Warnings and Encouragements
1 Meanwhile, when a crowd of many thousands had gathered, so that they were trampling on one another, Jesus began to speak first to his disciples, saying: “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. 2 There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. 3 What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.
4 “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. 5 But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. 6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. 7 Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
8 “I tell you, whoever acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God. 9 But he who disowns me before men will be disowned before the angels of God. 10 And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.
11 “When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, 12 for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say.”
My Understanding: Luke 12 begins with words of warning and encouragement. The first warning is that we are to be on our guard against hypocrisy, i.e. “the false claim to or pretense of having admirable principles, beliefs, or feelings,” (Encarta) while knowingly being just the opposite. If one claims to be a believer in Jesus Christ, this is not a claim to sinless perfection. We are still in earthly bodies and thus are still subject to failure. Yet, if one claims or professes a belief or principle and the totality or majority of his life reveals this claim to be false, then he is living in hypocrisy. Hypocrisy really has to do with leading others to believe something about you that you know is not true for the purpose of giving a false appearance and giving a false image of oneself, so it is truly rooted in deception.
The second warning, which Jesus coupled with encouragement, is that we are not to be afraid of men and what men can do to us. In other words, we are not to live our lives in fear of man to where we allow men’s actions, attitudes, beliefs, and treatment of us to cause us to be fearful of them to the point to where we conform to worldly thinking and attitudes and we back off from our faith and pure devotion to Christ Jesus. When we fear men in this way, we become followers of men instead of followers of God. So, we should never back down in our faith and our commitment to obeying the Lord Jesus out of fear of the reactions or rejections of mankind against us. If we pretend to be a friend with the world so that men will not hate us, then we are living a life of deception out of fear of man.
I find it interesting that this warning followed directly after the warning against hypocrisy. We can be hypocritical by pretending to be living lives above reproach while knowingly we are committing willful sin behind closed doors. Yet, this warning against not fearing men, coupled with the warning against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy, sheds another light, I believe, on the subject of hypocrisy, and that is that we may have a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ, and we may have been living in obedience to Christ, but then when we give way to the fear of man and we disown our Lord out of fear of man and we join in with men in their folly so as not to be rejected or thought odd, then it is kind of a reverse hypocrisy in that we are giving an image of being one with the world when we are really married to Jesus Christ, and in doing so, we are disowning our Lord Jesus.
Jesus said that we should rather fear the one who has the power to send us to hell. He was referring specifically to fearing man in the sense of man literally putting us to death for our faith in Christ, but there are many ways man can put us to death if we cave into pressure and we become like men to be accepted of them rather than us becoming like Christ and sharing in the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.
Jesus was speaking to his disciples; his followers; his servants. He warned them against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and the danger of them becoming like them. He warned them against fearing man, and told them that they should rather fear the one who has the power to throw them into hell after death. And, he also warned against disowning him before men, that they would be disowned by him before the angels of God.
This teaching presents a difficulty theologically, as the disciples represented those who were close followers of Christ and were his servants, yet we know that one was a betrayer, all abandoned him, and another did disown his Lord 3 times, yet he repented of his sin, and the Lord raised him up to be the one who gave the first presentation of the gospel of Jesus Christ at which time thousands were saved and the church began. Yet, the disciples were still under the old covenant relationship between God and man, so perhaps some of these warnings must be considered in that context, and Jesus was giving them the opportunity to choose him over man, because he knew they would all abandon him at the cross one day.
Yet, as believers in Jesus Christ, the warnings still apply to us today to not become hypocritical in our faith by pretending to be something we are not in order to gain approval of man. The warning still applies to have respect, awe, honor, allegiance and obedience to Jesus Christ (fear of God) in place of caving into man’s thinking, actions, opinions, and/or treatment of us out of fear of what man might do to us. We are to be followers of God instead of followers of man. And, the warning still applies to us today to not disown our Lord Jesus by our words and actions in order to gain man’s approval. When we deny our Lord in anything we do or say, we break that fellowship with him and we have the potential of losing out on his blessings upon our lives that could be ours as his heirs.
As well, the encouragements of Jesus apply to us today, too. God is very much involved in our lives. He knows everything about us. He created us. He knit us together in the wombs of our mothers and all the days ordained for us were written in his book before one of them came into being (see Psalm 139). He knows the number of the hairs on our heads. We are not forgotten by God, although we may forget about him in our day-to-day lives. There is not anything in our lives that he does not know about and that he cannot handle. We are to always put our faith and trust in our Lord and Savior and to never cave into the pressure of man to be less than who we are in Christ and who he made us to be. If we acknowledge - recognize or admit the existence, rights, or authority of somebody or something, i.e. if we own our relationship with Jesus Christ before men, i.e. his Lordship (ownership and authority) of our lives, he will also acknowledge that we are his before the angels of God.
One day Jesus is going to return. We need to be watching and waiting, expectantly in how we live our daily lives. We need to be living in obedience to our Lord in our service to him, which begins at the cross when we repent of our sins and we choose to walk in faith and obedience to our Lord from that day forward. And, it continues throughout our Christian lives as we take up our cross daily and follow Christ, and as we present our bodies to Christ as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is our reasonable service of worship to him; no longer conformed to the pattern of this world, but being daily transformed into Christ’s likeness in the renewing of our minds so that our lives are proof that God’s will for us is being lived out through our daily lives (see Luke 9:23 and Romans 12:1-2).
If you know today that you have been living to please men over pleasing God; if you know that you have been living a hypocritical life, i.e. that you are pretending to be someone you are not in order to gain the approval of man; and/or if you know that you are denying and disowning your Lord Jesus by how you live your life each day, i.e. in following the ways of the world and conforming to the pattern of the world instead of taking up your cross daily and following Christ where he leads you and being daily transformed in the renewing of your mind, then my prayer today is that you will humble yourself before our Lord Jesus, that you will repent of your sins, and that you will make a renewed commitment today to follow him with all of your heart, even if it means rejection, persecution, disapproval, and perhaps even death at the hand of mankind for your faith and commitment to Jesus Christ.
Oh, What Joy! / An Original Work / July 8, 2011
Oh, what joy! Oh, what peace
There will be when Christ you meet.
Oh, what love He imparts,
When Christ comes within your heart –
Saving you from all your sins;
Holy Spirit, now within,
Teaching, guiding you each day,
As you bow your knees and pray.
Oh, what joy! Oh, what peace
When you sit at Jesus’ feet,
List’ning to your Lord speak;
Obey Him throughout the week.
Oh, what grace He provides;
From our past we step aside;
Turn from sin; cleansed within;
Walking with Christ; died with Him.
He paid the price for our sins,
So our new lives we begin,
Living for Him ev’ry day,
Doing all that He did say.
Oh, what grace He provides
When we walk at Jesus’ side;
Follow Him where He leads,
Loving others; their needs meet.
Oh, what joy! Oh, what peace
When Christ Jesus soon we meet.
He will come in the sky
To take home with Him, His bride.
We are waiting His return.
For our Savior, our hearts yearn.
We keep watch in how we live.
To our Lord, our hearts we give.
Oh, what joy! Oh, what peace;
Live with Christ eternally!
Reign with Him; His kingdom;
We will be forever Home.
Song Lyrics @ Public Domain
Link to song
“At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other” (Matt 24:30-31).
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