The nature of hypocrisy; Luke 11: 37-54

When I was a boy, there was a hit show on TV called Kung Fu that completely mesmerized my friends and I.  Suddenly, we all wanted to become martial artists.  So we made homemade nunchakus and practiced jumping high kicks on unsuspecting friends.  It was a miracle that we didn’t knock one another’s brains out.  We formed  kung fu clubs where we did a lot of kicking and yelling “Hai!”  and tried to karate chop through two by fours.  I also remember these great debates where we would argue about the martial arts abilities of the show’s lead actor, David Carradine with unbelievers.  We firmly believed that our hero could in fact beat up legions of men singlehandedly.  We believed that he was actually as adept at Kung Fu in real life as his character appeared to be on screen.  What we were too naïve to understand  was that he was just an actor, who was being paid to look and act like the character he was portraying, but in real life, had no real knowledge of the martial arts.

There is a word found in the Greek New Testament that was used to describe this type of actor, one who played a role on stage for the applause of the audience.  It is the Greek word “hypokritēs” (hu pok cree tase).  In English, it is the basis for our word hypocrite.  We don’t ascribe it to actors or actresses anymore as the Greeks once did, but instead we use it to describe someone who is a pretender, who isn’t really what he seems to be.  It means someone who puts on a front of self righteousness, but in real life is far from it.

Now the word hypocrite is not actually used in this passage. But it’s obvious from the context of Jesus’ teaching that hypocrisy is the subject of His message.  In fact, in a similar message found in Matthew 23, Jesus repeats many of these same statements and reiterates nearly identical woes upon the Pharisees and lawyers who were opposing him.  And in each of Jesus denunciations, He says, “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!”   So though the word hypocrite may be missing from this account, it is obvious that Jesus is preaching about hypocrisy.

So first Jesus lays out the principle of hypocrisy in vs.39 as relating to that of a spiritual or religious hypocrite. And then starting in vs. 42 He gives six illustrations of that principle of hypocrisy which were characteristic of the Pharisees.  Now in vs. 37 and 38 Jesus has been asked to lunch at a Pharisee’s house and He shocks the host by not ceremonially washing his hands before the meal as was their custom.  And Jesus responds in vs. 39 with this statement which describes the nature of hypocrisy; “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the platter; but inside of you, you are full of robbery and wickedness.”  Jesus is presenting  the principle of religious hypocrisy, to appear shiny and clean on the outside, but inside be full of uncleanness.

And this is really the principle of this message today.  It would be a lot easier on all of us if I just replayed this scene from a historical point of view and talked about how the Pharisees were such horrible hypocrites.  That would be a fairly palatable message for all of us, because none of us are Pharisees in the literal sense of the word.  In fact, Pharisees do not exist any more.  They are an extinct religious organization that existed 2000 years ago in Judaism.  And so most of us could comfortably excuse ourselves from this message altogether on the basis of the fact that we are not technically Pharisees.

But if you look at this passage on the basis of it being a message against hypocrisy, then none of us are exempt.   Because religious hypocrisy is very much in practice today in the church.  Though we may not always recognize hypocrisy among ourselves, yet the unsaved seem to see it very clearly. In fact, the number one reason most unsaved people avoid the church is that they say that it is full of hypocrites.  They see us claiming righteousness, but living lives that are anything but righteous.  And don’t think for a moment that having a bumper sticker on your car that says “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven” excludes you from the sin of hypocrisy.  But if the sin of hypocrisy isn’t bad enough as a personal indictment as to one’s genuineness as a Christian, I think an even greater condemnation is the effect of hypocrisy on our children.  Our young people are very perceptive regarding hypocrisy.  They don’t need it explained.  And that hypocrisy, whether in the home, our work or in the church turns them off and causes them to stumble and in many cases causes them to fall away all together.   Jesus said for those that cause one of these little ones to stumble, it would be better that they have a mill stone tied around their neck and thrown into the sea.  It’s a terrible thing to put a stumbling block of hypocrisy in front of our young people or any unsaved person.

So it behooves us to take seriously what Jesus is talking about here.  Because it only takes a cursory look at the gospels to see that this was a reoccurring theme of Jesus’ preaching.  In fact, He is much more incensed over hypocrisy than He is over any other sin.  We don’t see this type of scathing rebuke against the woman caught in adultery, for instance.  We don’t see Jesus pronouncing a series of woes against the obvious sinners like the prostitutes or the tax collectors or the drunkards.  But we do see many instances of Jesus rebuking the sin of hypocrisy and furthermore pronouncing a terrible judgment to come against those that remain as such.

To comprehend this better it might help if we understand what prompted this message by Jesus in the first place.  It says in vs. 38 that Jesus had not ceremoniously washed his hands before eating lunch and his host, who was a Pharisee was surprised by that. And the next thing you know, Jesus starts in with this sermon on hypocrisy which undoubtedly offended his host and probably embarrassed him before his dinner companions.  So why was Jesus so incensed?

Well, the fact of the matter is, Jesus may have deliberately set the guy up by purposely not washing, knowing that they were watching Him to find fault with Him.  And so rather than complying with their tradition, Jesus uses this as an opportunity to knock them off their pedestal and preach to them the truth.  You know, whoever thinks that the gospel of Jesus Christ is never going to offend anyone has really never read the scriptures.  Jesus sometimes went out of His way to be offensive, and this seems to be one of those occasions.   Jesus said in Matt. 10:34, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”  Jesus came to separate truth from a lie.  And a works based religion that focuses on outward performance without an inward transformation is a lie that was not only damning men to hell in Jesus day, but damning men to hell today as well.

So the Pharisees had taken some Old Testament laws concerning cleanliness that God had given for the dual purpose of protecting His people from diseases and which showing the need for spiritual purification and they added to these laws certain rituals that God had never prescribed.  The Jews ended up with a book that was bigger than the Pentateuch called the Mishna which extrapolated all the laws of God and added to them all sorts of embellishments and rituals and minutia which on the surface seemed to have the purpose of helping a person keep the law.  But instead it had fostered a religion of works designed for an elaborate show or ritual of being religious, when in fact it had become a matter of pride and  created a class of the spiritually elite. So this ritual hand washing had nothing really to do with hygiene, but was a very public way of proclaiming your spiritual cleanness, when in fact the people practicing it were unregenerate sinners who refused to repent of their sins.  And so Jesus uses this instance to declare to them that they were still in their sins, and therefore spiritually unclean.

You know, I wonder how often we are confronted with a friend or acquaintance who for what ever reason tells us about some religious thing that they are doing. Perhaps they know that we are one of those “born again” type of Christians, and so in order to try to justify themselves they  tell us about something that they did or that happened to them that they think is spiritual or significantly religious.  And I wonder how often in those situations we tend to just affirm the person’s good intentions,  or commend them perhaps for thinking about God, or for doing some good deed, or to commend them for participating in something like Lent, or going to Mass, just for the sake of keeping the peace or just to keep from offending them.  And yet Jesus doesn’t do that.  Jesus uses that kind of situation as an opportunity to show the person that they need to be saved; that they are still dead in their sins, still unclean, and that they need to be washed clean by the grace of God in response to their repentant hearts.  But I wonder how many opportunities we have to proclaim the gospel that we don’t take advantage of because we don’t want to seem uncool and offend someone.

But look at how Jesus handles this situation.  He says “you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the platter; but inside of you, you are full of robbery and wickedness. You foolish ones, did not He who made the outside make the inside also? But give that which is within as charity, and then all things are clean for you.”

So first, Jesus presents their dire situation. Jesus says, your ritual cleaning doesn’t do anything but show off your self righteousness for public consumption so people will think you are spiritual.  But though you wash your hands, inside you are full of corruption.  In spite of your religious rituals, your baptisms, your church going, your good deeds, the religious front you wear for other people to see, in spite of all that external religion, inside you are full of dirty rotten sin that has never been cleaned.

That’s their situation. And then secondly, Jesus presents the solution.  He says give that which is within as charity and then all things are clean for you.  Charity as used in that verse is kind of confusing for us because of how we tend to think of charity today.  But the word for charity is translated as alms in just about every other place it is used in scripture. That word gives us a better understanding of what He is talking about.  Because alms means what was given to God to be used by God.  Alms is another way of saying an offering to God.  So what Jesus is saying is give what is within, that is your heart, to God as an offering, and then all things are clean.  Give God your heart – your mind, your will, your emotions, your soul- give that to God as an offering to be used by Him and for Him, and then you will be made clean.

Listen to what Jesus says in Matt. 23 talking about the same statement; “You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.”  So here is the principle; no religious ritual, no religious service can make you clean in your heart.  God will not accept our sacrifices or our burnt offerings or our church membership, or our fasts or our tithes or our good deeds.  The only way to be made clean before God, the only way to be accepted to God is to have the righteousness of Jesus Christ applied towards our account through repentance of our sins and faith in Christ’s substitionary death on the cross for us.

Eph. 2:8 says, “By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast.” And then in 2Cor. 5:11 the spiritual equation is explained; “But God made Jesus who knew no sin to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God through Him.”  That is the only way to be made clean, through the righteousness of Jesus Christ applied to our account.

Then after stating the principle of hypocrisy, Jesus gives six woes, or six illustrations of their hypocrisy.  The first one is found in vs. 42 and for our purposes you can substitute the word hypocrites for Pharisees; “But woe to you Pharisees [hypocrites]! For you pay tithe of mint and rue and every kind of garden herb, and yet disregard justice and the love of God; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.”

As we pointed out, in vs. 41 Jesus is talking about alms or tithes that are given to God.  And so Jesus uses that to segue into this rebuke of their tithing.  He says that they tithed of mint, rue and every kind of garden herb.  Now the law required that they give a tithe of all that they made to the temple for the support of the temple and the priests.  But what the hypocrites were doing was making a great show of tithing of inconsequential things such as herbs from their gardens, when actually they were missing the whole point of the tithe.  Many of the herbs of the garden such as rue were expressly exempted from tithing in the law, and yet they were making a great show of their fastidiousness in order to show people their righteousness.

In Matt. 6 Jesus is preaching against hypocrites and the way that they gave tithes to be seen of men. He says, “So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.  But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.”

But the point Jesus is making is that they neglected the other weightier provisions of the law such as justice and loving God, while emphasizing the external things that could be seen by others. Jesus isn’t saying that they shouldn’t tithe, but that they should not neglect the other aspects of God’s requirements.

And we too can be hypocritical in that same way;  we can emphasize the aspects of Christianity that we like to focus on, and neglect others that we do not like.  I’ve said many times we like to emphasize the love of God and the grace of God but we often neglect the parts of the gospel like offering our bodies as a living sacrifice in service to God.  We too often use grace as a license to sin or do whatever we want.  And yet God has called us to be holy even as He is holy.  We like to emphasize the love of God which we think gives us liberty to live as we please.  But the point is not God’s love for us, but our love for God.  If we obey the first commandment then we will love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul and all our mind and all our strength.  That kind of love leaves very little room for self indulgence, but is an all consuming passion that drives me to serve Him with every fiber of my being.

Jesus gives a second woe or illustration in vs. 43;“Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the chief seats in the synagogues and the respectful greetings in the market places.”  Jesus gives yet another stinging rebuke of their hypocrisy.  Part of what they loved about being a Pharisee was having the public approval that resulted in being seated in the front seats in the synagogues.  Now Jesus isn’t talking about sitting on the front row and facing the preacher.  But rather sitting in the front of the synagogue in the chairs of the authorities and facing the congregation.

In Matt. 23:5 Jesus expands upon this theme.  He says concerning the hypocrites, “But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men; for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments. They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues, and respectful greetings in the market places, and being called Rabbi by men.” Jesus goes on to say that those that want to be great in the kingdom of God will be the ones who take the role of a servant, not those that elevate their stature, or magnify titles or wear elaborate priestly robes and funny hats to appear holy before men.

That is the hallmark of counterfeit religion by the way: in order to live out your religion for public approval and put on a convincing show, you elaborate the external, so you expand the emblems; you expand the functions; you expand the ceremonies; you expand the rituals; you proliferate the prescriptions.  You add more pomp and circumstance to the external things while leaving the inward man unregenerate and corrupt.  You end up with a priesthood made up of pedophiles.

The third illustration of hypocrisy is found in vs. 44; ““Woe to you! For you are like concealed tombs, and the people who walk over them are unaware of it.”  Now Jesus is revealing the aspect of hypocrisy I spoke of earlier.  That of being a stumbling block to others.  Here is what He is saying;  These Pharisees were supposed to be teachers, showing others the way to God, how to become righteous.  And as such they claimed to know the Bible, to know the truth about God.  And yet Jesus says they were like concealed tombs that caused others to become unclean by their association.  See, there was an injunction in the law for a Jew to stay away from dead bodies.  And if you had contact with a dead person, there was a ceremony that you had to go through where you were considered unclean for seven days, during which you avoided personal contact with others.  So the point Jesus is making is that these hypocrites who claimed to be clean were in fact like dead bodies, and others being deceived by their lives were made unclean as a result of being around them.  This is the danger of hypocrites, they not only condemn themselves, but because of their false teaching they cause others to be condemned along with them.

Then the rest of the illustrations are addressed to lawyers.  As Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees a lawyer spoke up and said, “Teacher, when You say this, You insult us too.”  And so Jesus turned around and promptly included them in His diatribe.  See, the lawyers didn’t defend people from the law as we think of lawyers today, but these lawyers interpreted the law and held the people accountable to their teachings.  They were in fact usually Pharisees, but they had a different role.  But they were just as guilty as the rest of the sin of hypocrisy.

Vs. 46: “But He said, “Woe to you lawyers as well! For you weigh men down with burdens hard to bear, while you yourselves will not even touch the burdens with one of your fingers.”  Here’s the short explanation of this statement.  The lawyers taught strict adherence to the law of Moses and enforced unreasonable demands upon the people.  For instance, the Sabbath Day was made to be a day of rest for man.  That is why God made it, for man’s benefit, so that he wouldn’t have to work.  But in interpreting this law, they added so many restrictions that the people found it a great burden.  And yet the lawyers also figured out ways that they could personally get around the law to their advantage while leaving the people bound up.

Time will not permit us to go into the plethora of modern day examples of this type of hypocrisy within the church.  But all you have to do is turn on the TV and see the lavishly gilded production sets of the television evangelists, their private jets and multiple mansions and then contrast that with their pleas for little old ladies living off of social security to send in a few dollars by promising God will multiply their money.  That kind of hypocrisy of burdening the people that you are supposed to be serving is the worse kind of hypocrisy.  These are people that are adept at pointing out the fault in others, but neglect the faults of their own.  Jesus said in Matt. 7:3, “Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

The next illustration is found in vs. 47: “Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and it was your fathers who killed them. So you are witnesses and approve the deeds of your fathers; because it was they who killed them, and you build their tombs. For this reason also the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and some they will persecute,
so that the blood of all the prophets, shed since the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the house of God; yes, I tell you, it shall be charged against this generation.’

The sin of hypocrisy is nothing short of refusing to repent.  That pridefulness is at the heart of hypocrisy. God had sent prophet after prophet to his people, the Jews, to get them to repent and yet they would not.  Instead they had persecuted the prophets and in many cases killed them.  Now, someone greater than Moses was here.  Someone greater than Elijah was here.  And what would they do when they heard Him?  They would ultimately reject Him and crucify Him.

Listen, it is a terrible thing to reject the prophet of the Lord, to harden your neck against reproof, to say that you have no sin, that you don’t need to repent, that you are good enough, you are righteous enough because of all the good works you think that you have done.  It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God.  And God has every right to be angry when you reject His Son whom He sacrificed on a cross for you.

Finally the last illustration of hypocrisy is found in vs. 52; “Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering.”  Once again Jesus reemphasizes this terrible effect of hypocrisy whereby not only does it condemn the hypocrite, but it condemns others as well.  These men were supposed to be teachers of God’s law.  But instead they had subverted the truth into a lie. They had taken away from their people the source of their salvation, that is recognizing that Jesus was the Messiah who had come to take away the sins of the world, and as such they deprived their own people the opportunity to be saved as well. They condemned their own people by their hypocrisy.  How many times I have seen this right here in this church.  People get offended because of the preaching of the truth and so stop coming to church, and as a result drag others away with them, hindering their salvation.

That’s why James says in 3:1, “Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment.”  Listen, we need to understand that we are teaching by example.  And we need more examples of godly living.  We need more disciple makers who can say to a young person, “come and follow me”.  Watch what I do.  Watch how I act.  Do as I do.  I ask you today, “Where are your disciples?”  Jesus said we are to go and make disciples.  Where are your disciples?  Can you let someone follow you around work, when you are on vacation, when you go about your normal routine? We need to be in the process of making disciples.  We can’t do that if we are one thing in church and another thing in the workplace.  We can’t even raise godly children if we are living life as a hypocrite.  It doesn’t matter how many church programs you stick your child into.  You better be living a life that he or she can look at and know that Mom or Dad is not a hypocrite.

Well, the gospel of Jesus Christ is an offensive gospel.  This message hits me squarely between the eyes and I have a feeling that it hits some of you that way as well.  The question is how will we respond to it.  Are we going to get mad at the messenger?  I have a feeling that I get crucified over a few lunch tables from time to time.  But folks, this is not my gospel.  I’m just the messenger.  And I’m convicted just as much as anyone by what is being taught here today.  The question is what are we going to do about it?

The Pharisees showed the wrong response.  In vs. 53 it says, “When He left there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to be very hostile and to question Him closely on many subjects, plotting against Him to catch Him in something He might say.” I hope no one here has that response to the message today.  But examine your hearts, ask God to show you where you need to be corrected.  See if you are practicing what you preach.  And then get on your knees before God and ask Him to help you, to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. 1John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Let’s pray that we might truly become His disciples and then be able to make disciples of others.