Authenticity: Living from the Heart in Faith

outside you have two parts you have an inside and you have an outside and which part you prioritize determines the person that you will come and this is all part of the teaching of Jesus the greatest talk ever given in the sermon of the mount he says what is insurmountable in this world are not the problems you face not even the internal Brokenness and sin it is the presence of God in his kingdom his work that he's right here and you could be his friend [00:23:35]

now the assumption is that practices he's going to talk about here giving and praying and fasting we will continue to do but when you give don't announce it with trumpets in the synagogues and street corners the way the Hypocrites do and that word's going to be very important in the sermon in the mount and so we got to talk about that today it's the opposite of we've looked at how Jesus is concerned about goodness at the level of the heart now that's the Unseen part of you and we'll see over and over again in chapter six Jesus keeps talking about what is done in secret what is unseen [01:21:56]

there is an unseen reality we live in a world has tries to convince people that you don't have an inside there are books by neurologists like you are your brain that says we are just atoms molecules strings quirks that's all that there is or a book WR re written recently by a Stanford Propet deter that says there's no such thing as agency no such thing as free will it's just physicalism all the way down basically there is no inside as Jesus talked about but but Jesus is quite clear on this no there is an inside and it's the inside that matters most [02:01:12]

hypocrisy we often think of hypocrisy as being the case when somebody says one thing and does something else one of the most famous 20th century novels about a hypocritical preacher was Elmer Gantry he's very flamboyant character not fully unsympathetic but he would preach about Fidelity but the then he himself was quite promiscuous would preach about generosity and honesty but he himself would uh steal money and be quite greedy so there was a gap between what he said he believed what he actually did that's not exactly the kind of hypocrisy that Jesus says is our greatest danger [02:41:04]

and folks have pointed out those two categories scribes and Pharisees scribes of course to inscribe those people who are literate those are teachers of the law that are able to read and write and they're very concerned with interpreting the law and in many ways what Jesus goes on to talk about in chapter five addresses the problem of the scribes they their their interpretation law was long as you don't commit adultery you're good in that one long as you don't commit murder you're good on that one long as you fulfill your Oaths and Jesus said no no no it's about the heart not just superficial Conformity to a uh minimalist view of the law [04:23:04]

hypocrisy is not just that hypocrisy is when there's something wrong on the inside and then in addition not only am I selfish I try to convince you that I am not selfish I Engineer the way that I look to add deception to Ego selfishness and other forms of sin so for example in Matthew chapter 23 where Jesus really goes to town on this he says in verse five this is a probing analysis of the problem of hypocrisy he says about these hypocritical religious leaders everything they do is for others to see and know [07:38:00]

and my life becomes very Hollow on the inside because I'm trying to make it look good on the outside see if somebody's selfish but you know they're selfish then uh at least you know what you're dealing with when deception gets added to it uh then you you're not even allowed to see reality and that's what's going on with religious hypocrisy Jesus says wo to you teachers of the laws and phares you Hypocrites you clean the outside of the cup and dish but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence [08:34:00]

blind Pharisee first clean the inside of the cone wo to you teachers of Law and Pharisees you Hypocrites you are like whitewashed tombs which look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of the bones of the Dead no wonder they kill this man in the same way on the outside you appear to people as righteous but inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness now why would you bother to whitewash a Tom you would do that in order to try to convince people that there was life on the inside but there wasn't life on the inside [09:01:00]

it's just still given the somebody now now I've told you all those things so I have lost my reward why would I do that well uh cuz the truth is even when I did those things my left hand knew exactly what my right hand was doing and I say well I'm doing pretty good stuff right now but maybe someday I'll get to the point where my left hand doesn't know I'd be really good at that's the person in my best self I want to be so today no mask as best I can I will try not to let people know except for this of course uh the good things that I have done [11:30:00]

and then maybe you and I will discover in The Fellowship of the withered hand that we're actually living in the kingdom and this could be a golden rule day love you if you like hearing John talk about The Sermon on the Mount we've got a whole series on that so be sure and subscribe so you don't miss any episodes in that series and if you're new to the channel you might want to go back and catch up on some of the episodes that you've missed in fact if you head on over to our website become new new.com we have over 700 10minute teachings there all about the person that you're becoming [12:31:00]

because we're all on this spiritual journey of growth to become more like the kind of people that God wants us to be and if you have a story of change of growth of spiritual progress we want to know about it and so I'd invite you to text that to us or email that to us or even just share it right here in the comments um as often as it happens as frequently as it happens whenever it happens just let us know because that's the center of the target for us to help people grow spiritually one day at a time if you've got a prayer request there's a small team of us that meet each weekday Monday through Friday to pray for viewers just like yourself you are not alone [13:16:00]