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May 31, 2015
*Intro* – (Read Lu 12:8-12).
Bob Hope hosted many Academy Awards.
In 1953 he opened by saying, “This is the first time the Academy Awards have been on television.
You’ll see the faces of the winners – and you’ll see the faces of the losers -- congratulating the winners.
In other words, tonight you’re gonna see some real Academy Award acting.”
We all wear masks, don’t we? Often we believe our own lies.
That’s a major issue with hypocrisy.
In our text, as Jesus leaves a Pharisees lunch, He turns to His own followers and challenges them to avoid hypocrisy.
In this passage, Jesus gives a Warning Against Hypocrisy in vv.
1-3.
Then He gives Ways to Avoid Hypocrisy in vv.
4-12.
Every member of the Trinity plays a role.
*I.
Fear the Father*
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psa 111:10).
He is Ground Zero for reality.
So being grounded in reality involves embracing His holiness and His love by accepting His gift of grace and living in reverence of Him.
To live without respect for the Creator is to step outside reality.
*II.
Confess Christ*
8 “And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, 9 but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.”
This is not the meek and mild Jesus we hear so much about.
This is the Jesus who pulls no punches letting us know when He reigns some people He will acknowledge before the whole universe as His – others He will deny.
But He’s the key.
The word “acknowledge” is elsewhere translated “confess” – like Rom 10:9, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
It describes a publicly acknowledged commitment.
It means to declare publicly for Jesus, to confess Him, to acknowledge Him as Lord and Savior.
This is the outward expression of a truly changed heart.
It tells us two things about saving faith and authentic life. 1) It confesses Christ - and 2) it confesses Him conspicuously.
*A.
Confess Christ* – There is no salvation, no heaven, no eternity with God apart from Jesus.
Makes sense, doesn’t it?
If He died for your sins then He’s the only way to the Father.
So many people today want to have God, but deny Christ at the same time.
That is not possible.
V. 9, “but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.” Crystal clear.
Mt 10:33, “but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.”
You can’t deny Christ and get to God, Beloved.
That is an impossibility.
It’s like saying I’m going to Windsor Castle while denying the Queen’s authority.
You’ve denied the only means of access.
Neither can we have access to God without the Son who paid the price for entry.
When His disciples wanted to know how to get to the Father, He told them, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except thru me” (Jn 14:6).
The entry point to heaven is exactly one person wide.
You must come thru Jesus.
There is no other way.
Why?
No one else “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).
He alone could and did pay the price of entry.
I Jn 2:23, “No one who denies the Son has the Father.
Whoever confesses the Son (there is our word again – confesses, publicly acknowledges) has the Father also.”
Clint Hill was the agent who ran after President Kennedy’s car on that awful day of his assassination.
He was Jackie’s senior agent.
A couple of years ago he wrote a book detailing delays in mail delivery to evaluate threats.
Jackie wanted to get non-threatening mail from family and friends quickly.
Hill came up with a scheme.
He told Jackie, “Have family and friends put my name, ‘Clint Hill’, on the envelope along with yours.
That will be the code that it is okay.”
Jackie thought her friends would find that amusing, and it worked to perfection.
The access code was Clint Hill.
And the access code to the Father is Jesus, Beloved.
No other way.
No other entry.
We must confess Him.
*B.
Confess Conspicuously* – Believers embrace Jesus openly.
To deny Him means there is an idol somewhere – something more important to our heart than Him.
Perhaps we fear being thought stupid or religious, and our reputation is more important to us that Jesus.
Perhaps we fear retaliation – loss of promotion and so ambition is the idol.
Perhaps we fear we will lose friends, and so some relationship is the idol.
But failure to acknowledge Jesus openly means there’s an idol somewhere.
Even true followers can slip at times, but if this is a life pattern, Jesus’ warning is dire: “ but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God” (9).
That means you are not genuine, and heaven is not your destiny.
Genuine believers embrace Jesus in this life.
Rev 3:5, “The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life.
I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.”
We may think we’re fine because we know and affirm the facts privately – but if we are ashamed of Jesus, we have not been made a new creation and given a new heart.
We are fooling only ourselves.
Paul says in II Tim 2:12, “if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us.”
The acid test of faith – an open, public declaration for Christ, starting with baptism, which often meant death in the early church.
To deny Christ is to deny reality; it is hypocrisy.
There are no secret agent believers.
Imagine getting married only to overhear your spouse at a class reunion deny to an old flame that they even know you.
You’d be devastated – but you’d know their true heart, wouldn’t you?
And so our public confession or denial of Jesus reveals who we really are in relation to Him.
An old Methodist circuit rider, Daniel Curry, made a campfire on the NE prairie one night and fell asleep.
He dreamed he had died and gone to heaven where an angel asked his reason for being there.
He said, “I’m here to claim the mansion Jesus promised me long ago.”
But the angel wouldn’t let him in, so Curry pleaded to see God.
Arriving at God’s throne he was dumbstruck by the blaze of glory that greeted him, like 1,000 suns.
He fell prostrate before the God.
A stern voice cried out, “Who are you and what do you seek?” Curry tried, but was too terrified to speak.
But suddenly a scarred hand pulled him to his feet.
“Father, this is Daniel Curry.
He confessed me before men, and I now confess him before you.
Whatever sins he has committed – whatever stains his record, charge them all to me.
Put them on my account.”
This can be all of your future; it all depends on what you do with Jesus now.
*III.
Savor the Spirit*
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