How to Not Be a Hypocrite
“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear results. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the skins as well; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.” (Mk. 2:21-22, NAS)
We are All, by Nature, Hypocrites
Jesus is telling us something so essential here. He is pointing to how we can live an authentically righteous life. We are all, by nature, hypocrites. Jesus is offering us insight into how we can avoid being a hypocrite.
If the truth be told, we are all motivated by self-interest. In other words, our default mode as humans is self-interest. It may be conscious or it may be in our unconscious drives ( or motives) but if you dig deep enough, you will find it. Many of us deny this. It is not pleasant to think of ourselves in this way, so we deny, make excuses and self-justify. Indeed, it is impossible for man to escape this condition on his own. This condition is his innate nature – that is, unless Christ’s life is the author of our life.
A Difficult Standard
I was always a person who liked to be honest about my shortcomings with others. I think I took a kind of pride in that “transparency.” Nevertheless, in all my years of trying to be someone my family could be proud of. I just could never seem to measure up.
Let’s face it, God’s standards are, – well, to say the least, rather high. Jesus said emphatically and without qualification, “Therefore you are to be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matt. 5:48). What was I to do? What are any of us to do with this?
We tend to just explain it away. Jesus surely did not mean, like really perfect, right? The truth is, however, this is God’s requirement.
Over time, God began to reveal that there is a way to freely enter into His kind of “perfect.” We enter through the gate of the cross of Christ – a partaking of Christ’s life and death.
I was reminded today of the psychological testing experiment with children who were told not to eat candy that was on the table. They were told that they would receive much more candy after a short wait on the condition that they did not eat the candy before them. Left alone in the room the agony of the struggle was priceless to see. They would touch it and sniff it and talk to themselves about it. Eventually, most simply could not hold out. What a comical picture of human nature! We can all relate.
It is Much Easier to Just Deny our Shortcomings
The implication is that authentic Christianity comes only from Christ Himself. The Bible tells us that we “suppress the truth (i.e., about our motives) in unrighteousness.” (Rom. 1:18) The classic example is the unbeliever that becomes frustrated with the inconsistencies between claims of righteousness and the actual behavior of many Christians. This is particularly biting to those who are personally hurt by our hypocrisy. Even as believers, we are offended when we see it.
I recall we had an elder I knew pretty well from our church who asked if He would want the job to contract to help us on our home. We had lost our house and had to move into a partially-built home after the 2008 housing crash. His response to my offer was, “Well if you’ve got the money, I’ve got the time!” An ongoing joke between my wife and I was that any time she asked if he could do the most minor extra thing, he would cock his head back, roll back on his heels and say smugly, “that’ll cost you a hundred bucks!” It became hilarious to us after a while.
The world observes these things in us and concludes that Christianity is just a religion that makes (false) claims to righteousness.
When we try to behave righteously on our own, we fall short. It is not because we do not wish for righteousness. Many believers deeply long for it. We just don’t have the capacity to truly be righteous.
We all have real histories of personal failures, and hidden (and sometimes not-so-hidden) shortcomings. As a career psychotherapist, I have heard so many. I used to be surprised when outwardly successful and socially gifted people revealed their hidden brokenness. I also have my own – it is not always pretty. Is there hope for real freedom from our secret troubles and our failures to measure up to God’s standards?
A Religion of Righteousness
What sets Christianity apart from other religions is precisely its claim to righteousness. It comes because we all know that our God is holy and requires righteousness. Righteousness in this context is defined roughly by the Mosaic Commandments.
The Biblical God is not an impersonal force but a personal and, therefore knowable God. His standards of righteousness far exceed those defined by men because He is truly holy. Moreover, He even searches men’s hearts (motives) and calls them into account for those motives. Accordingly, this is why some people hate Christianity – it points out our wrongs, and we don’t like that. It makes us feel very uncomfortable. We try to fight back, but the truth is that we are all guilty.
God’s Kind of Incorruptible Righteousness
God’s answer is surprising and also profound. He gives us the kingdom of God. Said differently, He makes us alive in Him with His own life. That life is Christ, and it is righteous by its nature. That kind of righteousness is never phony and never operates with secretly selfish motives. He is pure, and those who truly abide in Him live from that same incorruptible nature.
The passage quoted at the beginning regarding old and new wineskins metaphorically represents this dichotomy. When we try to put on righteous behavior according to God’s standards, we will never measure up from mere human motivations. We can only fake it. Thus we become hypocrites.
This is, of course, sad and misguided, but sometimes also indicates an authentic wish for righteousness. However, it can never be the same as genuine or natural righteousness. Jesus did not try to be righteous or to do righteous things. He did right because He was righteous – even to suffer torture and an undeserved death on a cross.
Entering Through the Gate
Jesus says, “I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (Jn. 10:7-10)
Entering His righteousness is what the New Testament is all about. For that to happen, we must first die with Christ through His death. As we daily accept His death for us as our atonement before our most holy God, we are both qualified and made able to lose our own lives. It can only be accomplished by the incredible power of God to enable our suffering to be an “easy yoke” even for the weakest of us to carry. It is a fantastic thing to experience and a truly miraculous experience.
Such losses may come through various hardships, disappointments, and afflictions that come our way. In that loss is the death of our wants, expectations, hopes, and dreams for our lives. These do not necessarily have to be grand challenges. For instance, a loved one may treat us unjustly, or some untimely difficulty may come our way.
Fortunately, even as the grave could not contain Him, neither can it contain those who are daily being put to death for His sake. So, even as we “die daily”(1 Cor. 15:31), we are also being raised in victory daily – even to triumph in Christ.
We Are Not Able
No one, however, can crucify themselves. Even Jesus didn’t do that. Of course, if we try to put ourselves to death, we would be working a “work” for righteousnes. We know from Scripture that our works can never earn righteousness.(Gal. 3:5; 5:2) We must be placing our full confidence in the death He died for us and no confidence in our own adequacy for anything. We are not talking here about physical death, but the death of self, the death of our desires ruling our lives. That is our self-interested agenda for our lives.
For example, we want something – maybe to be heard and understood. We become frustrated with the other person who is just speaking over us. We can act on that frustration. If we do, most likely the conversation will end fairly negatively. We may be very right in our position. But is that truth or Truth.
I have come to realize that the truth outside of the context of Christ’s love motivating our actions – is not Truth. If Christ is behind my actions, the other’s welfare will be paramount in my heart and mind. Further, if I act from the motive of my frustration, Christ will not be with me. The Holy Spirit will not assist my endeavor because He does not fellowship with my darkness. (1 Jn. 1:5-7).
So how do I get to the Truth? Perhaps, rather than responding out of my frustration, I ask for help from the Lord. I could then try to take some time with the Lord admitting that my anger is the frustration of my own wants. (Jas. 4:1-3)
By the way, this insight from the Lord has been profoundly life-changing for me and those I work with in my counseling. It is the road out of blaming and out of unforgiveness. That, however, is a subject beyond the scope of this article.
Yes, we are constantly losing our lives for His sake, by His grace. But we are also raised daily in the newness of life as we learn to “hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering,” through the hardships. (Heb. 10:23) Those who are living for Him, and from the motives that come from above will not be hypocrites because their righteousness will be authentic.
This is How Not to Be a Hypocrite
Do we want to be a not be a hypocrite (regardless of how well-intentioned we may be)? If so, then we the question we must ask ourselves is this: are we experiencing daily, this death and resurrection victory? If not, then we probably do not yet correctly comprehend the message of the cross and we most certainly are not applying it to our lives.
We must, therefore, begin calling upon His name and seeking Him to help us understand how He can enable us to be cleansed from self so as to inherit Christ daily. This is the life that overcomes the world, the flesh, and even the devil. Jesus says, “the flesh profits nothing; these words of Mine are Spirit and are life.”(Jn. 6:63)
This, then, is how we live authentically and this is how not to be a hypocrite! It is the only way to enter the holy place of fellowship with Him daily. This is how we can prevail over all things in this life. Nothing can defeat us. Nothing.
(All Biblical Quotes are from NAS version)
