Don’t Judge the Music by the Band: Separating Jesus from Flawed Believers

• Reasons Not to Believe [00:04:52 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor contextualizes the sermon within a series addressing objections to Christianity, specifically focusing on judgmentalism and hypocrisy as primary reasons people cite for not believing.
• Judgmentalism vs. Good Judgment [00:08:15 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor distinguishes between the biblical prohibition of personal condemnation (judgmentalism) and the necessary exercise of discernment and value judgments in daily life, parenting, and leadership.
• Hypocrisy [00:15:44 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor defines hypocrisy as directing false standards at others while failing to meet them oneself, sharing a personal anecdote about a spiritual leader's affair to illustrate the pain it causes.
• Separating Jesus from His Followers [00:14:27 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that the failures of Christians (staggering) do not invalidate the truth of Jesus (the path), using Tolstoy's analogy to defend the integrity of the Christian message against human failure.
• Hypocrisy [00:18:17 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor defines hypocrisy etymologically (Greek actors wearing masks) and biblically, distinguishing it from mere sin or imperfection, and clarifying that Jesus fought against it.
• Spiritual Authenticity [00:22:28 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that the opposite of hypocrisy is authenticity, defined by 1 John 1:9 as admitting one's sinfulness rather than claiming perfection.
• Transformation vs. Perfection [00:25:26 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses the example of 'Mary' (a gossiping Christian) versus 'Betty' (a non-gossiping non-Christian) to illustrate that the Christian life is marked by ongoing transformation, not immediate perfection.
• Judgment of Christianity [00:28:53 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses an analogy of elementary school kids performing a Metallica song to argue that the poor performance of Christians should not lead one to reject the validity of Jesus or the Gospel.
• Reasons for disbelief [00:29:54 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor identifies a specific, likely major, reason people have for not believing and encourages the congregation to wrestle with it.

• Sermon Illustration [00:11:35 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor recounts a story from his time as a student pastor where he judged a woman seeking food assistance as fake because she had expensive wigs, only to later discover she had lost her hair to chemotherapy and the wigs were a gift from a friend.
• Sermon Illustration [00:16:01 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor shares a personal story of being disillusioned when a college ministry president, whom he idolized and who was teaching a seminar on marriage, was revealed to be having an affair with another woman.
• Sermon Illustration [00:18:17 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses the analogy of ancient Greek theater masks (tragedy and comedy) to explain the origin of the word 'hypocrite' and how Jesus redefined the term in a spiritual context.
• Sermon Illustration [00:17:16 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor shares a personal story of discovering his wife's affair with a man who was leading a marriage seminar he attended, highlighting the hypocrisy that nearly caused him to leave the faith.
• Sermon Illustration [00:18:37 ▶️ 📄]
  > An explanation of ancient Greek theater masks used by actors (hypokrites) to represent characters, which is the etymological root of the word 'hypocrite.'
• Sermon Illustration [00:22:38 ▶️ 📄]
  > A story about a camp director asking middle schoolers a riddle about a squirrel, where a child answers 'Jesus Christ' to avoid being wrong, illustrating the difficulty people have with being 'real' or authentic.
• Sermon Illustration [00:27:12 ▶️ 📄]
  > An analogy comparing Christians to elementary school kids trying to perform the complex Metallica song 'Enter Sandman,' arguing that the poor performance of believers does not invalidate the worth of the 'composer' (Jesus).

• Pastoral Charge [00:29:54 ▶️ 📄]
  > Attend the next weekend's service

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:00:00] The world is full of reasons not to believe in God. But what if they don't tell the whole story? What if those questions deserve a second look? You might find that belief makes more sense than you expected.

[00:00:12] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_08]
[00:00:12] When I gave my life to the Lord, I was a stripper. And I made a decision to completely change my life. I had no idea where to go to church, what to do, how to dress.
[00:00:33] And one day I was sitting out at a coffee shop and some girls were walking around and they were telling everybody about their church.
[00:00:40] Well, I was so excited. I thought, this is going to be it. This is going to tell me where I can go. Maybe they'll be my friends.
[00:00:48] And instead, they took one look at me and the way I was dressed and how I looked and gave me a dirty look and passed me over.

[00:01:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:01:00] I was going into fourth grade, and that summer my parents sat me down and told me that they were getting a divorce.
[00:01:08] And I remember being blown away by that.
[00:01:11] And then on top of that, we showed up at church over the next few weeks, and I just remember feeling this difference there, that we weren't supposed to be there.
[00:01:23] Like, you know, we had divorce slapped around our chest.
[00:01:27] And for me, it made me feel like there was something wrong with me.

[00:01:33] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:01:33] I trusted Christ when I was in high school.
[00:01:37] Decided to go to Bible college so I could figure out some of the answers to my questions as far as the Bible and God and making that work practically.
[00:01:45] During my senior year, I really felt like instead of getting answers and getting help with some of my questions, I got rejected in so much as even the college president calling me out in one of the classes and basically saying, if you just, you know, if you still
[00:01:57] have questions this late in the game you just don't get it I grew up in a church

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_09]
[00:02:03] for 20 years and when I went to college I made a few mistakes and got pregnant out of wedlock I knew there would be trouble I knew there would be gossip but I never expected a phone call from the pastor asking me to resign my membership

[00:02:18] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:02:18] well for the first time in my life I was really coming back to God I was trying to really reconnect with him and my life was a mess I was going through divorce I was in debt I didn't have any friends and so I actually wrote a letter to a
[00:02:30] friend of mine that I knew from high school I knew that she was a pretty strong Christian and I thought maybe we could start up a friendship so I sent her a letter and a couple weeks later I got a package back in the mail and I
[00:02:41] opened it up and there was no letter it was just a pamphlet on why divorce is a

[00:02:45] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[00:02:45] sin well I struggled with same-sex attraction all my life and being a Christian and brought up in a Christian home Christian school I had difficulties dealing with it and went to my pastor because I knew there was some kind of
[00:03:01] issue with me and I had some problems and instead of receiving spiritual guidance I received you know hatred and I was condemned and I was asked to leave

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_07]
[00:03:15] the church there came a point in my marriage where things got really rocky I made a decision to trust the people at the church and start telling them about what was happening and I expected them to to try and understand I expected them
[00:03:32] to help to accept us, broken like we were, but instead they judged us, they judged me, they blamed me.
[00:03:40] It was definitely not okay to not be okay.

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:03:44] I was five years old. I was going to Sunday school, and I'd seen the statue of Jesus, and I knew my grandmother would really like it, so I took it from the church and gave it to my grandmother.
[00:03:54] The next Sunday, whenever I went back to church, the preacher took me aside and told me I was going to go to hell for stealing.
[00:04:00] It really scared me, and that really turned me off, And I asked my mom if I had to go to church anymore, and she said not if I didn't want to.
[00:04:06] So I stayed away from church for 31 years, and I pretty much went to hell for the next 31 years.

[00:04:15] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_08]
[00:04:15] It made me feel rejected.
[00:04:16] I was totally crushed.

[00:04:18] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[00:04:18] To this day, it affects my family.
[00:04:19] What good did that do anybody?

[00:04:21] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_08]
[00:04:21] God forgave me, but the church couldn't.

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[00:04:22] I wish he would have treated me like a brother instead of a piece of garbage.

[00:04:25] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:04:25] We need to be examples and not tell people what they have to do and what they should do, but just show them what we do.

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:04:32] Well, it was Gandhi who was reported to have said, I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians.
[00:04:45] Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
[00:04:49] That rings true for a lot of people.
[00:04:52] We're in a series on reasons not to believe, and so far we've talked about a lot of important issues, whether Jesus really did rise from the dead, issues related to faith and science, whether the Bible is filled with errors and contradictions.
[00:05:06] and then last week, the challenge of evil and suffering being present in our world.
[00:05:12] Today, we're going to talk about some of those things you just heard, Christians themselves, and specifically the two areas that people cite the most when it comes as a reason not to believe with Christians, judgmentalism and hypocrisy. So far, we have found out as we've walked through
[00:05:29] the other subjects that there are reasons why a thinking person would at least consider the resurrection of Jesus as something that might have actually happened in space and time. We found that the supposed tension between faith and science isn't as much of a tension as most people think,
[00:05:45] that what we're discovering in science, the latest discoveries, if anything, is raising more spiritual questions than ever before. We've also found that when you really look at the Bible, it stands up under any and all intellectual scrutiny in terms of textual credibility,
[00:06:01] historical credibility, internal credibility. We also learned that while every worldview and religion and philosophy and ideology has to give an answer for the reason and existence of evil and suffering, the Christian story, one that drips with God's love for us in the midst of
[00:06:20] the free will he's given, is nothing if not compelling as a reason for why it is being allowed to exist. But what about the kinds of stories we just heard from people burned and bruised by people claiming to be Christians? What about liking Jesus but not liking some of
[00:06:39] his followers? How do we engage that? Is that a reason to reject it all? To not believe? Well, let's start off by stating the obvious. The problem is real. The charge is true. A lot of
[00:06:55] people who claim the name of Jesus are not very Jesus-y. And judgmentalism and hypocrisy lead the pack. And let me add something else to that. It upset Jesus as much as it upsets you. So let's
[00:07:09] talk about it, beginning with judgmentalism. Jesus went out of his way to tell those who follow him, whatever you do, don't judge people. And if you don't think he went out of his way to make that
[00:07:23] patently clear, let me read some words from the most famous talk he ever gave, the famed Sermon on the Mount. Let me read it. Do not judge others and you will not be judged, for you will be
[00:07:36] treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged. And why worry about a speck in your friend's eye when you've got a log in your own?
[00:07:47] How can you think of saying to your friend, let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye, when you can't see past the log in your own eye?
[00:07:56] First, get rid of the log in your own eye.
[00:07:59] Then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye.
[00:08:04] Now, that's pretty clear, isn't it?
[00:08:06] Jesus said, don't judge, period.
[00:08:08] That's God's job.
[00:08:09] That is not our job.
[00:08:11] Now, let's state the obvious kind of qualifiers.
[00:08:15] That's not, you know, not being judgmental doesn't mean you don't exercise good judgment.
[00:08:20] For example, I get emails and texts all the time, maybe you do too, telling me that there's a problem with one of my credit cards or one of my bank accounts or there's something about
[00:08:30] an order that I placed.
[00:08:31] They need me to contact them at once through the link that they're providing or give them account information so that I can all be taken care of or give them a call back.
[00:08:39] But the problem is I don't have that credit card.
[00:08:42] My account is not with that bank and I did not place that order.
[00:08:46] So I'm not about to hit that link and I'm not about to give them any information.
[00:08:50] is obviously a phishing thing. And even if I do have that credit card or one like it or an account with that bank, I'm probably not going to immediately respond. I'm going to probably disregard the text and contact them directly to make sure it's not a scam. Just common sense stuff,
[00:09:09] right? That's just exercising good judgment. That's obviously not being judgmental in a bad way. Also, it's not about refusing to ever make a value judgment about whether something is good or bad, right or wrong, true or false. Sometimes when people say, don't judge me, it's code for
[00:09:30] don't you dare say that anything I do, no matter what it is, is wrong or bad in any way, even when it really is wrong or bad or just plain dumb.
[00:09:46] But that's not what being judgmental is about either.
[00:09:49] How could you ever parent a child, coach a sports team, manage a business, if you couldn't make judgments about what is best for that child or best for that business as a parent or a coach or a leader?
[00:10:05] That's why you're the parent.
[00:10:06] That's why you're the coach.
[00:10:07] That's why you're the leader.
[00:10:08] if someone can't see where they're walking and they're about to step off a cliff, it is not judgmental to say, stop. It's not judgmental to tell someone who's reaching for contact lens solution for their eyes that they're actually reaching for a bottle of carbolic acid. It's not
[00:10:26] judgmental in a bad sense of the word for a coach to correct the stance of an offensive lineman on a football team or a teacher to grammatically correct a sentence in a student's essay or a
[00:10:37] parent to say that their child needs to look both ways before crossing a street. That's good judgment needed to fill those roles. Here's what judgmentalism is about, meaning judging people in a bad way. It's the practice of personal condemnation. It's not just that you did bad,
[00:10:57] but that you are bad. It's not just that you do bad things, but I'm going to make a list of those bad things and I'm going to hang it around your neck. I'm going to make an assessment
[00:11:08] of who you are based on what you do or do not do or what I think you do or do not do. And then I'm going to judge for it. The judgmental person is, you know, Jesus that he's talking about
[00:11:21] is someone who is a fault finder, who is negative and who is destructive towards other people. And we can all do it. And I've been as guilty as anyone, much to my shame. Back when I was in
[00:11:35] seminary, I was a student pastor, a pastor of a little country church outside of the town where the graduate school was, very small church. The staff was essentially, well, me. There was a woman who was a member of the church who contacted the church and asked for some help from the church if
[00:11:56] she could get a little help for a short period of time because she had been sick, had a lot of medical bills. She didn't want money, but she was wondering if there maybe could be
[00:12:07] help with some food. So I went over to visit her and brought another woman from the church with me who overseed kind of our food pantry to help me kind of assess the situation.
[00:12:19] And when we showed up at her house, I remember thinking when she opened the door for us, uh man her hair looks nice i mean it looks like perfect uh it was done up really fancy and and
[00:12:36] looked like like she had just come from what in those days we called the beauty parlor uh it looked really good like expensive good and then as we walked into her house there was a i remember
[00:12:50] there was a door kind of off of the main area that opened up to her bedroom. It was a small little house, a one or two bedroom house, but you could see into the bedroom. And there on the
[00:12:59] dresser, there was just wig after wig after wig after wig. And I mean, we're talking really nice looking wigs, expensive looking wigs. And I didn't know much about wigs, but I thought, you know, okay. And I was getting more, if I'm honest, more than a little cynical
[00:13:19] about just how needy this woman really was.
[00:13:23] Well, after talking for a bit, we left.
[00:13:25] And as we were walking out and doors shut, and this woman and I were making our way back to the church, with more than a little bit of sarcasm, I said, well, she had some nice wigs.
[00:13:37] And the woman said, really nice wigs.
[00:13:40] You know, I know a little bit about that.
[00:13:42] Those were expensive.
[00:13:45] And I instantly thought, she doesn't need our help.
[00:13:48] I mean, if she can afford to spend money on those wigs and she's just looking for a handout and trying to hit on the church and, you know, and I, you know, so.
[00:13:59] I later came to find out that this woman had cancer and that part of her treatment involved chemotherapy, that she had lost all of her hair and that a loving friend had purchased the wigs for her so that she wouldn't have to go around bald.
[00:14:15] And sadly, on top of that, she also had a young 20-something pastor who was a certified judgmental ass.
[00:14:25] Here's the truth.
[00:14:27] I was being judgmental, but it had nothing to do with Jesus.
[00:14:31] He wasn't being judgmental.
[00:14:32] Christianity was not being judgmental.
[00:14:34] I was being judgmental.
[00:14:37] It reminds me of something the great 19th century Russian novelist Tolstoy, who was a Christian, once wrote in a personal letter.
[00:14:44] He wrote, attack me. I do this myself. But attack me rather than the path I follow and which I point out to anyone who asks me where I think it lies. If I knew the way home and I'm walking along it
[00:14:59] drunkenly, is it any less the right way because I am staggering from side to side? He's got a point.
[00:15:10] We may stagger, but Jesus didn't stagger. And even our staggering doesn't have anything to do with the truth of Jesus. He perfectly embodied both grace and truth, complete acceptance with good judgment, but never judgmentalism. So if judgmentalism is a stumbling block for you,
[00:15:25] good. It should be. It was to Jesus too, which means you shouldn't judge Jesus or his message by the judgmental attitude of others. And it's the same with the second big stumbling block people have, which is hypocrisy. Even though it's just as tough to experience or to see fleshed out in
[00:15:44] somebody's life. Think of judgmentalism as what is directed at you by people. Hypocrisy is what you can't help but direct at other people by you. As some of you know, I didn't become a Christ
[00:16:01] follower until I was 20. And when I did, it was through some friends who invited me to a college outreach ministry on our campus. One of my early spiritual heroes, as you would imagine, was the president of that national campus movement.
[00:16:16] He was smart, he was disciplined, he was a very gifted teacher.
[00:16:20] I read his books, I idolized his leadership and aspects of his disciplines and things that I even tried to model parts of my life after his.
[00:16:30] Then I got the opportunity to actually hear him speak at a conference, jumped at it.
[00:16:34] Not only that, but he and his wife were going to lead a breakout seminar on marriage that was designed for college 20-somethings who were just beginning to think along those lines for their own life, but wanted to pattern it after Jesus. It's a smaller setting. I got to see him,
[00:16:52] actually got to see his wife, him and his wife up close, got to ask him some questions, shake his hand afterward. It was great. Everything that I had hoped for and more.
[00:17:02] Just a few months later, the news broke. It came out that he had been in an affair with another woman, a several months long affair. And to make it even worse for me, as I was doing the math,
[00:17:16] he was in the middle of that affair while he was leading that marriage seminar I was at with his wife, the one I sat in on and took notes on, the one where I was thinking the whole time,
[00:17:29] this is who I want to be in a marriage. The sheer hypocrisy of it just made me want to go into a corner and just vomit. I don't know if you've ever been through something like that,
[00:17:41] maybe been felt burned like that or been disillusioned like I was, but it just makes you question everything. But I didn't abandon the Christian faith because when I thought about it, really thought about it, I realized something that was really important that stuck with me
[00:17:57] for the rest of my life, but I hadn't really thought about it until that moment. Just like judgmentalism. Hypocrisy doesn't have anything to do with Jesus. In fact, just like judgmentalism, he went on the war path against it. In fact, he's the one who started the war. In fact, do you know
[00:18:17] that the word hypocrite wasn't even in people's spiritual vocabulary until Jesus? It had an entirely different topical home. He's the one who introduced the world to that idea in a spiritual sense. Let me show you something. Have you ever seen masks like these? Probably. They are the
[00:18:37] masks of tragedy and comedy that actors wore in ancient Greece. There were actually all kinds of masks, not just these two. In ancient Greek theater, actors wore masks that represented their character, or they had them on a pole and held it out in front of their face. Since all
[00:18:53] actors back then were male culturally. It also allowed a male to play a female role. Now, the Greek word for those actors was the word hypocrite. Literally, people who spoke from behind a mask.
[00:19:10] That's what the word means. Someone who speaks from behind a mask. The art of the actor was that from the moment they put on their mask or stood behind a mask on a pole, the entire conduct on
[00:19:20] stage would reflect that role. They were immersed in it. And obviously for an actor, that was the role. The role was to be a hypocrite. But Jesus took hold of that word and applied it to people
[00:19:30] who were spiritual actors. Because with theater, it was fine, but with God, it was not. Let me read you some of his words from Matthew's biography in the New Testament. Everything they do, Jesus said,
[00:19:43] is for show. Hypocrites, for you're so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy, full of greed and self-indulgence.
[00:19:52] There's more.
[00:19:54] Hypocrites, Jesus said, you pretend to be holy with all your long public prayers in the streets while you're evicting widows from their homes.
[00:20:02] Hypocrites, you're like beautiful mausoleums full of dead men's bones and of foolishness and corruption.
[00:20:08] You try to look like saintly men, but underneath those pious robes of yours are hearts besmirched with every sort of hypocrisy and sin.
[00:20:17] And that word from the theater has never quite meant the same sense.
[00:20:23] So again, what many people cite as the reason for rejecting Christianity in Christ has nothing to do with authentic Christian faith, much less Jesus.
[00:20:33] But having said that, let's be equally clear about what hypocrisy is not.
[00:20:36] Just like judgmentalism isn't about never making a value judgment, hypocrisy isn't any and every time somebody fails your expectations of perfection.
[00:20:48] It's not catching someone who says they follow Jesus, sinning.
[00:20:52] If that's what a hypocrite is, add me to the list.
[00:20:55] In fact, put me up at the top.
[00:20:57] You come spend a day with me, I can absolutely confidently assure you, somehow, someway, I will disappoint you.
[00:21:04] We may not even last till 9 a.m. before the disappointment kicks in.
[00:21:09] So does that automatically make me a hypocrite?
[00:21:11] Just because I fail.
[00:21:13] Just because I might screw up.
[00:21:15] Just because you catch whiff of a sin.
[00:21:18] So a Christian means what? Perfection? Okay, where are you getting that? See, this is what messes with us, maybe most of all. Do you know how many times I've heard someone say something like, well, I don't want to say I'm a Christian, or I don't want to become a Christian, or I don't want
[00:21:37] to go to church like a Christian, or I don't want to get baptized publicly as a Christian because, wait for it, I don't want to be a hypocrite. That's not thinking this through and not thinking
[00:21:54] about it clearly. Because here's what you're saying. You're saying that being a Christ follower means being perfect. And that being a hypocrite means saying you're a Christ follower and not being perfect. So since I don't want to be a hypocrite, I won't associate myself with
[00:22:08] Christians, with church, or Christ. Okay, that just screwed up as hypocrisy is. So let's clean it up. The opposite of hypocrisy is not perfection. The opposite of hypocrisy is spiritual authenticity. That's the opposite of hypocrisy, which for whatever reason is just so hard for
[00:22:28] people. I don't know why it's just so hard for people when it comes to spiritual stuff to just be real, just be authentic. I once read of a group of middle schoolers who descended on a Christian
[00:22:38] camp one summer for a retreat. And apparently they were kind of uptight about being away from home at a Christian camp. So the camp director decided they needed to loosen up a little bit.
[00:22:49] So to break the ice, he decided he would ask them a stupid riddle, one where the answer was so obvious they could easily get it. Maybe they would all laugh at how stupid it was. So he said,
[00:23:00] OK, gang, you got to give me the answer. Here's the riddle. What's gray, climbs trees, moves real fast, has a big bushy tail and hides nuts in the winter. Nobody said a word. He thought maybe they
[00:23:14] didn't hear him. So he said it again. Okay, guys, what's gray? Climbs trees, moves real fast, big bushy tail, hides nuts in the winter. Finally, one of the kids raised his hand. He said, well,
[00:23:28] I mean, it sounds like a squirrel, but I'll say Jesus Christ.
[00:23:34] Folks, if it's a squirrel, it's a squirrel. And that's what Jesus was after with everything he said about hypocrisy. Be real. And here's the heart of being real. I'm going to give you the one verse Bible definition of spiritual authenticity and being real. You may have never
[00:23:53] heard this verse before. You may have never thought about it before, but this is the Bible's definition, if I had to pick one, for spiritual authenticity and being real. Ready for it?
[00:24:01] 1 John 1.9, if we think, we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
[00:24:12] That's spiritual authenticity 101.
[00:24:14] That's what it means.
[00:24:16] I heard one author put it this way.
[00:24:18] He noticed that with Jesus, there are only two categories of people, sinners who admit it, sinners who deny it.
[00:24:25] Sinners who admitted it received his grace, his compassion, his forgiveness.
[00:24:29] They were authentic and real.
[00:24:31] and in Jesus' book, spiritual, because they did not claim to be without sin.
[00:24:36] And sinners who didn't admit it were the ones who were the hypocrites.
[00:24:39] So again, let's get our thinking on this one down.
[00:24:42] The Christian life isn't about pretending you have it all together when you do not.
[00:24:47] If anything, it's admitting that you do not have it all together.
[00:24:50] If you're going to be in the Jesus camp, here's the headline.
[00:24:54] It's okay to not be okay.
[00:25:02] If Christianity is about anything, it's about serious imperfection that desperately needs forgiveness and grace on a daily basis.
[00:25:09] It's not having our act together.
[00:25:11] It's admitting that we don't and then coming to Christ for a relationship that gives that forgiveness and grace to us and then helps us be in the process of becoming who we were meant to be.
[00:25:21] An authentic Christian life, this is so important, is not marked by perfection.
[00:25:26] It's marked by transformation.
[00:25:29] Transformation.
[00:25:31] C.S. Lewis once wrote about this in a way that I found very helpful.
[00:25:34] He said, you may observe a particular Christian woman that you know, let's call her Mary, that has a much more difficult time of keeping away from, say, gossip than a non-Christian woman that you know.
[00:25:48] Let's just call this that person, Betty.
[00:25:50] So you see Mary gossiping, and she's the gossiping Christian, and you see Betty, the non-gossiping non-Christian.
[00:26:00] It naturally makes you think, well, Mary's just a hypocrite.
[00:26:05] Or that maybe the whole, I don't know, Christian life thing doesn't have a lot of potency.
[00:26:10] But that misses the whole process of transformation.
[00:26:13] Here's the real issue.
[00:26:15] What would Mary have been like if she was not in a relationship with Christ?
[00:26:18] What would Betty be like if she was?
[00:26:21] I mean, you think gossip is Mary's problem?
[00:26:24] You should have met Mary before she was a Christian.
[00:26:26] Gossip is a step up.
[00:26:27] You should have heard what came out of that woman's mouth before in terms of lies, deceit, profanity, and who all else knows what else.
[00:26:34] See, we're all works in progress, and we all have different areas of strengths and weaknesses.
[00:26:40] God meets every one of us where we are, and he begins there.
[00:26:45] So to those of you who may have given up on church, given up on Christians, maybe even given up on Christianity and Jesus because of hypocrisy, oh, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't.
[00:26:53] Think about it, please, deeply.
[00:26:55] The real issue for your life is Jesus, not the weakness of those who try and follow him.
[00:27:02] I remember when I was trying to describe this to a guy once who was really into music, and he particularly liked the group Metallica.
[00:27:12] A guy that was younger than me, and Metallica was a little bit after my time, but I mean, I knew about the group, appreciated it.
[00:27:19] I was more of a 70s rock, you know, Styx, Journey, Heart.
[00:27:24] Springsteen, to me, ruled the world, still does.
[00:27:26] But Metallica is a great band and one of the most successful rock bands of all time.
[00:27:31] You know, their third album, Master of Puppets.
[00:27:33] I mean, it's often cited as one of the most influential albums in rock history.
[00:27:36] And their fifth album debuted at number one on the Billboard chart.
[00:27:39] So did their sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth.
[00:27:42] In 2009, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
[00:27:46] So, you know, I got his interest in the band and I appreciated it.
[00:27:51] Their classic song and their biggest hit, the song called Enter Sandman.
[00:27:56] So I just had this thing come to me when I was talking to him about, we're talking about hypocrisy, and he was wrestling with certain things.
[00:28:02] I said, okay, okay, okay.
[00:28:04] Imagine that a bunch of elementary school kids decided that they were going to tackle that song, and they were going to perform it at a school fair for people who had never heard Enter Sandman before.
[00:28:20] Now, if I go hear that performance by that elementary school band, would it be fair or even reasonable for me to assess the worth of Metallica's music based on their performance?
[00:28:36] I remember he said, I don't know where you're going with this, but obviously not.
[00:28:40] I mean, the kids would butcher it.
[00:28:42] They're just kids.
[00:28:43] That's not an easy piece to play.
[00:28:44] Their performance would have nothing to do with how good that song is.
[00:28:47] And it is a great song.
[00:28:48] I said, OK, you're right.
[00:28:50] You're right.
[00:28:51] Hold that thought.
[00:28:53] Here's the bottom line when it comes to judgmental and hypocritical Christians and whether or not to believe.
[00:28:59] There are judgmental and hypocritical people claiming to be Christians without a doubt.
[00:29:03] But they have nothing to do with Jesus.
[00:29:06] There are a lot of us Christians walking around trying to live for Jesus.
[00:29:09] But we're like elementary school kids in a garage band trying to play Metallica.
[00:29:17] don't judge the composer or the music by the performance our failure to live in a way that jesus lived has nothing to do with jesus christians may disappoint you christ won't because no matter who plays it his song is music worth listening to and remember he went
[00:29:40] i think i got it well we have one more reason people have for not believing you talk about it may be the biggest reason of all. It probably is. And as a result, the most important to wrestle
[00:29:54] with. So don't miss next weekend if you can. Until then, let me give you a quick prayer.
[00:30:00] Father, thank you that in the midst of so many people, myself included, that fail at representing Jesus to the world, that it doesn't have anything to do with Jesus, nothing to do with his grace,
[00:30:10] nothing to do with his truth. Help all of us to look to Jesus, not others, for what it's all about. And I pray that in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for being with us.