HOPE BIBLE FELLOWSHIP
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  • Luke 12:1–12 ESV
    In the meantime, when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another, he began to say to his disciples first, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops. “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows. “And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”
    Introduction:
    Have you ever heard someone say they don’t want to be part of church because there are too many hypocrites?
    This a pretty common charge leveled against the church by outsiders. How should we answer this or think about it?
    Well, first we need to address the reasons why some people think this. There is no perfect church. If there is hypocrisy in a church then it must be dealt with. The issue here is that people misunderstand what the church is and what the people who are members of a church are. Of course there are expectations that members of a church be devoutly righteous. Christians should be concerned with obedience, godliness, righteousness, and the like. but we have to understand that we are still sinners. And all of our doing and living for God doesn’t completely do away with the power of sin in our lives. So in some sense, we shouldn’t be surprised when we find sin in the church. God has given provision for this.
    So for someone to see someone in the church sinning and claim that the church is full of hypocrites is unfair. If the people of the church are pretending to be perfect and to not sin, then they would but guilty of hypocrisy.
    Whenever we are confronted with this accusation toward the church, all we can do is point people to Jesus. There will never be a point where they will look to the life of Jesus and be disappointed.
    As we step into our passage for today, we find that many thousands are gathering to hear Jesus teach and they are even trampling one another.
    He begins by addressing his disciples first. Surely the others would have overheard but we should understand that he’s beginning with his closest followers.
    In verses 1-3 Jesus beings to expand on the teaching sections we have heard in the rest of the chapter. It is good to remember that the Bible is laid out the way it is for a purpose and reason. Passages don’t appear randomly next to one another. Inspired by the Spirit, Luke had a reason for where he placed everything.
    The main idea I want to convey is that the only way for us to survive is to acknowledge Jesus before men. To get there we are going to walk through how hypocrisy is infectious, unhealthy fear vs faithful, healthy fear, and faithful acknowledgement of Jesus before men.
    Jesus begins teaching His disciples. He warns them to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.
    Read: Luke 12:1
    Luke 12:1 ESV
    In the meantime, when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another, he began to say to his disciples first, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.

    I. Hypocrisy is infectious. (v.1-3)

    Leaven is not always used in a negative sense in the Bible. It is also used positively. What is the principle here? If you are baking bread and you want it to rise, you put some leaven in it. Then you let it sit and rise.
    A few years back, one of my aunts was struggling with the early stages of alzheimer’s. She loved to bake and she made us a pie. When we cut into it we noticed this was a pie unlike any pie we had every had. She had put yeast in the pie dough. It made the pie very bread like.
    If you get leaven in some dough that you don’t want leaven it, it doesn’t matter, because it’s spreading all throughout the dough. It radically affects the dough however, you probably don’t notice it right away.
    My mom used to mix up pizza dough and then cover it with a tea towel. When she would uncover it, it would be much larger.
    They Pharisees were hypocrites. Their leaven was hypocrisy. I talked about hypocrisy a little last week. The word is actually an ancient term that comes from the theatre. A hypocrite is a play actor. They are pretending to be something they are not. It was this sin, this sin of being fraudulent in representing your faith that Jesus was grieved by in the Pharisees.
    Read Luke 12:2-3
    Luke 12:2–3 ESV
    Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.
    Those hypocrites may do a really good job of hiding who they truly are but it won’t last forever. The fraudulent parts of their lives will be laid bare. The costume or disguise they wear will be ripped off and they will stand naked at the judgment of God. At judgement God will separate all that is real from that which is fake.
    All of the
    R.C. Sproul wrote, “But, if I did not know that on that day my nakedness will be covered by the righteousness of Christ, it would destroy me to have to face it. But this is what God promises for his people: in that day of judgment those who are in Christ will be hidden. His righteousness conceals our corruption. That’s why we cling to Christ.”
    Because everything will be exposed before God we should have a proper placement of fear in our lives.

    II. Unhealthy fear vs faithful, healthy fear (v. 4-7)

    To properly understand fear of God we need to fully respect and embrace two aspects of His character.
    His terrifying power
    2. His trustworthy love
    Luke 12:4–7 ESV
    “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.
    Jesus goes on to tell them not to fear those who can only kill their bodies, namely, the Pharisees or other leaders who would persecute them for following Christ. All they could do was kill their physical bodies. Jesus wants them instead to fear God who alone has the authority to send the soul to hell.
    Throughout scripture we are taught to fear God. We are fear offending Him. It’s a fear born of reverent awe and understanding with humility our place before His glory and majesty.
    We fear His power and also the punishment at His hands for those without Him. But repentance that comes simply from fear of punishment isn’t true repentance. Godly repentance comes from genuine, godly sorrow from having violated God’s law.
    2 Corinthians 7:9–10 ESV
    As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.
    I want you to notice something about verse 4 as Jesus tells them to fear God. This passage can seem pretty severe to us. But look at how He addresses them. He addresses the disciples as friends. He’s not harsh with them about this harsh sounding topic. Instead, He is pleading with His friends to have a healthy fear of God.
    After He has told them to fear God, Jesus turns to a positive dimension of this and that is to trust God’s trustworthy love. God sees and knows all. The God before whom all will be laid bare sees and knows every hair on your head. Sparrows are seemingly insignificant but not one is forgotten by God. You are more valuable than sparrows. To God you are.
    Sproul wrote, “A healthy fear and respect for God should always be balanced by our confidence that in God’s sight we are of exceedingly great value. Yes, God knows us intimately, knows the secrets that we harbour in our hearts, yet we should not allow our fear of divine disclosure to drive us to despair. Rather it should drive us to embrace the redemption that is ours in Christ.”
    MAKE MUCH OF REDEMPTION IN CHRIST HERE...
    We must faithfully acknowledge Jesus before men.

    III. Faithfully acknowledge Jesus before men. (v. 8-12)

    Luke 12:8–9 ESV
    “And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.
    Imagine your are standing before God in judgement adn every one of your secret sins has been exposed. You sin is publicly revealed. It’s all made known. As you stand there before the Lord, your only response to your sin is “I have embraced Christ.” At that moment, Jesus the Christ steps forward as your advocate. He confesses that you belong to Him. In that moment, the threat of divine judgement is removed by God’s redemption in Jesus.
    This is glorious and comforting.
    No on the flip side, those who have refused to confess Jesus and acknowledge Him will have to stand alone in judgement with no advocate for their sins.
    How terrifying to facet the wrath of God without the sacrifice of Jesus covering your sin!
    As we come to verse 10, we come to maybe the most terrifying verse in scripture.
    Luke 12:10 ESV
    And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.
    Many people live in fear that they have either committed this sin or may commit this sin in the future.
    Great theologians have studied this passage and suggest what this could mean.
    - Some have identified it as the sin of the final and ultimate rejection of Christ. Only in trusting Christ can you be saved, therefore finally and ultimately rejecting Christ and dying without Him would mean no forgiveness.
    - The statement gives us difficulties because of the distinction between blasphemy of the Son and blasphemy of the Spirit.
    - To help us evaluate the passage we must keep in mind the context into which Jesus spoke these words.
    - This follows a lengthy section of teaching which includes the religious leadership accusing Jesus of being in league with Satan.
    - We also must remember that this is a verbal sin.
    When a person comes to know who Jesus is, His true identity as the Son of God and Savior it comes only by revelation of the Holy Spirit. If that person who has had this revealed to them calls Jesus the devil, then there is no forgiveness for that person. It is the unforgivable sin.
    To those who are afraid they have committed the unforgivable sin I say, if you had you probably wouldn’t be very concerned about it.
    I also can’t imagine that this is a sin that a genuine Christian can commit.
    Making that statement after the Holy Spirit has revealed to you the true identity of Christ would truly be unforgivable.
    Any other sin, no matter how gross, how big in our sight, can be forgiven. It requires confession, repentance, and embracing the mercy of Jesus Christ.
    Jesus then concludes with a promise. We should fear being guilty of blaspheming the Holy Spirit. But we should rejoice that in our moment of need when persecuted before men, the Holy Spirit will give us the words we need. Jesus is giving this to His friends. He knew they would stand in persecution and wanted them to know that He was providing for what they would say.
    As extreme as the warnings are in this passage, the promise of the grace and mercy we have in Christ are given us to cling to.

      • Luke 12:1–12ESV

      • Luke 12:1ESV

      • Luke 12:2–3ESV

      • Luke 12:4–7ESV

      • 2 Corinthians 7:9–10ESV

      • Luke 12:8–9ESV

      • Luke 12:10ESV

  • Hosanna
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