We’re thinking about dealbreakers, those ideas that stop people
from accepting Christianity, that stop people from believing what Christians
believe about God and about Jesus and about life in this world and how we
should live it.
We’re going to start by thinking for a few minutes about a
passage from a letter in the New Testament called 1 Corinthians. It’s a well known passage. It’s about love.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is
not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices
with the truth. It always protects,
always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Let me ask you: is that not one of the most beautiful
reflections on the nature of love that you have ever heard. You may have heard it a hundred times before,
but does it not still catch your breath and leave you shaking your head in
wonder. It is a truly sublime passage.
What an attractive way of life is described here. What a peaceful and kind and generous way of
life is described here. How truly
incredible it would be to meet people who lived like this, who followed this
way of love. Which of, if you found a
friend who treated you like this would not keep them for life?
And of course it doesn’t take Einstein to work out that this is
meant to be the Christian way of life. This
passage is from the New Testament after all.
Sure, when the apostle Paul first wrote these words, he was thinking
about a very specific situation in Corinth, which as a rebuke about the way
that the Christians there were meant to be serving each other in the
church. But given how much the New
Testament says about love as the fundamental quality of the Christian life, the
fundamental characteristic of the Christian life, it’s not unreasonable to take
this passage and apply it more generally.
And so here it is: this sublime description of the nature and
characteristics of love, this astonishingly attractive way of life. This is the standard that the Bible holds up for
how Christians ought to live.
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| Source: www.noethics.net |
But of course, by this point you may be sitting there thinking
to yourself, ‘C’mon Wal. Turn it
up. It’d be nice if it were all true,
but it’s not. Don’t get me wrong: the
passage from 1 Corinthians is beautiful.
I’ve got no problem with that. In
fact I don’t even really have a problem with Jesus. From everything I’ve heard he seems like a
good guy. No my problem is with
Christians, because generally in my experience, Christians are self-righteous
hypocrites.
They’re self-righteous, because they just think they’re better
than everyone else, and they look down their noses at other people. In their opinion, they are morally superior. And anyone who lives differently is a
degenerate sinner. They stand proudly on
the moral high ground, and and then they try and enforce their moral standards
on everyone else.’
And you see this time and time again in the media, don’t
you? This is actually the public brand that
lots of people think of when they think of Christianity. For example if you’ve been listening to the
news recently, there is a Christian lobby group that’s popped up in a bunch of
different ways: first of all they’ve been arguing for legislation that makes it
mandatory for ISP’s to block adult pornography and illegal content; then they
were making noise when the Labor Party was debating its position on legislation
for same-sex marriages; when a report came out earlier this year about child
abuse within Catholic schools in Ireland, some people called for a Royal
Commission in Australia - the Australian Christian Lobby said that would be an
over-reaction; at the start of the year when The Australian Sex Party tried to
enter the Queensland elections, they called on all the major parties to put them
lowest on their preferences.
Now I’m not trying to debate the rights and wrongs of any of
these things. But for lots of people, just
about every time an issue pops up, out come the self-righteous Christians, standing
on the moral high ground, looking down on everyone else, and trying to enforce
their morality across the board.
And yet at the same time, Christians can be so hypocritical as
well. They can say one thing in public and
do something completely different in private.
They can preach one thing from the pulpit or street corner, and yet practice
something completely different in the privacy of their own home. They can go to church on Sundays and be all
Christian, and then they can turn up to work on Mondays and you’d never ever
know.
And sometimes, it’s Christian leaders who fall most
spectacularly. I worked out on Thursday there’s
even a Wikipedia article devoted to the topic of scandals involving Christian
evangelists. And there was a story of
one such preacher, who was president of the National Association of
Evangelicals. He was so far up the chain,
he even had access to the President, George Bush. Until one day it was revealed that Haggard had
been regularly visiting a male prostitute, who was also providing him with
methamphetamine. He later admitted to
another homosexual relationship, this time with a church member.
But of course as shocking as that is, it’s all quite distant
and safe, isn’t it? And the problem is
for some people, this topic is up close and very personal. There are some people tonight who have suffered
greatly at the hands of people who said they were Christians, and yet who acted
completely un-Christianly; people who have been one thing on the outside and
something completely different on the inside.
Some of you have shared those stories with me. Others of you: if we sat down over a cup of
coffee this week, you could tell me straight off the bat, all the names, all
the dates, all the places, where you’ve been hurt by hypocritical Christians.
And so sure the passage from 1 Corinthians is great. In fact if there was a religion that helped
people like that, you’d probably be pretty open to it. But please don’t go saying that Christianity
is the one, because experience tells you Christians don’t live like that. Experience tells me that Christians are
self-righteous hypocrites.
How should we respond to all these ideas? What does a Christian person like me say to
this objection that Christians are self-righteous hypocrites?
Well the first thing to say is that sadly there is a lot of
truth to it. I’d love to be able to
stand here and say that wasn’t the case.
But it is. Christians can be
incredibly self-righteous. They can
stand on their own moral high ground and look down their noses at everybody
else. They can try to impose their own
moral standards on others.
And boy can we be hypocritical.
Sometimes the gap between what we preach and how we actually live … well
you could drive a truck through it.
And simply in the interests of complete honesty, if you have
joined us for this dealbreakers series, let me tell you now that the longer you
stay with us, the greater the chances are that you’ll see these things here. The greater the chances are that you’ll see
us being self-righteous, and hypocritical.
These are two of the biggest sins that Christians are in constant danger
of falling into.
And if you’ve come along tonight because you knew this was the
topic we were looking at, and because you’ve suffered in the past at the hands
of self-righteous and hypocritical Christians, let me say on behalf of all the
Christians here, I am sorry for how we have hurt you. And I am sorry that we have damaged your view
of Jesus. I wish with all my heart that
you had never had these experiences.
You say to me that Christians are self-righteous hypocrites. And the first thing I need to say is yes,
sadly, that is often the case.
And even Jesus agrees with you.
And it’s here I want us to think about two more passages. The first one is from Luke 18:9-14. It’s a story Jesus told about two men who
went up to the temple to pray. One was a
Pharisee, the other was a tax collector.
And just to get our bearings straight, the Pharisees were the religious
big dogs of the day. They were
scrupulously concerned with religious observance. The tax collectors on the other hand, they were
at the other end of the spectrum: the were national traitors, working in league
with the Romans. They were generally
considered as dishonest, unethical and greedy.
And in Jesus’ story, these two men are up at the temple praying,
the Pharisee prays first. He stands up
proudly. He starts speaking in a loud voice. He says,
‘God I thank you that I’m not like other men: robbers,
evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I
get.’
By contrast the tax collector stands at a distance. He will not look up to heaven. He beats his chest in anguish and he cries
out,
‘God have mercy on me a sinner.’
And so two men up at the temple to pray. Two very different prayers. And you know what? To the crowd who were listening to Jesus, by
this point in the story, they would have been standing there nodding their
heads in agreement. Because both of
these descriptions are exactly right - the description of the Pharisee, and the
description of the tax collector. The
Pharisee was as unlike other men in religious observance as the tax collector
was in need of God’s mercy. These two
descriptions are bang on the money.
But just then as everyone is nodding their heads in agreement, Jesus
pulls the rug out from under them. And he
says that it was the tax collector not the Pharisee who went home justified
before God, which is a way of talking about being in a right relationship with
God, being accepted by God. It was the
tax collector who was accepted by God, not the Pharisee.
And the key to understanding this whole story is to understand
why Jesus said it. And the reason is
given to us in v9:
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and
looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable …
In other words Jesus tells this story, to combat and correct
those who are self-righteous. He tells
this story to combat and correct those who are proudly confident of their own
moral standing, and who look down their noses on everybody else.
Jesus knows that Christians can be self-righteous, and he hates
it, which is why he taught against it.
He also hates hypocrisy, and he taught against that, too, in a
place like Matthew 23. Let me give you
the highlights package:
v13 - Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you
hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let
those enter who are trying to.v15 - Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you
hypocrites! You travel over land and sea
to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a
son of hell as you are.v23 - Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you
hypocrites! You give a tenth of your
spices … But you have neglected the more important matters of the law …v25 - Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you
hypocrites!v27 - Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you
hypocrites!v29 - Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you
hypocrites!
Do you get the picture? Jesus
is talking to the most religious people of his day, the expert teachers of the
Jewish law, and the Pharisees, who were scrupulous about religious observance. And he is slam-dunking them for their hypocrisy,
for being one thing on the outside and something completely different on the
inside; for preaching one thing and practicing another.
Jesus knows that Christians can be hypocritical and he hates it,
which is why he taught against it.
And so the second thing I want to say tonight is that if you
think Christians are self-righteous hypocrites, I want to say, yes, they can be. And Jesus agrees with you. You and Jesus are actually in agreement on
this one. He hates it as well.
In fact he hates it more than you ever will. Because it’s all done in his name.
So what, then, is the solution?
Well the solution is to let Jesus teach us what true Christianity is all
about; to let Jesus teach us what authentic Christianity is all about. You see sometimes behind the claim that
Christians are self-righteous hypocrites lies a completely inaccurate and distorted
view of what Christianity actually is. For
lots of people today, Christianity is a story about us and God whereby the way
that we come into God’s presence, and the way that we become God’s friends, is
by being a good person, by cleaning up our own life and getting our moral house
in good order, so that God will accept us and let us into his presence.
And on this view what God requires of us is to have lived a
good life, so that at the end of our days when we front up before God, he’ll
put our lives up on the scales - all the good stuff we’ve done on one side, all
the bad stuff we’ve done on another side - and as long the good stuff outweighs
the bad, then we’re in and God will accept us.
Something like that is a very common view of what Christianity is all
about.
According to Jesus, however, that is upside down, inside out,
back to front. Whichever way you want to
describe it, it’s all wrong. Because you
know what? If that’s what Christianity is
about, then the Pharisee in Jesus’ story would have been home and hosed. If that’s what Christianity is all about, God
would have accepted him in a heartbeat.
You see he stood up and thanked God that he was not like other
men: robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like the tax collector. He fasted twice a week and gave a tenth of
all he had. And you know what? He was telling the truth when he said these
things. This was no exaggeration. He wasn’t like other men. He wasn’t a robber or an evildoer, or an
adulterer or a tax collector. He was a
Pharisee. He fasted twice a week and
gave a tenth of all that he had. He was not
lying when he said these things. He was telling
the truth.
But OK, then, what was the problem? Do you remember the end of the story? Jesus said it wasn’t him who went home
justified before God, but the tax collector.
So how did the Pharisee go wrong?
What was the problem?
Well the problem was he thought all these things would merit his
salvation. He thought all these things
would merit God’s acceptance of him. The
problem was he was confident in himself, which is exactly the kind of people
Jesus told this story to in the first place, back in v9.
But a central message of the Bible is that there is not a single
one of us who should be like that. There’s
not a single one of us who should be confident before God because of our own
goodness. You see God is holy, morally
perfect in every way. We are full of
selfishness and sin, so that even our very best moral efforts are too weak and
too falsely motivated to ever merit
God’s acceptance of us.
Let me try and show you what I mean by speaking personally for
a minute. Sometimes when I am speaking
to people about Christianity, they will say to me that I am a good person and
surely God will accept me. And in some
ways, to a certain extent, I get what they mean … a little bit. On some measures, maybe, I am as good a
candidate for the Pharisee as we could find on a typical Sydney street. I’ve been a Christian since the late
‘80’s. I’ve been in full time Christian
ministry for almost a decade. I have never
been drunk in my life. I have never done
any illegal drugs. I’ve only had sex in
marriage with my wife. I don’t swear. I take a day off a week . I give money to the poor.
If you want to find a good moral person in this room tonight, I
could be the guy, right? Does that give
me any credit or standing before God? Does
that mean that God should accept me?
Well before you answer those questions, let me tell you some
more stuff about me. Let me tell you
about my bursts of anger. Let me tell
you about when I get jealous. Let me
tell you about my lustful thoughts. Let
me tell you about my greed. Let me tell
you about my pride. Let me tell you how
I have gossiped and slandered, and cursed people who have been made in God’s
image.
And maybe you’re sitting there thinking to yourself, ‘C’mon
Wal, don’t be so hard on yourself.
You’re only human. Nobody’s
perfect.’
No, they’re not. And
that’s the point. Nobody is perfect. Every single one of us has sinned and fallen
short of the glory of God. That is the
Bible’s verdict on both you and I. And I
tell you what: the longer I’ve been a Christian the more that I see it is true,
about me at the very least. As each year
goes by, I only become more and more aware of my own sin. The Bible says that none of us, myself
included, have any reason to be confident before God because of our own
goodness.
Which is why Jesus says it was the tax collector who went home
from the temple accepted by God. Because
what the tax collector did was recognize his sin, and cry out to God for mercy
and grace.
And so according to Jesus, true Christianity is this: simply to
depend on the mercy and grace of God and nothing else. According to Jesus, this is the only way we will
be accepted by God: because of his mercy and grace. Our moral efforts are always too feeble, and
too falsely motivated to ever merit salvation.
Jesus alone does that, by his perfect life, his death and resurrection. And God gives it to us as a gift of mercy and
grace.
True Christianity is the complete opposite of the idea that
often sits behind the objection that Christians are self-righteous hypocrites. It is not about us improving ourselves and
getting our moral house in order so that God will accept us. It’s about us recognizing our brokenness
because of sin, and falling on God’s mercy and grace.
Now three quick implications.
First: if you are a Christian person, put self-righteousness to death. I know I’ve said this before, but I think
sometimes the way we work goes like this: we talk out loud about God’s mercy
and grace, but then we secretly say to ourselves that we were natural
candidates for God’s mercy and grace.
But that is just self-righteousness and we must put it to death. The truth is we were an unnatural candidates
for God’s mercy and grace. That’s why
it’s called mercy and grace. We must not
stand on the moral high ground, looking down on everybody else, because Jesus teaches
that we have no moral high ground to stand on.
There is just God’s mercy and grace.
We must put self-righteousness to death
Second: we must let God’s grace transform us. If we have come to God crying out for mercy
and grace, just like the tax collector did, and if we’ve heard God’s promise of
acceptance and forgiveness, just like Jesus declared it for the tax collector, then
we must let God’s grace transform us. We
must let God’s grace change us, and work on us to produce something new.
You see sometimes when Christian people continue to wallow in
sin, it’s because we’ve actually got our own misunderstanding of true
Christianity, our own misunderstanding of God’s grace. We take something which for God was very
costly - the death of his one and only Son, Jesus Christ - and we make it into
something cheap, ike something that you can find in the bottom of a Cornflakes
box. And we say to ourselves, ‘Well God’s
in the business of forgiving. It’ll be
OK.’
But what we must remember is that the whole way through the
Bible, both Old Testament and New, God reserves his strongest condemnations for
those who take his grace and turn it into a license for sin. God’s mercy and grace is never a license for
sin. And so if we have experienced the
mercy and grace of God, we must let ourselves be changed by that mercy and
grace.
Finally, what about Jesus and that attractive way of love that
we started with from 1 Corinthians 13? To
dismiss Christianity on the grounds that Christians are self-righteous
hypocrites doesn’t stack up, it doesn’t stack up because it ignores what true
Christianity claims about our nature and how we are saved, which is that we’ve
all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and that we’re saved only by
God’s mercy and grace.
If you want to evaluate Christianity, then, don’t look at
Christians. Look at Jesus. For while he himself was perfect, he looked
down on nobody. And while he preached
against hypocrisy, was himself completely authentic. In fact, you go back to that passage on love
from 1 Corinthians and it’s not hard to see that whilst it is there as the standard
to which we should conform ourselves if we have been changed by the mercy and
grace of God, it’s also the standard that Jesus lived by perfectly.
