Confronting Hypocricy Series

Confronting Hypocrisy (don’t say initially)

Galatians Series

CCCAG 5-12-24

Scripture Galatians 2:11-14

Introduction:

This morning we are going to dive into a subject that will be challenging for many people.

I'm going to start out with a couple of stories that will introduce the subject this morning and be illustrations for us.

The first one

There was a church with a vibrant community of believers. Among them was a man named Joe. Joe was well-respected in the church for his devoutness and generosity. He volunteered for various church activities, always had a smile on his face, and seemed to have it all together.

To his friends and his family, Joe seemed to be a model of Christianity. He even started a man's group to teach other men how to be good and godly role models to their families and their community.

However, what no one knew, is behind the scenes, when he was alone in his office at home, Joe was struggling with addiction to internet pornography.

The second illustration

A powerful storm was coming towards a large city. Floodwaters had already destroyed large sections of the city, and they did not have enough available shelters to help everyone. However, there is a mega church in this city that has both the transportation needs and the space to temporarily house thousands of people and protect them from the powerful storm is ravaging their community.

However the media reported that the pastor refused to open the doors because he doesn't want any damage to the inside of the church, and he just had the carpets cleaned.

A third example,

There is a gathering of some people who would be considered to be elite in our society. A comic who is there to entertain them tells some off color and very pointed jokes that exposes the evil that exists within their ranks. There are several moments of silence in the crowd as people sit there with their hands ready to clap at the joke but they're looking around to see what others are going to do.

What common thread are in all three of these stories?

They all deal with some form of hypocrisy.

Confronting hypocrisy is the title and subject of today’s message.

I used these stories to show us that sometimes people or organizations do not live up to the principles they are supposed to be defending.

In the case of Joe- he is trying to teach men to be Godly while hiding a very dangerous addiction.

In the case of the church- their leader is a multimillionaire who preaches a message of self help and helping others, but when it came time for him and his church to live their best life and help others.

Crickets. At least until the negative publicity changed his mind.

In the 3rd story, Hollywood elites being called out by Ricky Gervais about being antigun, antimisogynistic, and faking support of the Me-to movement

All while making violent movies with guns, forcing actresses into revealing their bodies on camera so men will want to see the movie, and then propping up sex criminals like Harvey Weinstein in their midst.

These stories are not meant to point a finger or embarrass anyone. They are meant to illustrate how easy it is to fall into the trap of hypocrisy.

This isn’t a new thing. It happened even in the leadership of the early church.

In Galatians 2:11-14, we will see that example

Paul is relating an incident that happened among the leadership in the early church. He had to confront a fellow leader about his hypocrisy.

Let’s read about it here.

Gal 2:11-14

But when Cephas (Simon Peter) came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned. (12) For he regularly ate with the Gentiles before certain men came from James. However, when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, because he feared those from the circumcision party (Jewish People). (13) Then the rest of the Jews joined his hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. (14) But when I saw that they were deviating from the truth of the gospel, I told Cephas in front of everyone, “If you, who are a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel Gentiles to live like Jews?”

Prayer

After giving those three examples, and then reading in the bible about Peter acting hypocritical, I think we should pause and admit something to ourselves-

We are all hypocrites.

In fact, if we should treat this morning like an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and saying, “My name is John, and I’m a hypocrite.

None of us, 100% of the time, live up to the things we would normally say are very important.

I want to establish that before we go any further because human nature is to look around at others and how they might be hypocritical, but that’s not the mission of the bible. The bible is not a telescope to look closely at others, but a microscope to look closely at ourselves.