear. You're more valuable than the sparrow. The valueless sparrow, the fifth one that I threw in for free. That God values that sparrow. My friend, my disciple, you're more valuable than that bird.
  Now, you got to put all this together in your heart right now. Because this then becomes the great divide in your heart, doesn't it? All of this that if I am actually a phony, a fraud, an actor, I don the religious mask. All of this is very concerning because that judgment is going to lead to Matthew seven. I didn't know you, but if in all of the examination that the spirit uses the word for in your heart today before we take communion and remember the body and the blood of Christ broken and poured out for us, when you do that and actually realize all I have is Christ, my righteousness is not my own. I'm not putting on any mask for him. Then you feel the comfort of the end. Do not fear you're more valuable than those sparrows, because sparrows didn't die for you to live. The Savior did. My Son did. Child of God, you could get through the end of this and been on the edge of your seat in fear and trepidation that all will be revealed, all will be judged, all is known. But then you cast yourself upon Christ and you go, wait a second, what do I have to fear? If all of my hope for salvation is bound up in Christ, what do I have to fear?...absolutely nothing. Because it's either all of him or it's me. And yet we can, as Christians, even live for seasons of our life thinking it's all on us. And we put on the mask and we fake people out, and we don't actually be honest and open and transparent and accountable, which only keeps us more in our what?...spiral of sin and deception. And our spirit is heavy, and we're on the point of just feeling like we're entire frauds. And then in God's grace today, he could say, you are more important than the least important sparrow that doesn't count for anything. I thought of that when I was talking to those ladies, because down in the river, the thing I was running next to, there's all these birds diving down in. It's not really a river. It was this, like cement concrete waterway for when it rains down in Texas. And it's just gross junk growing up in there. And there's these ravens and birds flying in and out. And I'm thinking, Lord, how kind you are to me, for one, because you opened my eyes or I'd be like them. But how kind you are to these women that you would send me to preach in Texas, to pretend to be a runner, to come and meet them today and tell them they are lost in religious hypocrisy. Because those two matter more to God than the sparrow. And I told them that. And then I go and preach that the next day at the church, and after the second service, a woman comes up to me crying and says, you shared that story. What were the lady's names? And I told her the lady's names. And she goes, I know those women. My husband goes to the same church as them. He's a Jehovah's Witness and I've been praying somebody would get through to him. And maybe by you talking to Jackie and Barbara, they'll talk to him. Because she goes, right now he's out going door to door with my kids. But she took my evangelistic encounter as a reminder to her that she's more valuable than the sparrow. And God hasn't forgotten about her in all the years she's praying for her husband to come to Christ. I mean, that's what we have to understand is the beauty of this passage. It breaks us down. It strips away all the the fig leaves of our own making. We're like Adam and Eve, aren't we? We sew together fig leaves and they're threadbare. And we hide. And God says, where are you? And we come out and he rips us clean. He says, throw those away. I'm going to make a garment for you. The first religious hypocrites in the Bible were Adam and Eve, right? When they knew they were busted, they tried to make up for it on their own. And a gracious, loving God says, no, I'm not going to let you live that way. Take off those fig leaves and I will sacrifice and make you a covering. Friend, are we any different here this morning? How else are we coming to take the Lord's table today? Are you going to pray before the Lord? Before we take this communion and list off to him all the wonderful things you did for him this week? No. That would defeat the purpose of remembering his body and his blood. He says, remember this done for you until I come again. Don't ever for a second forget your salvation rests on my righteousness, not yours. I know you can live out of that, because the guilt and the shame and the blame have been put on Christ. If you're not in Christ this morning the Lord's table is not for you. It's what the Bible says, not me. Because you'd be drinking it. You'd be taking it in an unworthy manner, as if you actually believe it, but you don't. If you think you're wrestling and wrestling in some of your own righteousness this morning, communion is not for you, because it's the high point in our Christian experience on a weekly worship basis. We do it once a month. It says it's all of Christ and none of me. I've got the filthy rags. I've got the fig leaves. He has the perfect cloak of righteousness, and he drapes me in it. So if you're not in Christ today, what can you do other than to cry out to him? And you're more valuable to him than a sparrow. Especially if you've been sitting in religious hypocrisy in a pew your whole life. That through the power of his Word this morning, he can crack through the hardest veneer. And religious hypocrisy is the hardest veneer. Because it thinks it's fine. It looks at it's life and says, I'm good. And there's no one righteous. No, not one except Jesus Christ. Have you trusted in him today?

  Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your Word this morning. We don't want to be fooled by the mask of religious hypocrisy, so remove it from us this morning. Help us to see ourselves the way your Word reveals us and you see us. Help this time of reflection that your Word would richly dwell in us to cleanse us from within. We ask in your name. Amen.