Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello.
[00:00:00] Speaker B: I'm Josh.
[00:00:01] Speaker A: And I'm Gabriel.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: And today on reading the gospel. We are studying the event teachings on integrity. This is found in Luke, chapter twelve, verses one through twelve. Follow along with us as we read. In the meantime, when so many thousands of 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 dark shall be heard in the light. And what you have whispered in private room shall be proclaimed on the housetops.
[00:00:45] Speaker A: 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.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: 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 synagogue 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.
This is a dangerous meeting. Jesus is now saying, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. Watch out for the leaders.
If someone walked into my church and said, beware of these leaders, don't listen to them. And I've had that happen. My goal is to, first of all, hear, is there any truth in them? But secondly, if there's not truth, to remove them from the situation. Because it just creates confusion.
Jesus here is attacking the. I shouldn't say attacking. He's warning against the fruits of the religious leaders of the day.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: But he's doing this by making room for the Holy Spirit to come and to take over. I like to connect this episode, this event, with one of the previous episodes. When Jesus Christ repeats the teaching about the Lord's prayer. But he leads that teaching towards receiving the Holy Spirit, praying for the Holy Spirit.
In the same way, here, Jesus Christ recycled some old teachings, but in a completely different context, because we are months away from his crucifixion and resurrection and ascension to heaven and the coming of the Holy Spirit.
[00:03:34] Speaker B: When I was younger, newly married, my wife and I, we went to a marriage enrichment seminar that guys and girls'brains work differently. And as guys, we compartmentalize.
When I'm at work, I'm at work. When I'm home, I'm home. When I'm out with my friends, I'm out with my friends. And we can shut off and put away those things and become really different people, but women don't do that. And again, this is generalization.
[00:04:07] Speaker A: Even technology helps us to compartmentalize our life. Do you have different compartments on your phone?
[00:04:13] Speaker B: Yeah. So I have an iPhone, and there's a focus setting where when I walk into my church, it knows that I'm at church. And so it brings up a whole new, basically set up phone with apps for church, apps for work. When I come home, it knows that I'm home, so it switches over to apps for home. We do this even in our technology, we have different things. And this is same thing with the Pharisees.
They're in secret, doing things differently than they were doing in public.
[00:04:51] Speaker A: And that is lack of integrity.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: Yeah, it's not that having compartments is bad, being able to shut out work and be home, being able to make these changes, but what is important is integrity. And integrity is having the same character in all those boxes.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: And integrity is the opposite of hypocrisy that Jesus is talking about. And he's even using this word. And the greek word for hypocrisy comes from the greek theater plays when one actor wearing a mask was playing a character, and after that, he'll go back behind a curtain and comes with a different mask playing a different character. So practically, it was one person playing different roles, different characters.
Hypocrisy is when we have a mask for, let's say, church, we have another mask for sports, we have another mask for work, we have another mask for guys out or girls out night types of social meetings, we wear multiple masks. When those masks are not consistent with each other, when they are morally, mutually exclusive, that is where hypocrisy happens.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: Let's just take one. You shouldn't drink, and saying, I don't drink, and all this stuff, but then I go to my friend group and we go to the bar and we're drinking. That's hypocrisy over in this mask, I'm okay drinking but over here I'm not. When we claim something in some place and then in another place, we deny that.
[00:06:43] Speaker A: When we say in the church that we love our enemy and we go home and we hate our neighbors, that is hypocrisy. There is no consistency.
[00:06:53] Speaker B: Or when we claim to be a follower of Christ at one place, but then at the cubs or White Sox or bears or bulls or whatever sporting event game is, we remove that christian character and join in the festivities.
As a non Christian, we are being a hypocrite. And this is what Jesus is talking about, that we need to be consistent. We need to, as we said, have that integrity even in our private rooms. Can you have integrity when no one else is around?
[00:07:30] Speaker A: That's in fact the best definition of your character, is how you behave when nobody's looking. When nobody is around, that is who you are. Because we take our own dark sides of the character and we kind of put a mask on top of it, and we play a different character in church or in society or in family or so on. So Jesus Christ is very direct here about being consistent, a connection between who we want to be, who we really are behind the closed doors, and who we are in public.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: I think about myself when I was a teenager, many times as up to no good. And I would spend my time walking around looking for cameras or looking for police cars or looking for, I could tell police headlights from any other headlight from a long way away. And I spent my time looking for those things that could get me in trouble, so I could change my character from that of something I would not do in front of a camera to that of a good citizen. And I think this is what we need to know. When no one is looking, when the cameras are off, when we're in our closet, what are our desires, what drives us? What do we want the most? And that's when we need to come to God. So what does this passage teach us about God?
[00:09:08] Speaker A: When we read the Bible, we want to see if God is consistent, if his behavior in one situation follows a pattern, if we can really understand who God is, and the integrity on his part is the foundation of our trust in him. We cannot trust people who change their mask and play different roles and different situations. So our God is a person of integrity, and we see that consistency over and over and over. God is love is from the beginning to the end of the scripture. God is interested in our salvation. We see that throughout the holy history.
God is initiating the process and going the extra mile. All these are very evident in the word of God. So I see our God as a God of integrity. And by doing this, he becomes a model for me and for you and for everyone. And practically his example is an invitation. Every time I read a scripture like I read this passage, I heard a voice that said, are all aspects of your life connected into, integrated into one and only character that you want to develop, to be ready to spend eternity with God?
[00:10:49] Speaker B: To me, God is sharing how much he wants to stand for us and be present. The last verse for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.
This is talking about verse eight. I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of man, will also acknowledge before the angels of God that God wants to be our advocate. He wants to be on our side. He wants to be present. He will give us the words to say if we allow him, that if we have that integrity and we get that integrity, not by our own will and our own desire, we get that integrity by having the Holy Spirit dwell in us, by surrendering our lives to Christ.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: And I really like the middle part that in my bible has the title, have no fear.
We are afraid of integrity. We are afraid that if we show who we really are, we lose our reputation, we lose our people's trust.
We have that hidden story of our inner battles, of our dark sides, of our cracked vessels, and we try to hide it from everyone. This is the other story, the opposite story that the other one we put on LinkedIn and our resume, all the successes in education, our career.
Let me give you a practical example.
We go to church, and I had people go to church and say, oh, we should absolutely obey the law of God.
It's a representation of his character. And when they go home and a situation comes, they say, I had to lie.
If you don't lie, I mean, you cannot survive in this world. If you don't lie, what are people going to say about you? And the middle section here says, have no fear.
Have no fear of integrity.
Have no fear of being who God asked you to be and who are at this stage, because we are a work in progress. We build everything, not only faith, but we'll build our integrity over time.
[00:13:11] Speaker B: I think for me, one area is we're afraid of integrity because we're afraid we'll lose.
Years ago I heard someone say, if you find something on the road that's not yours, don't pick it up and take it home. It's not finders keepers that still belongs to someone.
And it really impacted me that there were many times where I found something that could benefit me. But leaving it there or putting it in a place or finding the owner really takes that integrity. And I think this is what many of us are afraid, because we think we'll miss out. We'll be left behind. We won't get that promotion if we are upright and at work with that. But let's pray that God will give us a heart for integrity. Father God, may we be the same in our character, whether we're at work, whether we're at home, whether we're at church, whether we're with our friends wherever we are. May we have true integrity. May we not worry about what will miss out. May we not focus on ourselves, but may our focus be on others. I pray that you will guide us and direct us. In Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
