On Monday night we took the evening to look at all the reasons, in Paul’s letter to the Romans, why (as he says in chapter 1 verse 16) there’s absolutely no reason to be ashamed of the message of Jesus. Here are the notes:

Paul says, He’s not ashamed. (Romans 1:16)

There’s never been a time, since Jesus, when Christians didn’t face pressure to be ashamed of their message. In the scriptures we find out that this is because there are spiritual forces that are opposed to the spreading of the message, and human forces that worth along with those spiritual forces. And so it’s just a logical plan—make people who think they want to spread this message embarrassed, or even downright ashamed of it—because really the only way to stop a message is to keep people from sharing it, and nothing makes people keep quiet like heaping shame on them.

So just think about how that applies to us today as followers of Christ. Today, Christians constantly told that our message is narrow. It excludes people. We’re told it’s (of all things!) unloving. We’re told it’s harmful—nothing messes up a person like telling them they’re a sinner! We’re told it’s offensive. And we’re told that people like us are ruining everything. Everything! And all that pressure has one huge effect—it can make us want to keep things to ourselves.

And every Christian knows what this pressure feels like.

So, Why was Paul not ashamed? Because the Gospel was “Power.” No one is ashamed of power.

Of course, the Gospel didn’t come in a powerful looking way—it came in the life of Jesus—who avoided any political or military power, and instead chose to be ordinary and to let himself look weak in front of the powerful people of his time. And then he died a common criminal’s death, in a way that was just not socially respectable. So there’s always been this tension for Christians, just like there was for the first followers of Jesus—that there are things about the packaging of the message of Jesus which make it look weak or unattractive. But if you embrace Jesus, if you hear and obey his message, you find out that he’s the most powerful man in the world, and that his message has the power to save.

And there’s more. One of the things you find as you read this letter is that Paul takes his time an unpacks verses 16 and 17 at length. So let’s move through Romans to see all the amazing things Paul says are part of the message of Jesus. These are things that, once you see them—I think you see that they’re obviously good news.

What was the “good news: Paul was not ashamed of?

1. Clear eyes and real talk about what’s really going on in the world. (1:18-32.)   Part of the good news is an honest, fearless assessment of where we’re really at here on planet earth. When we let God make us look things in the face, it’s not pretty, but we can afford to do it, because the good news Jesus brings lets us do it without despair. But we can’t receive all the good he’s bringing until we get real honest about how bad things really are—with ourselves first, of course, and then with the mess humans have made of the world in general.

2. The settling of the real problem with the world—the breakdown in relationship between the human race and God because of our evil. (Chapters 3-5) See 3:23-24. Real righteousness given to us by faith because Jesus earned it for all of us. See also 5:1. We now have peace with God. This is the best possible news. Even though we humans lost the best possible relationship, and the one reality that actually makes human life on earth worth living—friendship with God; the nearness of his presence that gives everything meaning; open communication with him; his wisdom and fatherly care—even though our love of evil ruined that reality for us, because God is so big-hearted, he makes a way for us to get it all back—as a free gift, because Jesus earned it back for us all.

The loss of that relationship was, and is, the problem with the world, because of what it does to men and women when we don’t have God’s friendship. But God made a way—you could say Jesus pioneered a way—for us to get it all back. There can be peace now, with us and God. Jesus makes it all good.

3. Repossession of the world we lost the rights to because of our evil. (4:13)

4. Redemption of all suffering. (5:3-4) To anyone ignorant of the message of Jesus, suffering can only seem meaningless, unexplainable and tragic. But even suffering has been affected by God’s redemption—and the message of Jesus says that now, as we follow him, suffering becomes meaningful, and it becomes productive, and we have a promise that it will finally end forever. (See also 8:21)

5. Freedom from our “personal demons.” No more dehumanizing, enslaving sin ruling over us. (6:11-12, 14, 8:1)

6. We become people of “righteousness.” (5:17-19, 6:13).   Righteousness is… When justice is done and everyone is taken care of. It’s when God, who is the source of all righteousness, is known and worshipped by everyone, so everywhere you go is full of his life-giving, personal presence, so no one oppresses anyone, everyone has everything they need, children are raised to flourish and everyone is nurtured to health and strength and no one ever conquers or oppresses or invades or steals and everyone is safe and everywhere is safe. When Jesus reigns this will happen globally. It will be a world of righteousness. We don’t expect it on any large scale until then. …But, we do expect it in people’s personal lives, in families, and even in communities of people who give their lives to following Jesus. We experience it in our own personal lives.

So the good news we preach includes the message that, even though nothing and no one is perfect in this present time, men and women can still by the power of God, become people who don’t ruin things, we fix things—we become wise and skillful about how to promote healing and safety and life and strength in our families and communities. Doesn’t the world need more people like that? Isn’t it good news if a message brings the power to create those people?

7. Eternal life. (6:22-23) Death becomes a passage way, not an end. No human wants to stop existing, or to be separated from the earth and bodily existence. It’s not in us to be ok with either of those things. And the message of Jesus says—good news, you can have eternal, bodily, earthly existence with the family of God forever.

8. Restoration of fellowship with the Holy Spirit. (8:9, 14-16) To know God…to really know him and be in relation to him…this is the essence of what it means for a human being to be alive. We talked about it last week—we aren’t meant to experience life any other way

9. The world will be totally fixed! (8:18-22)

10.Nothing can separate us from God’s love. (8:39)   What better news could there be then to proclaim to the world that there is a love which can surround you which nothing, literally, in the universe, could ever take from you. And that this love is the love of the one who madness you and rules everything? And yet, even though the bible teaches us that a fixed world full of inescapable love is part of our message to the world, Christians still hold and preach a totally realistic view of life. God teaches us that for now, we should be people who expect sickness, and suffering, and even personal animosity from people who don’t agree with us. (See also 8:18, 35). What other view of life even comes close to this combination of stark, clear-headed realism and absolutely unshakeable optimism?

11. Redemption for all of God’s history. (chapters 9-11). The way God handles his people Israel shows us what kind of God he is—he doesn’t throw broken things away. He patiently waits and works and invites everyone back into his family. He loves to use messed up people to carry out his plans to fix things. Only evil and those who refuse to let go of it will be purged out of the world in the end, but all who release their sin and acknowledge God will be fully redeemed.

12. Purpose for our lives—all the way down to the details of our daily existence. (chapters 12-16)

Honestly—aren’t these things the kind of things that basically everyone wants—or at least, that they think they want? So what’s the big issue? Why is there always all this energy against the message of Christ? The bible gives us two answers.

First, there is the active Spiritual resistance to God and his good plan for humanity. In another letter, Paul writes: “if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:3-5) Satan himself hates God, and therefore hates humans and wants to mess with the fact humans are included in God’s plan. So he “hides” all the glory in the message, especially the glory of Jesus himself.

Second, in John chapter 3 it tells us that “this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.”

So as followers of Jesus, we know this. There’s real opposition. But the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write these things down to encourage us anyway—why should the opposition of Satan or people’s love of darkness make us ashamed? The message isn’t dumb. It’s veiled in the weakness of our Lord—who came looking pretty humble. It makes us look honestly at our own sin and love of evil. But just step inside it and look around for a minute. It’s huge and awesome, and there’s nothing else on offer that’s even remotely like it.

If you don’t have something like this… if this message isn’t your lifeblood and your connection to God—We want to invite you to see the world this way. We just listed more than ten things the message of Jesus tells us. And they’re all awesome.

So brothers and sisters in Christ—let’s follow Paul’s example. The Holy Spirit will give us power to see our message as the great news it is. He’ll help us see the world clearly, and hear the falseness in the world’s messages, and then to trust, and live out, and talk about the message of Jesus everywhere he wants it spread.

Last night we looked at Psalm 103 and some of Matthew chapter 13 to see if we could get some insight into how we can understand our world better by understanding the way God is doing his work in the world. Enjoy…

First, we read Psalm 103. Notice 103:3, where David writes that God “heals all our diseases.”

Now, how do we read this in terms of our actual experience? We could say…

1. There are times when God does heal our diseases.
2. Whenever we recover from an injury, or don’t die of a sickness, it’s God who is healing us. In fact every day we stay alive it’s God who has kept us from death. In other words, “Who keeps things from killing me? God.”

But the verse seems to read more like, right now he heals all our diseases. And how about verse 6? That one sounds like God is currently, right now giving oppressed people justice. Or how about verse 19? It sounds like Jesus’ kingdom is right now ruling over the world.

But I think we can all relate to the feeling of reading verses like these and thinking,“but it kind of doesn’t happen really like that right now.” There are still people being oppressed, right? There are still evil people running things in places, instead of Jesus, right? There are still sick people who aren’t getting healed, right?

So does a passage like Psalm 103 mean that the bible has a naïve view of life? Or that it talks nonsense religious language that doesn’t work in the real world? Like, God turns a blind eye to the reality of suffering in the world?

When you reach an impasse like this, i encourage you to stop, pray, and commit to really searching the scriptures for some answers. Commit to digging for truth. God will reward you. For instance, I think we get some real answers to these things in Matthew 13:24-43. Read that passage, and notice:

• Jesus liked to use farming imagery when he was explaining his work. He especially liked to use the image of planting seeds to talk about what he was doing.
• (v. 37) There he is—he’s planting seed. V.19 tells us that a primary way he does it is by his teaching. But this is really significant—Jesus said we should view him as a farmer, and we should view his work as the work of someone who plants seeds, which will ripen later.
• In v.31 we see that Jesus taught that the kingdom of God itself should be considered a planted seed. It starts out small. But it begins to grow till it’s a huge tree that provides shelter.
• The leaven imagery (yeast) in v. 33 is the same idea—a slow, invisible working that eventually fills everything.
• Mark 4:26-29 says a similar thing.
• Also see John 12:24 – “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.” Jesus considers himself the ultimate, or first, seed. He will plant himself and his kingdom will grow.

A Thought Experiment:

Jesus himself told us to think in terms of a planting season when we thought about God’s plan. So let’s do that in a little thought experiment. In our thought experiment, Jesus plants his seeds. Now imagine a 3-month growing period, End of May to end of August. So say that Jesus’ life and death and resurrection, which happened in 33 AD, are at the end of May, and imagine that the harvest is at the end of August. In a 3 month period there would 2160 hours.

Now, let’s say each hour represents a year. So call average human life span is 70 hours. Now, imagine that you lived any 70 of the hours in between the end of May and the end of August. What would you be experiencing? During your life, the seeds Jesus planted are growing. At any given time you’d see plants in different stages of growth. There’d be the wheat plants, the growing kingdom of God. There would also be the seeds the enemy sowed. And those plants are the things in life that make us wish for the kingdom of God to really come all the way. They’re all the sickness and injustice and oppression—exactly the things we read about in Psalm 103. They’re the things that people point at when they want to say God must not be really running things. In the parable Jesus says you can also view these seeds as the people who actually do all these things—which makes sense, right? Because the things we hate about the world, a lot of time, are actually just actions of other men and women which create pain in the world. So we can’t depersonalize it too much, based on the teachings of Jesus, and the history of the world, and our own history experience with life. Jesus knows it’s not just that though, which is why I think in 13:41 he says that the angels won’t only remove “those who practice lawlessness” but also “all things that offend”—that is, anything that doesn’t belong in an eternal, holy, righteous kingdom—any evil, sickness, death, pain or filthiness.

But when does this “harvest” actually happen? It happens, at harvest time. And Jesus says it—“the Harvest is the end of the age.” (13:39) And this parable is so profound—the workers on the farm (who seem to be a picture of angels) want to get those wrong plants out of the field. The farmer has more wisdom though—he knows that there’s something about this field, and these crops that he wants to grow that means you can’t just go around uprooting and burning things, until you’ve secured the full growth and safety of the wheat itself. And it’s the wheat harvest that he’s after. He manages the field the way he does precisely for the existence and the safety of the wheat. Jesus doesn’t just want a field with no weeds. He wants a barn full of wheat.

So back up for a second. Imagine a follower of Christ living in the year 1574. He’s reading Psalm 103. He’s wondering when God’s going to fulfill the promises of healing and justice and a worldwide kingdom. But what does he see around him? Sure he can see the work of God in some ways. But he also sees so much evil. Everywhere! So you know he thinks, what’s God doing? But let’s map him on to our calendar. When is he living? According to our year-hour deal, he’s actually living right around the beginning of August. He’s got four more weeks till harvest. That’s more than 600 hours. His 70-hour life won’t get him there.

But let’s ask the question for him…is God working? Does God do what Psalm 103 says he does? Sure. He’s already begun to do it. He planted a seed, and many seeds, and they’re growing. They’re just not fully ripe yet. But they’re ripening.

So even if you live near the end of August, say…2000 hours after Jesus planted the seeds of the kingdom—It’s easy to feel like Psalm 103 is nonsense. What’s God doing? Sickness still kills us. No injustice has been righted! But all we have to do is hear the teaching of Jesus. Back in May, God planted seed. Christ came and died and was resurrected. His teaching is spreading through the world. The wheat’s getting ripe. The seeds from the enemy are ripening too. We see We see the growth and fruit of Satan’s opposition to God’s kingdom all around us.

And this is the key insight we get from the scriptures in this area. When we get frustrated, when it feels like God’s taking too long, or like he’s not doing what he promised to do—what do we think? One thing we learn to think is that, well, when Jesus comes He’ll fix everything. And that’s partly true. It’s the harvest we’re waiting for. But I think we see here that there’s an even more satisfying answer we can hold on to. It’s understanding how God works. God works by planting seed. He works by growing wheat. He tends his plants. He respects the integrity of the world he made. He wants us to actually flourish and grow. He wants us to be seed planters too. And He won’t come with a sickle and fire until every last grain of wheat is safe in his barn. Because when he comes like that—it’s going to destroy everything. The work of the enemy is too imbedded in every part of the world. It’s too entwined. And you can’t uproot it unless you’re ready to tear the whole field up and start over.

But once the wheat is ripe—once the work of the kingdom of God is fully accomplished and all those who are going to have trusted in Christ and done his work—then the end comes.

What should we take away from this?

When we get tempted to get discouraged or lose faith—all we have to do is seek God, and especially seek God by searching the scriptures. If we’re faithful to pursue answers that way, God will meet us. There are real answers in the bible. Honeslty, though, they’re not all lying right on the surface. For some answers you have to dig. And for some you have to dig deep. You have to commit yourself to finding God’s wisdom. I recommend reading Proverbs 2 and Job 28 to help you think about that.

So I think we see that the answer to the particular problem of getting discouraged by evil in the world is to really understand the way God is going to fulfill every promise and answer every cry for help. He really has already answered. His answer is taking its proper time to ripen. And all his teaching invites his followers to be part of the process—think about how he talked.

We’re not going to see full answers to our prayers until the harvest—until Christ returns to set up his kingdom. So for now we live in confidence that God’s plan is working itself out, and we live hoping in that moment when he comes to finish the work.

And what about if you’re not currently a follower of Jesus?

I think there’s something important for you in all of this. Here’s the truth: “Wheat” and “Tare” are not fixed categories. We all wake up into adult consciousness already in the “tare” category. And Jesus invites us to become wheat. The seed of his word is that powerful. It transforms a tare into wheat. You weren’t born one of God’s children, but you can become one. The bible says you can be born all over again. Trust Jesus, become his follower, acknowledge him as king of the world, and you will experience a new life that transforms you down to your deepest identity.

Last night we took the evening to look at an issue that many of us struggle with at some point in our lives–hypocrisy in the church. Here are the notes from the study:

Hypocrisy: What it is.

Hypocrisy: Definition – to act or pretend in public like you have a devotion to God and live a holy life, but you use this public face to cover up a life that actually loves and practices sin, hurts people, and follows selfish impulses. “An attempt to cover up sin by putting oneself in a favorable light, at the expense of truth. To act or pretend. To maintain a deliberate pretense. ” (from the NIDNTT)

What do we usually mean by it? We use the term around religious circles, specifically in the church, to label someone or some group of people who deliberately, or habitually, act like they care more about God and others in public than they really do in private, or who act like they care about living righteously in public, but actually sin like everyone else in private or when they’re not at church.

In church, we often use the term about people who:

• …stand up and raise their hands when they sing, but they are sleeping with their girlfriend, or they’re hateful and critical outside of church
• …act positive and spiritual in church or in front of a pastor, but nowhere else.
• …The pastor who tells people not to sin, but does the things he tells people not to do.
• Non-Christians: People who act like they’re specially connected to God, but then they’re actually just like everyone else. People who criticize people for their sins, but they have their own problems.

What Jesus said to his enemies: He hated hypocrisy. Especially in religious leaders.

Jesus hated hypocrisy because it misrepresented God, and made it harder for others to get to God. See Matthew 23:3-7, 13-24, 25-31.

***Important— Jesus’ issue with hypocrisy is not that it misrepesents God by making it seem like God wants people to get rid of sin. That’s not a misrepresentation of God. God does want people to get rid of sin. So if we point out that people have sin in their lives, and that God doesn’t like it, and that they can and should get rid of that sin, that is not hypocrisy in any way that Jesus would have defined it.

What Jesus said to his followers: Deal with yourself first, then help others.

See Matthew 6:2, 5, 16.  Hypocrites do things just to be seen and praised by people. They’re all about exposure.

Read Matthew 7:1-5.  The point Jesus is making: “Stop judging each other for small things when you’ve got big things in your own life to deal with. In other words, stop judging hypocritically.”

What “judging” does not mean in Matthew 7: It’s not simply recognizing sin in someone’s life and pointing it out.

What “judging” does mean in Matthew 7: It means harshly condemning someone, like you’re passing a verdict down from the judge’s bench and giving them the death penalty. And all the while, you yourself have big issues.

What hypocrisy isn’t in Matthew 7: It’s not recognizing sin in someone else’s life. It’s not wanting to help others get rid of their sin. It’s not talking to other people about their sin. It’s not trying to help people get rid of sin even though you’re not “perfect.” Perfection is not the requirement Jesus lays down for helping others with their sin.

What hypocrisy is in Matthew 7: Focusing on other people’s sins, even just their smaller sins, criticizing them for their sin, or thinking you can help them with their issues while you have the same sin, or other huge obvious issues, which you are refusing to deal with. Jesus is against this. Maybe he saw his followers doing it, and so he told them—“stop it.”

So Jesus was not against his followers understanding what sin was, seeing it in each other’s lives, and caring enough to help people get rid of sin. He assumed they’d be doing that. That’s why he sent them out to tell people to repent of their sins. (Mark 6:12)

What one bible scholar said about the words “Judge not.” — “These are probably the most frequently quoted verses from the New Testament in 21^st– Century America. They are also among the most misunderstood. The verse are typically used to argue that no one is qualified to comment on whether another person’s actions are right or wrong, even if the person’s behavior is clearly condemned in scripture.” (Charles Quarles, SOTM, 283)

4. How to handle Hypocrisy: in church leaders

Read 1 Timothy 5:19-22.
It is not that Church leaders are held to a higher standard, it is that they are to be clear, consistent examples of what all Christian men and women are called to. So, since church leaders may be special targets of attack or criticism, we don’t set aside the normal rules of accountability. We protect the leadership and look for corroboration. And when we find that sin has taken place, we publicly rebuke them (in the church) and take appropriate action.  Hypocrisy in church leaders, especially in the form of disqualifying sin being covered up, is totally not to be tolerated. If a church tolerates it, they’re in violation of the teaching of scripture. I mean, of course it does happen. But does God want it to happen? No.

Now in a case where a church leader is living a lie, and no one knows, then they’re living in secret hypocrisy, and they will answer to the Jesus. They’re going to see him one day and they will give account for their lives.

If a church leader is in sin and people do know about it, then their fellow leaders and members of the church have a responsibility to confront them, and they must be publicly rebuked, so everyone knows that hypocrisy is a serious thing, and so people can know that there is no hypocrisy in the church leadership.

So…the Bible is against hypocrisy in church leadership. It should always be exposed and dealt with—because Jesus is against the tendency we all have to teach something thing but not live it out. [Paul did this in Galatians 2:11-13.]

5. How to handle hypocrisy: In fellow Christians, that is, in the Church.  How to handle sin in general with fellow Christians.

In Matthew 7:1-5 we’ve already seen Jesus teaching. He says that we need to avoid hypocrisy in our own lives, deal with our huge sin issues, and make ourselves the kind of people who can help others even with their smaller issues. See also 1 Peter 2:1, James 3:17.

The Bible is clear—the Christian community is supposed to be marked by a lack of hypocrisy. We’re supposed to be people who are the same in private and in public. If you cut me down the middle, should be the same all the way through. When I’m not—I’m failing. Lets repent whenever and wherever that’s true.

So what about when we do actually know about hypocrisy in the lives of people in the church? Here we can just turn to the Bible’s teaching on how Christians should react when they know a fellow believer has sin in their life and they’re not dealing with it. First, we see that we should confront each other (see Romans 15:14 2 Thessalonians 3:14-15, Psalm 141:5, Matthew 18:15, James 5:19-20, Galatians 6:1). A mature Christian community is going to have this as part of its life—that the members know how to give and take warning and criticism—and that they help each other by confronting each other when sin gets into someone’s life. Also, we see that we should love each other (see Romans 12:9, 2 Corinthians 6:4-6, 1 Peter 1:22).

So one of God’s main concerns for us that sort of bubbles up as you read these passages is not just that we wouldn’t be hypocrites, but that we would be actively loving each other, that our lack of hypocrisy would be part of our loving. We’re not just authentic, we’re authentically loving.

Some Thoughts on all this:

1. We don’t have to be OK with hypocrisy in the church. At all.
2. When there’s hypocrisy in leadership, we need to confront it. You need a couple witnesses. You need a clear case of some disqualifying sin, but then you should go address it, probably to the other leadership of the church.
3. When there’s hypocrisy among our brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to love them enough to care enough to go and talk to them about it.
   1. In a spirit of humility
   2. Make sure we don’t have the same sin or even bigger, worse sins
   3. If they won’t hear us, they need to be separated from the community, but still loved and invited back.
   4. If someone comes to you to talk about sin in your life, resist the urge to get defensive, listen, and then pray about it and do what’s necessary.
   5. Don’t demand perfection in the one who comes to you. That’s not God’s standard. And even if they aren’t ideal messengers, hear what they say.
4. All this means that, if when we start to struggle because we perceive hypocrisy in the church, we should do three things: First, we should take it as an opportunity to do any repenting and growing we ourselves need to do. Then we should pray for wisdom, insight, and love for the person involved. Then we should pray for boldness, and go and speak to the brother or sister in a spirit of humility about their sin. If they will not hear us, we should involve the church.

Three final observations.

1. If what I said just now is true, then some of us might actually have a bunch of conversations with different friends that we need to have. If we’re in a situation where it feels like there’s a lot of hypocrisy around us in the church, maybe it’s because the Christians with some clarity and vision aren’t stepping up to confront it in their own social circles. So maybe some of us, or a lot of us, have a lot of work to do. But if the church is to be a place of power and love and purity then the work needs to be done. It’s a matter of obedience to Jesus. If we’re going to be witnesses to the gospel of Christ in a culture that’s increasingly feeling hostile towards our message, we need to really be what we say we are. So some people might have to choose between the sin they love and their membership in the community of believers.
2. On a larger level—the kind of person who can actually do something about hypocrisy in the church, and who can actually confront evil and help grow communities of people who are genuine…is the person who himself or herself is sincere, focused, full of love, has no secret sin, isn’t wasting their life on trifles, and is engaged selflessly with others, so they know how to help people. If we really hate hypocrisy in the church, let’s confront it. But let’s also be cultivating lives of single-minded love and maturity. And let’s be people who breed and cultivate sincerity and active love all around us. Stir that up in people. Insist on utter transparency. Be in public what you are in your heart. Live your life in public and private like time really is as meaningful as the gospel says it is. Handle your friendships with care. Love people with truth.
3. Maybe what we’re saying is, let’s grow up. Children know how to complain. Adults no how to impact situations and affect change. Let’s get to it.

What if you don’t currently follow Jesus?

If you’re reading this, and you’re not a follower of Christ, it’s possible that you’ve had problem with the religious people, maybe even Christians in particular, because of hypocrisy. So here’s what we have to say to you. First, you’re right—Christians shouldn’t be hypocrites. If you’ve been hurt or turned off to Christianity because you knew some who were, we’re sorry. That doesn’t represent Jesus, and it’s inexcusable.

Even so though, the truth is that Jesus himself would ask you, not to examine his followers—but to examine him. Read about his life. Listen to what he said. Look at what he did. He was the most consistent, genuine and sincere man who ever lived. If you turn away from Jesus, it is no excuse to say you rejected him because you didn’t like Christians. God won’t accept that. He’ll say, “But I sent my Son. What was wrong with Him?”

Jesus lived and died for you. Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus offers you forgiveness. Jesus demands your allegiance. Jesus promises you eternal life. Not the church. Not Christians. Christians don’t do any of those things for you. We just point you to Jesus. Now, we want to always get better at pointing people to him. We know that if we’re hypocrites, we aren’t doing a very good job of pointing to the one who was totally authentic. But the issue still is—you have to reckon with Jesus.

Secondly, if you think that your issue is that Christians are hypocrites, just because Christians tell people they should turn away from sin—then you’re just wrong. Telling someone that they’re a sinner doesn’t make you a hypocrite. Not according to the bible. You don’t need to be absolutely perfect to invite someone to escape their sin. Jesus told us to tell the world to repent and believe and obey him. That’s what his followers do. And that’s not hypocrisy. So if that’s your issue—that Christians talk to you about the sin in your life—well then, Jesus just straight up disagrees with you. He’s the one telling the world that they’re sinning with all of their sex outside of heterosexual monogamous marriage, and their corporate greed, and their hatred of people different than them, and their exploiting of people for sex and money, and their stealing and their gossip, and their ruining of the environment for profit, and their religious oppression, and their worshiping of other gods—that it’s all sin, and that it needs to be rejected. Jesus is telling the world that. And when Christians say it, it’s not hypocrisy—it’s truth. It’s life. So hear the message of Jesus, spoken by imperfect people, but not by hypocrites—hear the message of life, and drop your sin, and get forgiven.