One of the most common excuses I and I believe other pastors
hear on why people are not involved in a local church goes something like this:
“I believe in God. I pray. I occasionally read the Bible, but I don’t go
to church because of all the hypocrites.”
Sometimes, you will have a person go a step beyond that saying that they
believe in God, pray, and so forth, but they don’t want to be a hypocrite
themselves because they know that their lifestyle and choices are inconsistent
with what the Bible and church teaches. In
other words, they believe in God, they have said the “sinner’s prayer,” pray
often (I have no doubt about this), but they love doing all the things that the
Bible forbids and do not want to be seen as a hypocrite. However, are such persons really a hypocrite? I, for one, would actually say that they
quite possibly are not!
The word hypocrite
is Greek (hupocrites) and in
Classical and Hellenistic Greek means an actor,
pretender, or one who wears a mask. This
was used for actors on stage that would pretend to be something in front of
others that they in real life were not.
Naturally, the term was later applied to those who claimed to be
followers of Christ, who attended the worship gatherings, and who acted one way
around Christian brothers while in front of others showed their true identity
by engaging in all kinds of wickedness.
Jesus used this word often. One
recalls Matthew 6:5 "And when you
pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in
the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others.
Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.”
Here is the problem.
As true, regenerate followers of Jesus Christ, we still at times fall short. There are times where we (Pastor included)
choose sin over obedience to Christ.
While maturity in the faith helps one resist temptation, it will only be
a matter of time before one sins and does the very things that go against the
teachings of Scripture. Is this person truly
a hypocrite? Many feel this way, adding
guilt upon guilt and leading some to abandon their local church.
We must remember
what a hypocrite is and what a
Christian is. A Christian is a sinner
who has been transformed by the grace of God and adopted as a child of the King
who now has received full pardon of his sins and a newness of life that is
pleasing before God because of the work of Jesus on the cross. As Christians, we boast in Christ and not in
ourselves. That means we boast in Christ
who is the perfect one and lean on the grace of Jesus when we fail. At no point do we claim that we have arrived,
that we have it all together, or that we are the epitome of perfection. We point to Jesus Christ!
If a Christian sins against God and turns back again to the
grace of God, he is not being a hypocrite.
He is not trying to pretend to be something he is not. No, he is being exactly who he actually is –
a person who sins but repents and is cleansed by the grace of almighty
God. He is one who lives the Christian
life which includes failure, repentance, and restoration.
That means that the true hypocrite would be those Christians
who find no need to repent in their life.
They are being something they are not, namely portraying that they are
perfect, self-righteous individuals when in reality they are not! They are the ones wearing the mask. They are the pretenders because they appear
on the outside as those who are one way (namely righteous) when inwardly they
are engaged in sin.
Now, let’s go back to our examples up front. There are people who claim to believe in God,
claim to pray often, but their actions are inconsistent with the teachings of
Scripture and they do not want to be seen as a hypocrite. Good news!
Perhaps you are not a hypocrite after all!
I just saw an article on Yahoo! that spoke of Kristen
Stewart, the girl off the Twilight series who recently cheated on her boyfriend
Robert Pattinson with another man. You
can see the article here if you wish. http://omg.yahoo.com/blogs/now/pre-scandal-kristen-stewart-talks-not-being-fake-180514147.html. Let me spare you having to waste any amount
of time on pop culture with a bit of
summary.
Kristen Stewart in this article said before her scandal
broke out that she did not like people who were “fake.” She did not like those who pretended to be
one thing but were really another. The
great irony here is that this is exactly what she was doing at the time, trying
to portray loyalty to her beau Pattinson while having an affair with another. Was Stewart being a hypocrite? Yes and no!
She appeared to be loyal to her boyfriend while secretly having an
affair (so yes, that is hypocritical), but was she not also being exactly who
she really is (one apart from the grace of God who engages in all forms of
wickedness to her own ruin all the while rejecting the salvation available
through Jesus Christ)?
When people say they love Jesus, but they love and are
unrepentant of the things that Jesus hates, they are actually not
Christians! Whenever people love the
world above Jesus, they are not true Christians. These are not my words but the words of
Scripture. James 4:4 “You adulterous
people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?
Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of
God.” Jesus said in John 14:21 “Whoever
has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.”
As such, those who love sin over Jesus are not actually
hypocrites. Those who claim to be
believers in Jesus, who claim to pray and read their Bibles occasionally (and I
will even also be so forthright as to say who are members of the church, who
are deacons, pastors, and Bible professors, etc.) who really love sin over
Jesus, they are in a way not being hypocrites at all! They (regrettably) are being exactly who they
really are – unsaved. May the grace of
God change their hearts into being who they really need to be – children of God
saved by His grace.