Is the Church full of hypocrisy? At many points in my life I have thought, "Yes. Most definitely, yes. The Church is full of hypocrisy." At other times I have thought, "Well, it is not as bad as I thought it was." But, I have never thought, "There is no hypocrisy in the Church." That would simply be a lie. Saying there is no hypocrisy in the church is like saying, "All politicians and lawyers tell the truth." Or, "Everything I hear on TV or read in the newspaper is true."
The biggest problem is not necessarily that we lie--although that is a problem--the problem is that we lie about the liars or prefer to ignore that they exist. Many of us even lie about our own lies. Take a child who has just stolen a cookie out of the cookie jar. You ask them, "Did you take a cookie out of the cookie jar?" And they say, "No, of course not," when there is cookie crumbs on their shirt and chocolate all over their face and fingers. You reply, "Then why is there cookie crumbs on your shirt and chocolate all over face and fingers?" They respond, "I don’t know how that got there," or "My sister made me do it."
Hypocrisy begins when we not only take the cookie, but lie about the cookie crumbs and chocolate all over us. Hypocrisy begins when we begin to ignore the double lives we and the people around us are so prone to live.
The other day I was talking to a friend of mine and he said something that really struck me: "The biggest reason why I doubt that there is a God is because of Christians. I know so many people who claim to believe in Christ, but live a life that is exactly opposite of what Jesus taught." I can sympathize with that. Why are there so many people who claim to believe in God, but yet do such terrible things? I believe there is an answer. The answer is that we have not learned yet how to respond to God. It is my intention this evening to show you that the problem with Christianity is not God and it is not Jesus; it is people--people who have not learned how to respond to God.
People let people down; that is simply what people do. Who here has been let down before? We have all been let down by our friends, spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends, children, colleagues, bosses, and worst of all, our church leaders. I cannot apologize on behalf of those who have let you down, but I can apologize on behalf of the church. If you are here and the church has let you down, or someone in the church has seriously done wrong by you, I am sorry. Please forgive that person; please forgive the church. The only reason why I can say this so boldly is because I too have been wronged by church leaders and the church--countless times in fact. It has made me hesitate; sometimes it has even made me doubt why I believe in the church. But, good things can come out of bad circumstances.
I founded a ministry out of bad circumstances. Here’s the story. I was very involved with a local ministry to college students. This ministry began to do things I didn’t approve of; they began to do things I did not think God approved of. It really bothered me, so I eventually told the leader of the ministry that I did not want to be part of the ministry any longer. He then said to me, "Why, because you don’t believe in God; because you do not want to follow the will of Jesus?" This man actually thought he could judge where I was at with God. Of course, I was deeply offended; it was enough for me to not want to go to church ever again. I prayed a lot that day and the following days. As I was praying, I asked God, "Why should I continue to believe in your church, when it is so messed up?" If you do not know already, God appreciates honesty. I was being honest. God responded, but not in the way I expected. He showed me that I needed to believe in Him, not in people, not in an institution. My belief in Him didn’t revolve around people. After all, people will always let you down. My belief was in God. God then showed me that instead of being a further part of the problem by rebelling from the church, I needed to be part of the solution, by being the church.
Biblically speaking, the church is people congregating together. The church is people. People are the church. The church at its best is full of people seeking God by the grace He has given them. (But, of course those same people who have grace will continue to make mistakes.) Through bad circumstances, I learned the definition of Church. I learned that Church did not mean perfection, the Church meant being with people who are seeking God in the midst of our imperfections. The Church is full of imperfect people, who are being made perfect by God.
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.
It does not end here; it does just end with the grace. The grace is the beginning. The grace is the beginning of a life that does justice, loves kindness, and walks humbly with God.
We cannot assume because many Christians live lives of hypocrisy that there must be something wrong with God or wrong with Jesus. Throughout Jesus’ ministry He regularly confronts the religious leaders about their double lives. At one point Jesus even says to them, "you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth" (Matthew 23:27-28 ESV). These words of Jesus ring true today. If you know someone who claims to believe in Jesus, but yet lives a double life, they really are not seeking Him at all. Jesus called for His followers to turn away from the things that corrupt and follow His way (Mark 3:2). His way involves caring for the widowed, orphaned, sick, and the poor.
This reminds me of a story about Jesus. Jesus was at a banquet when He said to the host:
When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. (Luke 14:12-14, ESV)
Blessings are not based on payment; blessings are based on things that are not seen. Your blessing is God. Jesus makes it very clear that those who wish to follow Him must sacrifice of themselves by helping those who do not have.
If you claim to follow Jesus, but are not helping those who poor and needy, you are really not living for Him at all. It is the duty of every single last person who claims to follow Jesus to help the hurting. Jesus even says that the greatest commandment of all is to love the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Immediately following this He states that we must also love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:28-31). Loving other people is directly linked to loving God. If you wish to love God, seek after Him through loving all people, especially the poor and needy. It is the people who live their life in such a way that truly make a difference in our world. In spite of all of the hypocritical Christians in the world, there are many Christians who are doing amazing things, because they are living according to what Jesus asked of them.
The Catholic Church alone has founded more hospitals and schools throughout the world than any other single organization. Not all of the Church is full of hypocrites. Ignore the people who are hypocrites and look for those that live in truth. Look for those who live like Jesus. Every time anyone is there for the needy, they are doing the will of God, whether they realize it or not. God loves people, and those who love God, love people too.
Now I ask you a question, "What will you do? Will you let those Christians whom you have met who live double lives keep you from believing in God, keep you from believing in Jesus?" Or will you realize that God is only reflected in those who live a life of love and in doing so place hope in the hearts of the poor? God was the first one to recognize the problems in the world. And in all actuality, the problem is not just Christians, but rather people in general. This does not mean that people are bad, instead most of us are misled.
You now know what it means to truly seek God. It means calling upon God, hearing His voice, and responding by helping others. Jesus believed in this so much that He was willing to die for it. He was willing to die for people, like me and you. He was willing to die for all of us. So that we may come to God freely and openly by accepting the gift of having our wrongdoings put behind us.
I am now reminded of a beautiful event recorded in the book of Mark:
And a leper came to him [Jesus], imploring him, and kneeling said to him, "If you will, you can make me clean." Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, "I will; be clean." (Mark 1:40--41 ESV)
What strikes me most about this passage is that Jesus is "moved with pity." Jesus is "moved with pity." Jesus is moved with pity when He looks at the state of humanity. Be moved with Him. Do not run from Him. Be like the leper, "implore" Jesus, kneel before Him and say to Him, "If you will, you can make me clean." Jesus can be moved with pity, He can make you clean. He can heal all of your wounds, He can take away your leprosy; Jesus can put all your wrongdoings behind you and behind God. You must also be moved with pity when you look at the state of humanity, and you must respond.
Every person must change, and the only change that truly makes a difference is a change that involves seeking God. Because those who seek God make change not by their own power, but by the power of the loving, compassionate and eternal creator of the universe.
No one wants to live a double-life. If you want change to happen, let God change you. Call upon Him from the deepest parts of your soul. He will hear and He will answer. God will then be able to work in you in a way that you never imagined. Only at this point can you truly make a difference in the world. What will you do? Will you hear these words and walk away and continue to live in dissatisfaction, or will you hear them and respond to God? What will you do when you leave this place?
