Cursed Hypocrisy

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Rosebrook. The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the 22nd chapter.

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Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle Jesus in His talk. They sent their disciples to Him, along with the

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Herodians, saying, Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone's opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances.

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Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? But Jesus, aware of their malice, said,

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Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin for the tax.

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And they brought Him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, Whose likeness in inscription is this?

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They said, Caesar's. And then He said to them, Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are

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God's. And when they heard it, they marveled, and they left Him and went away. This is the gospel of the

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Lord. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You may be seated. In the name of Jesus.

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Hypocrisy, it's quite a problem, if you think about it. And here's the thing, we're all prone to it. Don't think the

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Pharisees are somehow special in the realm of hypocrisy. We Christians are all tempted by it.

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And that's kind of what's going on in our text, in fact, more than kind of. Let me give you some words from the

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Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 2 to help us frame what hypocrisy is. Therefore you have no excuse,

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O man, every one of you who judges people. For in passing judgment on another, you end up condemning yourself, because you, the judge, you practice the very same things.

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We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. So do you suppose,

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O man, you who judge those who practice such things, and yet you yourselves do them, that you will escape the judgment of God?

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Or do you presume on the riches of God's kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that it's

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God's kindness that is meant to lead you to repentance? You see, practicing is one thing, but preaching and not practicing, that's something that we all do.

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And I would note that we Christians have a bad rap because of our hypocrisy. And we are all prone to it.

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We are quick to judge others in the world, and oftentimes rightly so. But then you'll note that we don't readily have our acts together either.

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And so as a result of it, preaching only law and condemnation, rather than preaching law and gospel, which is what we're called to do, not merely the law but also the gospel, but preaching the law and condemning the world and not offering them any hope of salvation at all because of Christ, we come off like a bunch of self -righteous, well,

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I can't even say the word. It's just, it's awful what we come across as.

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And so when the world reacts to us when we do things like this, they're not wrong. They're right.

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And so we need to hear these words. But note here the hypocrisy. Who's in charge now of the religious scene in Israel in the time of our gospel?

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The Pharisees have come in, taken over. They're like a cult. They're like Mormonism, if you think about it.

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But in our text, here's how it reads, then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle

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Jesus in his talk. Let's make this perfectly clear. We're at Matthew 22. The purpose of entangling

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Jesus in his talk is so that they could once and for all get rid of Jesus. They want him,

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D -E -A -D, dead. They want him gone. And just think about that for a second.

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Just work this out. Religious people claiming to believe in the

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God of the Old Testament, plotting a murder and trying to figure out how to trip

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Jesus up in his own words. And so they came up with this great plan. And the plan basically was to present

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Jesus with one of these catch -22 questions. He's damned if he answers it this way.

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He's damned if he answers it that way. It's perfect. At least that's how they're thinking.

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And to make matters even more interesting, Pharisees and Herodians don't get along.

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Let me make this clear. The Herodians are people who are fully on board with the

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Roman Empire being in charge of Judea, so much so that they even themselves have adopted the worship of the false pagan gods of Rome.

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These are people who are yay Caesar for everything. And so anybody speaking words of insurrection or defiance or rebellion against Caesar, they would be keen on it.

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And here's the issue, is that according to the Pharisees' teaching, if you are a good

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God -loving Jew, you cannot use the filthy money of the

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Roman Empire, especially when it comes to things related to worship. Remember Jesus at several occasions drove the money changers out of the temple.

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Why were there money changers is the question. The reason why is because the Pharisees had this teaching.

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It went something like this. Well, the Roman Empire, they claim that Caesar is

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God on earth. They've put his image on the money. Therefore, if you use this money to engage in any kind of practice related to the worship of Yahweh, you are an idolater.

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And so we've got some way to help clean things up here. We're going to have it so that you can bring your denarii and exchange them for temple shekels and they'll just be a nominal exchange fee.

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There's always a fee related to the Pharisees. And so here, the

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Pharisees have worked up with the Herodians and the plot is actually quite simple. Bring up the thorny issue of taxes.

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We have that question that comes up even in our day, right? Should we pay our taxes to a government that supports abortion?

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Yeah. And I'll explain why at the end and in fact, Jesus will explain it for us.

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But you'll note here, the thing is, is that what they want to do is they want to ask Jesus this question and then

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Jesus, if he answers, well, no, you can't pay your taxes to Caesar because Caesar is a false god, that's idolatry, the

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Herodians lose their mind and go, ah! And they arrest Jesus and crucify him. It's actually quite simple.

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But if Jesus says, no, go ahead and pay your taxes, then the Pharisees in their official doctrine regarding idolatry and the denarii comes into play and we can crucify

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Jesus for idolatry. It's quite simple. But here's the fun part. Listen to the details.

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So they, the Pharisees, sent their disciples to him. Work this out for a second.

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They didn't send the major league team, the leaders of the Pharisees. They sent the farm club.

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I remember the opening to the movie Darkest Hour, right, where, you know, and it opens with parliament in the

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United Kingdom in a complete uproar, all right? Hitler has invaded France and is plowing across Europe.

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And of course, Chamberlain was the prime minister of the UK at the time. And so the opposition party was just shouting down Chamberlain, you need to move, man.

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You can't be here, you're incompetent. It's because of your failed policies that we're in this situation.

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Leave, go away, you know, you need to resign, right? And of course, Winston Churchill wasn't in there when that was all going down.

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His seat was noticeably vacant. And somebody asked the question, where's

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Churchill? And they said, he didn't want his fingerprints on the murder weapon.

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Great line, by the way. Same thing here. The Pharisees, they don't want their fingerprints on the murder weapon.

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They think they've got Jesus, so they're sending in the lower guys and they're thinking, oh, this is my chance.

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Oh, dude, you're engaging in a murder plot here. And so they sent the disciples of the

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Pharisees, along with the Herodians, saying, teacher, now listen to these buttery words, holy smokes, check your back for a knife real quick if you hear somebody talking to you like this, teacher, we know that you are true and you teach the way of God truthfully.

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Really? This is a murder plot? And these are your words? This is as close to Jesus being betrayed by a kiss as humanly possible without an actual kiss.

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These are false words. These are pretenses. They don't believe a word of this. If this were true, they'd be baptized and they'd be following Christ.

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But they're not. We know that you seek the word truthfully. You don't care about anyone's opinion.

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That's true about Jesus. For you're not swayed by appearances. Also true about Jesus. So tell us, then, what you think.

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Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? And there it is. The trap is set.

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The bait is in it. They're just waiting for Jesus to walk into it. He ain't getting out of this alive.

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And you can just see their hands going, oh yes, oh yes, we finally got Jesus, right?

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But Jesus, let me kind of put it this way. You know, there's a lot of really stupid things that you can do on planet

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Earth. But playing games with God is not one of them. It's not a smart game.

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It's a stupid game. I always like to tell people, and this is a little joke that I like throwing out from time to time.

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When we get to the new earth and we finally see Jesus face to face, you know what? You'll never be able to invite

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Jesus to a game of hide and seek. Because if he's it, he'll know exactly where you are. The scriptures are clear.

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It doesn't matter if you are in the deepest depths of the earth or as far out in outer space as you can possibly be.

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God is there with you. You can't hide from him. So don't ask Jesus to play hide and seek with you.

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It'll completely ruin the game, right? Second only to hide and seek here is this game that they're playing with Jesus because they're playing it with God.

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I remember people talking about certain politicians being able to play 4D chess. Christ can play 10D chess, okay?

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Nobody can even come close to him. So he says, why put me to the test? And here it is. You hypocrites.

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Why the charge of hypocrisy? Because it sticks. That's the problem.

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They don't see that they preach, but they don't practice. They talk a good game about God's law and about being moral, but at the same time, they don't do a thing really to obey it.

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They don't practice what they preach. If you remember last week, I ended off on kind of an ominous note, taking a look at some of the words of Christ from the next chapter, chapter 23.

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Listen to what Christ says again from a portion of it. Woe to you scribes and you Pharisees, you hypocrites.

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You clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self -indulgence.

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You blind Pharisees, first clean the inside of the cup and the plate so that the outside also may be clean.

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Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, and here's the other charge, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness.

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So you outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

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Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, for you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, oh, if we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in the shedding of the blood of the prophets.

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Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets, filling up then the full measure of your fathers, you serpents, you brood of vipers.

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How are you going to escape being sentenced to hell? It's a pretty firm charge.

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But I would note something here. Jesus isn't singling out the Pharisees as if somehow their evil is super special.

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In fact, Jesus' description here is exactly the description of every single human being who is born dead in trespasses and sins.

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Listen to the words of the Apostle Paul from Romans chapter 3, starting at verse 9, and he's quoting two

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Psalms here. He's quoting Psalm 14 and Psalm 53. So these words appear three times in the

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Scriptures. None is righteous, no, not one. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless.

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No one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive.

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The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood, and in their paths are ruin and misery and the way of peace they have not known.

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There is no fear of God before their eyes. That description sounds like the general description of all of humanity after the fall.

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So here's the problem with the Pharisees. It's not that their sin is special. It's they don't recognize their sin.

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We are just like them. They are just like us. We all together, because of our rebellion against God, have fallen deep into sin and we have been wrecked.

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We are completely derelict spiritually and completely worthless. Their sin isn't special.

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What's special is their complete inability to recognize their own sin. And see, that's the thing.

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When you think that the law was given to give you 10 easy commandments, that if you follow them, you can attain sinless perfection in this lifetime, you are delusional.

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I know that sounds like a hard charge, but remember, again, the words of 1 John, if you say you have no sin, you deceive yourself and the truth is not in you.

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But if you confess your sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

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And so the Pharisees, they don't even recognize their sins. They sit there and go, we have the law, we have the commandments, we're pulling it off, we're special.

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No, you're not. That's not why the law was given. The law was given to show you that you're a sinner. Self -righteousness and hypocrisy, they go hand in hand.

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They walk down the primrose path of self -deception together.

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And listen to the words of Christ from the Sermon on the Mount, talking about hypocrites. Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your

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Father who is in heaven. You'll note that hypocrisy leads one to think that somehow they can become a

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Christian influencer in the weirdest of ways. And so what somebody does is they wake up in the morning and then they take their

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Bible and they open it up and kind of make, oh, let's see, what verse do I want it to be on? And then as soon as they're done, they arrange their coffee and get things, oh, and a pencil and a highlighter and maybe a little notepad, a little of those moleskin things.

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And then they take their phone and they go, having morning devotions, selfie time. And they put it on Instagram, right?

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Isn't that exactly the thing that Christ is condemning? It is exactly that.

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And yet, have you taken a look at Christian influencer Instagram and TikTok?

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There's a bunch of people who think that, oh man, I am having my devotions right now. Oh, I'm so blessed,

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I'm reading through the prophet Isaiah, right, selfie. You know who mastered that long before there was social media?

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The Pharisees, the hypocrites, self -righteous. 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.

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Could you imagine if we put in a trumpet or a shofar here at Kongsvinger? You know, it's like ringing the bell at Chili's, right?

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What on earth is going on here? Okay, somebody puts money in the plate.

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Boop, boop, boop, boop. Let everybody know that they're doing so. It sounds absurd, but this is human practice.

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What's the point of doing good works if other people aren't going to recognize what I'm doing, right?

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I always used to laugh because Rick Warren, this is a strange fellow that I've been critiquing for decades now, but Rick Warren, back in the day, he would talk about, you know,

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I reverse tithe. I want to make everybody aware of this that regarding the book royalties that I got from the purpose -driven church and the purpose -driven life,

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I reverse tithe my royalties and gave 90 % back to Saddleback. And every time he would say that,

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I'd go, well, you got your reward there, buddy. Thanks for letting everybody know what you did.

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Aren't you special, right? So when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet, don't blow a shofar, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others.

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Truly, I say to you, they've received their reward. But when you give to the needy, don't let your left hand know what your right hand's doing, so that your giving may be in secret, and your father who sees in secret will reward you.

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And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others.

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We've all been to church with this person, and I've met multiple people like this. And man, they are great at prayers, and everybody after they're done praying says, oh, that was the best prayer ever, right?

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But oftentimes, when I've heard people pray such flowery prayers, I sit there and go, are you really praying to God, or are you just really fishing for a compliment after the end of that thing?

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So when you pray, don't heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do. They think they will be heard for their many words.

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Christ goes on, and when you fast, don't look gloomy like the hypocrites. They disfigure their faces so that their fasting may be seen by others.

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What's wrong with you today? Oh, I'm a little weak right now, and my sugars are down because I'm fasting.

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Uh -huh. Aren't you supposed to keep that to yourself? Uh -huh. All right?

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They disfigure their faces so that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they've received their reward.

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So when you fast, anoint your head. I guess nowadays we do that with hair product. Wash your face so that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your

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Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Hypocrisy is such a part of self -righteousness that Christ had to spend a huge chunk of the

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Sermon on the Mount putting it down like the rabid dog that it is. And so here we see self -righteous hypocrisy on parade in our gospel text, and the goal is the death of Christ put on and put together by religious leaders.

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Again, the hypocrisy is thick. So Christ goes on. Why do you put me to the test, you hypocrites?

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So show me the coin for the tax. And I was like, if I could like film this, like if I could film it,

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I picture some guy in the crowd kind of reaching into one of his little bags, pulling a denarius and going, here you go,

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Jesus. Ting. And you just see it kind of rolling through the air and him grabbing it up.

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So Jesus said to them, all right, whose likeness and inscription is this? I remind you, whose likenesses are on the dollar bills that are in your pocket or in your wallet or in your purse?

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It's the likenesses of the presidents, the people of the history of the United States, Washington and others, right?

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That's who that money belongs to. So show me the coin.

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Whose likeness is this? They said, that's Caesar's. He said, all right, therefore render to Caesar the things that are

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Caesar's and to God the things that are God's. And you can just see the Herodians going, bummer, man, we thought we had him.

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And the disciples of the Pharisees, the third stringers, them going, oh no, we failed, we're going to get in trouble, right?

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But Jesus, I mean, you can't outdo him.

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You can't outdo him. He's God in human flesh. Oh, they thought they did when they put him to death, if you think about it.

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Because they ultimately succeeded. Just in a few more chapters, they're going to arrest him. And they're going to crucify him.

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But note this, the scripture is clear that he wasn't outmatched by anybody. Instead, Jesus willingly laid down his life.

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So that hypocrites like you and I, self -righteous sinners like you and I, who are so bent in on ourselves that we turn religion into some way of glorifying ourselves, that even

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Christ went to the cross, willingly laid down his life so that you and I, these miserable, arrogant, self -righteous, hypocritical sinners that we are, so that we can be forgiven.

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And here's the thing, he even bled and died for the sins of the Pharisees, their first and second and third stringers, and even the

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Herodians by going to the cross. He wasn't outwitted. He willingly laid down his life, and in so doing, he outwitted the devil.

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Because it's clear in scripture, if the devil had figured out what Jesus was up to, he would have never allowed him to be crucified.

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Think that out. It's beautiful when you think of it. And so then, what is our attitude as Christians?

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Well, note then, all who rely on works of the law. This is from Galatians chapter 3, verse 10.

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All who rely on works of the law. And here, this is reliance that the

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ESV translates. This reliance is all those who are trusting in their salvation based upon their good works.

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By their changing the world. By their obeying

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God's law. All who rely on works of the law for salvation. They are the ones who are under a curse.

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And so you can see that hypocrisy itself is cursed. Why? Why? Why is hypocrisy cursed?

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You know why? Because there's no margin of error when it comes to self -righteousness and hypocrisy or righteousness under the law.

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Paul says, cursed is everyone, and he's quoting from the scriptures, it is written, cursed is everyone who does not abide by all the things written in the book of the law and keep on doing them.

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When you look at the Ten Commandments, let's boil it down to two, right? You can take all the commandments, boil them down to two, love the

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Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself, right? So let's just take those two right now, and if I said, all right,

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I want you this week, I want you to pull that off. Sometime this week, you need to intentionally apply yourself to where you can say,

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I've now loved God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and I've loved my neighbor perfectly as myself.

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Would you be able to tick off at the end of the day? I did it, I did it, therefore I'm perfect.

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No, because here's what's going to happen. You're going to have to keep doing that every nanosecond of your existence.

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And I would note that the people who believe in something called Christian perfectionism, which by the way, is a heresy,

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I would note this. This is not an error, it is not, well, we as Christians, we can agree to disagree kind of thing.

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No, the ancient church legitimately considered Pelagius a full -on heretic and anathematized him, his doctrine, and his disciples, and different variations of things, and then they, like an attack dog, they took

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Augustine off his leash and let him at Pelagius. And he's got an entire book written,

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Contra Pelagius, if you haven't read it, it's brilliant. And what did Pelagius say?

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Oh yes, we Christians, all human beings are born tabula rasa. This was his big claim, tabula rasa,

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Latin phrase, basically meaning a blank slate. And the Pelagians were famous for saying, if you take a child from the moment it's born and you were to whisk it away to a deserted island and it was raised by angels, then that child would never sin.

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Really? Yeah. Don't be so biblical,

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James, come on. And yet the scriptures are clear that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

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And so Augustine really led the charge against the Pelagians. And then the Pelagians also said, and as a

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Christian, you can attain sinless perfectionism. Wesley taught the same thing, by the way.

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He did. And you can attain sinless perfectionism in this lifetime. So they came up with a real simple test, a simple rhetorical device to identify these self -righteous hypocrites, because that's what they are.

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The one who says he has no sin deceives himself. And here was the simple test. You just ask a

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Pelagian or you ask a Christian to see if they're a Pelagian, all right. The Lord taught us to pray daily, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

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And here's the question, why did Jesus tell us to ask for forgiveness daily? If they were

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Pelagian, they would say, well, it's not because we need to have our sins forgiven. It's because Jesus wants us to stay humble, heretic, and then you can proceed accordingly.

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That's the sheer sign you're dealing with a heretic. And I would note that heresy is running rampant in many places calling themselves

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Christians today. This idea that you can attain sinless perfection is, why do

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I have to confess my sins every Sunday at church? I don't sin that often. You just sin by saying that, right.

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So note, those who rely on works of the law for their salvation, they're under a curse because cursed is everyone who does not abide by all the things written in the book of the law and keep on, keep on, keeping on, keeping on doing them.

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That's kind of how the verbs work there. Now it's evident, Paul says, no one, not one person is justified before God by the law.

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The reason for this is it says so clearly in the book of Habakkuk chapter two, the righteous shall live by faith.

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But the law, it's not of faith, rather the one who does them shall live by them. Note that, keeping the law and expecting to be saved by the law requires zero faith at all.

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Salvation is a wage, you earn it. You do the work, you do the things, you do the stuff, you pray the prayers, you bend the knee, you do all the hocus pocus stuff and you're saved.

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You don't have to have any faith, you just need to do the thing. So the one, the law is not of faith, the one who does them shall live by them.

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But note this, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. And he did this by becoming a curse for us.

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For it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. Just such an obscure text.

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It's like this one -off sentence in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 21. Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.

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And that's the scandal of the cross. Christ was cursed for you cursed people so that you can be blessed.

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God laid on him the iniquity of us all. God made him to be sin. Who knew no sin so that you might be the righteousness of God.

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So that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles. So that we might receive the promised spirit through faith.

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So brothers and sisters, Christ laid down his life. He became a curse for us, bled and died in our place.

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So that we would no longer be under the curse of self -righteousness and hypocrisy. And you'll note then that the right response to this gift given to us by God.

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Because Christ died for the ungodly. And you all qualify, so do I. Christ died for the ungodly.

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And so our right response is not arrogance or boasting. Sometimes saying, well I was smart enough to make my decision for Jesus.

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That's too bad you weren't smart enough to make yours. You know, this is not our attitude. If we're going to boast in anything, it's not in ourselves.

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Because even the faith that is required for salvation. It was also given to us as a gift by God.

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God had to regenerate our dead spiritual carcasses. Because we couldn't regenerate ourselves.

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Dead people don't do anything except for stay dead. So it's a miracle when anyone comes to Christ.

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And they have nothing to brag about. Because God's the one who raised them from the dead. So if you're going to boast, boast in Christ.

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Boast in the Savior who loved you so much that He gave His life. Bled and died for your sins.

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Boast in the Father who sent the Son to save you. Boast in the Holy Spirit who regenerated you from death to life.

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Boast in the Trinity who has given you the gift of salvation. Contrary to what you have deserved and what you've earned.

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And done it out of His mercy, grace, kindness, and love. Boast in the Jesus who suffered in your place on the cross.

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And languished under the withering heat of God's wrath. So that you and I can experience forgiveness, mercy, grace, and reconciliation.

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And let us repent of our hypocrisy and our inner Pharisee. And let us not do evil in the name of God.

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Use God as a pretense for hiding our sin while we're doing wickedness.

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And exalting ourselves and pushing our own agenda. Let's instead deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow the one who was cursed so that we can be blessed.

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In the name of Jesus, Amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744 And again that address is

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744 We thank you for your support.

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All of our teaching messages may be freely distributed as long as you do not edit or change the content of the message.