Sermon Tone Analysis

Luke 12:1-12

A BIBLICAL ANTIDOTE FOR HYPOCRISY

Part 1

Intro: A beach near Perranporth, Cornwall in Great Britain is unlike any other stretch of coast in the world.

It is not known for its breakers or sand, but for what washes up in the surf: Tens of thousands of toy Lego bricks.

Back in 1997, a wave hit a container ship called the Tokio Express, which had 62 containers on board.

The ship sank, and as a result all 62 containers onboard the ship went overboard, and sank to the bottom of the ocean.

One of those containers had nearly 4.8 million pieces of Lego bound for New York.

No one knows exactly what happened next, or even what was in the other 61 containers, but Lego pieces – and only Lego pieces – started washing up on both the north and south beaches of Cornwall.

And in a quirky twist, many of the Lego items were nautical-themed, so locals and tourists alike have found miniature cutlasses, flippers, spear guns, sea grass, and scuba gear.

A U.S. oceanographer named Curtis Ebbesmeyer, who studies ocean currents and has been studying the story of the Lego pieces on the coast of Cornwall, offered a simple lesson.

He said, “The most profound lesson I’ve learned from the Lego story is that things that go to the bottom of the sea don’t always stay there.

They can be carried around the world, seemingly randomly, but subject to the planet’s currents and tides.

The incident is a perfect example of how even when inside a steel container, sunken items don’t stay sunken.”

Certain things in our spiritual lives – especially our sins – don’t stay sunken or hidden forever.

Like the Lego pieces, these spiritual realities will eventually rise to the surface.

The question is what we will do when we come across signs of them in our lives, sticking up out of the sand?

Jesus routinely exposed sin in people’s lives.

He even exposed hypocrisy in the lives of the Pharisees, the religious leaders of his day.

Jesus had just had dinner at the home of a Pharisee and pronounced woes upon the Pharisees and lawyers.

Jesus’ pronouncement made the Pharisees and lawyers so angry that they wanted to catch him in some mistake so that they could kill him.

They were so angry, they accused Jesus of working in the power of Satan.

Jesus defended his actions and words.

He left them without excuse for their unbelief.

Then Jesus told them they were under the judgment of God because they refused to believe on him.

This is the context for Jesus’ warning about spiritual hypocrisy.

I want to take this passage and preach about A Biblical Antidote For Hypocrisy.

This passage reminds us God knows our hearts.

It also reminds us the things we think are hidden in our lives will be exposed.

Let’s talk about An Antidote For Hypocrisy.

Notice some lessons from this passage which expose hypocrisy and offers a cure for those who are wise enough to take the Lord’s medicine.

I. v. 1 HEAR A WORD OF CAUTION

Since it cannot offer the true knowledge of God, man, sin, and salvation, False religion does not provide the truth which is necessary to access the power for people to be saved by the grace of God.

All false religious leaders claim to have the truth, but none of them do.

Since they do not know the truth themselves, because they are empty hypocrites, they cannot lead others to the truth.

They, along with their followers, they all perish and go to Hell.

The Greek word for “hypocrite” was a term which referred to an actor who played a role on stage.

Greek actors held up masks to change their appearance on the stage.

Actors commonly played multiple parts in ancient plays.

They simply changed masks to assume a different role.

The word “hypocrite” refers to those who “wear a mask.”

In the New Testament, the term “hypocrite” was upgraded, and it became a religious term.

The word “hypocrite” is always used in the Bible in a negative sense.

It speaks of one who claims to speak for God but does not.

The original theatrical definition of “hypocrite” illustrates the nature of spiritual deceivers.

An actor attempts to play a convincing role on the stage, pretending to be someone he is not.

So do religious deceivers.

Today, the words “hypocrite,” and “hypocrisy” almost always have religious overtones.

While all hypocritical spiritual leaders cheat people out of their earthly possessions, the eternal consequences of their hypocritical deception are far more damaging.

Although they pretend to speak for God, they are liars and deceivers.

1 Timothy 4:2 says, they speak “lies in hypocrisy.”

Their lies cause people to lose their eternal souls.

The Pharisees, who Jesus called hypocrites, made their followers “twofold more the child of hell,” than they were, Matthew 23:15.

The Bible reveals specific characteristics of hypocrites.

First, by pretending to be something they are not, they focus on outward appearance and hide the truth of who they really are.

Jesus applied Isaiah’s condemnation of the hypocrites of his day to the scribes and Pharisees when “Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me,” Mark 7:6.

In a pompous, self-serving display of their supposed spirituality, the religious hypocrites of Jesus’ day sounded trumpets to call attention to their giving, Matthew 6:2.

They prayed on the street corners for all to see, Matthew 6:5.

They made it obvious they were fasting by having mournful expressions on their faces and neglecting their appearance, Matthew 6:16.

They enlarged their phylacteries and the tassels on their garments, Matthew 23:5.

They sought out the most important seats at banquets and in the synagogue, Matthew 23:6.

They craved respectful public greetings and the honored title Rabbi, Matthew 23:7.

There were other issues as well.

The Jews claimed to know God and they way to God—but they killed God in the flesh.

The Jews claimed to know the Law of God and how to comply—but they misunderstood the purpose of the law (to reveal sin), the point of the law (a cry for Jesus), and the limits of the law (its inability to remove sin).

The Jews claimed contentment and blessing—yet they robbed those who came to worship God at the temple.

The Jews claimed love and sexual purity—yet they readily divorced their wives for younger women.

The Jews claimed worship of One God—yet they participated in and stole from pagan worship practices.

The same problems with hypocrisy still haunt us today.

Viewing themselves as spiritually superior to the common people, hypocrites are quick to find fault with them.

In a pointed and humorous image Jesus said of such people, “4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? 5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye,” Matthew 7:4–5.

For hypocrites to criticize the faults of others is as absurd as someone with a gigantic log in his eye trying to remove a tiny splinter from someone else’s eye.

Second, hypocrites respond with malice to those who expose them.

Desperately trying to trap Jesus into making an incriminating statement, the Jewish religious leaders asked him about the explosive issue of paying the poll tax required by the Romans.

Perceiving both their malice, Matthew 22:18, and their hypocrisy, Mark 12:15, Jesus refuted their attempt to trap him.

“19 Shew me the tribute money.

And they brought unto him a penny.

20 And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription?

21 They say unto him, Caesar’s.

Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s,” Matthew 22:19–21.

Hypocrites lack discernment.

In Luke 12:54–57 Jesus rebuked those who were able to look at certain indicators and predict the weather, verses 54–55, but were unable to recognize the obvious signs the Messiah, God in human flesh, was among them, verses 56–57.

Their contempt for those whom they regard as spiritually inferior causes hypocrites to lack compassion.

Luke 13:11–13 describes Jesus healing a woman who had suffered from a crippling disease for eighteen years.

Indignant at this blatant violation of the rabbinical Sabbath restrictions, a synagogue leader enjoined the people to seek healing on one of the other six days.

Jesus’ stern rebuke exposed the man’s unfeeling hypocrisy: “15 The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering?

16 And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?” (Luke 13:15–16)

This incident was only one of many when Jesus pronounced divine judgment on hypocrites.

Seven times in Matthew 23 (vv.

13, 15, 16, 23, 25, 27, 29), the Lord addressed the scribes and Pharisees using the phrase, “Woe to you,” which is an expression of divine condemnation and judgment.

Jesus concluded his parable of the faithful and unfaithful slaves by declaring that the disloyal slave would be assigned to hell with the hypocrites, Matthew 24:45–51.

And in a shocking act of judgment, God took the lives of the two most notorious hypocrites in the early church, Ananias and Sapphira, Acts 5:1–11.

Not only does God judge unbelievers for their hypocrisy, he also warns believers to avoid it.

“But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy,” James 3:17.

Hypocrisy plagued Israel throughout her history.

God said to Ezekiel regarding the Jewish people of his day, “31 And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they shew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness.

32 And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not,” Ezekiel 33:31-32.

Micah lamented how Israel’s “…teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us?

none evil can come upon us,” Micah 3:11.

Admonishing the survivors of Babylon’s destruction of Judah for their hypocrisy, Jeremiah said, “19 The LORD hath said concerning you, O ye remnant of Judah; Go ye not into Egypt: know certainly that I have admonished you this day.