If you would turn with me to Luke chapter 11, we pick back up with our series through this gospel on Sunday nights and we are back in Luke chapter 11 tonight.
In the past few years, there have been a number of new words that have made their way into our vocabulary because of the pandemic. And some of them, of course, have to do with masks. So now we know about “anti-maskers” and “double-maskers” and “mask-shamers.” Those are part of our vocabulary now. We know what people are talking about when they say those kinds of things. I read recently that the Germans have been especially prolific with new words to their vocabulary since the pandemic. One of them is the “behelfsmundnasenschutz.” The “behelfsmundnasenschutz” means “improvised mouth and nose protection.” And I’m sure we’ve all been there at one time or another.
Well our passage tonight is about wearing masks, but it’s not about the “behelfsmundnasenschutz” kind of mask. It’s the mask of hypocrisy. Jesus is denouncing in this passage the sin of hypocrisy, and that word “hypocrisy” comes from the Greek word, “hypokrites.” And it’s a word that originally referred to someone who played the part of an actor. And so the actor would wear a mask. They would wear a different mask to play a different part in whatever role they were playing. And so a hypocrite is someone who wears masks. It’s someone who pretends. It’s someone who puts on the appearance of being good and virtuous while behind the scenes is actually full of dishonesty and is unethical. So these verses from Luke chapter 11 and 12 are a very strong rebuke from Jesus. They are corrections from Jesus about the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and the lawyers of His day.
But they have a lot to say to us as well. They have a lot to say to us as we seek to live faithful and consistent Christian lives in our own day, in our own culture, and they have a lot to say to us as we have looked over the last several weeks through this section of the gospel of Luke about how we are witnesses to Christ in the culture in which God has placed us. You see, hypocrisy is antithetical to the Gospel message. And so what we’ll see in these verses tonight is that there is both a danger of hypocrisy but also an answer that Jesus gives to us. So I want us to see this passage along two lines tonight. We’ll see, number one, “Watch out.” And then number two, “Fear not.” “Watch out” and “Fear not.” Before we read, let’s ask God’s blessing on the reading and preaching of His Word.
Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You that You have spoken and revealed Yourself to us in mercy and in grace. We give You thanks that You have given us Your Spirit, and so Father, we pray as we approach Your Word this evening, that You would speak, for Your servants listen. And we pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Luke chapter 11, starting in verse 37:
“While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table. The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. And the Lord said to him, ‘Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.
But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it.’
One of the lawyers answered him, ‘Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.’ And he said, ‘Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.’
As he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things, lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.
In the meantime, when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another, he began to say to his disciples first, ‘Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.
I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.
And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.’”
The grass withers and the flowers fall but the Word of our God endures forever.
Watch Out
Well the Pharisees were old school influencers. Their whole objective was to influence their society and to make an impact on their culture. You may have heard about social media influencers. They are people who are very active on social media. They use their posts to sway people toward certain products, toward certain experiences. Well the Pharisees had some things in common with them; no Instagram or TikTok of course. But they were everywhere. They were in a part of every aspect of society. They were merchants and craftsmen. These were laymen who were involved in the religious life of the people of Israel. They were the experts and they were committed to their cause. And because of that, they were vocal and they attracted a following. In fact, historians tell us that the Pharisees were the most numerous and influential of the religious groups of Jesus’ day. But what does Jesus say about them in chapter 12 verse 1? “Beware. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” Watch out. Watch out for the influence of hypocrisy.
It’s interesting, isn’t it, that hypocrisy is at the same time strangely both repulsive and attractive. Research has shown that people dislike hypocrites more than those who openly admit to the behavior that they disapprove of. But it’s a lot easier, isn’t it, to point out and to recognize hypocrisy in someone else’s life than it is to recognize it in our own lives. In fact, hypocrisy may even be the good and proper thing to do. After all, the Pharisees were good, church-going folks and they led the way when it came to tithing. Verse 42 of chapter 11 says they tithed “mint and rue and every herb.” In other words, they tithed to the penny. You know the Pharisees, you could count on them on Stewardship Sunday or “One Sunday” as we have it now. Or maybe it was “One Saturday” in their case. You could count on them. They were consistent and committed tithers and they made sure their attendance in the synagogue was obvious to everyone who was there. Why was that? It was because they had the best seats in the synagogues. They held positions of prominence in the synagogue.
And in Matthew chapter 23, Jesus is, in a similar passage, denouncing the Pharisees’ hypocrisy and He says that the greetings that they loved to hear in the marketplaces were that people would come up to them and call them, “Rabbi, rabbi.” They were recognized around town and throughout life for their positions of prominence in the synagogues. They were very religious. They were good at appearing good and moral and respectable. In fact, that’s why in verse 38 of chapter 11, that’s why they were concerned with washing before dinner. They were concerned with ritual purity and cleanliness. They wanted to be precise with the law and with the oral codes that they had added to the law of God. Remember what Paul said about himself, himself a Pharisee. He says in Philippians chapter 3 that he was a Hebrew of Hebrews. As to the law, he was a Pharisee, and as to righteousness under the law, he was blameless. Paul did everything right, at least so it seemed, or at least that’s what he thought in his own mind.
One of our Mission Conference speakers several years ago said that all of us want to raise a Pharisee because the Pharisees followed the rules. They were good people. They were respected and they were admired. I don’t say this to cause offense or to slander in any way, but couldn’t we say that a Pharisee would make a good candidate for elder at First Presbyterian Church of Jackson? They were fine, upstanding individuals by almost all accounts. I think we could also say that it’s really easier to be a hypocrite. Sure, the Pharisees were busy. They were busy with their washing and their tithing and their making long prayers, but isn’t it much easier to keep things on the surface and to perform certain rituals and to keep to certain forms of religious practice? It’s much, much harder to do the hard work of heart work. It’s much harder to do things like repentance and sacrifice and forgiveness. I think it was J.C. Ryle who said that, “If salvation was only about the sprinkling of water and the saying of certain prescribed words, then no one would go to hell. It would be empty.” It’s always easier to be busy than to deal with what’s going on in the heart or to observe the heart demands of God’s Word.
And in fact, that’s part of the danger of hypocrisy. It’s the attractiveness of hypocrisy that makes it so dangerous because – what does it do? It spreads. Jesus calls it the leaven of the Pharisees. What is leaven? Leaven is something like yeast that is added to dough that makes the dough rise. I told the story before about how one morning I woke up and I had, I thought it was a good idea to make cinnamon rolls for our family for breakfast, and we ate them for lunch! Why was that? It’s because the yeast added to the dough takes time. It’s slow as it spreads gradually. It’s almost unnoticeable. You can’t even tell that it’s happening and yet it’s a subtle, growing process. That’s the way the leaven of hypocrisy works. And when it spreads, it spreads throughout the whole. Living with a double standard, a moral double standard in one area of life will not stay confined to that one area. And the better that we think we are at hiding a particular sin in our lives, the more likely we are to engage in some other form of sin. And so sin spreads through an individual’s life.
And it happens in groups as well. There is a pressure to fit in and to belong to the group. There is a pressure to say the right thing, to say it in a certain way and to act in a certain way, to look a certain way. And with the Pharisees and with the lawyers, their hypocrisy, it was to get others to act in that certain way that they held to be right and true and good. It was, in fact, a form of power and control on their parts, which again is another part of the danger of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy involves judgment and condemnation. It leads to mistreating others. Look at what Jesus says in chapter 11 verse 39. He says that the Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish but inside they were full of greed and wickedness and they tithed but while they tithed, at the very same time they neglected justice and the love of God. And the lawyers did the very same thing. These were the experts in God’s Word. And the law for them had become an academic exercise. They knew what to do and they could tell other people what to do, but Jesus says in verse 46, “You yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.” And it seemed that they were all about the history and the tradition of God’s Word, they respected it to the extent that they built the tombs of the prophets, but they cared about the past. They were looking at the past but it didn’t lead to them actually following God’s Word and doing what God had told them to do. And because they didn’t obey God’s Word, they were guilty just like their fathers had been of killing the prophets. Jesus says that they actually hindered people from entering into the kingdom of God.
And so what is Jesus’ word to those who practice such hypocrisy? What is Jesus’ word to the Pharisees and the lawyers in this passage? It is, “Woe to you!” It is a strong word from Jesus of denouncement. But what’s His word to His disciples? What does He want those who follow Him to do? He says, “Beware. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.” You see, Jesus knows that His mission, He knows that His mission that is going to be carried out through these disciples, that it will be challenged by the influence of hypocrisy. That challenge will come, I think, in a couple of different ways. One is the pressure to conform to the ways of the Pharisees. They would face the pressure to go along with them, the way that is popular, the way that is easy. It’s similar to the pressure that Peter faced in Galatia. We’ll get to this in a few weeks as David preaches through the letter to the Galatians. Peter, when he was in Galatia, he withdrew himself from the presence of the Gentiles when Jews had come from Jerusalem. And Paul calls it what it is. He says it was hypocrisy on Peter’s part, and it even led Barnabas astray into hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is like that. It’s toxic. It divides. It kills fellowship. It destroys the truth. It destroys the good news of the Gospel message.
Fear Not
But there’s another challenge that comes with hypocrisy and it’s this. It’s that if the disciples follow Jesus and follow His way and obey out of the heart, it is going to set them against the Pharisees. It’s going to cause them to expose the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. To teach and to live in a way that upholds the heart demands of the law, to teach and to live in a way that recognizes Jesus as the heart of the law, the fulfillment of the law, is going to lead them into danger, into opposition and to persecution and to rejection. And that’s really what Jesus is getting into in chapter 12. That’s the reason for Him saying to His disciples, “Fear not.” His encouragement for them in the prospect of opposition and rejection – “Fear not.”
And you notice in the first few verses of chapter 12 that Jesus is talking all about fear. Chapter 12 verse 4, “I tell you my friends, do not fear those who kill the body and after that have nothing more that they can do.” Verse 7, “Fear not, you are of more value than many sparrows.” Verse 11, “Do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself.” You see what Jesus is doing? In connecting hypocrisy and fear, Jesus is exposing the root of hypocrisy. What is the root of hypocrisy? It’s fear. It’s about the fear of man. And while the Pharisees may have claimed that their rituals and their strictness were about promoting purity of the people of God and bringing in God’ kingdom, in reality what was it all about? It was about maintaining their group, protecting their status and their place. It was about them looking good in the eyes of other people. And even it was a way for them to elevate themselves over other people. There was pride and there was a desire for power at work in their hypocrisy. The reason for their faking it, the reason for their pretending, for wearing a mask, was to look good in comparison to others and before the eyes of other people. That’s the fear of man. That’s the fear of what someone else thinks. It’s totally man-centered, man-focused.
But if hypocrisy is tied to the fear of man, then what is the answer to hypocrisy? How do we fight against the urge to hypocrisy in our own hearts and our own lives? What this passage is saying to us is that it is by the fear of God. And Jesus tells His disciples that nothing is really done in secret, that God sees and God knows all. Look at what He says in verses 2 and 3. “Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known. And whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.” If that doesn’t make you shudder, I don’t know what will. To stop and to think about our ultimate accountability before God for all that we have said and done, even in secret and in private.
But there are things in this passage that Jesus says as He encourages us with His word of, “Do not be afraid,” that should help us to orient our lives to God, before God, in His sight and for His pleasure, and not in the eyes of man and for the fear of man. There are a few things that we see in this passage, and one is being justified before God. See the significance of being right in the eyes of God. Jesus says not to fear man, those that can kill the body but after that there’s nothing else that they can do. He says fear the one who has the authority to cast into hell. And if we fear God, if we have a reverent awe before Him, if we trust in His promises, then we are right in His eyes and we are safe and we are secure and there’s only so much that man can do to threaten us. What does Psalm 118 say? “The Lord is on my side. I will not fear. What can man do to me?” So it’s being right with God.
Secondly, it’s knowing God’s care for His disciples. He says to them, “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies,” verse 7, “and not one of them is forgotten before God. Even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, you are of more value than many sparrows.” Now I know for some people there are more hairs to be numbered than for other people, but what’s the point? The point that Jesus is making is that God knows what trouble will come for them. He knows what trouble will come from going against the ways of the people around them and from being faithful to Him and to His mission. And God will not leave you or forsake you. God loves you with an everlasting love. He will take care of you. He will vindicate you even, it says in verses 8 and 9.
So there is being right in the eyes of God, there is knowing the care and the love of God, and then thirdly, He’s saying remember the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Who is the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is the Comforter, our Advocate, our Counselor. “When they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that hour what you ought to say.” You know that’s basically a summary of the book of Acts. That’s what the book of Acts is all about. Whether it was Peter or whether it was Stephen or whether it was Paul and they were brought in before the authorities and pressure to turn away from the message of the Gospel, what did they do? They were filled with the Holy Spirit and God delivered them and He showed them what to do and what to say in their time of need. This is the book of Acts in miniature right here in these verses. God blessed them in remarkable ways. God gives direction and guidance to those who rely on Him and walk according to the Spirit instead of relying on our own strength and our own flesh.
And it may sound strange, as we think about Jesus’ message not to fear, when He says the way to combat the fear of man is with fear. But that’s what He’s saying – fear God. Fear God. Trust in Him. Walk by the Holy Spirit. That is the way to a life of sincere faith in God and heartfelt obedience to Him and a boldness in our commitment to Him. And where does that lead us? Fear of God, trust in Him, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit – where does that take us? It takes us to Christ because where do we find our hidden sins dealt with and forgiven, as Billy taught us this morning – “Separated as far as the east is from the west.” How do we know that we are right with God? Where do we find the greatest display of God’s love and blessing? And how do we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit? Well it all comes from trusting in Jesus and looking to Him in His death and His resurrection and waiting for His vindication in the last day. Chapter 12 verse 8, “I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will also acknowledge before the angels of God.” That’s the Gospel. It’s knowing Jesus and making Him known that begins to peel away the mask of hypocrisy in our lives.
And last week, we took a break from Luke for RUF Sunday but if you’ve been with us over the last several chapters in the Gospel of Luke you know that we have been emphasizing Jesus’ call to make disciples, our call to evangelize in obedience and in our discipleship with Christ. I read some statistics this past week that were concerning. A survey said that only 35% of Christians feel a responsibility to share their faith and that 98% of Christians never tell others about Jesus. So we need this emphasis on evangelism. And what we’ve looked at over the past several weeks is that we would have an attentiveness and a concern for others around us, that our eyes would be open to the lost around us and that we would have an eagerness to participate in what God is already doing in making disciples and that we would do it with a love for God and a love for our neighbor, and beginning with prayer. And we saw two weeks ago that we would go to Christ and we would speak of Jesus, the source of our hope and salvation.
What’s the message for tonight? It’s beware of hypocrisy. And here’s why. Hypocrisy is a focus on externals and on the self. It’s a preoccupation with ritual and tradition and with stuff, with things. It becomes bureaucratic and corporate and ingrown. And what gets lost in all of that? What gets lost in an external focused religion? Spiritual matters. The mission of the church gets lost. Evangelism gets covered up. I heard someone say not long ago that a preacher won’t ever lose his job for not evangelizing. People may get upset about the budget, they may get upset about the length of sermons or the selection of music in the services, but it’s okay if evangelism gets overshadowed with other busy needs of ministry in the church. Beware of hypocrisy.
And hypocrisy breeds a culture of guilt and shame. It’s the self-righteousness of hypocrisy that is, by definition, judgmental and condemning. It’s a saying that, “We are better than that. We are better than them.” Hypocrisy is an “us vs. them” mentality. And how often does that lead to reaching out to others who are different from us? Not very often and not genuinely for sure. And who would even want to draw near? Who would want to be a part in a group that has a posture of superiority and judgmentalism towards them? You see, is the Gospel big enough for big sinners? Beware of hypocrisy.
And hypocrisy undermines the Gospel. John Leonard wrote a book on evangelism called, “Get Real.” And in that book he reminds us that we are to share the Gospel as those who need the Gospel. There’s a temptation for us that, as believers, to act like to the world that we have it all together; that things are good and our lives are all cleaned up now that we have trusted in Christ. How often is that a lie? And our lives are messy and they’re complicated and we still struggle with sin. What he says to us is that we need to be honest with unbelievers and to tell them that we still need the Gospel, that we are still amazed by God’s grace today, right now in our lives, in covering up our sin and in presenting us before God as righteous. And that God loves us still in our mess and that His forgiveness is that great for us. His amazing grace is that amazing. Preach the Gospel, teach the Gospel, share the Gospel as those who actually need the Gospel. And beware of hypocrisy.
Someone told me recently about a singer/songwriter who mostly records folk rock songs but in the last year he recorded an album of hymns. They’re hymns that we know and love. They’re hymns like, “Be Thou My Vision,” “Come Thou Fount,” “It is Well with My Soul.” There are hymns that he said hold a special place in his life and in his heart but that they didn’t necessarily reflect where he was spiritually at this point in his life. And so the album of hymns is called, “Backslider.” It got me thinking, in the same spirit, it may be appropriate for an album of hymns to be called, “Hypocrite” because how often are our words and what we say and even what we sing inconsistent and not matching with what our lives look like in private. So Jesus’ word for us tonight is to watch out. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. But fear not. Jesus is enough and we can trust Him and follow Him with all of our heart and sincerity and joy.
Let’s pray.
Father, we thank You for the way we come tonight to Jesus our Master Teacher who shows us so much of our own hearts and our own need of grace tonight. So we pray that You would help us to hear, help us to run to Christ, to find freedom in His forgiveness and in His love, and that You should help our lives to overflow with love for Christ and love for others. And we pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen