The Dangers of Hypocrisy

1. Hypocrisy is preoccupied with external appearance without regard to real, internal goodness.

• 11:39-41 "Then the Lord said to him, "Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But give what is inside [the dish] to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.
• Jesus addresses 2 categories of people. The first 3 warnings are addressed to the Pharisees. The second three warnings are addressed to the experts in the law, sometimes called the Scribes.
• The lives of these Pharisees were absorbed with concern over externals. But before we get too critical, let's make note that this concern was not directed at trivialities.
• Not what's on sale at the mall, how do I get more shrubs in front of my house ? Bible has other words for these concerns: idolatry, gluttony, envy
• No Pharisees concerned about how to keep the Sabbath, how to love their neighbors more.
• Great churchmen, conservative laypersons
• Gateway would feel very, very lucky to have a few Pharisees.
• Jesus is never critical of their concern for the law. He is critical of how this concern manifested itself.
• Being a follower of Jesus does not mean trying to be a better person. Being a better person comes as a by-product of being a follower of Jesus.
• Following Jesus means to change from the inside out. It means to dig under the surface of life; to offer more and more of ourselves to the more and more of God that we understand.

2. Hypocrisy is preoccupied with legalistic details to the neglect of major moral issues.

• 11:42 "Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.
• In the Old Testament, God had instructed his followers to offer 10% of all that they owned as a gift to God. These gifts were (1) a symbol of their whole lives which are meant to be offerings to God, (2) used for help with the poor and for the Levites and priests.
• The Pharisees were unbelievably exact in their attention to this matter, but they neglected the real issue, which was concern for the poor and the love of God.
• Psychologists often suggest that the motivation behind obsessive/compulsive attention to details is guilt. We want to make sure we don't get anything wrong. We don't want anybody to ever be disappointed in us. We don't want to be disappointed in ourselves. We don't want to ever blow it, to never have to say I'm sorry.
• In short, legalism can be a substitute for repentance.
• Our lives are dependent on God. No way around that. Sometimes compulsive attention to detail is an attempt to avoid the necessity of dependence.

3. Hypocrisy is preoccupied with gaining applause from human beings to the neglect of having a positive impact on others.

• 11:43-44 "Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. "Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which men walk over without knowing it."
• Based on both logic and human experience, Christian philosophers have historically asserted that our needs point to some reality source that would meet that need. In other words, the fact that we have a need argues for something that would meet that need.
• Human beings need encouragement.
• It is not seeking encouragement or applause that Jesus condemns; but the source of that applause. We were made to find our joy in God's love and approval. The approval of our peers can never fully satisfy that need.
• Not only does hypocrisy seek the applause of human beings, but it neglects the positive influence of others.
• "unmarked graves which men walk over without knowing it." Your life does not generate any real impact on anyone.

4. Hypocrisy makes religion arduous and unattractive.

• 11:46 "Jesus replied, "And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them."
• The experts in the law were not lawyers. They were professional ministers and seminary professors. People who have made it their devotion to study the Bible. If these people were at Gateway, we would make them home fellowship leaders or maybe the pastor.
• Jesus knew that relationship with God was about joyful emancipation from our burdens. "Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest," Jesus told his followers. God is not interested in burdening people. He wants to relieve our burdens. But hypocrisy increases the burden of faith. It makes faith about duty. Relationship with God is an ought to.

5. Hypocrisy is preoccupied with the traditions of faith without regard to the real power behing faith.

• 11:47-49 "Woe to you, because you build tombs for the prophets, and it was your forefathers who killed them. So you testify that you approve of what your forefathers did; they killed the prophets, and you build their tombs. Because of this, God in his wisdom said, `I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and others they will persecute.'"
• Hypocrisy kills its prophetic contemporaries while honoring prophets from the past who preach the same message. It honors the tradition, while denouncing the living reality.

6. Hypocrisy makes saving faith inaccessible.

• 11:52 "Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering."

1. Hypocrisy impacts your whole network of relationships, even your whole life.

• We are reminded of the old adage: "o what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive."
• After speaking to the Pharisees and law experts, Jesus turns to his disciples. He gives a warning to them, because they are not immune to the dangers of hypocrisy.
• It is like yeast, which although it is small, it affects the whole lump of dough. The whole batch rises because of a pinch of yeast.
• This business of pharisaical hypocrisy can easily infect your lives and consequently beyond you to the whole network of relationships around you. In fact, your whole life is in danger of being emptied of integrity, once you allow the seeds of hypocrisy to creep in.

2. Hypocrisy will ultimately be revealed.

• Don't you hate watching those movies where character is trying to pull off a lie and you know he or she is destined to be caught? I imagine that we would feel the same way about our own lives sometimes, if we could see them from a bird's eye view. Hypocrisy, along with everything else, will be revealed. The truth will be uncovered.
• I believe this is true in an very tangible earthly sense, but Jesus seems to be implying here in an ultimate sense. God will make it known. You and I will stand before Him and all accounts will be balanced. Every transaction will be revealed.
• Hypocrisy is dangerous because it is pointless. We simply cannot carry it off.

3. By implication, Jesus says hypocrisy can result in hell.

• So do not fear the rejection of people. This is what often drives hypocrisy. WE are simply afraid of what others will think, so we exaggerate or we manipulate or put the burden on someone else to make ourselves look better. We reduce the meaning of our lives to the knowable and the clearly definable and the do-able, so that we can know it, define and do it. Then we look and feel like we're in charge.
• But don't be afraid of those who can only kill the body. As dramatic as that sounds, we would be wise to entertain a far greater fear ? that is, the of the ONE who has the power to throw us into hell after we are dead.
• Jesus does not speak much about hell for a religious guy. But he speaks of it here in connection with hypocrisy. We would like to be more forgiving of hypocrisy. "It doesn't seem all that bad, God. An understandable stretch here and there. Surely placing our emphasis on the wrong things is hardly on a par with some of the really big sins." God does not seem to agree with our logic.

"I wasn't raised anything to tell you the truth," he said. "My grandfather was a preacher. He was the funniest guy. He used to curse a lot, run around, whatever. A bunch of deacons from his church got arrested for selling coke. Not selling it out of the church, but you know."