Growing up as a church, there's something I have to admit to: I have sometimes had a challenge listening to preaching. Because I have for virtually all of my life been in ministry, whether voluntary or vocational, and heard many pastors preach, my experience has been one of more than a few pastors preaching something that they sadly didn't necessarily practise very well in their own life. And because of that, I've sometimes struggled with the view that more than a few pastors preach with hypocrisy.
That is, until I myself started preaching.
It was only then that I realized that I was incapable of saying one word without having to preach to myself. The critical member of the congregation was now getting a taste of his own bitter medicine.
We all know hypocrisy is a serious problem, but we don't usually think of it as a problem that we personally have. We like to think that the hypocrites are all the other Christians in the church.
Yet in one sense or another, we all are hypocrites. None of us follows God's laws and precepts perfectly, yet many of us tend to preach them openly to others - our friends, our kids, our parents or our officemates. And we love to call out sin or even decisions or behavior or values that don't line up with our own.
Romans 3:23 is a great remedy to that, reminding us that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." That's right, all, you, me, everyone included.
But that doesn't mean that hypocrisy is ok with God. God takes hypocrisy and errancy seriously. Our hypocrisy is what has separated us from God's presence and His blessing. Jesus, at many times, stood against and called out the hypocrisy of a specific group of people - the Pharisees. In all of us is a level of pharisaical thinking that we need to abolish.
That's not a greenlight to remain in the same sin for the rest of our lives, but it opens us up to the reality of two things: One is that we have no right whatsoever to judge others because we have a serious problem of "plank-in-the-eye" disease, and the second is that we need God's grace more than ever.
That's why the Gospel is such an integral part in our faith. It preaches to us our depravity and sick cycle of moral failure, but also shows us the abundant grace and mercy that is found in Christ and how God has fulfilled for us something that we cannot fulfill on our own.
In areas where we remain serious hypocrites, God shows His infinite grace. 2 Corinthians 12:9 tells us, "I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness, so that Christ's power may rest on me." That in no way means that God covers up or makes up for our sin and weakness, but means that even in our serious weakness, He works in our hearts to fulfill His perfect will through our weakness.
The Christian life is indeed a life of hypocrisy. It's not something to be proud of and nothing to remain complacent or comfortable with, but it is a strong reminder of our limited capacity and need for grace, and a wonderful declaration of God's power made perfect in our darkest weakness.
