Is The Church Full Of Hypocrisy? Series

Once I realized this, God gave me the vision for a ministry. A vision for an honest group of people dealing with hard issues together, through loving and caring for one another, and truly seeking God’s will. Have we always been perfect? No. Have I always been the perfect leader? By all means, no. But, we have all done our best to extend grace to one another, and to let God lead, not people.

The problem with the church is and will likely continue to be people who do not know how to respond to God. It is everyone’s duty to learn how to respond to God, and only in this way can we be the church God meant for us to be.

God is well aware of the problems that exist within humanity. In fact, He is the first to call into question those who claim to believe something, but yet live a life that does not demonstrate their belief. Throughout the Scriptures, God regularly makes people aware that they are living lives contrary to what He has taught them. One of God’s biggest problems with people is that they often seek Him through ritualistic acts, instead of living a life based upon helping those who are poor, sick, widowed or orphaned. The prophet Micah makes this very clear when he says:

With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:6-8 ESV)

It seems that in the first part of the quote Micah is quoting the stereotypical response people have to God. But, what is so interesting about this stereotypical response is that it has been the response of people for many generations.

Martin Luther, in 1517, started a complete reformation of the Christian faith partly because he was opposed to approaching God through religious rituals. The Church of the time was telling people that they must give money to the Church in order to be forgiven their wrongdoings. Luther knew this was wrong (in fact he based his thinking on passages like Micah 6:6-8). He attempted to correct the Church by writing a very famous document called the 95 Theses, which he sent to the Pope. However, the Pope responded by calling Luther’s entire ministry into question. As a result, Luther was asked to leave the Catholic Church and he began to form a new kind of Christianity based upon grace. Although, it really was not new at all, it was exactly what St. Paul had taught during the first century A.D.

Luther and St. Paul believed that people were not forgiven their wrongdoings by making payment of some sort, but instead were forgiven their wrongdoings by the grace of God. God does not have to forgive us, He chooses to when we accept Jesus, His message, and the salvation He brought through dying on the cross and being resurrected again three days later. No worldly payment could ever suffice to pay for our wrongdoings towards God and people, but Jesus’ death on the cross will always be sufficient. Many of the people of Luther’s day did not believe this, nor of Paul’s, nor of ours. But, I stand before you today as a man who has received this grace and I know that it truly is sufficient. I have no place before God without it. I am no one without it. And that man who wronged me; he has received grace too, and because of that he is forgiven as well. And because I have received grace, I have forgiven him too.