Sermon Central
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Are Christians Hypocritical?
Contributed by T. Scott Womble on Jul 27, 2010 (message contributor)
ARE CHRISTIANS HYPOCRITICAL?
A few years ago, Barna Research conducted a 3 year study about the church which was published in the book Unchristian. The results weren't shocking. In fact, we intuitively already knew the results. Barna leveled three stinging blows against Christians. They said Christians are viewed by non-church goers to be: hypocritical, anti-homosexual and judgmental. Christians are perceived to be hypocritical. Wow, like that's news!
We've heard it so often that we may dismiss it without a thought. But we need to ask, "Are we?" Like most things in life, the answer is probably "yes" and "no." The problem is that half of that "yes" and "no" is still --- "yes."
So here's what got my wheels spinning. Why? Why is it that Christians are often hypocritical? Well, of course, sometimes people are simply big fakes. But it's also true that not everyone is purposely playing the hypocrite. You know, all Christians do not live double lives!
There are at least two other reasons we appear hypocritical at times. One is an issue of surrender. See, sometimes we only give partial control of our lives to Christ. And when Christians live in this way, they never really come to understand the true joy that comes from serving Christ. The result is a Christian trying in their own strength to muster things up. And of course, that leads to hypocrisy. You can't talk about the joys of serving Christ when you only partially surrender yourself to Him.
I think there's a second reason some Christians are perceived as hypocritical. Sometimes, for other reasons, we just try to be something we are not. In other words, we just have identity problems.
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