A Bunch of Hypocrites

“They’re a bunch of hypocrites!”

Have you ever heard someone talk about churches like that? Maybe you’ve said it yourself.

I get it. I've spent as much time around church folks as anybody over the last 25 years, and, on occasion, I've seen the judgment, the meanness, the gossip, and the moral lapses that you hear about.

But could there possibly be a redeeming message to take away from Christians’ endless inconsistencies and failures?

In a great book called Jesus Outside the Lines: A Way Forward for Those Who Are Tired of Taking Sides, pastor Scott Sauls points out all of the hypocrites we meet in the stories of scripture:

• Paul wrote about gentleness (it’s a fruit of the Spirit!), but he didn’t always use it when writing about his opponents.
• Peter happily welcomed uncircumcised Gentiles into God’s family—unless the circumcised Jewish believers from Jerusalem were watching.
• Noah was supposed to be the most righteous man in all the world, but he drank himself legless.
• King David kept composing psalms after what he’d done to Bathsheba and Uriah.

Just to name a few! But, after he points this out, Sauls says,

“It is the hypocrisy… in the Bible that sometimes encourages me more than anything else. It reminds me that God’s relentless grip on me, not my relentless grip on God, keeps me in his love.”

Hypocrisy isn’t something to be celebrated, but it is a reminder of a central gospel truth: it’s God’s grace that saves us, not our ability to do all the right things and avoid all the wrong things. My feeble grip on God is enough, because it’s his strong grip on me that does the saving. Sinful Christians actually shine a spotlight on the love, faithfulness, and mercy of our God. Like Romans 5:20 says, “Where sin increased, grace increased all the more.”

And because we serve a God whose forgiveness pardons sinners and whose grace embraces even hypocrites, Sauls says, he has the

freedom to be honest about my sins, shortcomings, and inconsistencies… I can allow my hypocrisy to be brought into the light by God and others. I can also invite God and others to help me forsake my hypocrisy and grow into the person God has created me to be.

Once we admit that Christians are going to fall short and that the church will never be free of hypocrisy, we don’t have to pretend to be perfect anymore. Everybody sins. Hypocrisy happens. You can own your faults and sins, instead of trying to hide them or justify them. And once you own them, you’re in a position to repent and change.

Yes, Christians are a bunch of hypocrites. And the sooner we’re honest about it, the sooner the Holy Spirit can enter our hearts and lives and start to heal and transform our hypocrisies by God’s power and grace.

You can listen to this week's devotional below: