A Church Full of Hypocrites
Good Morning Friends,
Paul is really pretty clever. He realizes it takes one to know one. In Chapter 1 of Romans he paints a picture of heathens who had forgotten how to be human and just as he is about to get an Amen from the reader agreeing that these poor souls are on the dark spiral downward, he expands his argument to show that self-righteous moralists are no better. Somehow he knew that few experiences get our blood to boil more that seeing the actions of a hypocrite who needs their comeuppance…especially so when they are successful.
Oscar Wilde’s picture of Dorian Gray captures the idea. So too the moral townspeople in Nathanial Hawthorne’s, A Scarlet Letter. Unfortunately two-faced protagonists are often of the religious variety. But sometimes we miss the hypocrisy. In the movie The Matrix, Morpheus fights against slavery but has an army of children. In the movie the Mighty Ducks, Emilio Estevez’s character, says winning is not everything but then wins at all costs. So we need to watch where we point the finger. We need to watch our heroes. And the message is in scripture too where Nathan confronts David with his sins or the Pharisee praying in public or the Prodigal Son’s elder brother. We are, as in the movies, the literature noted, and the scripture… just A Church Full of Hypocrites.
Scripture: Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. You say, “We know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is in accordance with truth.” Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. For he will repay according to each one’s deeds: to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be anguish and distress for everyone who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality. All who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all.
Romans 2:1-16 (NRSV)
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
Matthew 7:1-5 (NIV)
Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.
Galatians 6:7 (NIV)
“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
Jeremiah 31:31-34 (NIV)
Message: Friends, religion can get pretty sick. People in the pews and even the pulpit need to realize that judging other people is dangerous because it lulls us into a false sense of security, blinds us to our own faults, and usurps God’s role as judge. Of course, God sees right through the smoke screens. There is nothing that God does not see. But until a person recognizes that he stands guilty & condemned before God & that he is a sinner who does not meet God’s standard of righteousness, there is no possibility of salvation. Perhaps the most evil of sins is the pride that blinds the unrighteous to despise mercy. The lack of the law or provision of the law is not the problem, the issue is sin. All have inner knowledge of God’s law and some have the external law. But it is not so much which law you have, the one written in everyone’s inner being or the one written in God for all have sinned. The Bible is full of hypocrites and our churches are as well, but it does not mean we cannot be saved. David was indignant at other people’s shortcomings, but indulgent in his own, even though he had a heart for God. Still, David makes the cut. Friends, there is no escaping it. No one ever is always obedient to God’s law of love. One day all our secrets will be exposed and we will have to face Christ. It is all laid out as plain as can be. We will not be able to blame anyone for our sins and decisions. We can see in advance which covenant is better.
Pray we realize that God is kind, but not soft on sin. Pray we realize that we are never going to get away with anything. Pray we realize that every refusal and avoidance of God and even playing the God card to get our way just adds fuel to the fire of hell. Pray we realize that religion cannot save us only Jesus’ mercy. Pray that we realize that all hypocrites will be judged according to the truth and that our works will be judged without favoritism and so will our salvation.Pray we realize that sin will take us further than we want to go; keep us longer than we want to stay; and cost us more than we want to pay. Pray we are not deceived. Pray we realize that God knows we are ethically challenged people and still wants to save us. Pray God changes us from within. Pray we have full access to God’s presence even as we are transformed. Pray we are freed from sick religion and the bondage of being a hypocrite and instead embrace a relationship with the model of life and compassion shared….Jesus. Pray God’s Holy Spirit strives with us forever. Pray we realize that only with God’s mercy can we be Winners!
Blessings,
John Lawson
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