Luke 11:29-12:3, Is Image Everything?

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Luke 11:29-12:3 Is Image Everything?

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Luke chapter 11, starting verse 29, reading to chapter 12, verse 3, hear the word of the
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Lord. When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, this generation is an evil generation.
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It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the son of man be to this generation.
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The queen of the south will rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.
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The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it for they repented at the preaching of Jonah and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
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No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand.
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So those who enter may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body.
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When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light. But when it is bad, your body is full of darkness.
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Therefore be careful, lest the light in you be darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.
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While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him. And so he went in and reclined at table.
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The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. And the Lord said to him, now you
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Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.
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You fools did not he who made the outside, make the inside also, but give us alms, those things that are within and behold, everything is clean for you.
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But woe to you Pharisees for you tithe mint and rue and every herb and neglect justice and the love of God.
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These things you ought to have done without neglecting the others. Woe to you Pharisees for you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.
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Woe to you for you are like unmarked graves and people walk over them without knowing it.
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One of the lawyers answered him, teacher in saying these things, you insult us also.
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And he said, woe to you lawyers also for you load people with burdens, hard to bear.
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And you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe to you for you build the tombs of the prophets whom your father's killed.
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So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers for they killed them and you build their tombs.
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Therefore also the wisdom of God said, I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute so that the blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the world may be charged against this generation from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the sanctuary.
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Yes, I tell you it will be required of this generation. Woe to you lawyers for you have taken away the key of knowledge.
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You did not enter yourselves and you hindered those who were entering. As he went away from there, the scribes and the
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Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things, lying in wait for him to catch him in something he might say.
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In the meantime, when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another, he began to say to his disciples first, beware the leaven of the
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Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known.
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Therefore, whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.
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May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. Well, his image, everything, what do you think?
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A lot of people think so. You know, a lot of people will pay more for the sizzle, even if they get less steak.
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What about you? Do you think image is everything? You might be falling for it more than you think because companies and their advertisers spend a lot of money to sell you on an image, to bring you in with the image that they want you to associate them with.
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McDonald's sells itself as fun and happy. So you'll go there, get a happy meal, and you'll be loving it.
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Maybe you won't notice that the food probably isn't of the highest quality. Although we did have,
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I did have a very good breakfast there last Thursday, right in downtown Manhattan. So whatever. But it's cheap, even if there's not the best burgers.
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Now, some places are so hyped their image that they'll hope you'll pay big dollars just to get a taste of that glitzy image, that feeling that you've had the first class stuff.
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Last summer, we visited a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Raleigh, which was a, you know, has a carefully cultivated image of being fine dining.
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I wanted to try this, you know, fancy restaurant. There's a dress code, you know, because you got to keep up the image of the place, which we weren't all technically abiding by, but they seated us anyway.
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Everything was refined, you know, the glasses, the silverware, the salad forks laid out just right, you know, the candle on the table and all that.
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And then we looked at the menu and decided we weren't willing to pay that much for the image of fine dining.
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To give you an example, it makes Outback Steakhouse look like a cheap fast food place.
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So we left. You know, that makes for a bad image for us, I guess. Here we are, we're underdressed already, and then we're leaving the place because it's too expensive.
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I really didn't care. I don't care what they think of me. Well, still, best -selling author
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Maruki Murakami insisted image is everything. You don't spare any expense to create the right image.
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And word of mouth is critical. Once you get a good reputation, momentum will carry you. That's sort of the way of the world today.
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So in our culture, we have celebrities who are all image, but we don't know what they do.
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The Kardashians, who in the world are these people? All image, where'd they come from? What do they do?
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Famous for being famous. Famous for what? I have no idea. One study showed that beautiful people, beautiful people, make five percent more than their homely counterparts.
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That's why I'm glad we have so many beautiful people here, right? Somehow their bosses, though, they think that you,
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I guess, look so good you deserve more pay. We will pay for the image, even if we don't get the substance.
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Now, oh, I got one in my pocket. Now, Apple products, it's got a case on it, so it takes away from the look, but Apple products strive for, you know, that's the sleek, this image is sleek and simple, you know, phone with no buttons.
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There actually is a few on the side, but you hardly notice them. It's simple, you know, user -friendly, but excellent, and most
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Apple users think Apple has image and substance, but you think that, right?
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, that there's reality behind the facade. It's not just all looks, but often image in other products,
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I'm not talking about Apple, other things, I don't want to spare a job, other things try to fool you with their image that they, in fact, lack the substance.
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Ever notice that what fast food places sell in their images and their advertising doesn't really match what you get when you go there?
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I was once going through a drive -thru with, when one of the people I was with returned the ice cream sundae, you know, got the order of the ice cream sundae, this big sign with a picture of the ice cream sundae, she returned it saying, you know, make it like the one in the image, it wasn't overflowing, it wasn't full like the one in the sign, make it like the one in the sign, she said.
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Nowadays, though, people want to project image, one of the funny things about this generation, particularly the younger people, is that they want to project an image that they don't care about image, that's the trick, that's the riddle going on, you know, it's, some people call it a studied indifference, that they strive to look like they don't strive to look good.
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They put a lot of care into looking like they don't care about appearances, so they'll always be wearing a t -shirt, untucked, of course, and jeans, and, you know, you casually look at, well, they were just wearing t -shirts, they made something, they just first, you know, they threw on the first thing that, you know, the drawer, opened the drawer and they threw on the first thing that they had, when the reality is, you know, the t -shirt's always got to be striking, it's got to be cute, got to have some clever saying on it, or it's some attention grabbing image on it, you know, lightning bolt, whatever.
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I saw an ad with a man who had been frustrated, he said, looking for shirts that looked good untucked.
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Well, I thought, the solution to that is simple, tuck in your shirt, but he was determined to project the image, because this is the secret, you want to, you want to look like you don't care enough about how you look to tuck in your shirt, right, you don't even care to put, you know, those two seconds in to put your shirt in, so, but you want to, but you want to look, you want to look like you don't care, but you really care a lot.
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So, he started a business making shirts that look good untucked, so that guys can appear like they don't care how they appear, when in reality, they are willing to pay more for a shirt specially made to look like they don't care how they appear.
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Figure that out. And one of the things that, that I like about sports, is that it puts an end to the image is everything mentality, you know, at the end, it's the team that scores the more points, right, you know, you don't, you don't get more points for being the good looking quarterback, you know, whatever, you just got to score more points, or the runner or the swimmer who is the fastest, no matter how they look, of course, you still have guys in sports, you know, who show up with the fancy shoes and the gear and the, and the swagger and the trash talk, but soon they get found out, soon we'll all find out that image really isn't everything.
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Our image dazzled culture is more about appearing than being.
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But here we see the importance of being, being in six parts, be six things.
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Don't just look, look like appear, project an image, but really be.
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Well, first, be aware, be aware of the sign that God has given you.
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Remember the spectators we talked about last week, the spectators, the people who in the previous passage, who wouldn't take a stand for Jesus or for or against them.
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You know, they weren't going to say he's of the devil or Beelzebul, but they wouldn't say he's, you know, he's Messiah either.
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They kept asking for more signs, more miracles. Give us more Jesus here. Jesus doesn't talk to them, but he talks about them.
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They are this generation, he says, and they are, he passes a verdict on them. They are evil.
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Jesus says they're evil for seeking signs. Why is that evil? What's so evil about asking for a sign?
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Isn't it right to want to know, want God to show you who to believe, who to follow?
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Well, it's evil here because it shows a lack of awareness of who
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Jesus is. Who are you asking for a sign? Jesus is here teaching.
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It's claiming, declaring the kingdom of God is here. He's doing miracles. Miracles were never enough.
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They were never the sign that they needed to finally prove to them why they should believe in Jesus.
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You know, it's like in the movie, if you've ever seen the movie Bruce Almighty, where early on Bruce is praying while driving, God show me a sign, and there's a truck full of signs immediately right in front of him, you know.
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Do you hear what Jesus is saying? These people behind him are saying, show us a sign,
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Jesus. He's saying, I'm the truck full of signs. There's something wrong then with a person who can't see a sign.
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Imagine it's right in front of a sign. It's, show me a sign. You're right in front of it. Something wrong with you, with your sight.
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You can't see it. The problem isn't that God isn't giving signs. The problem is with these people who aren't willing to see it because they're, and they are willing to see it because they're evil.
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Being unbelievers, they weren't aware of who Jesus was. Like today, people are unaware of Jesus, that he's not just another teacher.
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You know, they think, well, they think he's like Buddha or Confucius or maybe even a so -called prophet like Muhammad.
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Do you think he's like that? They classify him there. They're not aware of who he is. He's, or even among professed
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Christians, some of them are not aware that he's someone you cannot put off.
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I'll put off Jesus for my education or my career or, you know, so I can make more money for now.
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Or if I can chase that boy or that girlfriend or that marriage, whatever it is you think is more urgent, more important.
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You're not aware of who he is. You're treating Jesus like, like you're not aware of him.
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Here they weren't aware of who Jesus is. And so, and so no sign, no sign that at least they'll finally recognize as a sign, no sign will be given to them, he says, except the sign, what he calls the sign of Jonah.
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And he explains that in verse four, verse 30, for Jonah became a sign.
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Jonah himself, the prophet, became a sign to the people of Nineveh by, and he did that by, of course, you know, the story, he reappeared after three days in the big fish, right?
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He's thrown in the sea. He, big fish comes up, swallows him. And you think that's the end of Jonah. He's gone.
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He's dead. You'll never see him again. Then he reappeared. And here, in the same way,
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Jesus, the son of man, he calls himself, would reappear after three days in the tomb.
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They thought you'd never see him again. He's gone. No, he came back. He's come, becomes the sign at his resurrection, that that's the sign that the evil generation will get.
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The resurrection should be enough to finally make you aware of who
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Jesus is. Be aware. Not only be aware, but second, be amazed.
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The queen of the south, often called the queen of Sheba, was amazed at Solomon, right?
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She traveled from far away, finally arrives. Second Chronicles chapter nine tells us about this, what it was like for her.
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It says, when the queen of Sheba had seen the wisdom of Solomon and the house that he had built and the food of his table and the seating of his officials and the attendance of his servants and their clothing, his cupbearers and their clothing and his burnt offerings that he offered at the house of the
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Lord, there was no more breath left in her. And she said to the king, the report was true that I heard in my own land of your words and of your wisdom.
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But then, but I did not believe the reports until I came and my own eyes had seen it. And behold, half the greatness of your wisdom was not told me.
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You surpassed the report I heard. That's amazement, isn't it? She was aware and amazed, but this evil generation and parts of every evil generation from that time to this was unaware, so unamazed.
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And I'm not talking about the mockers, you know, that we have the scoffers, the militant atheists, just kind of scoffing.
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I'm talking about the kind of warmly religious, sometimes churchgoing people who can say all the right words about Jesus, won't disagree with them, won't argue with you about theology, but just aren't amazed.
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The queen of Sheba will rise up, Jesus says, at the resurrection, and she will condemn those who were less amazed at Jesus than she was at Solomon.
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And the people of Nineveh were amazed at a prophet who came out of a fish after three days and so repented, they repented, and when he told them the judgment was coming,
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Jesus came preaching to repent for the kingdom of God is here, and yet many people today, many who claim to believe in him, they're so unamazed at Jesus, they won't repent.
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They just stay in their sins. They say they believe in him, but they're not amazed enough to change their life. People who say they believe in Jesus but continue in their sins, unrepentant, are showing that they aren't really amazed.
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But here Jesus says that the people of Nineveh who were amazed into repenting, into repentance, that they will rise up at the judgment day and condemn those who aren't amazed into repentance by Jesus.
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In verse 32, notice that. Notice there, Jesus says that those who aren't,
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Jesus speaking, those who aren't amazed at me, by me, the fact that I am greater than Solomon and Jonah will be condemned by those who were amazed by those lesser lights.
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And step back for a moment and think about that statement that Jesus makes about himself. Who talks like that about himself?
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Is he just trying to puff his image? He's kind of like a boxer, you know, saying, I'm the greatest. Who calls himself greater than Solomon?
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You know, so much greater, you know, that anyone, everyone, you should be condemned if you aren't more amazed at me than the queen of Sheba was at Solomon.
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Who talks like that about himself? Who calls himself greater than Jonah?
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You know, one of the prophets in the Bible who says about himself, I'm so much greater than Jonah that you're going to be condemned for not being amazed at me.
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This isn't just image, is it? I mean, he either has the substance greater than Solomon and Jonah either has that substance or he doesn't.
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If he doesn't, he's what? You know, C .S. Lewis was right, wasn't he? That Jesus could only be after after reading this here, he could only be one of three things, a liar here, an egotistical liar, just puffing his image, speaking himself in the most grandiose terms, or a lunatic, you know, not consciously lying, but he's just someone with delusions of grandeur, thinking he's greater than Solomon and Judah and Jonah.
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Or the only third option is the Lord. He really is the greater one.
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Those are your only three choices. Well, third, be light.
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Jesus says that no one lighting a lamp hides it. You put it under a basket or down in the basement, you put a light in the best possible place just so it can spread its rays, right?
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Like the ceiling. That's why we have the lights there. Now, here, if you're used to this passage in Matthew, kind of what you expect to set him to say, and maybe what you're thinking this is the direction this is going next, would be to tell you, now you, therefore, be the light.
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Get yourself and your witness and your ministries, the word of God, the greatest possible exposure.
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You know, get a gym and use it to shine the light of God's word so you can attract the kids and have Jim Jr. and all that. Do that kind of thing.
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And that's true, but here in Luke, Jesus takes a step back and says, you know, before first you can be a light, you need to have light.
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If you're to shine light with others or to others, first, we need light in ourselves.
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We need to be lighted. So before putting yourself, your church, you're witnessing on a stand, shining the image of a light, be lighted inside, have the substance, have light in you first.
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Now, how do you do that? Well, first, recognize where the light comes from.
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Now, some new age religions like to say that, you know, we all have light within. Just follow the light within and you'll go the right way, that kind of thing.
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But no, we don't. We start out, we start out saying that by ourselves, we are lost in the dark, right?
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That's where we are in our sins. We are in the dark. The light comes from outside from the
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Lord. And so there is no light that originates from us. We can be, now we can be like the moon and reflect the sun, s -u -n or s -o -n, but we don't produce our own light.
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Then how are we to get light within us? Well, through the eye. That's how you get light, right? That's how we know there's light.
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That's why right now our brains knows there's light around us because it's coming through the eye. Just like the eye, the eye is the organ, or you could say the gate, that receives light.
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So that because of the eye, we know there's light around us. We know the lights are on. We know the colors of everyone's shirts and the things around us.
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We know the degrees of light. We know where the sources of light are. Everything that light illumines comes through the eye.
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And so just like that, the eyes of our heart, you know, the eyes of our heart can see the light.
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But if our eye is bad, you know, if our physical eye is blind, we're in the dark. Even if the lights are on, we just can't see it because our eyes won't receive it.
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If our spiritual eye is imperceptible to the light of the world, can't see who
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Jesus is, can't recognize the truth of God's word, that's the way our eyes of our heart are, then we're in the dark.
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It's not because the light's not there, it's because it can't get into us. So being lighted is so important.
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He emphasizes it with another thing that we are to be. In verse 35, be careful.
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Be careful that you are lighted. He's not talking now about, you know, it doesn't mean be careful you turn on the lights when you're having church, but not talking about physical light, but about your spiritual light, your vision of Jesus, your ability to perceive
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God's truth, to see the sign that Jesus rose from the dead, and so be aware of who he is.
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Your ability to recognize that Jesus really is greater than Solomon and Jonah and so be amazed at him and repent.
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Can you see that? Be careful that you can see that. Be careful, he says, put more care, much more attention to whether you have light within you.
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Care more about how Jesus appears to you than how you appear to others.
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So be lighted within so that you can be a light. In verse 36, if your whole body, and I think he means your person, if your person is full of light, if it's lighted, if it's illuminated within, within you, in your heart with the light of, with the light of the world, it was
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Jesus, if you're, if you're lighted within by him, then finally, then you'll be bright, then you will have light.
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And so then you can turn back to Matthew and work on putting yourself on a lampstand to give others your rays.
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But first, be careful that you really are lighted inside.
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Well, fourth, be clean. Starting in verse 37, after Jesus was speaking, given these words, be, you know, have light within yourself.
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Pharisee invited him over for lunch, over to my house, Jesus. And so he went, Jesus went and reclined at the table, they had these low tables, he's probably sitting on the floor, maybe with a big pillow cushion, lean back on, and then the food's served, and Jesus is dug in without doing the ceremonial cleaning that every decent
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Jewish man knows you're supposed to do. Come on, everyone knows, you gotta look good, you gotta do it.
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Now, the cleansing ritual, this wasn't just to go wash your hands so you don't catch diseases, it wasn't for hygiene, but it was supposed to remove all religious defilement in case you accidentally, you know, obtained it out there in that fallen world with these sinful people.
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You want to cleanse yourself, you want to look like you are, ceremonially, ritual, look like you are through this thing.
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It was a show of washing. They kind of pour a little water down on their fingers and it trickled down their wrist to appear ceremonially, showily clean.
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It wasn't something required by the law, this has not come from the Leviticus or anything like that, but was one of the many rituals the
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Pharisees had developed over the years, and Jesus knew that, he knew that it would be shocking to a
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Pharisee for him just to begin eating without doing the ritual, but he did it anyway.
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He purposely scandalized this Pharisee. Jesus provoked him, and it doesn't say the
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Pharisees said anything to him, maybe just gave him a glare. What in the world is he doing? He's not washing first, and Jesus knew he was offended, and so starting in verse 39,
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Jesus launches into an attack on the image -is -everything religion.
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He says, be cleansed inside, particularly of two things, love of money and love of prestige.
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Religion that is all about appearances, projecting an image of spirituality, you know, propriety, is really a cover either for loving money or loving esteem, or both.
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Be cleansed of the love of money, the Pharisees starting in verse 39, cleanse the outside of the cup.
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What sense does that make? It's fine to clean the outside of a cup, but it's really not the important part of a cup, is it?
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What would you think if you were thirsty when there in the kitchen, grabbed a cup, and it looked perfectly clean on the outside, you know, sitting in the washed dishes bin there, upside down as if it had been thoroughly washed and set out to dry, and you picked it up thinking, well, it looks perfect for my drink, and you, but then you look inside, and it's covered in dried juices and green stuff growing on it, and maybe that white fuzzy stuff there, and you look, it's filthy, this is disgusting, like you want to, you know, all the dishes was nearby, you don't want anything to do with it, and you would think, though, why would anyone clean, they obviously cleaned the outside of this cup, where it really doesn't matter that much, but they didn't clean the inside, where it really does matter, you know, where the bacteria can grow, you drink it, it goes in you, it, they made it look clean without it really being clean, but that's exactly what a lot of religion does, it makes people look clean, you know, how to dress, how, you know, don't wear your revealing clothes, don't sag your pants, look decent, but it doesn't change your heart.
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Now, I've known people to make a fuss about guys wearing the sagging pants, which is just the most ridiculous, whatever, look, custom, whatever, but I know people make a fuss about that, but think it's fine if they break their commitments.
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Which do you think God is most concerned with, integrity or sagging pants? You know, we may be, we're offended that we can see the guy's underwear,
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God can see the guy's underwear anyway, even with the pants fully up, so you think he cares about the underwear? Here he says, you fools!
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Jesus tells us in verse 40, did not he who made the outside make the inside also?
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What exactly though was wrong with the Pharisees' religion, or even with a lot of religion today?
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It's the same today, hasn't changed that much. First, it was a cover for love of money. Notice Jesus says in verse 39, inside, where they aren't cleansing, inside, beyond the apparently clean exterior, he says, you are full of greed and wickedness.
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Now, the word wickedness just means immorality, it's kind of a general vague term, meaning you're just full of all kinds of sins, but the other term is very specific.
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There was one sin they were especially guilty of, greed.
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Their religion was a cover for their love of money. Oh, they gave, you know, they were scrupulous tithers.
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I mean, they were the ones who made sure, you know, they would give 10 percent of everything, you know, down to the last herb that, or herb that grew in their kitchen windowsills.
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You know, they were sure to collect one out of ten, everything that come from their gardens, you know, they got a garden and ten tomato plants, they're going to tithe one of them.
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And then, of course, make a big show out of it, too. Everyone's going to know. They are given big time.
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They're giving their 10 percent. They're going to make, everyone's going to know because that's what it's about. It's about appearing.
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Of course, many Christians today scoff at the law of tithing. It's legalistic. We live in an age of grace, they say.
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So, you know, now you can give whatever you feel like, maybe don't give it all or maybe give a pittance.
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And, you know, they think God doesn't mind if you spend thousands of dollars on vacations, but give a little to the church, to the
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Lord. But notice first that Jesus says in verse 42, these things, these tithing you ought to have done.
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Kind of scoff at the fact they tithe even herbs. But Jesus says, OK, it's fine. You can tithe your herbs if you really want to do that.
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In other words, you should have done it. You should have tithed. You were right to tithe. Your problem wasn't being scrupulous about tithing, but that you were using this focus on small matters, your complete determination that that parsley plant that you have growing on your windowsill, not produce 10 leaves if you don't give one of them to God.
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You're using that focus. To overlook the really important things in verse 42, which he says, justice and the love of God.
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I wonder how many churches in the South over the last 150 years have had whole sermon series on tithing, often coinciding with a big building program, but would never mention the injustice of segregation and racism.
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Now, Jesus would say these things, the tithing, the building program, that's fine. You ought to have done it without neglecting the love of God.
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And if you don't love your neighbor, you don't love God. You could still insist, you know, you scrupulous theologians we have among us, that Jesus here tells them that they ought to have tithed given 10 percent because they were under the law and we aren't.
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We're freed from the law. Oh, happy condition. Actually, I agree with you. You're right.
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You win. The law of giving for the Christian is simply, we're told in 2
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Corinthians, just be generous generosity. That's that's our standard for giving.
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We should meet. But, you know, if you're giving less than you were required to under the law, less than 10 percent, you're probably not being generous.
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You probably love money and you should be cleansed of that. You know,
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I think the same kind of people, the same kind of people, all about appearances, who in Jesus's day made a big show out of their giving, you know, when it was done in public, and you could make a show out of it.
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Those same kind of people today, they give a pittance now when most of us don't know how they give.
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There's nothing to be gained by it, right? No image to be puffed up. Another kind of people that might promote what they call giving, giving money, but they say give as a way of getting more money, you know, particularly give them more as a way of getting.
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Give me one dollar, God will give you 10 back. That's not giving. That's called investing.
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It'd be a great investment if it was true. You know, if it's really true, I'd say go for it, but I don't think it's going to work.
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But that's investing, and the Bible condemns those who think that godliness is a means of gain.
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You're thinking if I follow these things in the Bible, I'm going to get rich. God says no.
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He condemns that. A web page I saw this past few weeks entitled 50
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Ludicrously Wealthy Pastors. I didn't make the list. I'm surprised. Gives the net worth of the 50 richest pastors or preachers.
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Many of them, not surprisingly, are prosperity preachers. Some of them are prosperity preachers in very poor countries like in South America or Africa, which
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I think is just disgusting. The richest is a man named
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Eder Macedo from Brazil, who is estimated to have over a billion dollars.
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He said, quote, if I preach prosperity and my clothes are ragged, who will follow me? Yeah, I think, yeah, you're right.
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I guess you're right, sure. If you're going to preach a health and wealth gospel, false gospel, I should say, you've got to look the part, right?
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You've got to keep up your image. Also on the list are a few names that you might recognize, some that I've even mentioned recently.
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One is a red -letter Christian who emphasizes a lot about how we need to follow
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Jesus' example of compassion for the poor, which he could prove he really believes if he would give some of his millions to the poor.
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And another is a reform leader whose organization has called me asking for donations. Now, I think if they really need money, their head could write them a check from the two million dollars that he has.
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One is a major, no, it's not one is, I should say, one major best -selling
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Christian author and popular speaker, I'm so glad to say, who is not on the list, doesn't make the list, is
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John Piper, who puts all his royalties from his book, all 100 % of the money he makes from his books into a foundation from which he gets absolutely nothing except, he says, the joy of giving it away.
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He says it's great if Christians are successful in business. If they make millions or billions of dollars, they create thousands of jobs.
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That's terrific. You still don't have to look the part. You don't have to look rich. He doesn't have to have suits and watches that show off his wealth.
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He doesn't have to have a house or a car that just screams success. He doesn't even have to keep much of the money he makes.
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He can have money without loving it, sure, and he'll show that by giving it.
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Be cleansed, Jesus says, of the love of money by giving. In verse 41, notice that verse 41.
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It's only in Luke. From the heart, he says, give alms. Let go of your money.
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Let go of the illusion that it is your money with which you will give God. Maybe you'll give him a tip and you'll keep the rest for yourself.
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Give out of a pure heart, and then, he says, everything will be clean for you.
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Be clean also with the love of prestige. A lot of people get into religion precisely for the prestige.
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They want to look good. They want to be the big man, the man who can, you know, stand up and give a respectable prayer.
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Appearing respectable is the very reason that some people go to church. People crave prestige, esteem, to be seen as a person of stature.
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That's why some churches are consumed, you know, with special days, recognizing one person after another, you know, the ushers, the deacons, the police, the mothers, the teachers, the veterans.
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Emily, you become a veteran, you could get three of those categories just right there. Maybe make you an usher and a deacon, too.
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You get them all. On and on, they're trying to tap into our love of being recognized, seen as somebody.
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Here, they, here, Jesus talks about, they said they love the best seats in the synagogues, and those are probably the seats that were up at the front on the platform facing the rest of the congregation, so people could see their face, not just the back of their heads, that they really are, oh man, there's somebody.
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People with prestige. Did you know that, you know, thinking that's one of those things they did back then, how weird.
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You know that churches, some churches today have what they call pulpit chairs. Go google pulpit chairs, special chairs on the platform facing the congregation where the special people can sit.
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Maybe the pastor, when he's not speaking, you know, gets tired of climbing up those platforms so hard, make that step, and of course, if you want the pulpit chair, it's got to have, it's got to be ornate, it's got to look the part, right?
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That's why they're costly. We can buy one if you want to have a special members meeting and maybe move, someone to move to buy one for $563 .20.
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I love the 20 cents thing, but you can't round it down or round it up.
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Anyway, but that's what it is. The $563 .20, get us a pulpit chair, let's sit up here.
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I feel good, you know, padded like a throne. Yeah, the best seats have to, you know, look like best seats, but Jesus says be clean of all that, the love for esteem, to be respected.
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He says it's defiling as the corpses in a grave, so don't be like an unmarked grave that looks, looks like nothing.
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You didn't know it was there, you didn't know there were bones right just a few inches under the earth. Looks like business as usual, you know, that's what churches are for, aren't they?
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Recognition, special titles, special chairs, esteem, me getting my way, me being looked to as somebody special, that's maybe business as usual, but it's defiling.
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They're really full of dead bones, but he says be clean, really clean, deep down of all that.
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Not only be clean, be aghast. A scribe was at that lunch after Jesus broke the
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Pharisee, you know, by not washing, not going through with that ritual, and then tearing into this appearance is everything religion.
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And it says in verse 45, this scribe, you know, this kind of Bible scholar, has trained how to write and the languages and all that.
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In verse 45, he speaks up, hey teacher, and saying these things against the
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Pharisees, okay, they're a bunch of, you know, they're a bunch of rednecks and, you know, they're the white shirt and the tie, you know, but we're scholars, we're trained, we're educated people.
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Saying these things, you insult us also. He sounds like he's assuming that, you know,
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Jesus, you're being a little clumsy in your rhetoric here, because it kind of sounds like someone could misunderstand you,
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Jesus, and think that you are insulting us, too. We're esteemed scribes, we're scholars.
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And so Jesus responds just to say, oh, I'm sorry, let me clear up any misunderstanding that you may have.
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Yes, I mean you, too. And woe to you. Now, this is another woe.
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There's been three woes for the Pharisees, and there'll be three woes for the scribes.
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That's what they're going to be exclaiming when judgment comes to them, woe. Woe to you for loading people with burdens and regulations and rules, but doing nothing to help people follow it.
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You know, I'm just telling you what it says, kind of attitude. Woe to the scribes, in verses 47 and 48, for building the tombs of the prophets that their fathers killed, trying to appear like they respected them, the prophets, like, you know, like you never would have done that, what your fathers did.
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But there's, you know, there's another way to interpret what you're doing, your appearance. You're maintaining the tombs of the martyrs your fathers made, not as monuments to the prophets, but as monuments to what your fathers did, to celebrate their hatred of the
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Word of God. You know, the problem with the appearance being everything is that appearances are subject to interpretation.
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So Jesus says in verses 50 and 51, you know, I interpret what you do as making monuments to murder, and because of that, all the blood of every prophet from Abel, murdered by his brother in Genesis 4, the beginning of the
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Old Testament, to Zechariah, murdered in the temple in 2 Chronicles, which is the last book, the end of the
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Jewish Old Testament, all the blood of every martyr in the Old Testament from beginning to end, will be required of this generation.
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Whoa! Be aghast, be appalled, be terrified that judgment is coming, all because you wanted to appear like someone you aren't.
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Woe to you! Third strike. Lawyers, in verse 52, for taking away the key of knowledge of God's Word.
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You're supposed to help people understand it. Said you did the opposite. You want to impress people with how much you know, your education, so you all potentially speak in a way that they can't understand.
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Not entering yourself and hindering those who are trying to learn about God. And we still have so -called scholars who make the
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Word of God difficult to understand today. You know, the seeking person, a person seeking trying to understand
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God's Word, reads their books or hears their lectures and goes away more baffled, more confused than he was before.
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They confuse people with the Bible, about their jargon, about historical details that no one would have, normal people would have any way of knowing, about their grammar, that, you know, making plain statements in the
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Bible come out, look like they say the opposite of what they do, all bringing people to the conclusion there's no way
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I can understand the Bible by myself. And so then they congratulate themselves on being so smart.
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Jesus says, be aghast what you've done. But the Pharisees and the scribes were aghast instead what they've done.
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They were aghast at Jesus' attack on them. And so they try to press him hard with questions to provoke him, to say something that they could charge him with.
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They're lying in wait like wolves to try to catch him. He had torn off the mask of their hypocritical religion.
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He had made them appear as they really were. It exposed them.
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And they hated that. Meanwhile, while that's going on in chapter 12, verse 1, while the
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Pharisees and the scribes are trying to trap him, many thousands of people are flocking to him, sometimes trampling each other, and they're longing to see
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Jesus. And so Jesus said first to his disciples, and the implication is first to the disciples and then eventually to the rest of the people, to the final be, beware, beware of the leaven of the
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Pharisees. You know, people knew in their day that a little leaven infiltrates a large lump of dough.
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And Jesus is saying here, hypocrisy is like that. It slowly, insidiously, insidiously spreads through the whole lump.
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Today, I think what we know about diseases, we'd say it's like an infection. Hypocrisy is, it's contagious.
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It spreads from one person to another, like a little yeast spreads all over the dough. So beware.
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Hypocrisy is a highly contagious disease. Once it gets in the congregation, some person starts faking it, you want to fake it too, and we become a congregation of fakes.
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If you've been exposed, which you all have, beware that you don't have it.
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You know, churches in this area have deacons who stood in the church door and told black people to go elsewhere. That's hypocrisy.
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They've had pastors who stopped going to church when they stopped being a pastor, stopped getting paid. That's hypocrisy.
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Or they've had pastors who, on the one hand, rightly taught that you can't be a member of a church you don't attend, and then when it's their time to resign as a pastor and they aren't attending there anymore, they want to continue to be a member there.
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Say one thing, do another. So the affection of hypocrisy is in the air, it's in this culture, and you have been exposed to it, to that contagion.
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Beware that you didn't catch the disease, and if you have, be cleansed of it.
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Does it come easy to you to say one thing and do another? To talk and appear like you're committed to the
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Lord, you love the church, you really love, though, in your heart, you really love money, and so you're stingy in your giving because in a private offering, you can still look spiritual while giving a pittance.
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Or does it come easy to you to fuss about sagging pants, but not say a word about injustice?
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You have a religion, it's just a hollow sham. Beware. Beware, Jesus says, because you're facing judgment.
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The hypocrite, big on his image, how much respect he gets if he's listened to, all about looking good, putting up a good front, giving to be seen, or not really giving at all, making great emotional exclamations of commitment when people are watching and then not keeping them.
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That person, that person is a functional atheist. He may say he believes in God, but he is acting as if there is no
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God who can see what's really going on in his heart, see what's really going on inside, as if he can cover up, and no one will know.
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No one who matters knows, which means he doesn't think God matters. No one will know the broken commitments, maybe the secret looks at pornography, how little, no one will know how little he gives.
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No one will know why he or she was really doing what he was doing. The hypocrite believes nothing will be revealed, that he can get away covering up who he really is.
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His reality will stay hidden as if there is no God who won't bring it to light, as if what you're really like inside, what you're whispering in your own mind will stay inside and no one will ever know what you're thinking.
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Only you're able to fool people into thinking who, what you want them to think.
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Woe to you if you've been infected with the disease that makes you that delusional.
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Be aware of who Jesus is, that he's the judge who sees, the judge who hears every thought you think.
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Be aware that the time is coming when who we really are will be proclaimed from the housetops, exposed for everybody to see.
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So don't think just appearing like a believer, appearing like a lover of God, a giver, a champion of justice, a humble follower of Jesus.
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Don't think appearing like one is enough. Be one.