When Clean Cups Hide Dirty Hearts: Jesus' Warning Against Hypocrisy

It's so good to see the faces, like I said today. And, you know,

today, I guess, if you've seen on the screen, woes, worries, and the gospel of fear.

And we're going to look at this in two weeks. We're going to spread it over

two weeks, different areas of this passage. And we'll cover just the first part today.

But here in this passage, after Jesus' stinging indictment of the crowd,

if you remember, it's perhaps surprising that he has been invited,

by the way, to dine with a Pharisee in verse 37.

But it's not long before a new conflict arises why is it that conflict seems

to follow jesus why do you think i mean wow and this time what do you remember

what it was over in verse 38,

jesus didn't do something they thought he was supposed to do remember what it

was right that ceremonially washing of the hands right and before eating and

so the issue at hand get it is not hygiene though,

but rather the ceremonial washing that the Pharisees so cherished as a sign

of ritual cleanness before the Lord.

And these washing rituals, by the way, get this, are you ready?

They were not required by the Old Testament law, but were a normal part of Jewish tradition.

I mean, tradition can be good, right? But when we stray from God's word and

God's law, right, we tend to go down some weird paths.

But while we might not understand why anyone would be upset about these kinds

of things, there's a scholar by the name of Bach, and he says this about this

particular section of scripture.

Thought I'd share it with you. He said, There's no neutral matter for the Pharisee

or for Jesus, given what it signifies for both.

For the Pharisees, the issue at hand is ritual purity before God.

And for Jesus, it's the additional burden, additional burdens to God's revelation.

Y'all, we talked Wednesday night, and I'll probably refer back to this a little

bit. We talked Wednesday night about lethal legalism in Colossians.

And you're gonna see some aspects of that today.

While the Pharisee was shocked by Jesus' disregard for the customary washings here.

Jesus saw what might be a religious practice here that was faithfully kept as

a symbol of everything that was wrong with the Pharisees.

Their obsession, in other words, Eastwood, with washings as an exercise and

missing the point, though.

It was akin to merely washing, if you look at verse 39, like washing the outside

of the cup or the dish, but not washing the inside.

How many of you use a dishwasher? And I don't want somebody to say,

yes, her name is or his name is, okay?

I mean, we love those little things you can put dishes in, right?

But how many of you ever notice sometimes, and even when you're first getting

started with your journey of washing dishes.

Sometimes you can get stuff clean on the outside, but it's kind of,

you got to take that extra effort to get it clean all the way on the inside too, right?

I mean, you got to get it sparkling, right?

And I don't know about y'all, but there's no substitute for a good hand washing,

right? I mean, you know, when you're washing dishes, right? Get it clean.

But while there may be nothing wrong with the exterior of a bowl.

Cleaning it is a meaningless exercise.

Like I said, if the inside is filthy, who wants to eat out of that,

right? I mean, I have trouble if I just see a speck of something that was left

in the bowl. I'm like, let's redo it.

I mean, it's hard to throw that cereal on top of it, right?

For some of you say, no, Brother Judd, I can eat it right just fine.

I'm fine with it. But such a dish might look fine.

Maybe sit on the shelf and look so beautiful. But if you look at it closer,

it would reveal that it's not suitable, really, for any significant purpose.

And that's what Jesus is saying here. In the same way, the Pharisees' religious

rituals amounted to an exercise in missing the point.

Because again, these were man-made rituals, right?

They obsessed over the external aspects of religious life that could be observed by other people.

In other words, everything they do is done for people to see.

They want people to see them doing this stuff and pat them on the back, right?

They want to be thought well of and spoken well of in the marketplaces.

But they give little heed to those more unseen and internal aspects of true godliness.

On the outside, they gave every impression of being righteous.

But on the inside, what does it say in verse 39 of Luke 11? They were full of what?

Greed and wickedness. The problem was that the Pharisees, they did not appreciate

God's concern, get this y'all, for their hearts.

We talked about Wednesday night about the book that was written by Ted Tripp,

I believe, called Shepherding a Child's Heart a Little Bit.

We talked about how so many times we get caught up in behavior on the external.

About trying to make people behave right, you know.

And you've probably heard the one little boy little story about when I'm going

to say, you know, you got to obey me, you know, stand up, sit down, whatever it might be.

And they say, hey, you need to sit down. And he sits down, but he says,

but I'm standing up on the inside, right? Still that rebel at heart, right?

And that's where the issue lies. And that's what Jesus says here.

It lies with the heart. You're neglecting the heart because when the heart is

shepherded, when the heart is changed by the power of the gospel,

then all the holiness, all the right behaviors will follow because the heart has been changed.

It's not somebody merely going through the motions, checking the box.

It's a heart that's been transformed.

By the power of the gospel, right? So Jesus here had a concern.

They didn't appreciate God's concern for their hearts.

Jesus actually calls them here foolish people for failing to understand that

the same God who made their outside made their inside also. We see that in verse 40.

This was hardly a new problem, by the way. The Old Testament prophets had indicted

or actually had indicated and indicted Israel for their reliance on human rules, right?

Back in Isaiah 29, religious rituals in Hosea 6, in the place,

again, of heartfelt love for God and others.

Jesus actually challenged the Pharisees to clean the interior of the cup by

exchanging, get this, their heart of greed for a spirit of what?

Generosity to the poor. Because, get this, Eastwood, true holiness begins in

the heart. And such a change would mean that everything will be clean when that

takes place, according to verse 41, for them.

And so we see here today, woe there, Pharisees.

Woe there, Pharisees. Jesus launches into a series of condemnations here,

beginning with three for the Pharisees.

First off, he says, they are condemned for giving a tenth of their mint,

rue, and all other kind of garden herbs, in verse 42.

By the way, Old Testament law instructed people of Israel to set aside a tenth

of their produce in order to provide for the priesthood and the financially

vulnerable. It talks about Deuteronomy 14.

And Jesus' list of items here that the Pharisees gave actually seems to indicate

that they went over and above what the law required.

Which he might say, well, hey, cool, that's great. On the face of it,

this kind of tithing was a good thing, something that they were right not to neglect.

But don't miss what Jesus is saying here.

At first glance, the Pharisees' approach to their wealth seemed very godly.

Most pastors would be happy to

have a church full of people who gave as liberally as the Pharisees did.

But we already know that their hearts were full of what, according to verse 39 again?

Greed. And that they lacked generosity towards the poor, in verse 41.

You see, good deeds done from impure motives, in this case, what was their motive?

A craving for the respect and admiration of others, bring God's condemnation.

They should have given their gifts from a heart compelled by love for God and a desire for justice.

Well, the second woe builds on that same theme. What does he say?

You love the most important seats in the synagogues and respectful greetings in the marketplaces.

Verse 43. And the temptation here, Eastwood, to live for the approval and the

respect of other people is common to all of us, isn't it?

But it's especially powerful or potent for those who are positioned, I think,

as religious leaders because the Pharisees used their teaching ministry to gain

for themselves the most important and honored places in society.

But true religion, get this today, is practiced before who?

But for the eyes of the Lord and for his approval alone. Amen.

For an audience of one, audience of one,

those who do their deeds of righteousness in order to gain human praise and

recognition will receive no further reward from the Lord, it says in Matthew

6. That's it. That's all you get.

Well, the third woe could hardly be more pointed or offensive.

Let me just say, what does he say in verse 44? Look at it again.

You are like unmarked graves, which people walk over without knowing it.

Anybody like to walk through the woods? Ever been on a walk through the woods, just gone on a walk?

Have you ever stumbled upon a graveyard in the woods? I know I have before.

Some of the old Sibley graves back behind where we live.

We live off Sibley Creek Road, and old man Sibley and all his people were buried

down in there, close to the creek and all that stuff.

Some of them are unmarked. There's a couple that are marked.

But sometimes you end up in a graveyard, you know, like that.

Most of the time, I think it's in the woods. you don't know where it's at,

and all of a sudden you get some indications. Maybe there's a graveyard.

Maybe you don't ever know it.

But he says here, because contact here with a dead body in this time would render

a person unclean, right?

Graves had to be clearly marked so that people could avoid them,

in other words. And so here, what is Jesus doing?

He is comparing the Pharisees' corrupt spirituality to something that's repulsive,

y'all, that's full of decay.

But even worse than that, don't miss this in the scripture today.

He is saying that they have the effect of making unclean those who actually

wander into contact with them.

You travel, look at what he says, over land and sea to win a single convert.

And when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.

That's Jesus talking in Matthew 23. Wow.

Well, then we have another section quickly this morning.

Whoa there lawyers because guess

what Jesus offended some lawyers and scholars right

Jesus seems to be on a roll at this point and

anyone with any sense you'd think would have stayed out of his way but religious

pride makes people say crazy things and do crazy things did you know that and

sure enough guess what an expert in the law decided to confront Jesus about

what he was saying in verse 45.

The experts in the law, sometimes referred to as scribes or lawyers,

were also part of this religious elite of Israel.

They were known for their mastery of Old Testament law, and as much as they

were among the most respected people in the nation as well here,

and this expert here, he's not named, he's unnamed.

He makes a show of respect to Jesus, calling him

what in verse 45 teacher see it and his complaint shows that he's not understood

y'all anything that jesus has said up to this point when he objects that jesus

has actually insulted him and his he's doing more than merely just raising this

complaint about hurt feelings.

Y'all, if you look at this passage, it is mind-boggling irony, okay?

He is really accusing Jesus himself of arrogance and haughtiness,

which the Old Testament repeatedly condemned.

Just look back in Psalm 94, for example.

Jesus is here. He does not entertain that rebuke that he received for a moment.

In other words, he didn't keep and hold on to that at all.

He, among all of humanity, was the only person, y'all know this,

who ever had cause, who never had cause, I should say, for self-doubt, right?

He's God in the flesh, and he didn't have any regrets.

And he spoke as only a man with a perfectly clear conscience,

fully God, truly God, truly man, could speak.

And he's heaping three more woes for the lawyers, on top of what he already

said about the Pharisees here.

First, let's go through these quickly. He condemns them because what in verse 46?

They would load people down with what?

Burdens that they can hardly carry. How many of you have been hiking in the mountains? Anybody?

How many of you have one of those backpacks? Did it get heavy when you're hiking

in the mountains sometimes, right?

And you don't want anything in that backpack, but what you're going to need,

right? But you want to make sure you have what you need, for sure.

But the law of God here, it was meant to be a blessing and a source of joy and

delight to God's people.

They shouldn't be weighed down with all these man-made rules and regulations, right?

It was meant to be a way to live out one's love for the Lord.

But the scribes here had made it into something that actually paralyzed people

with extra rules that went beyond the requirements of God.

Instead of helping people, y'all, to understand and live out of the blessings

of the law, of the word of God, the experts would what?

Not lift one finger to help them, it says here in this passage.

Well, the second woe calls up the image of a grave again. We have that theme, don't we?

Jesus points out that the scribes took it upon themselves, what does he say in verse 47 of Luke 11?

To build tombs for who? The prophets.

In fact, in this outward show of piety, Jesus points out that their forefathers

was actually the reason that the prophets needed to be buried in the first place.

It was your ancestors, he said, who killed them.

They may have paid lip service to honoring the prophets, but their failure to

heed the message of the prophets here actually showed that in reality,

they stood in solidarity with their ancestor.

It was God's plan, y'all, that his messengers would be universally rejected or killed in verse 49.

And as a result, every generation is really, in a sense, y'all,

guilty, guilty of the violence done against God's messengers by previous generations.

And as long as they stand here in the fundamental rejection of those sent to them by the Lord,

they'll be what, according to verse 50, held responsible, it says,

for the blood of the of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world.

Not all generations, Eastwood, have had the opportunity to kill a prophet,

but all generations have rejected God, and it makes it clear that they would

do so if they had the opportunity.

Think about Abel all the way back in Genesis 4.

It mentions him in verse 51, doesn't it? He's the first example of this kind

of violence in the Bible.

Also the stoning of Zechariah in 2 Chronicles. It's actually the final instance

of that in the Old Testament.

Also note that Chronicles was the final book in the Hebrew Bible.

And from beginning to end, y'all, wicked people are out to kill God's messengers.

Well, here's the third woe, verse 52 of Luke 11, and it relates to their expertise in the law.

God's word was meant to be like a key. Y'all get that? You read that earlier?

Like a key that opened the door to a blessed relationship with him.

That key of knowledge it talks about. But through their teaching,

Jesus is telling them, the scribes had made this key inaccessible.

They didn't use it themselves to enter or walk with the Lord,

did they? They made it even more difficult, it says, for those who were seeking to enter as well.

It's the hidden key, if you will, the law of God that shows us our sins in truth, right?

It shows us who we are. When we look in the mirror every day,

the reason we do that, hopefully, is not to just say, boy, what a good-looking

person, right? It's to see what's wrong, right?

Like what hair's out of place or hairs or if we even have hair, right?

It's to see how beautiful this looks and that looks. No, we want to correct things that are wrong.

We want to see what is there and we want to do something about it.

And one would hope here that Jesus' laser-like indictment of their sins against

God would have led those religious authorities to actually feel remorse, to repent.

But once this dinner was complete, y'all, and Jesus went outside,

guess what? The Pharisees and

the teachers of the law began to oppose him very softly. Did it say that?

Fiercely, right? And to besiege him with questions, wanting to catch him or

waiting to catch him in something he might say.

It's almost as if they were going out of their way to prove and demonstrate

the truth of Jesus's observations about their guilt, right?

So here we go. Beware hypocrisy.

Those first three verses in chapter 12.

We may be tempted to read Jesus's condemnation of the Pharisees and the experts

of the law and think that it doesn't have much to say to you and me.

But even though, church, he was surrounded by thousands of people,

it says here, Jesus wanted to make sure that his disciples understood how this applied to them.

He warned them not to follow the path that led to woe, and he went right to

the heart of the matter. What does he say in verse 1 of chapter 12.

He says, be on your guard against the what of the Pharisees?

The leaven or the yeast of the Pharisees, which is what?

Hypocrisy. The heart, in other words, Eastwood, of the Pharisee sin was hypocrisy.

They presented, in other words, an external picture

that did not match their internal reality

they polished again the outside of

that cup while the inside was filthy but this

was really an urgent matter y'all because their hypocrisy had the properties

of yeast what does yeast do spreads it expands right it expands it infiltrates

and it pervades It spreads through a lump of dough and affects the whole.

In the same way, Jesus is saying, religious hypocrisy has a tendency to recruit

others into its charade.

When we see others publicly broadcasting their religious performance.

And their version of obeying God's law, whether or not it's genuine,

it's easy to feel pressure to actually display a similar degree of accomplishment,

even if it's not backed up by internal and private reality in our life.

You see, let me just say it this way.

Hypocrisy puts the bar at an impossible height and encourages everyone to pretend

that they're jumping over it.

And even though here in scripture, even though there are no longer any Pharisees

that we would know as Pharisees today by that name, guess what?

Their yeast remains a spiritual threat even today.

Even today, y'all. And it can be a threat even here at Eastwood Baptist Church.

Whenever Christians are tempted to pretend that they are more holy than they

are, whenever we are unwilling to confess sin and ask for help,

whenever we establish our own man-made rules as the standard for everybody else's

holiness, whenever we're comfortable with private sins.

As long, so long as they don't come to light to anybody else.

In those situations, the yeast of the Pharisees is so present, y'all.

If you see something of yourself in the Pharisees, and if you don't,

by the way, go back and look a little more closely, take note of Jesus' solution

to hypocrisy as we close today in verses 2 and 3.

Y'all, again, hypocrisy depends on the notion, guess what, that we can hide

the truth about ourselves. When someone professes to be godly, don't lose this today.

When someone professes to be godly, but indulges their lust or rage or greed in private,

they're actually operating as if their public persona is the real version of themselves.

That person, in other words, is depending on the hope that there's no way that

the truth about them could ever be exposed.

Jesus, y'all, explodes the foundation here. He explodes that foundation.

Every, look at it, every secret word indeed is open and exposed before the Lord who judges all.

That's in Hebrews 4.13.

Whatever our lips might say, the Lord knows what our hearts love.

Whatever our lips might say, the Lord knows what our hearts really love.

Whatever others see us do, the Lord knows all our deeds.

And awareness of that fact alone is a powerful antidote to the yeast of the Pharisees.

That threatens to spread in our hearts and in other people's hearts.

I'll close with this. the 19th century Bishop J.C.

Ryle reflected on the implications of God's ability to actually see and know everything about us.

And it's subtle, but it's challenging.

And I want to end this morning by quoting this to you. Listen to what he says.

He says, how little is this really felt?

How many things are done continually, which men would never do if they thought

they were seen? How many matters are transacted in rooms of imagination which

would never bear the light of day?

Yes, men entertain thoughts in private and say words in private and do acts

in private which they would be ashamed and blush to have exposed before the world.

The sound of a footstep coming has stopped many a deed of wickedness.

A knock at the door has caused many an evil work to be hastily suspended,

he said, and hurriedly laid aside.

But oh, what miserable folly is all this.

There's an all-seeing witness with us wherever we go. And you'll see this on the screen.

Lock the door, pull down the blind, turn out the light, it doesn't matter. It makes no difference.

God is everywhere. you cannot shut him out or prevent his seeing wow church

have you experienced the yeast of religious hypocrisy either working within

you or around you before i mean think about it how is that hypocrisy so attractive.

Yeah. I mean, what would be the easiest way for you to live as a religious hypocrite?

The easiest way is probably just to pretend everything's okay, right?

Isn't that what a lot of people do? We just default to that, you know?

A lot of times we come to church and we hear God's Word proclaimed.

I'm talking to all of us, me included. We hear God's Word proclaimed.

But how many of us realize and listen for the voice of the Spirit moving in our hearts?

We don't want to walk out these doors the same. When God moves in our hearts,

we want to say, Lord, forgive me.

If he shows us an area in our life that is not right with him,

we want to repent of it, confess it, turn away from it, right?

Because y'all, we can't hide anything from God. There's nothing concealed that will not be disclosed.

Y'all, that should motivate us, I think, not only towards obedience,

but also towards comfort.

God sees all. He knows all. He's there.

Y'all, let's not be like these Pharisees. Let's not perform some kind of show,

but let's have a heart that's genuinely changed, genuinely changed by the power of the gospel.

That's the challenge today. I want to invite you to stand if you would for a moment.

And as we stand, I want you to think just for a moment, Have you been trying

to live your life in your own strength?

Have you been trying to live your Christian walk?

Following some kind of ritual or possibly some kind of plan that you have,

thinking you and Jesus got it all worked out?

Or have you truly seen the cross? Have you truly seen what God did for you?

The price He paid for you at Calvary? And realized, you know,

there's no good work that I can do. There's no performance.

When I come to church, it's not because I want other people to see me or even

to see my friends, even though that's a good reason to come and fellowship.

That's great. We should fellowship.

But the whole reason I come is to worship the Lord.

I come to be changed by the power of the Spirit, right?

Maybe there's some today that's

been holding on to some things that you need to repent of, let go of.

Some of you may have heard the gospel many times, but you've never really repented.

You've never said, Lord, forgive me a sinner. I need you, Jesus.

Some of you may be visiting here today, maybe in the past.

Maybe God's led on your heart to join this church. Maybe some of you are already

members of this church. God's led you in some other direction to become involved.

But the point is, do what God wants you to do today.

Surrender to his leading today. Father God, right now as we come before you,

Lord, I pray that you'd move across this place, Lord. I pray that we would be

surrendered to your spirit, God, and we'd be obedient to you. In Jesus' name.