Holy or Hypocrite?
I am happy to return to the Berean pulpit this morning to continue our mixed study of the Church of Jesus Christ. I call it mixed because I have separated out only a few areas of the many we discussed in past sermon series. Our topic today is Church Purity which I hope provokes each of us to examine the righteous and holy character of our lives. I am mostly concerned that the person we are at church is not a mere façade of purity that fades in the sunlight past the front doors or melts in the raindrops as you hustle to your ride. It is not an exaggeration to say Christianity has a poor track record matching perception with reality. More than any other religion, there is a perception of what Christians should be which leaves the beholder baffled why it performs so poorly in action. With the wide variety of flavors which mostly taste bad, there is not much incentive for others to try it.
I find this to be an interesting dilemma. The person without Christ whom we term “the natural man” has a litany of negative characteristics keeping him away from God, even before we begin talking about the poor example we set that further dampens any interest. I will not go through these, though a good lesson on total depravity and total inability would help the misinformed who believe faith in Christ begins with an intellectual choice. Natural hostility combined with our purposeful hypocrisy is the wrong recipe for salvation.
This reminds me of the story I tell about an auto accident (not my fault) with a fellow I thought would surely tell the truth. This was my naiveté as an uninitiated culturally unaware new Californian. My false perception of the likelihood of truth was based on a picture of the Virgin Mary pointedly displayed in the open wallet of the offender. I do not have one of those in case you were wondering, so approaching the police officer, which of us was the most dependable to tell the truth? Long story short, the police officer whom I came to know personally much later was familiar with the ruse. He knew the truth needed much more investigation.
This is what I hope you will understand. Not that you would be so poor at backing up your picture of the Virgin Mary but be aware that people have seen so much falsity their experience tells them to reject Christian claims. In this case, it would not even be helpful for me to say, “I am a pastor,” and think this lent any credibility. Do you read the papers? No offense to used car salesmen and lawyers, but our profession holds as little respect as them when lumped together with sex offenders (take your pick on TBN) and crooks (take your pick on TBN).
This is so sad to face, yet I genuinely believe Berean is a high step above all this. I know some trip trying to climb the steps of holiness, but if we can keep pursuing purity, we shall come to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. Listen carefully. You will hear these words in the scriptures today. We have a perfect combination here. The Lord has called me to tell you this and you pay me to tell you this. It is in your best interest to listen and put it into practice.
Pastor V. Mark Smith