When Christians let us down and get us down

When Christians let us down and get us down, the key to rebuilding our faith and our feelings is to think less about Christians and more about Christ. As that’s easier said than done, let’s begin that re-thinking process today with some Christ-centered analysis of this problem, and tomorrow we’ll look at Christ-centered solutions. So how does Jesus view the horrendous hypocrisy and depressing deceit that we sometimes encounter in professing Christians.

1. Jesus hates hypocrisy
Jesus doesn’t wink at, tolerate, or excuse hypocrisy; He abhors it. In the Old Testament, He spoke through the prophets to expose the evil of Israel’s double-dealings and hollow hearts. No matter how many sacrifices they offered, God was wearied and disgusted by their duplicity and dishonesty. In the New Testament, Jesus targeted hypocrisy from the beginning to the end of his ministry. When we encounter professing Christians with double-standards or no-standards it’s a comfort to know that Jesus detests it more than we do.

2. Jesus experienced hypocrisy
Jesus not only saw inconsistency, He was a victim of it throughout His life and in His death. Much of his ministry was spent experiencing it, confronting it, and condemning it (Matt. 6:1-18; 23). He could see it far more clearly and deeply than we can. His X-ray eyes penetrated every Pharisaical mask and disguise to detect every contradiction between lips and life. His painful experience of hypocrisy in the worst Pharisees and the best disciples was a large part of His atoning and saving sufferings. They also give Him a sympathy and empathy with us. However pained we are by phony faith, we can take our pain to someone who felt it even deeper.

3. Jesus predicted hypocrisy
We shouldn’t be surprised at the existence of hypocrisy in the church. Jesus told us directly and through His apostles that there will never be a pure church in this world. It will always be a mixture of wheat and tares, true and false, right to the end of time (Matt. 13:24-30). Jesus gave us the parable of the tares to help us manage our expectations, to explain the pain of past experience, and also to avoid deeper disappointment in the future.

4. Jesus uses hypocrisy
Why did Jesus choose to do it this way? Why did he not create a pure church full of pure people? Why allow tares to be mixed with the wheat?

• He uses these trials to test, prove, and improve our faith: if we hang on to Christ despite all the pain His professing people inflict on us and others, then our faith must be genuine.
• He also uses these hassles to motivate self-examination: if so many people are so blind to their faults, there’s a good possibility that I’m blind to mine too.
• Sometimes He uses these adversities to glorify His grace: when we see that even the best Christians have so much hypocrisy left in them, we marvel at what a gracious Savior Jesus must be.

5. Jesus will end hypocrisy
While the church has always been mixed throughout the ages, the Day is coming when Jesus will separate the wheat from the chaff and gather all the tares out of his field to be burned. He will end the pain and distress of this present mixed state of the church and establish a church made up of a perfect number of perfect people. It will be a beautiful bride without spot or wrinkle or any other ugly defect.

Tomorrow we’ll look at 10 practical strategies for thinking about Christ more than Christians.