Luke 12:1-3 - Full disclosure

12:1

A large crowd had gathered, as was apt to happen, wanting to hear Jesus, and no doubt to be healed by Him. There were so many of them that they were trampling on each other. This is one of the reasons the religious leaders were so opposed to Jesus and felt so threatened by Him. The people recognised something different about Jesus. In our day there is a lot of talk about people having rebelled against the elite, this having shown itself in the vote to leave the EU in the UK, and USA voting for Trump. Now voting to leave the EU and voting for Trump may or may not prove to be wise decisions, but the point is that the elite in both cases considered these decisions to be unthinkable, yet the people took them. We do need experts, but experts can also start being pretty stupid, and can become proud and aloof. When this happens “ordinary people” recognise it and can actually be wiser than the so-called wise. Whether Brexit or Trump were wise is up for debate, but the people in Jesus time were certainly wise in recognising that the religious leaders knew little, and that Jesus was the real thing.

In fact, Jesus spoke first to His disciples, warning them against the yeast of the Pharisees, “which is hypocrisy”. At the time, for many years hence, Christians were a minority, and often a persecuted minority. But there would come a time when they became part of the establishment, even almost being the establishment. Sadly the church did not heed Jesus’ warnings and hypocrisy, amongst many other things, was rife. We all need to be on our guard. We can so easily become full of our own supposed wisdom, was can so easily become proud.

12:2,3

The deception of hypocrisy is that we get fooled into thinking that no one will know. To the outside world we will put on a show of being good Christians, of doing things properly, but in secret we are living a completely different life, or are doing things that are either illegal or completely unbiblical. We deceive ourselves that no one will know and it will be OK. Jesus warns that everything that is hidden will be revealed. Sometimes, perhaps even often, this will happen in this life. All the time, leading figures from various walks of life are exposed for what they really are. But even if it doesn’t happen in this life it will certainly happen at the final judgement. We all need to know, and we all need to remind ourselves frequently, that there is a God, that He knows all things, including the motives of our hearts, and we will all have to give an account.

So what about us? We would all admit that we are “not perfect”, but that sounds so nice doesn’t it? There are times when we have thoughts and perhaps even actions that we most certainly would not want shouted from the rooftops. There is a sense in which we are all hypocrites. The good news is that if we are thinking like that then we are probably not deceived. We recognise the truth of our situation, and our utter need of a saviour. Thankfully we have such a saviour in Jesus Christ.