Am I a Hypocrite?
The great difficulty Christ-followers face
The difficulty we Face
The difficulty Christ-followers face is not the impossibilities of earning God’s gracious salvation, but the challenge of living consistently with the salvation God has already worked in our hearts.
Kevin Carson, Counseling the Hard Cases, 246 (paraphrased).
I saved this quote from a Biblical counseling book (which is a Christian genre I highly recommend) I read in my undergraduate program. What stood out to me was how succinctly Carson describes the Christian struggle.
In a previous post, I shared a quote from Luther describing the Christian faith as a journey in righteousness. He said, “We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it.”
Here, Carson describes the frustration we Christians experience when we are confronted—either by self-examination or an accusatory finger—by the incongruence of our faith with our lives.
Man, I’m such a hypocrite!
Hypocrite—a loaded word. In an age that values authenticity and scorns shallowness, we fear being accused of being hypocritical.
The question is this
Are Christ-followers hypocrites for failing to live up to the moral standards they hold dear from God’s word?
The Answer is no … unless you are chasing these standards to consider yourself righteous.
There is a difference. Let’s look at Carson’s description:
The difficulty Christ-followers face is not the impossibilities of earning God’s gracious salvation, but the challenge of living consistently with the salvation God has already worked in our hearts.
Notice that “earning” salvation is impossible. If you have accepted the free gift of God’s salvation by confessing a trusting faith in Jesus Christ as God’s Son, then you are saved.
The apostle Paul expresses it clearly:
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV
In other words, Christ followers are not saved by their works, but by God’s grace, through their faith in Jesus Christ.
So why do we feel the contradictions? The duality? The hypocritical-ness of our faith as we attempt to obey God’s word?
Because we are redeemed eternal creatures—created in the image of God, with His Spirit indwelling us—but we are also living in these fleshy vessels inclined to sin.
We are in a pilgrimage. We are walking the in between-ness of our past and our destination. This is the Christian faith.
Quoting Luther again:
We are not yet what we shall be,
but we are growing toward it.
The process is not yet finished,
but it is going on.
This is not the end, but it is the road.
All does not yet gleam in glory,
but all is being purified.
So am I a hypocrite when I fail? No, I am a pilgrim striving toward righteousness.
I am not there, yet.
However, in my pride, I can fall into the pitfall of self-righteous morality. This is the category that can be accused of hypocrisy.
Take Jesus’ warning to the self righteous leaders of His day:
You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
“‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.Matthew 15:6-8 NIV
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.
Matthew 23:27
A hypocrite is primarily concerned about outward appearances and man’s opinion. But their hearts are untouched by the grace of God.
Whereas a Christ-follower seeks to live a life that pleases God by obedience to His word and following Christ.
Another way to look at it is this: one has the change on the inside that is working outward; the other is attempting to work change inward from outward efforts.
This is the difference between a Christ-follower and a hypocrite.
So where is the source of your change?