Discipleship Unmasked

And let's read God's Word together from Matthew 6, verses 1-4.

Matthew 6:1–4

In the New Testament, the first Gospel, Matthew 6, verses 1-4.

Matthew 6:1–4

This is the Word of the Lord.

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them.

For then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.

Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others.

Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.

But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret.

And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.

This is God's Holy Word.

Well, I want to say a huge thank you to Corey for the opportunity to be with you tonight.

And thank you all so much for your warm welcome this evening.

It is always just a massive joy to be with you here in Sincise.

And it's a joy for two reasons.

One, because, as Corey said, so many of you are such dear friends to me and my family.

And I love the opportunity to come and see people who we love so much.

But it's also a joy because we live in a very small community in an area where our churches are small and struggling.

And I love coming to the very middle of our capital city and seeing a full church with many new faces, with Jesus' name being praised and honoured right at the heart of Edinburgh.

So it's a joy for me to be here.

And thank you so, so much for the opportunity and for the warm, warm welcome.

We're going to look together at the words that Corey read from Matthew chapter 6.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

And you've been going through the Sermon on the Mount, which is such a wonderful passage of Scripture.

And it's a section of the Bible that's so important for us as disciples.

Because here, Jesus is teaching what God's kingdom, what life in God's kingdom should look like.

And I think you've just gone through chapter 5.

It's teaching you so much about what our character should be like as Christians.

It's guiding us about how we are to bear witness and be a light to the world that's around us.

It's teaching us about how we should understand God's law, how the Old Testament fits into the new, how we should see our response to that in our lives.

And it teaches us about how we should react to situations, especially when other people teach us badly.

And as I'm sure you've heard this many times, it is vital to remember that in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is not teaching you how to become a disciple.

He is teaching you how to live as a disciple.

In other words, this sermon is unpacking what being a disciple of Jesus should look like.

And these opening verses of chapter 6 are teaching us some more crucial lessons.

And I want to think about them under the heading Discipleship Unmasked, which I hope will make sense as we go through.

The great theme of this sermon is that disciples are to be different.

Disciples of Jesus are to be different.

And so at work, at school, in our communities, we are to stand out from the brokenness and the selfishness and the hostility and the cruelty that we see in the world around us.

As we follow Jesus, we are to be different in a beautiful way.

But being different can be hard.

And one of the reasons why being different is so hard is because if you're anything like me, you are constantly plagued with pressure and anxiety about what other people think of you.

I want to share a story with you.

I may have told this story before, so some of you might have heard it before.

Back in Carloway, where I live, the house where we live in is close to the football pitch.

And there's a local football team that we love to go and watch.

So a few years ago, I went to watch the football team.

And I took a football with us because Tom was wee then and the other, John and Annie were also small.

So we took a football so they could play at the side while we watched the game.

That was all fine.

They went home early.

And so I stayed on to watch the rest of the football match.

And I still had the football.

So I was taking the football home as I walked home like a quarter of a mile down the road.

And I was walking home carrying the football.

I thought, well, actually, I'll just maybe just kind of dribble the ball along.

I was kind of once played football a little bit.

And so I walked along and I had the ball on the pavement, just going along like this with the ball.

And at some point, I don't actually know what happened.

But I put my foot on top of the ball and in a second, I was on the ground.

I'm so convinced somebody shot me with something from somewhere.

But anyway, I fell flat on the ground.

I hurt my shoulder.

My shoulder has never been right since.

This is about eight years ago.

And so I fell on the ground.

And so like that, I was in pain.

Confused as to what had happened.

But I immediately stood up, not thinking anything about my pain or about what had happened.

The only thought in my mind was, did anybody see me?

Thankfully, I don't think they did because not many people live in Carlyway.

But that was the immediate thought that came to my mind.

And we're often plagued by that.

You know, what do other people think?

To give you another example, imagine you were wearing your pajamas right now.

Would you feel comfortable?

There's nothing uncomfortable about pajamas.

They're actually very comfortable.

So you could be sitting here.

It would all be super comfortable.

Would you feel comfortable in your pajamas?

Well, I would not feel comfortable in my pajamas entirely because of what other people would be thinking.

In so many ways, this plagues us.

We worry about what people see and think.

It applies in every area of life, in work, in school, in our community, in social media.

And as Jesus highlights in these verses, that can have a huge influence on us as disciples.

And Jesus wants us to think about this.

And so we're going to look at these verses together.

And we're just going to go through three headings.

We're going to think about contrasts, constants, and a question.

And I'm delighted because all my headings begin with C.

So, first of all, contrasts.

Question I'd like to ask you.

What's the opposite of a disciple?

And you might immediately think, well, an unbeliever.

And in so many ways, that is true.

And in many ways, that's the key and ultimate and only distinction that will matter on the day of judgment.

Whether you're united to Jesus by faith or not.

Whether you are with him or against him.

Whether you're on the path to eternal life or to eternal death.

And so, at one level, you're absolutely right if you thought opposite of a disciple is an unbeliever.

But for us as Christians, and so for those of you who are Christians or if you become a Christian,

if you start following Jesus,

in terms of how we live as disciples,

the focus is a little bit more narrow.

In this passage.

And I want to suggest that according to these verses,

the opposite of being a disciple is being a hypocrite.

And that's the key contrast that Jesus is drawing before us in these verses.

And so, in verse 1, he's got that great warning.

Beware of practicing your righteousness in front of other people in order to be seen by them.

And then he goes on to give three examples in this little section and the first following.

He talks about giving.

He talks about prayer.

He talks about fasting.

And in each of them, if you were to look down beyond verse 4,

you'll see that Jesus says the same thing.

Don't be like the hypocrites.

Now, you'll maybe know that the word for hypocrite in Greek, it is the word hypocrite.

It's a Greek word.

And it's the word for an actor.

And that's starting to help us to see and understand what we mean by this term.

Because an actor is somebody who's pretending to be somebody else.

And in the Greco-Roman world, stage acting actually very often involved putting on a stage mask.

And you can Google Greco-Roman stage masks and you'll see them for yourself.

And that's just a very vivid image of what hypocrisy is.

You're kind of putting on an outward appearance, an outward mask that's hiding who you really are.

And it's giving the impression that you're something else.

And so in terms of our relationship with God, and in terms of our life as disciples,

to be a hypocrite is to put on a mask of righteousness or anything else

that is trying to give a good outward impression that will impress people.

And Jesus describes here, sounding a trumpet whilst you give money to those who are in need.

In the next verses he'll talk about standing in the synagogue or on a street corner,

making a really eloquent prayer in front of everyone.

And then he talks about disfiguring your face while you're fasting

so that everyone can see that that's what you're doing.

All of these are just drawing attention to yourself so that other people will be impressed.

And Jesus makes it absolutely clear that is not the kind of discipleship that he's looking for.

And for the hearers of the Sermon on the Mount, this would have been astonishing for them.

Because the people that Jesus is being critical of were the people who everybody would have thought

they are the most religiously devoted people.

They are the experts in what it means to be spiritual.

And they are at the level that the rest of us is trying desperately to match.

And Jesus says, they're hypocrites.

Don't be like them.

That kind of outward show is not what Jesus wants us to live out in our discipleship.

And I think there are many people here who can probably think of examples of this.

You've maybe seen it.

And people who have grown up in the church, I'm sure, will have seen it.

Where you'll have seen somebody in one context, and then you'll have seen them in another context.

And you're thinking, these don't match up.

And it's something that people can find very off-putting and very disappointing when they see it in others in the church.

But that's true.

We will have seen it in others.

But I've got to acknowledge that it's a trap that I've fallen into as well.

It's an incredibly easy trap to slip into because we're worried about what other people think.

All of this is coming back to some of the stuff that chapter 5 highlights.

That as disciples, Jesus wants us to be men and women of integrity.

That idea that our whole lives are integrated together, all of which are under the lordship of Christ.

All of it is shaped by the gospel so that what we are in private, what we are in public,

what we are to one person, we are to everybody.

Jesus wants our discipleship, in other words, to be unmasked.

And Jesus brings that out very clearly by drawing another contrast between the secret place and the public place.

He does it in these verses.

He does it in the verses that follow.

Jesus is saying that these acts of righteousness, whether it's giving here, praying, fasting,

they're actually things that should be done in secret.

Here he's saying, look, don't broadcast what you're giving.

Instead, just keep it secret.

Now in these words, Jesus is touching on two things that we care about a lot.

He's touching on our money and our reputation.

And these are massively influential on us, both in the public place, among colleagues, friends,

and also in the secret place of our hearts.

I am quite sure that this week we won't even be able to help it.

We will think and worry about our money and our reputation.

In fact, these two things are very closely connected.

Today, our reputation is massively influenced by how much money we have and by what we do with it.

So it's money that's going to give you the clothes or the phone or the car or the address or the watch

that will make people think, wow, wow, they've made it.

They've done well.

And our culture cannot break that connection between money and reputation.

So if you're minted, then you're admired.

Now, often in instances, you get some very, very cultured movie references.

Now this was two years ago.

It continues today.

So you get great references to things like Lord of the Rings and all these kind of epic films.

So my film taste operates at a different level to that.

So this, what I'm describing here, is illustrated magnificently in that outstanding epic movie,

Dumb and Dumber.

And that's my level of movie.

Forget Tolkien.

Dumb and Dumber.

Awesome.

Remember Dumb and Dumber?

Two guys not that smart, hilarious,

but they are taking this briefcase back to this girl that the guy likes.

And they have no idea until the briefcase gets opened by mistake that it's full of money.

And so these guys who are kind of mocked and ridiculed,

and everybody thinks they're just idiots,

all of a sudden they're loaded.

And everyone thinks they're great.

Because there's always just this massive connection between money and reputation.

It's interesting that in biblical times,

there is a fascinating kind of connection and a fascinating contrast,

because money and reputation are connected in biblical times,

but in a different way.

So today money and reputation are very much connected in terms of how much you have.

In biblical times,

it was more the case that your reputation was shaped by how much you gave.

And so you can think back to the Old Testament,

where a king that was just massively powerful and wealthy,

they would demonstrate that wealth by giving lavishly to those who visited them.

And so people who could give a lot,

you know, were gaining a huge amount of reputation.

There was the whole idea in that kind of culture

of being like a benefactor and a sponsor of things in your community

and things like that.

And here, in this example,

the religious leaders are kind of doing a similar thing,

making a big public spectacle of what they're giving.

But whether it's the kind of flamboyant generosity of biblical times

or the extravagant spending of today,

the dynamic behind all this is actually the same.

It's all driven by the question,

what do other people think of me?

And as disciples,

we want to swap that question for another one.

Instead of asking,

what does everyone else think?

We need to ask,

what does God think?

And as we contrast those two questions,

which one matters more?

And so for all of us here,

especially for those of you who are studying,

especially those who are stepping into the workplace,

and especially those who in a few years are going to be loaded,

just let that question of what does God think?

What does God want me to do?

Let that always be the one that shapes you.

So lots of contrasts for us to think about.

There's also some constants

that we want to draw out of this passage.

Jesus, as we said,

is exposing the hypocrisy

of the religious leaders around him.

He's got no interest in this kind of lifestyle

where we're kind of one thing here,

another thing there.

In certain situations,

we'll act one way.

In others, we'll act differently.

And all just for this outward show

to impress people.

Jesus has just got no interest in that.

And I love the fact

that Jesus has no interest in that.

And I think one of the big reasons

why Jesus has no interest in that

is because that kind of hypocrisy

is in total contrast

to the constantness of God.

And that's the crucial point

I want us to draw out here,

that hypocrisy

and that kind of inconsistency

is the absolute opposite

of all that God is.

If you ask the question,

how do we define God?

You're probably asking

the most profound question

that anyone could ever consider.

Defining God is just like

a mind-blowing topic.

How would you define God?

But the amazing thing is that

even though that's possibly

the most complicated question

that we could ever ask,

the Bible's answer to that question

is incredibly

and beautifully simple.

Because the Bible sums up

the definition of God

with two of the smallest words

in the English language.

The Bible defines God

with the phrase,

I am.

And that is actually

the foundation of all our theology,

all our understanding of God,

that He is who He is.

And that speaks of the fact

that God is there,

that He's eternal,

that He's true,

and that He is absolutely consistent.

So He is unchanging.

At every moment in eternity,

at every moment in history,

at every moment in dealing with humanity,

God is who He is.

He's utterly consistent,

unchanging,

the same yesterday,

today,

and forever.

Never lies,

never deceives,

never says one thing

and does another,

never pretends,

is never inconsistent.

In other words,

God is never,

ever a hypocrite.

Instead,

in God,

there is magnificent,

majestic constancy.

Now,

there are several big theological categories

that lie behind this.

Divine simplicity,

the fact that in God,

there is just thorough,

undismantleable,

unrearrangeable,

eternal simplicity.

He is God,

forever constant.

Divine immutability,

God does not change.

He's utterly stable,

utterly consistent,

utterly reliable.

Divine omniscience,

the fact that God knows all things,

sees all things,

understands all things.

Divine righteousness,

the fact that God conforms

to an impeccable standard,

an impeccable moral standard,

always maintaining

what is right

and true

and good.

All of these massive

theological categories

are pressing home

the magnificent stability

and constancy

of the God

who is

who He is.

No wonder Jesus says,

don't be a hypocrite.

Because to be that

is to be the opposite

of what God

is like.

And a key part

of all of this

is that

our growth

in discipleship

is the desire

to become

more like Jesus,

to bear the image

of our Creator

more and more.

And as part of that,

we want there to be

a constant correspondence

between our inward lives

and our outward lives.

That's what chapter 5

has been speaking about.

That's what's been highlighted

and emphasized

again here.

And interestingly,

again,

that applies to God.

when you see God,

there is a beautiful

correspondence

between the inward

and in some ways

secret life of God

that is bigger

and more mind-blowing

than we can take in.

There is a

perfect correspondence

and integration

between the inward life

and being of God

and His outward acts.

Now,

this is why

it's so important

that our theology,

these big categories

of theology,

need to become

the lens

through which we look

at our lives

and we look at the lives

of everything

around us

as disciples.

So,

the constant

unchanging truth

about God

needs to be

the constant lens

through which we,

as followers of Jesus,

look at everything

in our lives.

because if our theology

is buried in the back

of our minds,

then we could easily

fall into the trap

of thinking,

well,

I can kind of be

one thing at church

and I can be

another thing at work

and I can be

another thing at home

and I don't really

need to think too much

about how the Sermon

on the Mount

and the other ethical

instructions of the New Testament

affect me

because,

well,

you've just got to kind of,

you know,

got to do what's best

for me

and I've got to do

what works.

And so,

when theology is in the back

of your mind,

you can fall into these traps.

When your theology

becomes the lens

through which you look at life,

the minute that you pull

these great theological truths

about the constantness

of God

into your thinking,

our hypocrisy

becomes exposed

and the gospel does

what it always does.

It blows up our nonsense,

transforms our perspective

and places us

on a much,

much better

intellectual

and ethical foundation.

In other words,

what am I saying?

Well,

it's just basically

the fact that

your theology tells you

that God sees everything

and cares about everything,

whether it is in secret

or in public,

at church,

at work,

at home.

As we said,

God is omniscient.

He sees

and knows everything

and what we do,

whether it's in public

or in secret,

it makes no difference

to God.

He's always watching us.

And it's a great reminder

that in terms of being

disciples of Jesus,

it's reminding us

that actually

who we are

when no one's watching

is who we really are.

And that's why,

you know,

that's why

it's complete theological nonsense

and it's like,

I don't know if it's a good phrase

to use,

it's like evangelistic

self-destruction

when Christians live out

their lives

where we kind of come to church

and we're one thing

and then we go to work

and we're horrible

and difficult

and selfish

and arrogant

and whatever.

It's so,

so damaging

because

that masked

discipleship

that maybe you have

encountered

in your lives,

that masked

discipleship

is theologically absurd

and it's really,

really damaging

because people

can see through it

so easily.

And so,

you know,

it's again like

Jesus,

you know,

he's so wise

because

I've seen so many times

people

who have been put off

because,

they've been put off

the gospel

because they've seen that.

They've been hurt,

treated badly.

They've seen Christians

behave in a way

that they're like,

I can't,

I don't understand that.

And it's so damaging

and then you go to

the New Testament

and Jesus is like,

don't be a hypocrite

because he knows

the damage

it can cause.

There's two warnings

here that arise.

The first is that

we need to be very careful

about financial showing off

and so that's kind of

part of what this is touching

and that's just a,

that's just a wise

and important lesson.

Some of you may,

may well,

already or may go on

to be blessed

to do very,

very well

in your lives,

you know,

and praise God

if you do,

that gives you opportunities

to do wonderful things

for the gospel

but,

you know,

we don't want to,

you don't want to sort of

show that off.

Yeah,

you just don't,

you don't want to do that.

but even more importantly,

what this is really

pressing home to us

is that we have to be on guard

against religious showing off

and that can happen

so easily.

It can happen in church,

it can happen online,

it can happen in books,

it can happen in Bible studies,

it's so easy

in a kind of church setting

to want to say

and do things

that you think

are going to impress

other people.

And there's a massive

social media world

of

Christian,

religious,

desperately trying

to impress people,

ism.

the one person

who is never impressed

is Jesus.

And,

I mean,

I guess I feel a bit

embarrassed saying this

but,

you know,

I'm sitting

this week

writing this sermon

thinking,

I really hope

it's a good sermon

in St. C's.

And then I read,

Beware of practicing

your righteousness

before others

in order to be seen by them.

So we're all

battling this,

we're all battling this

because,

you know,

Jesus gives us

such wise

and helpful warnings

and I want my prayer

and your prayer

to be that our biggest

concern

is always be,

what does God

constantly see?

We spend a lot of time

thinking,

who's watching us?

You're not wrong,

you're not wrong

to think about the fact

that someone

is watching you.

The problem is

that we pick

the wrong someone

to worry about.

So,

this passage

exposes contrasts,

it teaches us

about some constants,

final C,

question.

So,

the Sermon on the Mount

presents us

with a lot of

direct,

challenging,

practical instructions.

That's one of the things

that's beautiful about it,

it's just,

it's quite,

Jesus is quite

hard-hitting in it,

which is actually

helpful.

And because of that,

we can often think

that the Sermon on the Mount

is hitting us

with the question,

will you do this?

So,

will you turn

the other cheek?

Will you guard

your hearts

against lust

and anger?

Will you pray

for those

who persecute you?

Will you go

the extra mile?

And those

will you do this

questions are good,

they are helpful,

they're important,

ask them.

But as we come

into chapter 6,

Jesus is not so much

asking you the

will you do this

question,

in fact,

he just assumes

that you'll do

these things,

because he says,

when you give,

and he'll go on

to say,

when you pray,

and when you fast,

he's not even,

he's just assuming

that we do it,

because these are

core things

that we should

be doing.

So he's not really

asking the

will you do

this question,

he's asking the

why are you

doing this

question.

And so if we

ask the question,

why were these

people putting

on this outward

show of

religious devotion,

why were they

doing that?

And so we might

say,

well,

they were arrogant,

they were show

offs,

they were proud,

they loved their

own status,

they were selfish.

And that's

probably true,

to a greater or

lesser degree.

But I think that

the biggest reason

why they were

doing all these

things is because

they were insecure.

And exactly the

same is true in

all areas of life.

People show off,

people try to put

on a good impression,

people make a huge

effort for their

outward appearance

to look good,

whether that's by

talking about your

salary or your

job or your

grades or making

sure you've got

the right clothes,

car, watch,

whatever,

whether it's your

social media page,

it has to look all

picture perfect,

or whatever it is.

Why do we do

these things?

Is it because we're

confident and strong

and self-assured?

No, I think it is

almost always because

we are insecure

and scared.

And that's where we

discover that you can

actually get two kinds

of hypocrisy.

You can get arrogant

hypocrisy.

So somebody who just,

you know, somebody who

does not care about

integrity, quite happy

with inconsistency in

their lives, and is

only interested in

serving themselves.

And you do get that

from time to time, and

maybe there's occasions

in life when we've

slipped into that trap.

You get that kind of

arrogant hypocrisy

sometimes.

I think far more

common is the second

kind of hypocrisy,

anxious hypocrisy.

And that's the trap

that I fall into,

and that I have to

battle against.

Because when I've been

a hypocrite, it's not

usually because I'm

just a kind of

uncontrollable, arrogant

idiot.

More often than not,

it's because I'm

nervous.

Or scared.

And that's why I'll

do one thing in one

context, and another

thing in another

context.

And that's why I'll

maybe hide.

So when I was an

engineer, you may be

like, oh, you're

reluctant to talk about

the fact that you were

at church, or at

school.

At times I was

reluctant to tell

people and speak about

the fact that I was a

Christian.

Why did I do that?

I didn't do that

because I was arrogant.

I was arrogant in

different ways.

But that wasn't, I

did that because I was

scared.

And so being anxious

can make you a

hypocrite.

And it's a great

reminder that the

mask of hypocrisy is

not actually a public

display.

It's a public

hiding.

thing.

And of course, the

Bible explains why

that's the case.

It's one of the

massive consequences

of the fall.

Sin makes us want to

hide because it makes

us feel ashamed.

You see that in Adam

and Eve?

I see it in my own

heart.

And so many of us

today, as you go into

tomorrow, this new week,

you're in this pressure.

pressure.

Pressure to put on a

public face to make a

good impression.

And the result is that

you can live a double

life.

And so you can have the

double life of, you

know, who we are at

work compared to who we

really are.

The double life of who

we are on social media

compared to who we

really are.

And we can have the

double life of who we

are at church compared

with who we really are.

This weekend, I had the

amazing privilege of being

at the youth conference,

the pre-church youth

conference.

There was 200 people

there on Saturday.

It was amazing.

So good to see.

But I know that for

some of the people who

are at that conference,

they are struggling with

a double life.

Because there's pressure

on them to conform to

what their friends are

doing and everything.

They are being pulled

in two directions.

And we do that because

we're scared.

We put massive pressure

on ourselves to put on

this outward mask in

order to make it look

like we're okay.

The whole thing is

utterly exhausting.

And the last thing I want

to press home to you is

that the whole thing is

utterly unnecessary.

We struggle with hypocrisy

because we struggle with

insecurity.

And the magnificent thing

about the gospel is that

grace addresses both.

So there's been times

when I've been a hypocrite

because I'm almost always

anxious and insecure

and grace deals with both.

So grace deals with your hypocrisy.

So if you can sit here right now

and if I have guilt-tipped you

for the last 34 minutes

where you're thinking,

as a Christian,

I have been living a double life

and I have failed to kind of

be who I really am

in front of my friends

or my colleagues

and I have not lived out

the Sermon on the Mount

and I can see that sin

and I feel so guilty

about that sin

and I am so annoyed

with myself.

Do you know what grace

is saying to you?

Grace is saying

that is forgiven.

Your hypocrisy

is washed away

with all your other sins

by the blood of Jesus.

Grace deals without hypocrisy

but grace also deals

without insecurity.

Because God in the gospel

wants to pour reassurance

into your heart

that you are His.

So we are talking about

discipleship unmasked.

So I'm sure all of us here

feel like we kind of have

a little bit of a mask

on us as disciples.

And you know,

we can say that

because we're like,

well,

we don't really want anybody

to see what's really in us

and what we're really like.

So if you imagine

that you really were

unmasked

before us tonight

as a disciple,

you're a follower of Jesus

and you are absolutely

unmasked,

what would we see?

And you might be thinking

you'd be seeing

the biggest failure

out there.

And you'd be seeing

somebody who doesn't have

anything like the Bible

knowledge they should have.

And who was like,

actually barely even

made it out of church tonight

because I was feeling

too tired.

And you think,

oh, you'll see all these.

So you think,

that's what's getting exposed.

If you are unmasked tonight,

what would you actually see?

What would you actually find?

You would find

the beloved child of God.

You'd find the bride of Christ.

You'd find the eternally redeemed.

Bought with the blood of Christ.

You'd find someone

whom God has loved forever.

Do you need a mask?

Of course you don't.

And that's why

as we follow Jesus,

we want to just live out

the life that he has blessed us with.

And for this beautiful gospel

to shape

all that we do.

And the result is

an amazing reward.

And I didn't have time

to talk about this.

And I've already gone on

for too long.

And those of you

who were here

when I was here

will have thought,

well, that's just normal.

But there is just

this talk of a reward.

And the beautiful thing

is that in our hypocrisy

we're looking for

that kind of instant reward

of people approving of us

and being impressed with us.

And it fades so quickly.

And God is saying,

and Jesus is saying

in these words,

Luke,

that the gospel

is giving us

an eternal reward.

And that's asking you

the question,

can you be content

with an eternal reward?

And you know,

my hypocrisy

isn't content with that.

Because I want

the instant reward.

But if I

focus on that

and on what all

that God has promised us,

my need for a mask

of hypocrisy disappears.

And as an unmasked disciple,

I can bask

in the beauty

and the fullness

of everything

that Jesus

wants to give me

and that he wants

to give you.

So as we go on together,

let's go on as disciples

unmasked.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus,

we thank you

so, so much

for your amazing wisdom

in seeing through

the reality of hypocrisy.

but as we

also see in these words,

we thank you

for the way

in which the gospel

deals with our hypocrisy.

And we're sorry

for the times

when we have

felt the need

to put on a mask

and try to put on

an impression to others.

Thank you

that the gospel

deals with all of that.

And so for everyone here,

may they know

anew

just the cleansing,

healing,

renewing,

wonderful power

of the gospel

in their lives

and may their hearts

be filled

with the security

and the peace

and the hope

of knowing

that we have

been loved by you

and will be loved

by you forever.

We pray that everybody

here would see

and understand that

more and more.

Amen.