Pastor Daniel Simmons preaches from Luke 11:33-53.
Jesus Exposes Hypocrisy
Luke 11:37-53
Exegetical Main Point: Jesus denounces and exposes the Pharisees and Lawyers for their hypocrisy and predicts the great judgment coming on them.
Main Point of the Sermon: Jesus lovingly exposes what’s in our hearts.
Introduction
One thing that scares me and keeps me humble before the Lord is the potential for blind spots. You know, you live your life with a particular set of rules, or a certain view that you are very convictional about, but all along you have it wrong. You have the wrong rule book. I’ve had a few moments in my life where God mercifully showed me a blind spot. For example, for a good part of my Christian life I actually believed that it was bad to confess my sin to others because a) it might tempt them to sin b) it might hurt their respect for me and hinder my ability to minister to them in the future. What?! Man, that couldn’t be more wrong. It’s always shocking when you realize how oblivious you were, and we say to ourselves “How could I be so blind?”
Jesus is kind to not leave us in our error, isn’t he? He’s kind to expose our darkness.
Last week we saw Jesus challenge the crowds for their unbelief. He even called them an evil generation because of how they were responding to him and his Word. Ultimately, he exposed the hardness of their hearts.
And what we’ll see in today’s text is that Jesus exposes more hearts. And it’s not just those who are clearly far from God, but we’ll see him expose the blind and hypocritical thinking and behavior of the Church going people, the religious leaders.
I think many of us will be challenged by what Jesus says in this text, so let’s go to prayer one more time and invite God to speak to us and change us.
Pray
The first section starts in verse 33, where Jesus uses a word picture and a series of proverbs to highlight the importance of the health of our inner being, or our hearts. Let’s see.
33 “No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light.
Like he often does in his teaching, Jesus uses something common – a lamp – to teach a spiritual truth. Jesus is actually comparing himself and his preaching to a lamp shining light for all to see. Jesus just talked about himself as a greater Solomon, so it makes sense that he is still referring to himself when talking about the light.
Jesus and his Word are light and that light has not been hidden. He has openly and widely proclaimed the Good News of the way into the Kingdom.
But verse 34 shows us that people “see Jesus’s light” or receive his Word in different ways. Jesus said,
34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. 35 Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. 36 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.”
This can be hard to follow, but Jesus is talking about spiritual sight and the way that our spiritual sight relates to our whole person, spirit and body.
Jesus is trying to show that when you see Jesus and his Word with spiritually or morally healthy eyes, you are full of light. But when you have spiritually bad, or literally “evil” eyes, you are full of darkness. So again, Jesus is warning the people to be aware of their inner spiritual health. He says, “Be careful”. It’s possible for you to have blind spots. Pay attention. The “light” or message that directs your life may really be darkness if it causes you to reject me.
To put it simply, your perception of Jesus reveals the health of your heart. To have a healthy eye is to have a heart that sees Jesus rightly and therefore responds in repentance and faith.
Many rejected Jesus thinking they were seeing rightly. But the “light” in them was really darkness. Some, however, believed in Jesus. These, Jesus said, not only will follow him, but will themselves begin to shine Christ to others by their good works (c.f. Mt. 5:15-16).
Again, Jesus is ultimately exposing the health of their hearts, and he is teaching them how to identify whether their heart is good or evil, light or dark. Jesus points out two things that expose our hearts: 1) Your response to Jesus and his Word exposes your heart 2) the works that your life produces exposes your heart.
The rest of our text will largely press into number 2, the works your life produces.
Look at verse 37:
37 While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table.
Who again are the Pharisees? These were religious elites, teachers of the Law. They were the most influential of the three major Jewish sects (the others – Sadducees and Essenes) in Israel.
We’re told that one Pharisee asked Jesus to eat with him, and Jesus went. If you remember, the Pharisees have not been the friends of Jesus, but his greatest critics. They’ve threatened him and accused him of being a law-breaker. Nonetheless, Jesus went – which should teach us something about interacting with our enemies.
Luke describes the event. Jesus went in and reclined at the table. Verse 38,
38 The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner.
He was “astonished” that Jesus didn’t wash. This was a big deal to the Pharisees because they held to an oral tradition (in addition to the written Law of God) intended to keep them from ingesting anything ritually unclean. This was not a requirement of Old Testament Law, but rather an addition that the elders had kept for some time.
Whether Jesus failed to wash intentionally or unintentionally, I don’t know, but either way, this was an important teaching moment. Listen to Jesus’s reply:
39 And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40 You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? 41 But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you. 42 “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. 43 Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. 44 Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it.”
What is Jesus saying? He’s calling their hypocrisy and the deadness of their hearts. He points out the fact that while these religious leaders are so concerned about their traditions to prevent uncleanness, their hearts are totally unclean, full of “greed and wickedness.” On the outside they look very religious. They are following the rule book “perfectly”, and others would be very impressed by their ‘spotless’ behavior. But Jesus exposes the fact that deep down these leaders were more interested in selfish gain through their position than they were in worshipping God out of love for him. In other words, they excelled when others were watching but were loveless towards God and others in private.
Luke describes the Pharisees elsewhere, as “lovers of money” (16:14). They tithed, but cared nothing for the poor or for God. They received great honor from all people, yet little did anyone know, they were totally dead inside. Matthew’s account calls them “whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness” (Mt. 23:27).
This Jesus says is total foolishness. “You fools!” (v. 40). Don’t you know that God made both outside and inside? In other words, he knows your heart. He knows your motives, your deep inner thoughts and ambitions. This is a perfect example of what Jesus talked about earlier. The light they thought they had was truly darkness within.
Before I go on, I want to speak to Jesus’s tone here. Maybe some of you are caught up on the fact that Jesus just uttered such cutting words. Many people picture Jesus as a man without a backbone. Friends, that’s not the Jesus of the Bible. Yes, Jesus was full of gentleness and kindness, but is and has always been a strong leader, a prophet, bold and courageous like the heroic prophets we read about in Scripture, but greater. He’s not afraid to speak the truth.
Further, it may seem like Jesus is angry and this might be hard for you to swallow. Church, he is angry! He is angry and disturbed by the hardness of these people’s hearts, and he wisely and lovingly rebukes the hypocrisy that is leading them and their followers to hell.
When you find that Scripture or people in the Christian community challenge your sinful behavior, please understand the heart of love behind the rebuke. Oftentimes, they are doing and saying exactly what Jesus would say to you if he were here. A little bit of painful correction might just be the means by which your soul is saved from an eternally painful punishment.
Look at verse 41: 41 But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.
Jesus is identifying true worship. True worship comes from the heart. When that’s happening in a person, Jesus says, “everything is clean”. In other words, even things that sometimes break your rule book are perceived by God as holy and clean.
Rituals in themselves aren’t bad, but when they aren’t driven by a deep inner love for God and generosity towards others, they mean nothing.
Church, you could be the most faithful church attender and giver in this building, but if you have little thought for God or little care about his people when you're here or throughout the week, what does it even mean? Nothing.
Jesus said to them, “Woe to you.”
What’s with those words in verse 42, “Woe to you.” What an interesting phrase. We don’t use these words much anymore, so let me try to explain what they mean.
“Woe” is “an interjection denoting pain or displeasure” (BDAG). It is basically an emotionally strong way to denounce and express the miserable condition of another. This is not Jesus cursing someone in the way that we might see in a verbal fight in a movie, but rather a statement of deep pain and grief, even more, a deep disapproval of the individual and their particular behavior.
It essentially says, “You are miserable and your future will be miserable because of the state of your hearts!”
I would assume that this is like many of our responses to people who boast in their sinful behavior openly. It grieves our hearts and moves us to pity, saying, “they just don’t understand what they are doing and the misery they are headed for!” I’m not talking about an angry or demeaning heart, but a sorrowful one.
That’s good and, yes, God grieves over the godless who reject him, but look how strongly he speaks to church going people like you and me, even to the “spiritually elite” who pretend to honor God while their hearts are dark and cold like a corpse.
Now do you understand why Jesus uses such a strong word and is so emotional? Jesus is lovingly, passionately correcting the Pharisees lest they perish in their sin.
Luke continues with the narrative in verse 45, when someone responds to Jesus:
45 One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.”
The “Lawyers” were experts of God’s Law. These were also known as the scribes. The Pharisees were basically students of the Scribes, so naturally they recognized that Jesus’s accusations were directed towards them also.
Let’s see how Jesus responds. Verse 46:
46 And he said, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.
Jesus goes even harder at these guys. He’s not intimidated by their position or even apologetic for “insulting them also,” but keeps speaking the bold, but life-giving truth. Jesus is here pointing out the fact that with their endless laws and traditions, they were making following God impossible for the average person (c.f. Acts 15:10). It’s like they are demanding them to win a race but all the while they’re saying “don’t run like that”, “don’t breathe like that”, “don’t wear those shoes”. Though the people could not bear the burden, the scribes did nothing to help the common person keep the laws. They cared more about their procedures than the spiritual and physical health of the people. But the darkness and evil of their hearts is even worse than that.
Jesus continues,
47 Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. 48 So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs.
Wow! What’s going on here? Let’s unpack this.
Jesus says woe to you for building the prophet’s tombs because the Scribes ironically “build the tombs” or set up monuments for the prophets to honor them, while they dishonor their word. In fact, through that dishonor, they are actually witnesses and give consent to their father’s actions.
How did they consent to their father’s murdering of the prophets? The prophets were ultimately killed for speaking unfavorable messages. Their fathers rejected them and in hatred killed them. Like their fathers, the scribes rejected the message of the prophets of the past and the modern day prophets like Jesus and John the Baptist. Their rejection of Jesus, whom the prophets foretold, and all the other ways they were twisting the prophet’s words, was a rejection of all the prophets they claimed to follow. They are just like their fathers, ultimately, and in this way they “consent” to the killings.
Even more, they would be like them in killing those prophets and apostles whom God sent in their generation. Where am I getting this? Look at verse 49:
49 Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’
This is complicated, but I think the best interpretation of this text is to see the “Wisdom of God” as referring to Jesus – who is referred to as God’s wisdom elsewhere (1 Cor 1:24,30). Further proof is Matthew’s Gospel, where Jesus is recorded saying that he will send prophets who will be persecuted, flogged, and killed (Mt. 23:34). So, this is Jesus prophesying and speaking of what was to come – namely, the prophets and apostles whom God would send would be persecuted and killed by these very men (think Stephen, the Apostle James, Jesus’s brother James, and others who would have been known by Luke’s readers).
Not only do they consent to the killing of the past prophets, they would become like their fathers in rejecting and killing modern prophets.
Jesus adds these haunting words: “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. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation.
That’s frightening judgment language. He’s in essence saying to them “at the judgment you will be responsible for ALL of this blood”. Jesus says “this generation” will have to give an account for every drop.
Why does Jesus add in this tricky generation language again?
If you remember from last week, in verse 29 Jesus speaks to the crowds, saying “This generation is an evil generation.” I think Jesus is pointing out the fact that it is not just the scribes and Pharisees – the leaders – who rejected and killed the prophets, or who would reject and kill Jesus, but also their followers. Verse 52 shows that clearly.
52 Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”
In this final “Woe”, Jesus says that these leaders have “taken away the key of knowledge.” In their twisting of Scripture and rejection of Jesus, who is true wisdom, they have taken away people’s access to the Kingdom of God. Not only do they fail to enter the Kingdom, they are keeping others from entering also by causing them to oppose Jesus and his message. This generation, who blindly reject Jesus and mislead many to stand against him, will receive this condemnation.
We’re told in verse 53 that
53 As [Jesus] went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things, 54 lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.
This phrase “lying in wait for him” is not about a simple debate with Jesus, but shows their hostility and murderous hatred towards him. They were looking for something to condemn him to death in a trial.
YOU
Church, when I read this story, it evokes a few different emotions.
One, it causes me to grieve over the hardness and darkness of these hearts that would be led to oppose and kill our Savior and his followers.
Two, I feel a deep sadness and fear for those who reject Jesus and his message. I feel those words “Woe to you” rising up in my heart for their miserable condition! The Lord Jesus doesn’t waste his words. He doesn’t waste his emotions. If he is so moved to utter these words of warning to this generation, shouldn’t we pay attention to them for our generation?
Jesus spoke about judgment and hell more than anyone else in the Bible. How is it then, that we so easily dismiss it and convince ourselves that those without Christ, those living in opposition to his message will somehow be ok. Death and hell can’t be that bad for them can it? Friends, “woe to us” if we fail to preach this Good News that has the power to rescue our family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors near and far from the judgment coming on them.
And “woe to you” if you reject Jesus and try to pretend that you are standing on neutral ground. If you are not with him, you are against him. There is no middle ground. If you are not all in, surrendered, following the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, then you are in no better shape than these who would kill the King Jesus.
Three, I feel grieved and fearful at the ways my own heart is prone to such hypocrisy and darkness, and for the ways that you are prone to hypocrisy. Woe to me if I take away the key of knowledge from you with false teaching or with a faulty rule book that distracts you from what matters most.
And Woe to you and me if we treat Jesus’s commands as suggestions. Woe to you and me if our rulebooks are more important to us than God’s Word. Woe to you and me if I’m willing to give a little money to the church but am unwilling to make myself personally available socially, emotionally, and materially to those who are in need of my help. Woe to you and me if we present ourselves at church all pretty on the outside so that everyone thinks we are good and happy Christians, but inside we are full of greed, lust, and pride, with a serious distaste, distrust, and dislike of God’s people. Woe to you and me if we go through the motions but we have no real love for God.
And woe to us all if we oppose Christ and those who lovingly challenge our hypocrisy. Jesus lovingly exposes our hypocrisy. If we knew what we were being saved from we would rejoice and endlessly thank him. I’m convinced that if we could see over the hill to the joy and freedom we would experience in Christ as we let go of that sin and let others help us fight for victory, that we would not despise our brother or sister who corrects us, but we would thank them and invite them to help us all the more. May it be so in this church family!
Remember the famous words of the Apostle John. 16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
Jesus came to warn those who were headed for destruction so that they might find life in him. I’m here, we’re here, to do the same! This may feel unloving, but I promise that Jesus’s words here are only full of love. His zeal and jealousy for his people is what led him to leave his place of glory, to become a man, and die in our place for our sins. We ALL have blood on our hands, we are all condemned, and what Jesus did on the cross was to take all that wrath and judgment stored up for us so that we could have the life and happiness that was stored up for him. He rose from death affirming his victory so that all who believe in him might enter his eternal kingdom.
If you are here and not yet following Jesus, now is the time, run from the great wrath coming on you by running into the arms of Jesus, your Savior. He welcomes you now.
Church, I want to call you to examine your hearts tonight. Be careful lest the light you think you have within is actually darkness. I’m praying that we will all receive the light of Christ and that his light would expose our hypocrisy, our blind spots, and that through us many who are in darkness would be brought to the light.
