Hi and welcome to the We Are Zion Sermon podcast.
We are a local church based here in Chennai, India.
We are so glad you are with us and hope that this will
encourage, inspire and instill fresh faith in you.
We have started a series called The Kingdom Life based on the
life and teachings of Jesus from the Gospel according to Mark.
We look at how we must live our lives on this earth as followers
of Jesus in a way that is countercultural yet powerfully
impactful. As you listen in, our hope is
that you will be motivated to live, love, lead and serve just
like Jesus. Hi, George.
What a pleasure it is to share the word with you.
Today we're looking at the Kingdom Life Part 3.
We looked last week at how we undergo this crushing in order
to produce new wine. And this new life entails the
new wine, the anointing that is fresh for this season.
And today we're going to be going into discord.
The difference when the outside and the inside don't match up.
That's what I've titled today's sermon.
You know, a lot of times we we speak a lot of Christianese.
We do the things that people at church would recommend or do or
live by, but deeper then there's a dissonance.
There's something that's keeping us from actually living out what
we believe or living out what we proclaim.
And I believe that's what Jesus was talking about when he spoke
in Mark Chapter 7. So that's the base verse for
this week as we get into that passage.
I just read this story about a zookeeper and he had a full zoo
and one day the gorilla unfortunately died because it
was a peak summer that year and the gorilla didn't make it.
So he decided he can't afford to have the gorilla cage empty
because that was a huge source of entertainment for the little
kids who came during their summer holidays.
So what he did was he got a huge gorilla costume, and he hired a
guy to wear it and sit in the particular enclosure, which was
meant for the gorillas. And so on the first day, this
guy who's been hired, he has no clue how to act like a gorilla,
wears the costume and goes and sits in the cage.
And the zookeeper told him, you know, do some antiques, keep the
kids entertained and stuff. So he was trying his best,
jumping around in that costume and trying to do funny things
just for the viewing public when he tripped over a low wall and
fell into the lion enclosure. And once he realized where he
was at, he started freaking out, screaming and saying, Oh my God,
help me, Help me, I'm gonna die. And it was funny because the
lion came close to him and bent down to his ear and said, dude,
stop it. We're both going to lose our
jobs if you don't stop it. And too many of us are like
these two men hidden in costumes.
Too many of us believers are living this double life.
We look like one thing, we say another thing, We pretend to be
practicing something. But our private lives are
completely different. And I believe God is calling the
hypocrites home. God is calling all of us who are
having a mask or a costume to cover up what really lies
beneath. And as I was preparing, this was
such a convicting time for me because all of us, without
exception, have those facets of our life which are very
hypocritical. And those of us who have
children, our kids expose it very fast.
You know, they say, but you said that then why you're not doing
that now? And God is calling us to a place
of deep honesty, of dropping the mask, dropping the costume, and
coming as we are to him, because only God can set us free.
It is not by power, not by might, but by my Holy Spirit,
says the Lord. This is not something by
willpower or by just, you know, just being very conscious.
We're going to change it. These are deeply inbred
attitudes and motives and agendas that only the Spirit of
God can reveal and the blood of Jesus can heal.
And so as we get into this word, I just pray that you will be
able to resonate with what Jesus is talking about.
Mark Chapter 7 verses one to seven.
It says the Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who
had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his
disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is
unwashed. The Pharisees and all the Jews
do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing
holding to the tradition of the elders when they come from the
marketplace. They do not eat unless they
wash, and they observe many other traditions such as the
washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.
So the Pharisees and teachers in law asked Jesus, why don't your
disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead
of eating their food with defiled hands?
He replied, Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you
hypocrites as it is written. These people honour me with
their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain. Their teachings are merely human
rules. What is Jesus talking about?
Is he anti hygiene? No, that's not what Jesus is
talking about. It really boils down to what the
Pharisees thought they were accomplishing every time they
wash their hands. We've just come out of a huge
pandemic and we know that all healthcare providers told us
that we need to wash our hands because the the virus most often
transmits throughout the bacteria on our hands.
And what happened as a result was people wash their hands too
much that the good bacteria from the hands disappeared as well.
What Jesus is talking about is not about saying, you know,
avoid hygiene. That's not what he's saying.
These Pharisees thought that if they ate with unwashed hands
that they were contaminating their inner being.
They thought that by washing it, they were purifying their
hearts. They were purifying their minds.
They thought that they were standing pure before their
Yahweh God. But here Jesus is coming and
saying, I don't care about the outward cleanliness.
I care about what's inside. And they were actually
addressing Jesus disciples behaviour where they just came
and sat and started eating. He said this is not important.
And then he talks about what Isaiah wrote about them.
Isaiah wrote about the people of Israel being so stubborn and
hard, hard hearted and and and strong willed about drawing
close to God. He said these people honour me
with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
Can I ask you this question when you stand to worship at Church
Oregon, when you're worshiping alone with your headphones,
you're walking outside, you're in the gym, is your heart far
from God or is it in touch with God?
Because the truth is, too many of us have created this, this
very curated form of our belief system.
We know what to say, when to say it, how to say it.
We know how to address our pastor, and then we know how to
address the person on the street.
We know how to behave on the outside.
But privately, no one knows. But you know, and God is saying,
I'm coming back here with this proposition, instead of wiping
and washing your hands to exhaustion, why not just come to
me? Draw near to me, and I will draw
near to you. Jesus was the fulfillment of
that. And Mark 7 verse 15 is pivotal
to understanding what this whole theme was.
Jesus is then asked by his disciples.
Disciples are, like I said, a bit slow.
So they come to the room with him and they ask him, what did
you mean that what we consume doesn't defile us?
Because these were people who followed kosher what they ate.
They had a series of animals they shouldn't eat and a couple
that they could. So he's saying they're asking
him, what do you mean? And this is what Jesus says,
verse 15. Nothing outside a person can
defile them by going into them. Rather it is what comes out of a
person that defiles them. So often we as Christians have
told in our youth groups, you know, careful what you consume,
careful what you put in. And it doesn't change that
because the the apostle Paul writes everything is
permissible, but not everything is beneficial.
So we need to put a guardrail right there.
But suppose you don't put a guardrail because you just feel,
I don't want to be so legalistic about it.
I think I have the freedom. Say you have that mindset.
That's also OK. But what you allow in changes to
something that starts coming out of you starts to exude from you.
And what it what comes out of you is what matters is what
Jesus is saying. Because out of the depths of the
heart, the mouth speaks. What is in our heart comes out
in our speech, in our attitude, in our demeanor, all of it.
And so it's so important to understand that it is not what
we consume that defiles us. It is what we produce.
A good tree produces good fruit. A bad tree produces bad fruit.
Is that simple, according to people today?
We have so much research on microplastics, on how they're
harming us, because for years we've been using plastics at
home and everybody says that we probably have a lot of plastic
accumulated in our bodies, eating from aluminum vessels
probably have also contaminated us.
There's probably metals, heavy metals that have been in
different products we've had over the years.
But Jesus is saying while those things are different, what you
have consumed, saying, you know, this is precious, this is pure,
I will wash this, this in this way and this tradition and this
ritual. He says following all of that is
no use if your heart is far from me.
It is no use if you don't control what comes out of your
being. And so the problem is too many
of us today are very content with washing the superficial.
You see a photographer now, when they take a picture of us, what
do they do? The first thing they do is touch
us up. They change our complexion, they
remove all the flaws. They they alter things.
Recently, one of our photographer friends was saying
that a person who came for a shoot didn't have shoes on.
She just was, you know, just flip flop.
So he needed shoes for the shoot.
So he made her remove her footwear and he just
photoshopped shoes on. He used AI and he just
photoshopped it. This is the world we live in.
We are so capable of altering what is on the outside.
The number of botched facial cosmetic surgeries have
increased because ordinary people, people with practically
normal, there's been no accident, none of that.
But they walked into a surgery thinking they need to look
better and it went downhill. But God is saying, I don't care
about the superficial. I care about the heart.
I care for from it issues the deeper things of life.
And so today we, I want to ask you before we actually get into
the crux of what it looks like to be a walking, talking
hypocrite, we're first going to look at 2 two things that we do
as ordinary people when we talk about cleansing ourselves, We
may not do what the Pharisees did, washing ourselves
thoroughly, but we do two other things.
One is we water down the scriptures.
I see this increasingly in, in, in our, in today's times where
people look at the scripture and say, Oh, well, I don't want the
Old Testament. That doesn't help me.
I'll just read this. If I'm going to read from the
Old Testament, I'll just read Psalms and Proverbs.
The 66 books of the Canon are so powerful because they were
written by so many different authors, and yet they just fit.
They're in line. And the story of Jesus is is
literally the thread that carries it all.
The gospel is held in all 66 books, and it's so important
that we don't water down the scriptures.
The problem is when we water down the Scripture, we tame the
Scripture for my benefit. We we make it applicable for
myself. And So what I do is I diminish
my sinfulness. I increase someone else's
sinfulness. Where does grace go?
The beauty of the Scripture is it reveals my hidden flaws.
It reveals my blind set spots. I cannot read it and say I'm
going to read it today and find a verse that causes me to
believe that my husband is a bigger Sinner than me.
That's not what the Scripture is.
I cannot water down the Scriptures to satisfy my needs.
That's one of the things we do. We may not wash our hands 200
times a day, but we may be watering down the scripture to
meet our personal selfish needs. If you notice the Pharisees,
they were not actually teaching the Torah per SE.
They had a a book where in which were written all the traditions
of the elders, traditions that were marked on thousands of
years that leaders had actually written down.
And these guys were taking that and teaching it to the people
like it was the word of God and it wasn't.
It was just traditions, it was rituals.
And a lot of times we may not do that, but we might turn a
scripture a little bit to meet our fancy.
We may look at a particular scripture and say, well, that
doesn't apply to me. My situation is different.
And I would urge you that you stop watering down the
scriptures. We cannot change the meaning of
the original scripture. Let God reveal it to you as is
because it's powerful as a it's the Rhema word.
It's the revealed word. It is so powerful to our very
being. Second thing that we often do is
we eye wash. We do an eye wash of it.
What does that look like? What is eye wash?
You know, when something goes into your eye, you don't rush to
the hospital immediately, OK? What you do is, and this is
something an eye doctor once taught me, she said you just
take, you know, a little bit of water in the palm of your hand,
put it in and you blink into it. Now, is this bath level quality
of washing? No, but that is all it needs to
cleanse the eye, the outer surface of the eye.
And I've tried it many times and it's worked.
But the problem is a lot of us think that when I do an eye
wash, kind of cleansing, a very superficial thing, then I'm
sorted. A lot of us say sorry to people
on social media. They're the very people we tone
down on social media. Then we try to do it, just do
the cover up by apologizing on a status.
Some of us have broken up on a message and done with it.
We think, you know what? I'm clear.
My conscience is clear. Have you gone deeper?
Did you go before God, sit with Him and repent?
What has happened to us that we think we can bypass personal
confession and repentance to God before we actually access our
promises or our blessings? God is calling us to a deeper
wash. He's asking for a wash.
In the spirit realm, the eye wash is not enough.
It's not enough. Too many of us are relying on
our own capacity to be articulate, to just say the
right thing at the right time, and I'm done.
Maybe you've just been singing a song or two in worship.
You lift your hands and you see God.
I'm clean with you. But have you gone deeper?
Have you allowed the Holy Spirit to Washington?
You deeper? Only His blood can cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. Not our well placed words, not
our understanding of the Bible, but a heart that is penitent.
I love Psalm 51 because David had to go deep.
He had committed a grave sin and he didn't do an eye wash of it,
of just saying publicly, you know what?
This is what I've done, I'm so sorry.
Here's recompense for Bathsheba, you know, and say sorry to Joab
for what happened to Uriah. He went deep with God.
So today I'm asking you, did you go deep with God when you needed
to come clean about something? Or was it just eye wash?
Was it just superficial? The the Pharisees had this
understanding that they washed the vessels, the pictures in
certain translations, it actually talked about cleaning
the dining couch, the one that they reclined on.
Look at the depths of, of ritualistic stuff that they were
up to. They needed to do this to feel
pure before they sat down for the next meal.
And when you think about it, sometimes we all we care in
terms of settling something with God even is just keeping it at
the surface level. And we also sometimes explain it
away to God a lot. But you know how they are.
I've done this, but you know how they are.
There's no point of this conversation.
And God is saying, you come clean with me first.
Stop doing this. I wash, tell it to me like it is
the problem that when we resort to doing this is we minimize our
sin. We dismiss our need for God's
help because without God's help sanctify, sanctification is not
going to happen, not going to be purified.
I need God's help on a daily basis to sanctify me and also to
show grace to others in their missteps.
What happens is when I minimize my sin, I maximize theirs.
And God is calling us today into a deeper place of authenticity,
of dropping the fizzard. He's saying what you are behind
closed doors and what you are outside need to match for the
Christian to have authority in the things we speak, for the
Christian to have impact in the real world.
We cannot afford to have this huge gap between private and
public. So I want to ask you, have you
been covering up the deeper sense of your life by just
fixating on the superficial? Jesus always went deeper.
He was never content with a superficial, so why should we
mark 17? Verses 17 to 23 says this.
After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples
asked him about this parable. Are you so dull?
He asked. Don't you see that nothing that
enters a person from the outside can defile them, for it doesn't
go into their heart, but into their stomach and then out of
the body? In saying this, Jesus declared
all foods clean. He went on.
What comes out of a person is what defiles them.
For it is from within, out of a person's heart that evil
thoughts come. Sexual immorality, theft,
murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander,
arrogance, and form. All these evils come from inside
and defile a person. The Apostle Paul, you know, he,
he kind of expands on this. He talks about how one person
eats a food and then that becomes a stumbling block to
someone else. So he concludes from Romans 14
verse 17, saying the Kingdom of God is not a matter of eating
and drinking, but of righteousness.
Peace and joy in the Holy Spirit continues because anyone who
serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives
human approval. Wow, what does this mean?
So Jesus says it's not what goes in that corrupts you.
So food is all clean. He said there's no longer this
kosher, non kosher. He says all of it I have
cleansed by my blood. But now he's saying the stuff
that comes out of us, that is what defines us.
And what are the different things?
He mentions these. I want us.
We will look at them closer later, but he mentions about 10
different things that corrupt everyone of us.
So all of us on some level are defiled, not just by the
microplastics and the non organic food you're consuming.
You are actually defiled. I am actually defiled by these
things that dwell deep inside me.
And I thank God for the Holy Spirit who works on a daily
basis till I will reach eternity to clean me up.
It's not a one day thing. It's not a one month thing, it's
not a one year thing. It's lifelong.
But Paul expands to tell us, those who want to serve Christ
in this way that is actually pursuing righteousness, love,
peace, and joy, they are pleasing to God and receive
human approval. Now, I want us to just look at
this, receive human approval. What is this?
We're not meant to be people pleasers.
We're not meant to make others happy.
We're made to revel in our relationship with God and also
to bless others, am I right? What does this mean?
What is he actually talking about?
And I believe Paul is talking to the Roman church and he's saying
that when you are fixated on what you're eating or drinking,
the superficial stuff that feeds our flesh, you, you are not
feeding the Spirit. But the Kingdom of God is all
about the Spirit. And that is where you have this
right standing with God, you exhibit a shallow peace.
You have joy beyond your circumstances.
Those are the things which please God and doesn't end
there. It gets the approval of man.
What are we talking about when we talk about approval?
I believe it basically means we are not a stench in the in the
lives of people around us. Hypocrisy is a single biggest
reason why many people either leave Christendom or because of
which people avoid us. Or she says one thing but she
does another. Or she claims to stand for this
but her private life doesn't seem that way.
I've seen how he leaves his home.
There's something different about someone who actually looks
after their family and someone like him.
Something doesn't add up. Christians everywhere, we need
to understand that the biggest stench causes is hypocrisy.
The biggest stench causes in our lives is hypocrisy.
We say one thing, we do another. We project ourselves in a
certain way but are very different in reality.
We use verses on our social media status, but our lives
don't live out the gospel. What is the point if we want to
receive human approval, which is not people pleasing, which is
not playing to the band, but rather living in such a way that
we are a magnet for Jesus, Living in such a way that we are
truly the salt and the light. If the salt is spoiled, the food
is messed up. If there is no light in the
different parts of the world that we are all placed in,
darkness prevails. We are the light and the reason
number one reason our light is dimmed is because of our
hypocrisy. The reason number one reason our
saltiness is put down is because of our hypocrisy.
Luke Chapter 11 verses 39 to 52. I'm just going to go verse by
verse in this to understand in in, you know, it's literally
live action. What is hypocrisy today?
It's exactly what Jesus described back in the day and it
matches with who we are today. So we're going to read couple of
verses together and then I'm just going to expound it a bit,
OK, Luke 11 starting from verse 39, it says then the Lord said
to him, Now then you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and
dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.
You foolish people did not the one who made the outside made
the inside also. Now As for what is inside you,
be generous to the poor and everything will be clean for
you. So the first mark of hypocrisy
is where you are holy for the show of it.
You're all about, you know, how you carry yourself, but inwardly
you're not actually living in a way that pleases God.
You pretend to be generous, but you withhold from those who need
it the most. And so Jesus is very clear.
He tells them you just be generous, then you're cleansed.
For how many of us? We pretend to live a life that
is for others, but we're deeply clenching our fists.
We are misers. We don't want to give off what
we have. We say we worked hard for it.
This is mine. God is calling that out today.
Verse 42. This is what it says.
Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your
mint, Roux, and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect
justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the
latter without leaving the former undone.
It's interesting because Jesus is addressing this problem that
a lot of us have where we pick and choose the scriptures we
want to live by. We abandoned the controversial
or the hard to follow stuff. We miss the heart behind the
scripture and we choose to look at it legalistically.
I will tithe 10%. But when we come to the New
Testament in One Corinthians Chapter 9, what does it says
that everything you have is? Is gods give generously those
who so generously reap generous. There's no mention of 10% in the
New Testament. You see what I'm saying?
We can become so picky and choosy about what we buy into
from the Scripture and what we reject.
What is God asking of you today? He says maybe you're giving it
very, you know, axiomatically you just give month on month.
But I noticed that you don't give up your time.
I noticed that you don't spend time with your family.
Or maybe you're so caught up in self-care that you're not
worried about the other things I'm calling you into.
What is God calling you into? Third part, verse 43?
What are you Pharisees? Because you love the most
important seeds in the synagogues and respectful
greetings in the marketplaces. Another form of our hypocrisy is
pretending to be humble. Oh, I don't need that prominent
space. I don't need that mention.
Oh yeah, I did help in that video.
It's fine. I don't need the mention.
But you go all around town saying how you didn't get
mentioned. It's a false humility.
You need appreciation and validation from people.
Remember what Jesus said? He said he never entrusted it
Says Jesus never entrusted himself to people for he knew
what they were made of. He only looked to God his Father
for glory. And yet the hypocrisy in US
causes us to act humble when we're desperate for elevation,
we're desperate for validation. Verse 4244, it says woe to you
because you are like unmarked graves which people walk over
without knowing it. When you read it in the message
version, it's just such a disturbing verse.
It says they walk over you not knowing that there is decay of
old bones beneath the surface. And what is this talking about?
You know, a lot of, lot of us as Christians can paint this
picture of perfection, of purity, of holiness.
But deep inside us, there's the skeleton.
And it's, it's not just a skeleton because we all have a
skeleton. But this is like a, a cupboard
full of skeletons, skeletons in our closet galore.
And the beauty is, you know, the, the fact is we have a God
who knows about our skeletons. And the quicker we come to this
realisation of opening that skeleton closet and saying,
Lord, cleanse this off me, he does it.
But too many of us are so ashamed of it.
We know that if it gets dug up, it's going to harm our identity,
our, our reputation. We keep it hidden.
And unfortunately, we're influencing others, maybe
through social media, through personal relationship, through
being their superior work or whatever they are
unintentionally engaging with someone who's fully decayed from
the inside. It's like a rotten apple at the
core. The outside looks perfect, but
the deeper you go, you see that such darkness exists that it's
scary. How many of us can fit into that
Verse 45, one of the experts in the law answered him.
Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also.
Jesus replied. And you experts in the law vote
you because you load people down with burdens they can hardly
carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help
them. Are you a teacher?
Are you a Bible study leader? Are you a pastor?
Are you an evangelist? Are you someone who is
prophetic? What load have you put on
someone else in the name of your authority?
In the name of them needing to submit to authority, what have
you put on them? Have you told them they can't do
this, this, this, when Jesus is all about freedom?
Jesus says I'll bring the conviction.
You just lead them by example. I love what Paul writes to
Timothy. He says you lead by example,
Timothy, with your speech, your love, your purity.
And a lot of times I'm finding it's tempting to put a double
standard to our leadership. I'll do this, but you can't do
this. I can do this because I'm
mature, but you being immature, you can't do this.
And I believe God is calling that out.
He's saying when you impose that rule, walk with them, pray with
them, invest in them. Otherwise don't lay that burden
on them. You encouraging someone to live
a celibate life, have you thought that through?
Have you understood what it requires of you to journey with
them? Because it'll be a very lonely
Rd. It's a very lonely Rd.
Will we do with others? Will we spend time with them?
Will we give off ourselves, especially when we're in a
position of leadership to walk with them, to encourage them to
take the phone anytime and say, I know you're struggling, I'm
with you, I'm praying for you. Too many times we've put a load
on a person that has been mentored by us or being led by
us and we've said, do this, it's good for you.
It's what I feel you should have.
God told me to do it. We bring all that in and we
don't step in to journey with them.
God's calling us out. Verse 47 vote you because you
built tombs for the prophets, and it was your ancestors who
killed them. So you testify that you approve
of what your ancestors did. They killed the prophets and you
built their tombs. Because of this, God in his
wisdom said, I will send them prophets and apostles, some of
whom they will kill and others they will persecute.
Therefore, this generation will be held responsible for the
blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the
beginning of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of
Zechariah who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary.
Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held responsible for it
all. Now we have to understand that
new covenant, all generation curses are broken.
We are not going to be punished for what our ancestors did.
But the fine print there is, if we are repeating the sins of the
ancestors, we will be held responsible for that.
Each generation is responsible for what they do.
And here he's talking about how these guys were building tombs
for the people, the the ancestors that the the prophets
and priests that their ancestors killed.
So he's saying basically you're admitting that you killed them
and you're doing some sort of penance for it.
And he says, therefore, I blame you.
I believe God is calling the hypocrisy out of our own lives
at this moment. And he's saying there are some
sins of your ancestors which reek up to high heavens and it
stops with you. It has to stop with you.
You are continuing it, saying this is who I am, I'm
genetically predisposed to alcoholism.
You have a bunch of different ideas.
Oh, this is how my ancestors were.
This is what they did. They ran a quarry.
They did stuff that was unjust with with their workers.
So why not? It worked for them.
God is saying it ends with you. If you know me, if you know my
word, it lend with you. You will repent and turn and go
the direction I'm telling you to go in.
It's on us as to what we choose to repeat of our ancestors.
If there's good things from your ancestors, please, please.
Like we talked about digging old wells.
If it's prayer, if it's fasting, if it's giving of yourself to
the poor, whatever it is, do that.
But what in your genealogy, what in your family line needs to
end? You need to identify it.
What are you repeating unconsciously or consciously?
Oh, my father hit me, therefore I can hit my kid.
It has to end somewhere for the sake of generations to come.
It ends with you. Oh my, My parents were
unfaithful to each other, so it's OK.
How I live, it doesn't matter anyway.
This is what's going to happen. This is my lot.
I beg to differ. Our lot in Jesus is different.
We live under the new covenant. We live by His grace everyday.
He will give us that which we need for life and godliness.
So what is our excuse? Finally, verse 52, vote you
experts in the law because you have taken away the key to
knowledge. You yourselves have not entered
and have hindered those who are entering.
Many times the rules we set for ourselves and for others are
stumbling blocks. You know, I can be a stumbling
block, not just to myself, to my children, to my spouse, to those
who are in my life. And here he's saying these
experts, they had the key. They knew what they must do.
They were not doing it. And because they were not doing
it, all their followers were also not doing it.
So they didn't allow themselves to experience the joys of
eternal life by believing in Jesus.
And they set back an entire group because of their
stubbornness. And I want to ask us today, have
you been doing the same thing? We know the good we must do, but
we don't do it. And that's a sin in the eyes of
God. We know the good we are supposed
to do. We're stepping away from it,
saying it's too hard and because you have modelled that life,
generations after you are going to do the same thing.
And God is saying the hypocritical Christian is a
surefire way of preventing others from entering the Kingdom
of God, preventing others from knowing Jesus.
The simplest example was what Mahatma Gandhi said when he saw
apartheid so close up, when he saw the the gaps between the
white Christians and the African Christians.
He said, I love the songs that Christians sing, but I don't
think I'll ever become one just because of the people I've seen.
In all probability, he loved Jesus as well.
But it's hard to enter the Kingdom of God when you see
fellow followers of Jesus behaving the way they like.
Behaving in such a detrimental way to the gospel, behaving in
such a way where there's no limits on their life to the bad
they will do. Behaving in a way where there's
no discipline, where there is no possibility for course
correction because they're so far off.
Who are you preventing from entering the Kingdom of God?
Who are you dissuading because of your behaviour?
Because of the kind of leadership skills you are
displaying? Because of the way you behave
with Co workers? How many people are turning away
from Jesus because of the way you and I behave?
This is a call out for all of us.
So what does this Kingdom life require us to do?
It requires us to mean what we say and say what we mean.
Stop talking in riddles. Stop saying stuff like I can get
this done, you know, anytime in the next within the next
fortnight, give a date. Stick to the date.
Tell that person you're pursuing what your intentions are.
Don't be in the grey. Don't keep them guessing.
Mean what you say and say what you mean.
Keep to your word. Jesus said let your yes be yes
and your no be no meaning that should carry so much weightage
for the follower of Jesus. When I say yes, I'll be there,
it means I'll be there. Yes, I will do it.
It means I will do it. I don't have to say I swear on
this and that I should be so credible as a witness in the
marketplace that they will say when Christine says it.
When Christine says it, Christine will do it.
You need to walk the talk. You can be talking all the live
long day about Jesus, about his word.
You can share the worst of the day on your WhatsApp story.
But if you are living however you like, with absolutely no
guardrails, behaving in any old way, texting whatever you like
you are, you fall under the category of the hypocrite.
You will be a deterrent to people knowing Christ.
You have to lead yourself as you lead others.
Especially for those of us who are in leadership positions for
mentors who are parents. If we don't lead ourselves
wisely, we don't need to learn. We need to learn to regulate
ourselves before we expect regulation from others.
We need to pursue excellence and diligence before we expect it of
others. We need to go deeper with
ourselves so that we can see our own sinfulness before we point
out someone else's. I personally love marriage just
for that because you know, when we're thinking of what someone
else has done to us, it just needs one word from our spouse
to bring us back into track and say, but we're not any better.
We say the same things, we have the same prejudice and it's
quick. It brings us back in shape.
It alerts us to our own hypocrisy.
Go deeper with yourself. Find out what that plank is in
your life and identify it and pull it out because it doesn't
help when we only look at others sinfulness and not ours.
And I love that Jesus was very clear about how he felt about
the Pharisees. These were men created in his
image, and yet he was very tough on them.
This is what he said in Matthew 1233.
He said make a tree good and it's fruit will be good, or make
a tree bad and it's fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized
by its fruit. You brood of wipers.
How can you who are evil say anything good?
For the the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
A good man brings good things or the good stored up in him, and
an evil man brings evil things or the evil stored up in him.
It's interesting because the Pharisees didn't know how much
they needed Jesus purely because they denied who they were.
They put up a big show. They walked in such in in such
authority and influence. They thought they were sorted
with God. They thought that their heart
was in a good place. They had no clue how far away
they were. They had no clue that the source
of salvation was in front of them, but they were still doing
things to achieve salvation. And so this denial of who they
were and how much they actually needed him was the cause of all
of this hypocrisy. And Jesus hate how hated how the
Pharisees behaved when they would come there just to needle
him the way they spoke. He would say, I know what you're
thinking. Why are you thinking such evil
thoughts? He knew everything before they
opened their mouth, and yet he would allow them to talk.
I think for our benefit, for us to understand this is where I
see myself, Lord, this is who I am.
How many of us can honestly say, Lord, I'm sick and I'm in need
of the Great Physician? How many of us can say, Lord, my
mind is twisted, I need you to uncoil it.
Lord, my spirit is broken because of what I have walked
through and I'm starting to break others because of it.
Can you fix me? Jesus said this in Luke 5 verse
31. He said, and Jesus replied to
them, It is not those who are healthy who need a physician,
but only those who are sick. I did not come to call the
self-proclaimed righteous who see no need to repent, but
sinners to repentance, to change their old way of thinking, to
turn from sin, and to seek God and His righteousness.
As I was preparing this, I realized that it's one thing to
say Lord, I'm a hypocrite, but it's another to repent and say
I'm so sorry Lord, because I have put loads on people that I
should not have put. I turned away people when they
displayed sin that was mirrored in me.
When we come clean with God, it just radically changes the
equation because Jesus sees the deepest parts of our hearts.
You and I can whitewash our speech.
We can, you know, cover our behaviour for a while.
But sorry to say, before long everything gets exposed.
Our genuine nature comes to the surface.
Our inner junk will come out if we don't let it all out.
Before the Master, before our Maker, before our Saviour,
before our Redeemer, before our Restorer.
He is the one who makes all things right.
He makes all things new. Too many of us have been living
double lives. You're wondering why your
breakthrough isn't coming, but God is saying, look at the
double life that you are living. I cannot bless someone who has a
blatant double life, even if it's a very hidden double life.
He cannot. It's more like what happened at
the Battle of Jericho. After the the big victory,
they're so confident and they decide to go and conquer this
little town called AI, and they just decide to take a few guys.
But because there was sin in the camp after Jericho, they
couldn't win that small little battle they had to get into.
Too many of us are facing so many battles.
We know we like to call it the devils attacking us, but what if
you're so discordant that you can't even detect anymore that
you're not just fighting demons, you're fighting demons of your
own making. Your double life is blocking
your blessing. Maybe you're a spouse and you
look and sound perfect. You look in church put together,
you put your arm around your spouse.
Everything looks fine and dandy. But privately, only God sees the
abuse you met out to them and he's saying his time's running
out. The hypocrites need to come
home. Their father waits.
He is willing if you repent, to embrace you and start you on a
new journey. But it's on you.
Some of you come to church. You talk to everyone, but you
have private habits that are yet you're grappling with.
You're not coming clean to God about.
Some of you have already broken your marital vows or you're on
the verge of it and God is reaching out.
He's saying enough, you're tired from the double life, come to
me. Some of you say you love people,
you care for them, but actually deep inside you're cold hearted.
You don't care for anyone. Some of you claim to love
serving, but you'll only serve for your benefit.
You will only serve if your agenda is met.
And God is saying that's not true.
Come clean, come clean. You claim that you don't have
prejudice. You love all like Jesus says.
You know Jesus loves the little children of the whole world.
You say you know what, you love everybody, but you have dark
prejudices deep within you and you know it.
You quote scripture like a boss. You know the word inside.
Or because you've been in Sunday school from, you know, the
beginner stage, but your private life is a mess because you have
not drawn near to God with your heart.
Your mouth worships him. You may be in the worship team.
You may be a music musician. You may be a worship leader.
You may even be a leader. But you know, you have private
strongholds that you're battling day in, day out.
Some of them you've even given in to.
You said, this is how I am. I can't change.
But God is saying, don't defile the anointing that is in you.
Come clean so that I can take you to the next level and use
you to bless more. But you need to come clean.
God's calling the hypocrites home.
He understands the struggle, but he's now offering grace to us.
The condition, condition is this.
Washing hands won't do it. I need to wash my heart, my
heart. I need to rend my heart.
That's what the psalmist would say.
Rending is just shedding, shredding it, pulling it apart
and saying, God, this is the most broken part of me.
I can explain away the sin to people, but I can't explain it
away to you. God, I abused because I was
abused. I molest because I was molested.
But God is saying enough for the excuses.
Drop the costume, drop the fizzard.
You have to allow the Holy Spirit to turn you inside out
and cleanse you. So as we close, this is what I
want to do with you. I'm going to go back to that
passage. We were reading Luke Chapter 7
and I'm going to be reading 21 and 22, the verses 21 and 22,
and I'm going to read those words with very slow intention,
with the intention to actually bring our attention to each of
these sins that Jesus himself mentioned.
These are not, these are not mentioned by me.
I didn't add these in. And as I give you these
different sins, you're going to add a hook to it.
You're going to say, God, that's me.
I need cleansing from this because it's pewing out of me.
Some people who are like pressure cookers keep everything
stuffed, but it's not yet spewed out, but it's eating you up.
And God is saying I want to deliver you today.
I want to cleanse you so that you will be a magnet for me in
the nations. So that when you speak the words
go out with authority and power and don't fall to the ground.
So that when you pray for people genuinely with a heart of love,
things change in their life. So that you will walk in favour,
So that you will actually experience signs, wonders and
miracles. But if you are going to be so
fake, if you're going to be so pent up with all of this rage
when the outside is just looking all bright and shiny, I can't do
much with you. That is a broken vessel.
God wants to cleanse us today. So as I read this, can you just
attach yourself to one and say, God, that's me.
Could be multiple ones. That's OK.
You don't need to do this publicly before people.
You can do it privately with your saviour.
And I believe our Redeemer is going to turn things around.
God cleanse us of these deep sins in all our lives.
Sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice,
deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly.
Father, we just bring these to you.
Even as we have tagged our name to a couple of these.
We lift our hands and hearts to you.
God, will you forgive us? We repent of every
unrighteousness, repent of every sin by Commission and omission.
We repent for the things we have done out of ignorance.
We are repenting for the things we did with full knowledge.
Forgive us God, turn us around, change the direction that we are
headed in. Heal our hearts, heal our minds,
heal our bodies. God, we pray that we will be
good trees that beg good fruit. We pray, O God, that you will
work deep inside us so that generations will be changed.
Help us, hold us, heal us God, in Jesus name, Amen.
Amen. As we get into this week, I want
you to take this with joy. This, it may have been a heavy
sermon, but we need to take this into the world that I'm healed
so that I can bring God's healing to others.
Not so that we would get the glory or the praise so that he
would be glorified, so He would be honoured.
Because our God is mighty. He is on the move on the earth
right now, and He wants to start with us, His body.
So as we allow God to work in US, exchange of hypocrisy for
God's righteousness, exchange the whole duality for justice
being one heart, one mind, one soul, worshipping Him, we need
to unite the broken parts of our lives and bring it all before
God. And I pray that as we do this,
it's a life long process that we would keep remembering that He
doesn't dismiss the hypocrites, He gives us grace that we would
keep coming back. Every time you sense that
hypocrisy, you would come back to God and say I'm sorry,
forgive me, and you would resist the temptation to fall into it
again and again. God bless you.
Have an amazing week. Thanks for listening to this
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