Jesus Exposed Religious Hypocrisy

To be a person who is a recipient of the grace of God is to be a conduit of grace to others. You are a giver. It doesn't say if you give or if you think about giving or once a year. No, it doesn't even say when you begin to give. He says, no, you're supposed to already be giving. So as you're giving to the Lord, he's saying, don't sound a trumpet before you. Now, the Pharisees, I think, is who he had in mind. There were different Pharisees in this day and age, and I'll show you, there were five different categories of Pharisees in the first century. I'll give them all five to you. ♪♪♪ Welcome to the Forgotten Jesus Podcast. I'm your host, Adam French. I'm here with Pastor Robby Galley. I forgot his name for a second. You look like candy. Take a deep breath real quick. Pastor Candy, Pastor Robby. I looked at Candy and was like, Robby Galley? It's been an interesting week for us because we had the Multiply Conference, which was awesome. Powerful. If you missed it, you don't want to miss the next one. It was unbelievable. So good.

I was saying to my group this morning, the Cybership group, about just text after text, guys. We had, what, three or four guys stand up saying they were on the verge of throwing in the towel today, just in the group. Are you serious? Yeah, and I said, hey, y'all stand up. And then we had, like, what, six or seven stand up and we got around and prayed over it. Ministry's tough. It is so tough. It takes a lot. It was good to be able to do that. But we're doing it next year, so stay tuned. MultiplyConference.com, part two. Next year we have Joby Martin, already locked down, and we have the... For the conference? Yes. And Carrie Newhoff. What's good? Carrie Newhoff, podcaster. Carrie's a friend. A la carte. His little email that comes out. You can sign up for that. Oh, it's good. Gives you all the articles that he just read and latest books. It's pretty good.

Carrie's a great podcast interviewer. Yeah. I like that new shirt. The Incarceration Ministry. That's right. This is so... Yeah, I wonder where mine is. So... Honey, you got so many shirts you can't wear them all. Yeah. Every time I get you a shirt, I never see him wear it. I guess you gotta be incarcerated. He only wears... Gotta be a certain kind. He only wears plain collared shirts with no emblems on them. Yeah. Well, it's gotta be dark, too, because I'm always sweating like a pig, so... Right. But, hey, you will see this inside the prisons and jails only. Ooh. So this is for everybody who goes inside. I've been in before. To have one of these, you have to go in. So... Absolutely. You have actually met the... You will be able to get one of these. I'll get one.

Can you get one? She'll get one soon. When she goes. She's gonna share in testimony. When am I going again? Y'all need to make sure. No, they were asking. Those ladies want to hear. Are you serious? Well, yeah. Oh, yeah. They want you to be. They want to hear, too. They were excited. They were so excited. Well, last time we went, we had so many miracles happen. Literal miracles. Not using... Really? One thing was the food. So we... We said we're gonna feed 250 people. There's about 3,000 of us. So we're gonna feed 250 people. There's about 300 there. And they continued to go through the line over and over again. I didn't even eat. Like, I didn't even... I was sitting there talking to guys. And when I stood up and went back, you know, we're like,

hey, where's the food? We're like, oh, we're out. But everybody went through and got seconds. And we're sitting there doing the math with Mr. Dennis. He's just like, this is not possible. Everybody got... It was modern day bread and fish, baby. He literally was like, it's not possible. What? Yeah. God multiplied it right before your eyes. It was unbelievable. I don't know what... I mean, I'm just... I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'm like, okay, I'm getting this. And he literally was like, it's not possible. What? Yeah. God multiplied it right before your eyes. It was unbelievable. I don't know what... I mean, I'm just saying the math ain't mathin'. Right? And you gotta... That's where God... That's we say leave room for God. That's right.

That was it. I love that. Then Robbie comes in, shares testimony, preached, and just... He's like, all right, who wants to... You know, I think we had four or five that had signed up to baptize. And next thing you know, we're baptized until the water's all over the floor. They're lined up, everybody's telling their story. It's just unbelievable. I'm ready to go back. Who knew Jesus was a mathematician? Yeah. That's right. Who knew? He created me. Well, 99 equals one. Ooh. Come on. Okay. Moving on to... Where are we going today? We have a milestone. We don't want to miss this milestone. Okay. It's only taken us... How many episodes, Chris? Probably 35 to get here? We're on 33 today. 33 today. Nobody's counting. Nobody's counting.

33 episodes to get through one chapter of Matthew. That's when Jesus began his ministry. I was about to say it. We have a guest in the studio, too. We forgot to mention. We got a new guest? We got Vivian, who you heard two weeks ago. Viv. Who's a rock star. Rock star. Miss Lori Metter. That's right. Original, my first assistant. AKA Nanny Lori. Let's give her a... Here we go. Give her a little plug. Lori was my first assistant at Emmanuel Baptist Church. Does she have a story that she could share? She's got a lot of stories. We're not... Her days. Oh, wait. Let's just take a long breath. Her days. She's got a lot of stories. Then she was the first employee of Replicate when it started. That's right. Wow. And stayed with us for many years.

That's right. 20 years. How long at Replicate now? 18 years this year. 18 years. 18 years we've been at it. That's crazy. Almost 20 years. Crazy. I was telling her that... It used to be called something else, by the way. You know what it used to be called? You tell me what. A word from his word. Which is one of the popular shows on the Pando app. I know. Which I didn't ever... I never told him, I was like, I think the Lord's leading me to create little five minute sermons, something short. Started doing it, it's done really well, and I said, I told him, I said, oh, he said, what's it called? I said, A Word from the Word. He's like, bro, that's what I used to do. That's crazy. We never talked about it. Never talked about it, crazy. So. That's awesome.

All right, let's get in Matthew 6.1. Kandi, can you quote this one? Put you on the spot. She warned us last time, her quoting's been a little shaky because she's learning new things. I'm learning new stuff, but okay. She's memorizing the Old Testament. So, let's do Matthew 6. Be careful. Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. Otherwise, you have no reward with your Father in heaven. So whenever you give to the poor, don't sound a trumpet before you, like the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets to be applauded by people. Truly, I tell you, they have their reward, but when you give to the poor, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your giving may be in secret and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you. Wow, every word she got right. I did refresh myself. Wow. I did a pre-glance, you know. We like buttons like this. Okay, that's pretty good, actually. Not where, you know, because my guys, we have, in our group, everybody sometimes has their own, because they memorize so many different versions,

they have their own translation. Yeah, so sometimes we get the Christian standard Bible version, and then sometimes we get the Chris Clapp standard version. Yeah, that's true. Art Thou is all over the place. I will say, they do blend together. If you memorize King James, especially, they kind of. Every now and then, I get the JSV, the Jeremy standard version, too, so. Big Jerem version. Oh, yeah, big Jerem. I like that. Okay, Jesus is going to transition from, remember, we just got out of the six, you've heard it said, I've said to you, and just to recap so we know, Jesus basically is taking outward actions, just to kind of set us up, outward actions that the Pharisees were pointing to, like, look, I give, I don't murder, or not give, I don't murder, or I don't commit adultery, or I don't do this, and Jesus say, no, you're looking at the action, we need to go back to the heart issue. It's a heart issue. We gotta go below the surface to your affection, to your emotions, right? Not for what your actions are. So they have six of them.

The question is, why six? Well, we know six is the number of what? Incompletion. Incompletion. So in a sense, Jesus is saying, this system, in a sense, is incomplete. Six, and then he translitigations into, okay, based on what I just said, be careful. Be careful when you, now what throws people off is he says, practice your righteousness. Yeah, I love that. You do love that. Okay, what do you love? I love anything, like, tell me what to do, and I will do it. Like, I love to think, you can practice your righteousness, you can practice walking in the truth. You know, like, this is something, like, it's a pattern. It should be a way of our life. Yeah, it messes people up. You know why? Because the grace-only folks, you know, we're not grace-only, we're all grace-only, but the grace alone with no sniff test of works would say, oh, no, no, what is he talking about practicing? No, Jesus, you don't work for your salvation, right? But once a person is truly born again,

works will flow from that salvation. That's the marker by which we know, you know, a tree bears fruit eventually, maybe over time or a long time, but eventually it bears fruit, and that's how we know what kind of tree it is. Well, Jesus is saying, when you're a Christian, when you're born again, you will, quote, practice, practice is a way of life. You will live out right living before God. And I don't think, this is not imputed righteousness. People misunderstand this and say, well, this is imputed righteousness, that the moment at salvation, imputed righteousness is all the gifts and rewards and blessings of heaven are now translated to you. You're given access to this. God doesn't hold your sin against you. He takes Christ's righteousness and applies it to your life. That's imputed righteousness. This is not imputed righteousness. This is practical righteousness where you're living out. So here's the point. Jesus is saying, as a Christian, you're expected to do these things. You're expected to live out your faith, okay? I use this quote all the time. Dallas Willard used to say it, it's one of my favorite quotes.

He says, grace is always against earning, never against effort. Always against earning. I'm doing it to earn, that's not grace, but it's not against effort. So I, and I should work hard. Paul says, I work harder than all of us knowing that it's Christ who works in me to work through me. Okay, so just to know what Jesus is saying. Jesus is saying, okay, I'm expecting you to do good works, but I'm expecting you to do them in a way where you don't miss the reward or the blessing. And the big three, now you gotta understand, in that culture, there were three elements that characterized Jewish piety, or Jewish, like if you were pious, or walking with the Lord, this is the big three. This is like the three categories. One is giving, Two is what? Prayer. Prayer, and third is what? Giving, prayer, and keeping the Sabbath. No, it's in here, fasting. Keeping the Sabbath. Oh, fasting. It's always keeping the Sabbath. It could be, yeah. So Jesus is gonna show us

that there's a threat of hypocrisy that could overshadow your faithfulness to God, and that's what he's warning against with these guys. And so what he's saying is, he's not condemning these practices, he's condemning the hypocrisy associated with it. So notice what he says here. Beware practicing your rites as for others to be seen by them, otherwise, or if you do, you will have what? No reward with your father. You know what no reward means in Greek? No acknowledgement? Nada. It means nada, baby. Nada means none. You didn't get it. You got it. So there's no like, you get a little bit, or half credit, or partial credit, or you get a curve to the, no. It's either all credit or no credit. So we've gotta learn what he's saying. I don't know about you, but anything I do, I wanna do unto the Lord and get credit for. I don't wanna just throw away. Not credit for me, but credit for the Lord. Okay, so bewares the imperative. It's a command.

He said don't even think about it. Okay, let me look. Beware is a command. Don't even, no, I gave you the command. Yeah, no, I gave you the command. Okay, so what he's saying is this. When you give, don't what? Notice what he says. So it's right out the gate with giving. Don't sound a trumpet. Don't sound a trumpet for you as the what? Yes, because if you do, or if they do, they're gonna be what? That's gonna be the only reward you get is the applause of people. Yes, notice what Jesus assumes here. If you're a Christian, watch this, you should be, you're expected to be a giver. You can't say I'm a stingy Christian. That's an oxymoron. I mean, that's a paradox. I'm stingy, but I'm like, no, that's not what a Christian is. To be a person who is a recipient of the grace of God is to be a conduit of grace to others. You are a giver. It doesn't say if you give, or if you think about giving, or once a year. No, when you, it doesn't even say when you begin to give. He says, no, you're supposed to already be giving.

So as you're giving to the Lord, he's saying don't sound a trumpet before you. Now, the Pharisees, I think, is who he had in mind. There were different Pharisees in this day and age, and I'll show you. There were five different categories of Pharisees in the first century. I'm gonna give them all five to you. They were very serious about their faith. Just a pop quiz. Who were the Pharisees, before I give you this? Just who were they? They were the five big groups, the Essenes, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, Herodians, and Zealots. Who were the Pharisees? They were the religious leaders. Yes. Right? Yes. What were they known for? They were known for a lot. Okay. They were closest to Jesus in theology, correct? Weren't they closest to Jesus with his thought process and beliefs? Yes, exactly. They aligned with Jesus on everything biblically. I mean, they were the pastors, they were the preachers, they were the theologians, okay?

They were the ones who practiced piety. I mean, they had a strict, they would have been the legalists of the day. They were trying to do the right thing. They would carry it out. There are five different Pharisees. I don't even know where I found this, but here are the five different Pharisees. Number one, there were the shoulder Pharisees. You ever heard this before? No. These were Pharisees who were worried about outward showing of their faith, the shoulders. They wanted to shoulder their faith so you could see it. Okay? Number two were the stumbling Pharisees. They would walk around to show their, to show their brokenness before God, and they would exaggerate their sin or exaggerate their sacrifices. Like, look at me, I'm sacrificing for you. So like, if they were fasting, they were, you could tell. Yes, yes. Look at me, yeah. They would disfigure their faces when they're fasting. They would give and say, I gave everything, you know. False humility. False humility. There were the bleeding nose Pharisees. You ever heard of these?

No. They were so afraid that they might lust that they would turn their head when they saw a pretty girl and run into the walls. Wow. Bleeding nose Pharisees. Yeah, I got a problem. The mortal Pharisees, they announced what they were about to do before God. God, I'm about to do something, pay attention. You know, they announced to the crowd, hey, and you're gonna see all these in here because Jesus addresses all of them. Then there were the accountant Pharisees. You ever heard of these? They kept track of everything they did for God. Just in case you forgot, God, go ahead and write it down, make sure we have it. Now, here's the funny thing. Do we know anybody like this in churches today? That's exactly what I was thinking. You ever see on social media where the guys that, they literally make their money by their generosity. Have you seen these? They walk around. You give to them and they give away. They find people, they make money because you watch it. You watch them help people. Practice their righteousness before. You're watching.

Wow. then they get paid. They make their livelihood off of being seen by people. And then they want you to support them and be a patron and give so they can give away. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. I think a lot of us struggle with hypocrisy in different forms because we're human. So I think it's not, I don't think anybody is like free from this. Yeah. I think there's always points in times in our lives where if we're honest, we are hypocritical or we have struggled with this. You know what I'm saying? Don't you agree? I mean, that's why it says be careful. I feel like he's, I thought it was just kinda, I think it's kinda, it's really compassionate of him. You think about the Pharisees, you know, a lot of times it's like he's flipping tables or you, you Vipers, but he's saying, Hey, be careful. Watch this, how they're doing this. It looks like it's of God, but it's not. Right. Yeah. You could do the right thing with the wrong motivation and it's wrong. You do the right thing for the Lord with the wrong heart and it's wrong. So there's two options as to what the trumpet is. The obvious one is that you would carry a, you know, a trumpet in your pocket or somebody was standing on the corner. And as soon as you gave into the coffer or the offering a container, somebody, you know, it's a trumpet before you. So that's the obvious thing. But there is a, there is some belief that, or, or the other option too, is the sound of the coins. I forgot this one, the sound of the coins when they would hit those coffers or those collection plates or whatever, the collection containers, when they would hit the corner of them and go down inside, it sounded kind of like a trumpet.

So the sound of the coins would be the trumpet set. So you would make sure when you're dropping one at a time, you want, you want them King, you want everybody to hear, right? Yeah, that was one. But, but here's another idea. They actually believe that the containers that were on the walls of the temple where people would come and bring their offerings were actually narrow and skinny and look like trumpets. They would go big from the top and they would go small down. And so it was like a trumpet. There's a similar custom of sounding a trumpet in the East, in the Muslim religion, the Sufi Muslims, the Sufi Muslims are dependent upon the charity of other people. And so what they would do, this is crazy, but true. They carry horns around with them, some of the leaders. And every time someone gives to the cause of Islam, they would stop when they would receive money from a donor. That's literally what they would do. They do that today. So that's where the metaphor came about. You're going to love this toot your own horn to your own home. This person toots his own horn. Why? Because I'm tooting the horn that you're giving money. Yeah. Interesting. So what Jesus is doing is he's combining this idea of doing a good thing for the wrong person or the wrong reason. And what he does is he calls these people what? Hupakritos, or Hippocritos, which is the word for hypocrite. Now the word hypocrite is an interesting word. It's made up of two words in Greek. Hupo is the word that means under or beneath someone. And Krino or Hupakrino or Krito is the word for judge. Okay. It's a person who judges another person from behind or under a mask.

That's what it means. So this person assumes the identity of someone else. So basically because you're behind the mask, I can't judge. It's actually, you can't judge me because I'm behind a mask. Sorry, I said it wrong. So if I see you with a mask on, I can't judge who you really are because the mask is portraying an image that may not be you. And the idea is Jesus borrows a word, which is fascinating from the Greek world. And remember we talked about this early in the podcast, the Hellenistic Greeks influenced the world with four things, media, information, news from the world, theater, and athletics or sports. And in the theater, they brought theater to the world. The Jews were not into plays and performances, but the Greeks brought it in. And the Jews brought it in because it was so subtle. It infiltrated their culture subtly with images and worldviews, right? So what they would do is they had a box to the side of the stage that they had these masks that were connected to sticks. Okay. They had these sticks connected to mask. And what you would do is one person would play multiple different parts in a play. So you might play the main character, the supporting character. And what you would do is after every performance, you would go take the mask you wore, you would put it in the box, put it on the mask for the next scene. And one person could play different parts. But the reality was that wasn't who you were. And Jesus uses this concept to say, every time you do this to please you, you're playing a part in being someone you're not. It's not sincerely and truly who you are. So I was writing this down and I thought, you know, the Pharisees, they were, they won Oscars for their religious. performances, why?

Because they pretended to be someone on the outside that they weren't on the inside. A hypocrite's like this. It's like a clean glove which hides a dirty hand. A hypocrite prays on his knees on Sunday, but prays, P-R-E-Y, prays on his coworkers on Monday. A hypocrite is someone who's hated by the world for seeming to be a Christian and hated by God by not being one. If there's ever a time in history where humanity focuses on the mask that you cover your face with, it's now. If you think about everything in our culture with social media, like that really is, that's your mask. Yes. You're trying to make sure your pictures look good. We have editing software, everything, you know, to change from our faces to our sound. You can change your voice. You know, you put music with whatever you're saying. We live in a culture where we try to hide behind a mask. It's all to level up. Yeah. It's all to be better. Think about this. Find me somebody on your Instagram page that posted the picture mid-fight of them with their husband last night. Find him. I never found one.

Never found one. Find me one of them screaming at their kids or their kids coming home. Never. You'll never find that. Why? Because we reserve the best pictures in the best places for online to impress people. We do. Think about how strategic the enemy has gotten with this. Yes. Because what sets us free? Truth. Yeah. What takes you out of a place of hopelessness or struggle or whatever? Like if you're in a place where you're struggling, vulnerability, honesty, asking for help. Transparency, yeah. What does the mask do? Hide everything, you know? And I mean, I can remember that's, whenever I always share my testimony, I always say the world's system of success is what fueled my mask. Because I remember I was a quarterback on the basketball team. I was dating a cheerleader. Quarterback on the basketball team? On the football team?

Yeah, I was the quarterback of the basketball team. Yeah, I was there. I never heard that before. You mean football, didn't you? Yeah, quarterback, basketball. You know, all those things that are popular. Oh yeah, you were. But the reality is, you know, going home to an empty house, mom's on drugs, nobody's there, never told her so. Right. But the mask is what allows the hide. You played the part. At school, you put the mask on off the bus. You're like, man, here's Adam, jovial, fun, gregarious, energetic. Man, he's a good dude. And then you go home and you're done. Yeah, you're like, man, what's going on? And I think, you know, it's interesting that Jesus is calling him out because he's saying, don't pay attention to the hoop. Don't pay attention to the mask, to the, you know, the hypocrites. Don't, you're missing what's behind it. That's good. There's something behind the mask. And I think that's what he's trying to say is don't start living this life

where you're portraying something on the outside. You should be living a life where you're focused on the inside and helping people change that way. That's what I love about your preaching. I was telling, because, you know, I had all of our staff from Bellevue that came in. I told them, I said, you know, the first time I came back to Long Hollow after three or four years from being gone, Pastor Robby gets up and he preaches the famous sermon, I think that changed our whole church. We've never been the same since, you said, hey, I just want everybody to know that's how you started. It's okay not to be okay. And you said, I'm not pretending. I'm not, listen, I've got these struggles. This is my past. I'm not gonna be anybody else. I feel like that was a shift in our church, not saying that there was any leadership before that was pretending. I'm just saying that was the moment you said, we're not gonna wear masks ever again in this place. And I think our church has never been the same since. And I hope that people will start to grab a hold of that and we can start creating a culture where it's okay not to be okay. Because you just told us in the beginning,

we just had a pastor's conference and all those, I didn't see any pastor walking in with his head down. They were all smiling, shaking hands, but you just said, hey, a few of them said they were ready to quit. Yeah, at the end, yeah, yeah, I got vulnerable. Yeah, and I confess to the church, I was trying to consciously or subconsciously fill the shoes of my predecessor without knowing it, trying to impress, trying to earn, because I'm a approval seeker. I want people to like me. I want people to appreciate me like a lot of people. And the thing about Jesus saying here is he's not saying there's no reward when you give. You gotta understand, that's why giving is interesting. There is a mechanism. It's a universal principle. You gotta understand this. It's not just you give to the church. This is universal. And what Jesus is showing us here is when you give, you will get back. That's how it works. But the difference is not in how you get back. The difference is in the scope and significance of the return. And here's what he's saying. When you give, you can either have an immediate temporal return,

which is the praises of the church. crowd and the pats on your back or you can send it ahead to eternity and receive it as a dividend when you arrive. That's the difference. So giving is going to get something back. If you toot a horn and you say, hey, look at me, God says, all right, you got your reward. And receive your reward is this idea. It's a commercial term actually used in commerce. And it actually means to be paid in full. Meaning once I pay you in full, you can't come back and say, oh, there was some extra work I did. I would say, no, no, we signed the contract. It's done. You've already got your reward. You see what he's saying here? It's over. Don't come back to me. So when you get to heaven, you can't say, look at all those things I did. God says, well, yeah, no, we know you did all that for you. That didn't make it here. No, that whole church you built in Morgan said, no, that was all for you. Not for me. Oh, really? That ministry you led? No, that was all about. I mean, that's sobering. I don't know about you. Martin Lloyd-Jones, the predecessor to R.T. Kendall at the Westminster Chapel, he identifies the root of the problem. I couldn't say it better than him. He says that ultimately our only reason for pleasing men around us or women around us is so that we may please ourselves. It's ego. Our real desire is not to please others as such. We want to please them because we know if we do, they will think better of us. In other words, we are pleasing ourselves and are merely concerned about self gratification. So Jesus is saying, listen, don't expect to get a double reward. You either have it now or you have it then. You either receive the applause of men or the approval of heaven, but you can't get both. Now, this is sobering because I would say to you, and I've done this in my own life, I want you to look, we'll start with giving, but you can take this rubric or this paradigm and place it on every part of your life. And you ask yourself the question, why do I do what I do? Why am I posting online? Why am I, why am I writing this book? Why am I writing this article? Why am I preaching this sermon? Why am I whatever? Why am I in this car? I have to buy in this car. Everybody's going to see me in the car. You know, exactly. Why am I going down and serving the whatever, anything good or bad? You ask yourself that question. Now, the question people want to know at this point is this doesn't seem like it jives with Matthew 5 16. So I want you to read Matthew 5 16. We read it before, but there has been some pushback because it seems like this on the service is an apparent contradiction. Matthew 5 16, Matthew 6 1. It looks like they're against each other. Read Matthew 5 16. In the same way, let your light shine before others so

that they may see your good works and give glory to your father in heaven. Okay. Now then quote, beware of practicing, be careful practicing your rites. Watch what it says. Beware of practicing your rites before others to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward with your father in heaven. Okay. So what is it? Should we practice? Cause Matthew 5 16 says you let your light shine before others. They say, but then this says you shouldn't do that. And it seems like there's an apparent contradiction. It's not. Here's the difference. We are, the first one is for people who are cowards or scared of presenting their Christian life. So they're tempted to hide. The second people are face the temptation to show one faces the temptation to retract and hide. The other faces the temptation to prove and show both are equally challenging and tempting in a sense. And so what Jesus does is use hyperbolic illustrations here. And what he says is this, when you give, don't let your what right hand know what your left hand is doing. What is he saying? What do you think? Candy? What is, how do you give, I don't know about you, but when my right hand gives my left hand, pretty much knows what it's like, Hey, I see that hand. I see that giving Chris. It's supposed to be in secret, but, but how can you give the right hand? I mean, you can put the left hand behind your back, I guess, you know, it's like, Hey, I don't see you now, but is that what he's saying? No, no, it's not what he's saying. What's he saying? You tell us. I want, what he's saying is Adam, you have an idea. What does it mean? I mean, for me, you know, I think it's, uh, you know what she's saying, but I also think it should be something that's, um, personal between you and God. I think of like, um, I don't give, I don't give the deepest parts of my heart to just anybody. Everybody doesn't have my best interest in mind. I saved that for my wife. Yes. I have those deep conversations with, with Josie. Right. So it's like, I give my best in my heart to her. So when I, when I think what he's trying to say is you should be giving me your best, which is, you know, the, we give out of pure intimacy there that you don't give everybody else. Yeah. Right. And it's a, and it's a purity. Like it's so in God's eyes, since he's so Holy, I mean, he's the Holy of Holies, right? So whatever I, if I'm giving, it should be from pure motives, pure intentions, pure reasons. And it's just between me and him. That's what all of us do. And I think what I'm about to say is very similar to that, but he, he says in here, if you, sound a trumpet before you, your reward's gonna be your applauded by people.

So you don't need to be applauded by people and you don't need to be applauding yourself. Left and right hand. Oh. Whoa. Whoa. That was good. You see? She said, don't clap for yourself. Now, but what you're saying is like. A blind squirrel gets a nut every now and then. No, no. I'm glad, no. But what I'm saying, like what he's saying is, you know, that it's a thing between you and the Father. Like it's between you and God. Yes, no, that is really good actually. So it's not supposed to be that everybody else is applauding you, but you also don't wanna be applauding yourself. Like even like, let's say, just using this as an example, but like you give to a GoFundMe or you give to something, you know, you can choose on there to be anonymous or not. Okay, well, even in you choosing to be anonymous, the motive of your heart could be, ooh, I'm gonna be anonymous because that's the way. Even in, ooh, that's good. But there could be even a wrong or ill motive,

even in that. It's like we are fooling ourselves if we think God doesn't know us inside and out. He won't be moved. And I mean, he knows every motive, every thought. And I mean, every disgusting thing we think or act or portray, he knows it all. And so if we were to just strip all of that away, right? He knows us inside and out. And it's like, we just need to stop, right? We think we're portraying something, right? And it's all, I would say, rough estimate here, 95%. I don't care what influence you are. I don't care who you're influencing for. I am telling you, your motives are not all pure. Some may be, some may be. They're not all. We're humans. We are gonna deal with a flesh and sin nature. And I'm telling you, I'm just telling you. Check your motives. Yeah, there's a quote I can't remember, Robert. What is that quote? You may remember this. Even our best offerings or something like this are like couched in pride or so. Like even on our best day. Yeah, we all struggle with this. Even the best, the purest motives, intentions are couched in pride.

It's like what you said, the part about practice. Cause I told you my word this year is humility. And it's so hard. Like that is such a, we have to really fight and practice and sit with the Lord and like go through like what we're doing, what we're saying. And even to get to a place where you're comfortable in your own skin takes a lot of work. For sure. It takes a lot of work to love yourself. Yeah, it's a lifelong journey and it's a daily thing. Cause we wake up with a flesh that our enemy is trying to lure out, right? Where our enemies are, we have the world, the Satan and then our flesh. We're the flesh and the devil. Every day, they're trying to lure that out, that pride and that ego, that me, me, me, attention on yourself. Think about our enemy. What was he cast out of heaven for? He wanted all the attention on him. I will, I will. So everything he creates, his scheme is to get you to make, like you said, apply, that's powerful, right? We may have to make a t-shirt off of that. That is good, yeah. That's good. It's almost good to have a question. You can do that.

Hey, somebody wanted that t-shirt this weekend. Really? We sold it, right? Yeah, yeah. We had one left. Yeah, but I think that's what he's trying to do. And get you to a place where you're applauding yourself and you become your own God. And I think part of the problem, like just thinking through this as we're talking about it, is that I think we put pressure on ourself that God has not put on us, and so we perform because of that. Because we have this pressure that, whatever it is, we have to make more money, or we have to have more followers, or we have to have a larger platform, or we have to write more books, or these are just things that I have struggled with, right? So there is a pressure I put on myself, and I have to remind myself all the time, that that's not my lane, okay? I can look out there and I can see everybody else's lane, and then I can put pressure on myself, and I'm like, what has God called me to do right now, in this day in my life? What are the pressures that I need to deal with because this is my lane right now? You know, like raising two boys, being your wife, whatever. Those types of things.

And not the pressure that I put on myself from seeing everybody else. And like what you said something, you said something like this a while ago, but the more confident you are, not in a prideful way, but the more confident you are in what God has called you to specifically do and be in the roles that you have, the more faithful you will be to that. Because you're getting your confidence from him and what he's called you to do, not like prideful confidence, if that makes sense. So it's like, that's what we need to be striving for, is like, at the end of the day, when no one's watching, it's just you and God and he knows you and you know him. Like, what has he called you to do? Eliminate all the other pressure that you have to strive and perform for someone. You know what I'm saying? And just be. Yeah, you always got to think. Yeah, that's good. You always got to think, and I'm working on this too, but you always got to think about your relationship with God. Think of Jesus as a real person. So let's say Jesus was here right now. Let's say Candy, okay, so let's say I'm with Candy, and I'm like, hey, hey, look, I'm about to give my wife a kiss. Everybody look, everybody look, hold on. And I lean over and kiss Candy. Would she really say that's affection for me, or are you doing that for the crowd to see?

You see what I'm saying? So I would never, after a while, if I did that with Candy, hey, love, give Candy a gift. Everybody look, his box of chocolates. She'll eat half of them and leave them back in the box. I only did that with one. You only did that with one, and we just got a box. She did, but hey, everybody take a look. Hold on, take a picture, Chris, hold on. What's yours is mine. Yeah, eventually you're going to say, I don't think you're going to say, I don't think he's doing that for Candy. I think he's doing that for us or himself. Well, we do that for God all the time. And the other day, I mean, I get tempted like you guys, like I'll be with somebody who's in the Christian world or an athlete or somebody, and the temptation is, oh, man, I want to take a picture. And then the Holy Spirit provoked me and said, why? Why don't you just celebrate and tell me about it? I see it. And I was like, wow, why don't I do that? Why don't I say, hey, God, isn't that cool? I get to invest in X amount. Yeah, so you've got to think about it that way. So here's what Billy Graham said. He said, God has given us two hands. And you've got to remember, the right hand, before I forget. Right hand was the, so to say the right hand is a right hand

dominant world. You worked with your right hand, that's how it was. You worked with the right hand. So what he's saying is, in a sense, don't let your right hand, the dominant hand, boast in it so that the left hand feels lesser than or whatever. So what he's saying is, give what your right hand, don't let the left hand know. Basically means, to give with two hands, one is to receive with, and the other is to give with. We are not cisterns made for hoarding. We are channels made for sharing. So basically, the reason he said God gives you two hands is, one is to receive, I love this, one is to give. And so what he says is, give in secret. And what it does is, when you give in secret, or when you give when no one's looking, and when you do when no one's watching, it shows, here it is, the motivation of your heart. And it goes back to the six things in chapter five. Jesus is not interested in what you do. He's interested in why you do what you do. Because why you do what you do determines the motivation of your heart. And think of it this, and I'll close with this. The illustration I use when I used to preach six years ago, it's the best I got, but, and it worked for kids, so I'll share it with you. But I tell the illustration of,

when you die, you go to heaven, okay? And standing at the gate, we always say it's Peter. And I don't know why Peter's there, other than Jesus gave him the keys to the kingdom. So people, I guess, think he has keys to heaven. I don't know. But Pete's there, let's just say Pete's there. And after you give him the, you know, a bro hug, it's like, I made it, and he's like, oh, I'm glad you're here, Robbie, so good to see you. By the way, I got some unfinished business before you go to heaven. And I'm like, all right, I'm excited, I want to see God, you know. So Peter takes her on a journey and walks you to this enormous warehouse, big old white warehouse you see in the distance. You go into the warehouse, and it's huge. I mean, this thing's huge, all white, it's huge. And you notice in the corner, or in the middle of the warehouse, there's a huge chair. And he said, oh, that's God's. And this little bitty stool, it's for you. He's like, take your seat. You're like, ah, come. God's going to come in a second, you know, relax. He's going to get there. Now, this illustration's dated, Chris, so follow me. But God comes in, and you stand up,

and you're like, wow, I get to see God for the first time. God's like, man, I'm so glad you're here, Robbie. But before we determine what happens in heaven and your rewards and the authority I give you, we have to determine what you did on earth. You were a pastor of a church. You had a ministry. Man, you have a great family. Let's see all the things you did on earth. It's going to be, and I'm like, man, this is awesome. So God sits down. He pulls out a DVD. That's how it's dated. At least it ain't DHS. It's dated, Vivian, I know. But it just works for DVD. He pulls out a DVD, or a zip drive, Chris. I guess today we could use a zip drive. Or he pulls from the clouds. He's streaming. He's got streaming in heaven, yeah. He pulls from the heaven cloud. God's streaming in heaven. God's streaming from the cloud, baby. He downloaded it from the cloud. He downloads from the cloud. But basically, the illustration has to be a visual to work. So he pulls out the DVD, the zip drive, and it says Robbie Gallaty's life from birth to death. And you're like, man, this is awesome.

And God's like, I'm going to plug this thing in. We're going to watch it. And right before he hits play, he says, oh, I forgot to tell you, there's one stipulation with this disc. The only thing that made it on this disc, in a sense, the only thing made it to heaven for us to see, are the things you only did for me. Let's watch, Robbie. Here's the question. The question is, would anything make it? Or better yet, what would make it? If God said the only things, in a sense, that's what he's saying here. The only things that make it are the things you did for me. And so it's encouraging to think, when you give to a homeless man on the side of the road and nobody sees you, God does. He said, I saw that. When you go and serve in a prison and no one gets to post it on the internet, online, but God says, I see that. When you give a little extra in the offering this time, or when there's a special offering, God sees it. When you give up your trip to the beach to go to Guatemala or to the Dominican to serve people on mission, God says, I see it. When you give up your spring break as a student and say, I'm gonna go serve in Nashville, Kentucky, like our students are gonna do, God says, I see it.

When you serve the hungry or the prisoner, God says, I see it. Or when you love your wife or your spouse and you treat them with kindness or serve them to the end of their life, God says, I see it. And so the question I wanna close with is this. If you look at the landscape of your life, what categories are the things you're doing in? Is it all about me or is it all about him? Because Jesus says, there's only two. You're gonna do it for me and I'll see all of it. But if you do it for yourself, I won't see any of it. That's powerful. That's good. That's good stuff. So let your practice be that way and not this way. I think it's a great, great episode. Powerful, powerful truths here. If you're consuming this content, please do, if you wanna help us, you say, man, I love hearing all the truths, the golden nuggets, all the stuff that are coming out of this. If you wanna help us, the way you can help us is you can subscribe. It's just the algorithm helps people to get to the content. Like, share, comment, get this out. Because we want more people to learn about the forgotten Jesus.

Thank you for joining us today. Hold on tight. We've got a really cool show today. Join us for the second episode of In The Lives of Others. It's brand new to Emma German and for стали Tower. Hashtag Zoe. See y'all in the next episode. Peace. Cheers. Bye guys. Thank you guys for watching today. There's have been only a few more episodes of The Golden Nuggets. This ending was personally so impressive, but very daring. I hope I could get three more, cause there's only three of them.