I just guys I'm watching an amazing scene on a Netflix show where there's a girl who's been raised up out of a difficult situation, but deep down she's afraid that maybe she's a fraud. And then there's this other character who we don't know very well who is definitely a fraud. And he calls her out, and it's clear that it cuts to the bone for her because nobody wants to be called a fraud. But then she flips it around and calls him out on his being a fraud. And Dick gets really through the armor for him, and he becomes very threatened, and the whole thing escalates. And it was a magnificent scene. And it reminds me that is why I like programs that I know some of you don't like, because they tend to get into some of the things that are darker and more complex and more redemptive about people in ways that shows that are just trying not to offend, I don't think, do quite as well. Once again, this is a place where I understand that some people are gonna see this one way, some people are gonna see this another way. Thank you for liking me, even though I like programming that is occasionally a little bit dark. I do have my reasons. Here's the thing, though, the fraud aspect is what stood out. And as I'm sitting there watching this masterfully constructed scene, you know what I'm feeling? All the ways that I might be a fraud. Because I might be a fraud. I mean, doesn't that cross your mind still? It doesn't matter how old you are or how much you've done. At some point, you still feel like a vulnerable little kid that just doesn't know what they're doing and doesn't belong in the place that they are. And it's very, very easy for the right words or the right situation to cut through the armor and get down to that part of us that is always afraid that something about us is a fake. But there is a way to kill it, right? You've seen people who've killed that. You kill it by picking a persona, building everything about who you are around that persona, making sure other people observe what that persona you've created is, and frankly, you lean into being a fraud. You just pick a version of fraud that you happen to like and you run with it. I don't know, maybe that's a good thing, maybe it's a bad thing. It's not really what I'm talking about here. My point is that at least for most people, it seems like there are two choices in terms of what we do with that impulse to feel like we're a fraud. Lean into it or battle it real hard and be hurt when it comes up and somebody suggests that maybe we are. Frankly, I think the latter is way more desirable than the former. It's better to get hurt from time to time as we try to be something that's authentic and real and vulnerable and that tells the truth to people than it is to constantly feel like we're just lying about everything by very nature of our existence. In Matthew chapter six, you got a situation where you have an audience that is a mix of two people. You got people who are leaning into the fraud thing, and we're gonna break down what that looked like here in just a minute. They've decided that they're not gonna be vulnerable to any accusations of being fake. So they're gonna pick a public religious persona and they're going to do things externally that fit that archetype to the point that it is so masterful and so consistent that no one could ever deign to criticize them because they got the act down to a T. Then you got other people on the hill who frankly just don't have the luxury of doing that. They're not rich enough, they're not sophisticated enough, they're destined to be bit parts in the grand play of somebody else's life. And you got both these people in the audience, and Jesus is going to shift from this grand, magnificent, existential cut to the level of the heart description of the kingdom and what it looks like to participate in the kingdom, and what it looks like to genuinely participate in the kingdom, at the level of the essence. Like, no, I am bought into these values. I am bought into the idea of God as king, not me as king. And I am bought into the idea that even though I'm committed to obeying God in the fulfilled sense, all the way at the level of the heart, I still know that my righteousness is from God and not from me. You got that. It's very, very honest and it's very, very vulnerable. And then you got this other response that is that is overwhelming. I'm going to fake it. They come into conflict in what Jesus is describing as he talks again about spiritual disciplines, doing spiritual drills, practicing stuff, the physical, external manifestations of spiritual things. And he talks first about the idea of giving, which was a core value to the original audience. Giving was not optional for these people. They had rightly been taught that from the beginning of time and God's relationship with his chosen people, the expectation was everything belongs to God. You effectively steward the things that God has given you, and you need to be generous with that. Now, what exactly that generosity looks like, why you do the generosity, that's where the wiggle room is, and that's what Jesus is jabbing at, and more than jabbing at, fulfilling right here in Matthew chapter 6. So it goes like this Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness. Let me read that again because there are air quotes there. Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men to be seen by them. If you do, you'll have no reward from your father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, don't announce it with trumpets as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they've received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, don't let your left hand know what your right hand's doing. So that you're giving maybe in secret, then your father who sees what's done in secret will reward you. Wow, there's a lot there. And it does just cut to the quick. It gets all the way down to the level of who you are and what we're insecure about. Because there are going to be people who are going to hear Jesus saying this stuff and they're going to be like, ah, yeah, yeah, I am so fake. I want to say I believe this stuff and that I'm in, but honestly, like my wife's into it. Now we have kids, and I want to give the impression that I'm into it. So I kind of play along, but I don't know if this is true at all or any of this is real. But now all of my friends are this thing, and I don't know what it would look like if I wasn't into it anymore, and I'd probably get a divorce if I walked away from it. And I don't understand the Bible that well or any of these religious things. I'm not a religious scholar. I just I don't know. Sometimes it seems like there might be a God, sometimes it seems like there's not, but I'm supposed to give away some of my salary, and so I do to just keep everything cool at home and make this thing move forward. There are people who were sitting there who felt like that. And when Jesus talks about the level of the heart and why people are doing it, that cut pretty close to home, I bet. There are people who were sitting there who heard this and they were like, He is talking about me. Because uh I give on the street corners. I mean, isn't that how we do giving, Larry? Like we go to the street corners, right? Because we're doing this thing. We've agreed that there's kind of a persona, it's like pro wrestlers. We put on these outfits and you know, these special speedos, and then we go out and there's pomp and there's circumstance, and there's like walk-up music, and we stroll out to places. I mean, how would people know that we're religious if we don't do it in front of people? Am I missing something? Larry, help me out here once again. Like, isn't this just what we've agreed that we do? And now Jesus is like, well, I mean, it is what you do. It's just completely fake and it's for all the wrong reasons. And so I'm guessing that the fraudulent nature that both of these crowds felt was something that kind of stung when Jesus said this. I'm also guessing that there were people who heard what Jesus said and it caused them to soften. The way it does when somebody maybe intones that you're a fraud and they maybe kind of have a point. And maybe you don't want to admit it and you kind of put up the guard and you deflect and do the things you gotta do to survive. But when you're driving home after that, when you're hanging up the phone and laying in bed and staring at the ceiling after that conversation or that text exchange, you're like, he really has a point. I'm not totally honest about this stuff. There are other people who hear those kind of things and they don't have a mechanism in their thought processes for what happens if they're wrong, what happens if they have a problem. And for people like that, this isn't the kind of thing that draws out this sense of reflection. This is the kind of thing that draws out a sense of I hate you, the person who pointed this out. I hate you because you see what is true, and I have to dispose of you because anyone who sees my enormous manipulation is a huge risk to my gig. And there are people who live like this. I recognize that I did counseling for a living for a long time for crying out loud. I have done this, I have crafted versions of myself in moments socially where I built this whole thing to just avoid being a fraud. And when somebody pushed back on that, it didn't soften me, it made me put up my defenses and get ready to fight, however hard I had to fight to defend. Likewise, here I think this passage and the next two that come after it are a huge turning point in the relationship between Jesus and those whose hearts were going to be softened to what he was saying, and between Jesus and those who had no mechanism for being wrong, and absolutely could not abide, could not stand to have someone who sees exactly what is wrong with them pointing it out in a way that other people might notice, because then the gig is up, and that is when the crazy comes out. You guys remember a few episodes back when I was talking about Dwell, the audio Bible app that I really like. And you gotta understand, I'm not gonna vouch for stupid stuff that I think is dumb here, that violates the trust between us and it's just gross and would make me feel gross, and hey, like a fraud. The truth of the matter is it is the best, most user-friendly, most beautifully presented audio Bible app or interface that I've ever encountered. I do know the people who built it and the people who run it, and I like them and I like what they're going for. So I continue to be delighted to get to put my name next to the whole dwell thing. It's an app for your phone, you can go and check it out iPhone, Android, whatever. You're smart, you know how to track that stuff down. But here's the deal right now, you got the whole COVID-19 thing going on. Everybody's scrambling to figure out in a church setting how to connect with people and everybody's rhythms on, well, frankly, some of the weird stuff, but also a whole lot of the good stuff, like how we encounter the Bible every day, is disrupted. And so they started giving this church version of the app away for free to anybody who's a part of a church. So here's the deal: if you're a pastor or you're on staff at a church in any way, you can go to dwellapp.io slash COVID19. The link's gonna be down below in the description, of course. And you can get your church set up with this thing. And it's not a deal for big churches or little churches for everybody. You don't have to put in a credit card or anything weird. It's just meant to be here you go, we connect with you as a church, and then as a church, you can give that away and let your congregation make use of it during this time. And I don't think this is a forever thing, but it's definitely a for now thing to supplement the way churches are serving people in their congregation. And if you're not on church staff, I mean you can just pass this along to your pastor and they can sign up and then everybody can have it. So it's a pretty awesome thing that they're doing. Again, I know them, I like them, I get their motives for where they're coming from on this. And if you're not using Dwell already as an individual, I hope you'll check it out. But especially if you're attached to a church in any way, this is worth signing up for and using to help out your congregation. Again, it's dwellapp.io slash COVID19, nothing to buy or anything like that as the free deal that they're doing with churches. Tomorrow we're gonna break down this text way more and get kind of past the emotional side of it and into what's actually happening in between the lines. And I especially want to talk about one word in particular that I think is crazy interesting in the original language. All right, we'll hit pause there, my friends. I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. I'll catch you tomorrow.