Showing posts with label hypocrisy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hypocrisy. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 08, 2020
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
Wednesday, May 08, 2019
Hope for Hypocrites
[This is the journal of my quiet time with God this morning. I read Matthew, chapter 25; two verses particularly stood out to me.]
“So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
“So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.” (Romans 7:15-25)
So, we’re all hypocrites, even Saint Paul.
Does that mean we should go on being hypocritical despite Jesus’ words in Matthew 24? As Paul would write elsewhere when asking if Christians should therefore go on willfully sinning, “By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (Romans 6:2)
We are to neither keep living in complacent hypocrisy nor in fear that because we are hypocrites, we’re irredeemable. Those are both pathways to death and they’re not of Christ.
The question isn’t whether I’m a hypocrite or not. If I’m living, I am a hypocrite. If I’m a Christian and live hypocritically, denying my sin and my need of grace, I should feel authentic guilty and turn to Jesus for forgiveness and the power to live in Him alone (Hebrews 6:4-6).
When I acknowledge my hypocrisy, the question is: What do I do with my hypocrisy?
Do I ignore it?
Do I embrace it?
Do I falsely cling to the notion that Christ justifies the sin along with the sinner?
Or do I daily turn to Christ, confessing all of my sins, including my hypocrisy, and take shelter in the grace of God given in Christ, trusting that, as I allow Christ to tear the sins and hypocrisy in which I live and that I love from my life, He will replace it all with Himself?
Hypocrites need Jesus and can be daily saved by Jesus.
Thank God for that, because when it comes time for me to meet God face to face, I don’t want to stand there with my hypocrisy--the false faces I wore to fool the world into thinking that I was righteous--as my only justification and defense. I want to be covered by Jesus so that as the Lord looks at this sinner, it’s Jesus He sees, not me. That’s who I want God the Father to see in me as I come to Him this morning, this day.
I want to be covered by Jesus, filled with Jesus, protected from myself by Jesus. Even when I want what I want, I will turn to Jesus and ask Him to help me to want Him more.
And I will trust in Him to overcome my hypocrisy and all of my other sins, to conquer me, to keep making me a new creation.
Respond: Father God, for the sake of Jesus Christ, God the Son, forgive my hypocrisies. Cover me in the grace Jesus died and rose to give to sinners like me and help me to be an authentic, grateful disciple of Jesus who daily seeks to follow Him. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Look: “[Jesus said] The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 24:50-51)
Matthew 24 begins with Jesus leaving the temple and the disciples coming up to Him “to call his attention to its buildings” (Matthew 24:1). Jesus stuns them by saying that “all [the] buildings” of the temple mount that so impress them will one day be destroyed.
It’s the disciples’ conflation of the temple’s destruction with “the end of the age” in verse 3 and Jesus’ response to their question without distinctions between the temple and the entire world that show that Jesus’ prophetic words in verse 1 apply to end of the whole cosmos. His answer applies to the demise of both the temple and the cosmos.
Jesus never tells the disciples when these cataclysms will happen. He does tell them what to expect as signs preceding them. But above all, He says to remain faithful to Him without knowing when these ends will come: “...the one who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:13).
According to Jesus, there will be Christians who are lulled into complacency and sin because the end when Jesus returns hasn’t come yet. The love of many will grow cold and, intimidated by the persecution to which faithful Christians are subjected, will defect from the faith, betraying fellow believers (verses 9-10). False prophets will arise bringing false hopes or exploiting the immature faith of some believers (verse 11).. Entrusted with stewardship of the gospel, the complacency of some believers, who will think that they have time to get away with sin before the Master Jesus returns, will cause them to treat other believers harshly (verses 48-49). (Although nobody knows when Jesus is returning, can there be any doubt that these very behaviors are exhibited and have been exhibited within the Church since Jesus’ ascension?)
But, Jesus is says “the master,” Jesus Himself, is one day returning. He’ll do so without forewarning. And, He says, He will destroy “the hypocrites,” those who have made it their lifestyles to breezily ignore Jesus’ lordship over their lives. He will consign them to a special place of punishment reserved for hypocrites.
Listen: I am a hypocrite. That’s part of why Christ and His Church are so important to me. Where else would a hypocrite, aware of his sins and hypocrisy about them, go? I know that I need Jesus. “Lord, to whom shall we go?” Peter asked Jesus. “You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68)
Where else am I to go to hear God’s Word of condemnation for my hypocrisy as well as God’s Word of grace for those who repent for their hypocrisy? I must go to the Church to hear this Word, to have it claim me in Baptism, to have it fill me in Communion. I must go to the Word in the book the Holy Spirit gave to and through Christ's Church, the Bible.
In the fellowship of the Church, my complacency is challenged and my life is called from hypocrisy to authentic preparation for one day seeing Jesus face to face.
A friend, a fellow believer, in whom I reposed great confidence, aware of an abiding sin in my life, once asked me, “Do you ever read your own sermons?”
That friend was lovingly confronting me with a hypocrisy in my life, an area in which, despite my confession of faith in Christ, my desire to conform my life to God’s will, and the very sermons I preached, caused me to breezily and complacently ignore God’s call to me for repentance and faith.
My friend was calling me out of hypocrisy. This loving administration of the Law drove me in repentance to Christ, the One to Whom all hypocrites must go for grace, with its forgiveness, restoration, and new life.
It helps me to know, through the fellowship of the Church, that I’m not the only one who struggles with the temptation to complacent hypocrisy. The Church is meant to be a hospital and a support group for recovering hypocrites, for people who want to live faithfully for Jesus but still sin. (And therefore need Jesus every day and into eternity.) The Church is a place for those who are simultaneously saints, saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus, and sinners who deal with the reality of their sin until the day they die.
The apostle Paul knew of this struggle. Hw wrote revealingly in Romans:
“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
Matthew 24 begins with Jesus leaving the temple and the disciples coming up to Him “to call his attention to its buildings” (Matthew 24:1). Jesus stuns them by saying that “all [the] buildings” of the temple mount that so impress them will one day be destroyed.
It’s the disciples’ conflation of the temple’s destruction with “the end of the age” in verse 3 and Jesus’ response to their question without distinctions between the temple and the entire world that show that Jesus’ prophetic words in verse 1 apply to end of the whole cosmos. His answer applies to the demise of both the temple and the cosmos.
Jesus never tells the disciples when these cataclysms will happen. He does tell them what to expect as signs preceding them. But above all, He says to remain faithful to Him without knowing when these ends will come: “...the one who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:13).
According to Jesus, there will be Christians who are lulled into complacency and sin because the end when Jesus returns hasn’t come yet. The love of many will grow cold and, intimidated by the persecution to which faithful Christians are subjected, will defect from the faith, betraying fellow believers (verses 9-10). False prophets will arise bringing false hopes or exploiting the immature faith of some believers (verse 11).. Entrusted with stewardship of the gospel, the complacency of some believers, who will think that they have time to get away with sin before the Master Jesus returns, will cause them to treat other believers harshly (verses 48-49). (Although nobody knows when Jesus is returning, can there be any doubt that these very behaviors are exhibited and have been exhibited within the Church since Jesus’ ascension?)
But, Jesus is says “the master,” Jesus Himself, is one day returning. He’ll do so without forewarning. And, He says, He will destroy “the hypocrites,” those who have made it their lifestyles to breezily ignore Jesus’ lordship over their lives. He will consign them to a special place of punishment reserved for hypocrites.
Listen: I am a hypocrite. That’s part of why Christ and His Church are so important to me. Where else would a hypocrite, aware of his sins and hypocrisy about them, go? I know that I need Jesus. “Lord, to whom shall we go?” Peter asked Jesus. “You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68)
Where else am I to go to hear God’s Word of condemnation for my hypocrisy as well as God’s Word of grace for those who repent for their hypocrisy? I must go to the Church to hear this Word, to have it claim me in Baptism, to have it fill me in Communion. I must go to the Word in the book the Holy Spirit gave to and through Christ's Church, the Bible.
In the fellowship of the Church, my complacency is challenged and my life is called from hypocrisy to authentic preparation for one day seeing Jesus face to face.
A friend, a fellow believer, in whom I reposed great confidence, aware of an abiding sin in my life, once asked me, “Do you ever read your own sermons?”
That friend was lovingly confronting me with a hypocrisy in my life, an area in which, despite my confession of faith in Christ, my desire to conform my life to God’s will, and the very sermons I preached, caused me to breezily and complacently ignore God’s call to me for repentance and faith.
My friend was calling me out of hypocrisy. This loving administration of the Law drove me in repentance to Christ, the One to Whom all hypocrites must go for grace, with its forgiveness, restoration, and new life.
It helps me to know, through the fellowship of the Church, that I’m not the only one who struggles with the temptation to complacent hypocrisy. The Church is meant to be a hospital and a support group for recovering hypocrites, for people who want to live faithfully for Jesus but still sin. (And therefore need Jesus every day and into eternity.) The Church is a place for those who are simultaneously saints, saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus, and sinners who deal with the reality of their sin until the day they die.
The apostle Paul knew of this struggle. Hw wrote revealingly in Romans:
“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
“So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So, we’re all hypocrites, even Saint Paul.
Does that mean we should go on being hypocritical despite Jesus’ words in Matthew 24? As Paul would write elsewhere when asking if Christians should therefore go on willfully sinning, “By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (Romans 6:2)
We are to neither keep living in complacent hypocrisy nor in fear that because we are hypocrites, we’re irredeemable. Those are both pathways to death and they’re not of Christ.
The question isn’t whether I’m a hypocrite or not. If I’m living, I am a hypocrite. If I’m a Christian and live hypocritically, denying my sin and my need of grace, I should feel authentic guilty and turn to Jesus for forgiveness and the power to live in Him alone (Hebrews 6:4-6).
When I acknowledge my hypocrisy, the question is: What do I do with my hypocrisy?
Do I ignore it?
Do I embrace it?
Do I falsely cling to the notion that Christ justifies the sin along with the sinner?
Or do I daily turn to Christ, confessing all of my sins, including my hypocrisy, and take shelter in the grace of God given in Christ, trusting that, as I allow Christ to tear the sins and hypocrisy in which I live and that I love from my life, He will replace it all with Himself?
Hypocrites need Jesus and can be daily saved by Jesus.
Thank God for that, because when it comes time for me to meet God face to face, I don’t want to stand there with my hypocrisy--the false faces I wore to fool the world into thinking that I was righteous--as my only justification and defense. I want to be covered by Jesus so that as the Lord looks at this sinner, it’s Jesus He sees, not me. That’s who I want God the Father to see in me as I come to Him this morning, this day.
I want to be covered by Jesus, filled with Jesus, protected from myself by Jesus. Even when I want what I want, I will turn to Jesus and ask Him to help me to want Him more.
And I will trust in Him to overcome my hypocrisy and all of my other sins, to conquer me, to keep making me a new creation.
Respond: Father God, for the sake of Jesus Christ, God the Son, forgive my hypocrisies. Cover me in the grace Jesus died and rose to give to sinners like me and help me to be an authentic, grateful disciple of Jesus who daily seeks to follow Him. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
What Bothers Me Most When I Sin
The thing that bothers me most when I sin, whether my sin is overt rebellion against the will of God or failure to do the good God wants us to do, is how it may hurt the faith of others.
How do I, as a Christian, damage the possibility of others knowing the incredible happiness and power that belong to a follower of Jesus Christ? Long after I've repented for my sins and have been forgiven for them, they leave a mark on those who have observed my hypocrisy.
We're all hypocrites, of course. No one measures up to the fine ideals to which they expect others to live...and which, they think, in self-delusion, they fulfill. That's true of everyone, to some extent--cynic or Christian, Buddhist or democrat.
But I view my hypocrisy as a Christian with special...the only word is, dread. I dread how my ill-chosen words, attempts to be clever, or ill-conceived actions, all of which I've decided to do not because they pleased or honored God or helped others, but because I wanted to be liked, or wanted to please myself, or wanted to elevate my self-esteem at the expense of someone else, have hurt or stopped the development of faith in Christ in those who have watched or heard me.
Today's Our Daily Bread devotion is based on Matthew 15:7-20, where Jesus says, in part:
It's these things that show our hypocrisy.
God has been pummeling me with thoughts along these lines over the past two days.
Yesterday, I met in Chillicothe with pastoral colleagues. We gather each month to look ahead at the appointed Bible lessons for the succeeding month, each of us making presentations and leading the discussions of the texts. This month, I was assigned the lessons for September 27, including James 5:13-20, from the Bible's New Testament. There, James urges believers to confess their sins to one another, not in a sick display of reality TV-style narcissism, but as an antidote to our own hypcorisy and as a means of having the healing grace of God's forgiveness pronounced over us by others. James says:
After all, it's our sin--our hypocrisy, our misuse of others and of the world and of our bodies and minds--that blocks life, true life, from us. It's God's forgiveness, which unleashes God's Spirit in our lives every time we receive it, that gives us life, now and in eternity.
I don't believe that every time we confess our sins in the presence of other Christians, be it during public worship, in conversation with Christian friends, or with a pastor, we need necessarily catalog every sin. Confession in the presence of others is not the same as an appearance on Dr. Phil's show.
But I do value the Confession of Sin and Pronouncement of Absolution that are part of our weekly worship in most Lutheran congregations. There is something humbling and life-giving about all of us standing before the Lord and admitting that we hypocrites, we sinners who pretend--sometimes even to ourselves--that we don't sin, that we really are "in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves."
When we confess our sins to God, even in private prayers uttered in our rooms, in the shower, on the way to work, or while walking down the street, God forgives. James says God brings us healing, which I take to be more than simple forgiveness, but also renewed power to fight our inborn tendency toward hypocrisy.
We need that power because, this side of the grave, we have an overpowering impulse toward sin and self-delusion. We can create all sorts of rationalizations for why, ordinarily, we should love God and love neighbor or why, ordinarily, we should care for own bodies and minds or the world in which we live, but that this time is an exeption. It's easy to fall prey to hypocrisy as a Christian--confessing one thing with our lips and living another way.
But forgiveness granted in the Name of Jesus Christ, makes us right with God, right with God in fact, is what the word righteous means. Not perfect. Not flawless. Not without a penchant for hypocrisy. But forgiven and helped by God as an act of grace by God, given to repentant believers in Christ. Righteous.
I don't want to hurt the faith of others who see my hypocrisy. I don't want to be far from the God Who came into our world and died and rose to give us new life. I don't want to be a hypocrite.
I want to be right with God and, in spite of all my many flaws, I want others to see the goodness of God.
God forgive my sins and hypocrisy. Live in me and help me to rely on You alone. Amen!
How do I, as a Christian, damage the possibility of others knowing the incredible happiness and power that belong to a follower of Jesus Christ? Long after I've repented for my sins and have been forgiven for them, they leave a mark on those who have observed my hypocrisy.
We're all hypocrites, of course. No one measures up to the fine ideals to which they expect others to live...and which, they think, in self-delusion, they fulfill. That's true of everyone, to some extent--cynic or Christian, Buddhist or democrat.
But I view my hypocrisy as a Christian with special...the only word is, dread. I dread how my ill-chosen words, attempts to be clever, or ill-conceived actions, all of which I've decided to do not because they pleased or honored God or helped others, but because I wanted to be liked, or wanted to please myself, or wanted to elevate my self-esteem at the expense of someone else, have hurt or stopped the development of faith in Christ in those who have watched or heard me.
Today's Our Daily Bread devotion is based on Matthew 15:7-20, where Jesus says, in part:
"You hypocrites! [Jesus was addressing the good Bible-believing people of first century Judea]. Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said: 'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship Me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.'"Jesus goes on to say that what defiles is not the things that go into us. (He's speaking spiritually, not physically or medically here.) What defiles us is what comes out of us: our actions and words, all rooted in our thoughts.
It's these things that show our hypocrisy.
God has been pummeling me with thoughts along these lines over the past two days.
Yesterday, I met in Chillicothe with pastoral colleagues. We gather each month to look ahead at the appointed Bible lessons for the succeeding month, each of us making presentations and leading the discussions of the texts. This month, I was assigned the lessons for September 27, including James 5:13-20, from the Bible's New Testament. There, James urges believers to confess their sins to one another, not in a sick display of reality TV-style narcissism, but as an antidote to our own hypcorisy and as a means of having the healing grace of God's forgiveness pronounced over us by others. James says:
...confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.Here, I don't think that James is speaking only of physical healing, but of the healing of our spirits, the beating back of our sin, the life-giving forgiveness of God.
After all, it's our sin--our hypocrisy, our misuse of others and of the world and of our bodies and minds--that blocks life, true life, from us. It's God's forgiveness, which unleashes God's Spirit in our lives every time we receive it, that gives us life, now and in eternity.
I don't believe that every time we confess our sins in the presence of other Christians, be it during public worship, in conversation with Christian friends, or with a pastor, we need necessarily catalog every sin. Confession in the presence of others is not the same as an appearance on Dr. Phil's show.
But I do value the Confession of Sin and Pronouncement of Absolution that are part of our weekly worship in most Lutheran congregations. There is something humbling and life-giving about all of us standing before the Lord and admitting that we hypocrites, we sinners who pretend--sometimes even to ourselves--that we don't sin, that we really are "in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves."
When we confess our sins to God, even in private prayers uttered in our rooms, in the shower, on the way to work, or while walking down the street, God forgives. James says God brings us healing, which I take to be more than simple forgiveness, but also renewed power to fight our inborn tendency toward hypocrisy.
We need that power because, this side of the grave, we have an overpowering impulse toward sin and self-delusion. We can create all sorts of rationalizations for why, ordinarily, we should love God and love neighbor or why, ordinarily, we should care for own bodies and minds or the world in which we live, but that this time is an exeption. It's easy to fall prey to hypocrisy as a Christian--confessing one thing with our lips and living another way.
But forgiveness granted in the Name of Jesus Christ, makes us right with God, right with God in fact, is what the word righteous means. Not perfect. Not flawless. Not without a penchant for hypocrisy. But forgiven and helped by God as an act of grace by God, given to repentant believers in Christ. Righteous.
I don't want to hurt the faith of others who see my hypocrisy. I don't want to be far from the God Who came into our world and died and rose to give us new life. I don't want to be a hypocrite.
I want to be right with God and, in spite of all my many flaws, I want others to see the goodness of God.
God forgive my sins and hypocrisy. Live in me and help me to rely on You alone. Amen!
Thursday, April 23, 2009
"The devil is content to let us profess Christianity as long as we do not practice it."
See here.
Also:
The Church is a place where all hypocrites can gather and tell God, “We’re tired of pretending to be stronger, or smarter, or holier, or more capable than we are. We thank You for loving the people behind our masks. We need You, God, to help us become our true selves, the people You made us to be.”
Also:
The Church is a place where all hypocrites can gather and tell God, “We’re tired of pretending to be stronger, or smarter, or holier, or more capable than we are. We thank You for loving the people behind our masks. We need You, God, to help us become our true selves, the people You made us to be.”
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