about you, but whenever I learn something new, I always like to find some victim that
I can explain it to right away, because I find that that helps me remember.
If I'm learning something, one of the best things I can do to remember that is to explain,
"Hey, here's what I just learned," and I explain it to them, whether they're interested
or not, because sometimes it's kind of arcane knowledge, and I go to explain it to them,
and by explaining it to them and putting it into my own words, I get a deeper understanding.
The Bible says in Romans 2, "Thou therefore that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself
also."
So I like to explain things right away.
This is how you learn the Word of God and excel in the Christian life.
You seek, do, teach, seek, do, teach, seek, do, teach, okay.
Now again, just as I did with seeking, remember we deleted seeking and just said do and teach.
What's the pitfall?
What's the danger?
You don't even know what you're doing.
You don't even know what you're teaching.
The Bible talks about people who desire to be teachers of the law, understanding neither
what they say nor whereof they affirm.
And there are plenty of people out there that are doing a lot of teaching on YouTube and
in church pulpits, and they don't know what they're talking about because they did not
do the requisite seeking, or they're not doing the doing, and then they're getting up in
teaching junk.
So we don't want to just do and teach, we've got to seek, do and teach.
But what if we just seek and teach?
What would this look like?
Seeking and teaching, seeking and teaching, but no doing.
This is the hypocrite.
This is the guy who studies the Word of God and he knows what it says and he's expressing
to other people what the Word of God says, but then you look at his life and he's not
practicing what he preaches, so that would be a hypocrite.
If you seek and teach, but you don't do, you're a hypocrite, right?
The Bible says in Matthew 23, 1, "Then spake Jesus to the multitude and to his disciples,
saying, 'The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat.'"
Now let me ask you this, were the scribes and the Pharisees reading the Bible?
Are these people who read the Bible?
Yeah, I mean, they knew the Bible.
Now I'm not saying that they read it as much as they should have because we know that they
also read a lot of rabbis and Talmud.
The actual Talmud didn't exist back then, but in essence, it did exist, you know, because
of the fact that Jesus is rebuking them for their vain traditions, and you've made the
word of God in effect by your tradition.
And those traditions of the elders, the oral Torah and all that, you know, that was around
back then, even though it hadn't been called the Talmud necessarily.
So these guys, you know, they studied, they sought in a sense, but they're total hypocrites.
He said in verse three, "All things, all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe
and do, but do not ye after their works, for they say and do not."
He said, "Do as they say, not as they do, because these guys are getting up and teaching
you things from the books of Moses."
I mean, they're getting up and teaching you stuff from Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and
Deuteronomy and the things that they're bringing you out of the law of Moses are good things.
You know, they're teaching you laws of God that are legit, but he said, "Just don't be
like them because they're not following the laws that they're teaching you."
Verse four, "For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be born and lay them on men's
shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers."
You know, a lot of people get this wrong idea that the Pharisees lived this really strict
life and that they were really strict people.
Yeah, they were strict on others.
According to Jesus, yeah, they were strict on other people, but were they strict on themselves?
Did they live by a strict code of ethics?
No.
They bound these heavy burdens on people.
They made it hard for people.
They told people to do a bunch of hard things and make a bunch of sacrifices and go through
a bunch of suffering and doing without.
But then they're just indulging in whatever they want.
They're a hypocrite, right?
So they're seeking and teaching in a sense, but they're not doing.
They're not doers of the word.
They're hypocrites.
He said, "They bind heavy burdens and grievous to be born and lay them on men's shoulders,
but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers."
They won't even lift a finger to do the work of God, but they're going to tell you, "Hey,
you need to be doing the work of God.
You need to put God first."
They're not putting God first, but they want you to put God first.
They're not reading their Bible every day, but they're going to tell you to read your
Bible every day.
They don't pray, but they're telling you to pray.
They're telling you to be clean and pure, and they're out committing adultery, and they're
telling you to love the Lord and not seek after mammon, and they're out devouring widows'
houses and extorting and stealing and making themselves rich off the misery and suffering
of other people.
And it says in verse five, "But all their works they do for to be seen of men."
So in the event that they do something, they make sure everybody knows about it.
So we're supposed to seek, do, and teach.
You got these people that are seeking and teaching, but they're not doing.
So whenever they do, they've got to sound a big trumpet.
This is the thing about the Pharisees, whenever they did a good deed, they wanted to make
sure everybody knew about it.
They're not going to go soul winning without it being on Facebook, "Hey, this is me knocking
the door.
You know, it's just always, it's got to be like, "Hey everybody, look at me.
I'm out soul winning.
Look what I did."
And then, "Oh look, this is me giving groceries to a poor person."
You know?
Every once in a while you see these stupid videos that people share on Facebook of, "This
is me giving money to homeless people," or, "I took this homeless person out to eat."
It's like, you just lost your reward, you stinking hypocrite.
If you actually cared about that person and you loved that person, you know what?
You wouldn't be filming yourself doing charity.
You just do the charity, you know what I mean?
And look, I understand that there are some events that we film and things that we document
because we want to inspire other people, but here's what we don't film.
We don't film charitable works that we do.
Because the Bible specifically says, "When you give alms, you don't let your left hand
know what your right hand doeth."
So you don't, "Hey, let's make a documentary about all the giving that we do," you know?
Let's make a documentary about all the poor people that we're helping and everything.
And you know, the people that the world lifts up and praises as philanthropists, they do
a lot of things for show.
They indulge their sinfulness, they do a lot of wicked things, they hurt a lot of people
to get where they are, and then to make their conscience feel better, they do philanthropy
and they make sure everybody knows about it.
Make sure it's real public, but you know what?
The things that we're going to get rewarded for in heaven are the times that we gave money
to the poor or fed the hungry or helped those in need, and nobody knew about it.
And that's the only things that you're going to get rewarded for when it comes to charity.
When it comes to your charity and your almsgiving, you're only going to get rewarded for the
ones that were done in secret.
That's what the Bible says.
He says if you do it openly, you have your reward.
And again, here's the thing.
I understand that sometimes we do want to make a big deal about a soul-winning event
or something because we're trying to get other people inspired to go soul-winning, and soul-winning
isn't almsgiving, so it doesn't have to be as secretive, and we want our zeal to provoke
others to good works.
But here's the key, all their works they do for to be seen of men.
So hey, I'm not mad at you because you put up a picture of you soul-winning or documented
your soul-winning or tried to inspire other people to get out soul-winning, but here's
the thing.
For every time that you're posting on Facebook about soul-winning, you should probably be
soul-winning like 10 or 20 other times that we didn't hear about.
Amen?
You don't want to be the guy where all his works he does for to be seen of men.
You know, it's one thing if you go out soul-winning 20 times on the 21st time, you're like, "Hey,
everybody.
I just want to share a great testimony about soul-winning and make a big deal out of it."
But if you're just constantly just, "Hey, everybody.
Look at me.
Look at me."
You know, at that point, your motives come into question.
Are you just doing things for show?
So he says all their works they do for to be seen of men.
They're not doers of the word unless there's a camera pointed at them.
They're not doers of the word unless everybody's watching.
They're not doers of the word unless they're going to get credit for it.
You know, we need to be day in, day out doers of the word.
Seek, do, teach needs to be just a lifestyle for us.
Boom.
Over and over again.
He says they love the uppermost rooms at feasts and the chief seats and the synagogues and
greetings in the markets and to be called of men rabbi, rabbi.
Jesus said, "If you know these things, happy are ye if you do them."