What Would Make Jesus Yell at You?

CONSECRATE Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.  Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you.  Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.  HEAR Matthew 23:23–24 NIV “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel." CONSIDER I once learned the hard way that all caps in a text message means you are shouting. It was an accident. If ever a section of Scripture should be put in all caps, it is Matthew 23. Yes, Jesus is shouting here.  “WOE TO YOU, TEACHERS OF THE LAW AND PHARISEES, YOU HYPOCRITES!"  I want to challenge you to shout this line out loud right where you are just now. Get in touch with the acrid emotion of it; especially the exclamation point! Can we just say it? Jesus hates hypocrisy. He doesn't hate hypocrites, but he hates hypocrisy. If we are honest, we all hate hypocrisy. And if we are super honest, more than a few of us hate hypocrites—which is the first sign we are struggling with hypocrisy ourselves.  So what is hypocrisy? Thanks for asking. Hypocrisy is when the outward appearance does not match the inner reality. In other words, it is when a person's appearance and projected image is lying about who they really are in their character and essence. It is trying to manage a false image while concealing a broken identity. It's trying to appear better than you are. Here's just one of Jesus multiple examples in today's chapter:  You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. Years ago, I came across a very interesting and unusual set of questions—twenty-two of them. They came from the personal journal of one of the greatest awakening leaders in history. Anyone want to guess who? Yep, it was John Wesley. When he was in college at Oxford, he and a group of his friends started meeting together to encourage each other and build each other up in faith. The mockers called them the "Holy Club." (The term later changed to another aimed at insulting them—Methodists.)  The first question jumped off the page at me when I first saw it. It still does. Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I really am? In other words, am I a hypocrite? There it is. That's the only thing I can think of that might cause Jesus to yell at you—being a hypocrite—an appearance manager. Here's what I imagine he might be yelling: Wake up, sleeper! Rise from the dead! And Christ will shine on you! None of us are above or beyond hypocrisy. In fact, the first sign you may be walking in it is your level of certainty you are not. Hypocrisy—like its fraternal twin, pride—is quite hidden from its bearer, making them sadly and often the last one to know. The real antidote to hypocrisy is the heartfelt gut-level prayer of the tax collector: “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner’" (Luke 18:13). And something tells me you are going to want to know the other twenty-one questions. Good news. I've put a link in the P.S. that will get them to you as an easy downloadable PDF. And because you read this far, I'll give you one more of those twenty-two questions as a bonus today: Did the Bible live in me today? PRAY Lord Jesus, thank you for your audacity and volume to call out hypocrisy and hypocrites—even me. Grant me the audacity to seriously ask myself the question, "Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I really am?" I renounce morbid introspection. Come, Holy Spirit, and grant me the gift of gracious self-examination. It will be for your glory, others' gain, and my good. Praying in your name, Jesus, amen.