Church Hypocrites
Years ago, I was at the park with my kids when I overheard the gentleman next to me saying he was on his way to a funeral and waiting for his ride. As we struck up a conversation, it quickly turned toward his situation and the death of a spiritual matriarch in his family. This particular woman, who had passed, was a devoted follower of Jesus and someone who had inspired this gentleman to change his life.
As we talked further, I learned that his biggest struggle was with church people around him who doubted his conversion, while living a hypocritical “Christian” life themselves. They would say one thing and do another, then judge him for the very thing they were doing.
I reminded him that Jesus Himself had a hypocrite among his most trusted disciples. Judas walked with Jesus for three years, saw the miracles, and experienced God’s love, yet he was stealing money and ultimately betrayed the Son of God. However, this didn’t change Jesus’ character, nor did He abandon the Body of Christ. Jesus still loved Judas and even washed his feet along with the other twelve. Jesus knew He was washing the very heel of one who had turned against Him. King David prophesied the ominous moment when he wrote, "Even my own familiar friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel against me" (Psalm 41:9) a thousand years before Judas would betray Christ.
Jesus was perfect, and He still had people on His closest team who did not walk out the faith the way He had taught them to. We will never escape hypocrites, but what does that have to do with us? I am reminded of what one man said to another when he stated, “I don’t go to church because there are too many hypocrites there.” The other man wisely responded, “Well, there is always room for one more.”
“Those who throw mud never have clean hands.”
It is the Lord’s wisdom to let the hypocrites walk among the genuine. I believe it is His mercy to the hypocrite to present every opportunity for repentance by the example of the authentic. And it is the opportunity of the genuine believer to exercise grace, mercy, and patience to those who are still in the process of faith. Jesus was making this point in the parable of the wheat and the tares, that by removing the weeds, a farmer might uproot the fruit of the wheat. In other words, if we remove the hypocrites, we remove the opportunity for the genuine believers to love the enemies who are planted among them, just like Christ did with us.
Let me remind you that Jesus loved us when we were still sinners and in process. And going to church or wherever we are, is always our opportunity to step into the same character of Christ, and love those who are still enemies, sinners, or still in process (See Romans 12). Ultimately, God will judge, and He does the separating of who is authentic and who is an imposter. Only the Lord truly knows the heart of man.
“The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’ (Matthew 13:24-29)
Regardless of what is going on around you, God is with the authentic, and He stands on the side of all that is good and just, yet God is still calling out to those who don’t know Him. God primarily does that through the lives of the authentic. So let the tares grow around you; time will prove where the real fruit resides, and never forget that the purpose of your fruit is to invite people to change their ways and follow the real Christ with a sincere love.
“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.” – Jesus Christ, the Son of God."
By Joseph E.O. Mead