Will the Real Hypocrite Stand Up?

A families grandfather decided to enter a kickboxing tournament. He wasn’t athletic, and he’d never fought before. They thought he was crazy to even enter it, but he said he had a plan to win; he would wrap his feet in underwear.

They didn’t see how that would help, but he surprised everyone and went…

undie-feeted.

Today we are going to talk about hypocrisy. First we have to define what it means to be a hypocrite:

a person who claims or pretends to have certain beliefs about what is right but who behaves in a way that disagrees with those beliefs

A hypocrite would criticize a grandpa for entering a fight with a plan, but they themselves would never have a plan or be willing to get in the fight.

or

the hypocrites who criticize other people for not voting but who don't always vote themselves

If we are all totally honest, we’ve played the part of hypocrite many times. It’s easy to criticize people or judge people forgetting that we ourselves are just as guilty of doing the same things!

Our scripture for today is Romans 2:1-5 and it reminds us that no one is perfect and we all need a Savior.

Let’s read it together:

Romans 2:1–5 CEV

1 Some of you accuse others of doing wrong. But there is no excuse for what you do. When you judge others, you condemn yourselves, because you are guilty of doing the very same things. 2 We know that God is right to judge everyone who behaves in this way. 3 Do you really think God won’t punish you, when you behave exactly like the people you accuse? 4 You surely don’t think much of God’s wonderful goodness or of his patience and willingness to put up with you. Don’t you know that the reason God is good to you is because he wants you to turn to him? 5 But you are stubborn and refuse to turn to God. So you are making things even worse for yourselves on that day when he will show how angry he is and will judge the world with fairness.

Make no mistake, this scripture is hard to read. Because it’s true. It makes us examine our hearts. If we really take a look inward, we will find that each one of us is hypocritical. We all need help.

The warning is that if we don’t see the reality of our need then one day we will see the reality of a Holy God who is angry at sin and will judge those who have not turned to Him. That judgement will be fair and deserved.

The book of Romans is a gold mine of information.

It’s provides us with the best summary of the gospel in all of the bible. If you understand Romans then you understand the whole story of the fall of man to sin, the plan for redemption through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, and even how we are to live set apart from this world because we’ve been saved.

The apostle Paul who wrote the letter, saw Jesus after his resurrection from the dead and he was given specific instructions to be his authoritative spokes person. 1 Corinthians 15:8-10 “8 Finally, he appeared to me, even though I am like someone who was born at the wrong time. 9 I am the least important of all the apostles. In fact, I caused so much trouble for God’s church that I don’t even deserve to be called an apostle. 10 But God was kind! He made me what I am, and his wonderful kindness wasn’t wasted. I worked much harder than any of the other apostles, although it was really God’s kindness at work and not me.”

Romans is not just words on a page, but inspiration from Christ Himself.

This letter to the Roman church has proved after 2000 years, for millions of people, to make more sense out of reality than any other worldview. This letter has shed so much light on the biggest issues of life: God, humanity, where we came from, why we are here, what the future holds, and evil and sin are, and what God has done about our sin, what true happiness is, and how life on earth is to be ordered so that society can be healthy instead of collapsing into chaos.

Lastly, this book has made a profound impact on the church.

In 386 God used a quote from the book of Romans to convert St. Augustine, who became the most influential teacher in the history of the church.

Martin Luther himself was converted after reading Romans 1:17 “17 The good news tells how God accepts everyone who has faith, but only those who have faith. It is just as the Scriptures say, “The people God accepts because of their faith will live.””

And He sparked the Protestant Reformation.

In 1738 John Wesley unleashed the Great Awaking in England and America by preaching directly from the book of Romans.

All that to say, the book of Romans may be the greatest book in the Bible, but it’s only as good as the person who is willing to receive it’s teachings.

Let’s read the scripture again that captured the heart of Martin Luther

Romans 1:16–17 NLT

16 For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—the Jew first and also the Gentile. 17 This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.”

God’s desire is to save people from sin, death, and judgement. So, He acts in history to provide a way for us to be saved. The truth of God working to save the world is called the Gospel or Good news.

Paul tells us in Romans 3:24-26 exactly what the good news is:

Romans 3:24–26 CEV

24 But God treats us much better than we deserve, and because of Christ Jesus, he freely accepts us and sets us free from our sins. 25 God sent Christ to be our sacrifice. Christ offered his life’s blood, so that by faith in him we could come to God. And God did this to show that in the past he was right to be patient and forgive sinners. This also shows that God is right when he accepts people who have faith in Jesus.

God sent his own Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to live a perfectly righteous life and to die in the place of sinners so that all who trust him could be forgiven for their sins and have the gift of his righteousness and be freed from the fear of death and judgment.

We accept this great gift by placing our faith in Jesus.

So when Paul sums up his gospel in Romans 1:16–17 and says that the gospel is the power of God for salvation for all who believe, this is how he explains it (in verse 17): “For in it (the gospel) the righteousness of God is being revealed from faith to faith,” which means that in the gospel—in Christ’s life and death and resurrection—there is a righteousness that God himself has accomplished for us that we can have as a gift if we will trust Christ.

The righteousness he demands from us, he freely gives to us, not on the basis of our works, but on the basis of our faith.

This is why Christianity is good news. It is God providing for us in Christ what we can never provide for ourselves, a righteousness good enough to have God’s favor.

God gives it to us freely if we will stop depending on ourselves and start trusting in him.

Hypocrites think they can somehow EARN this salvation through being good enough or living a religious life. But remember a hypocrite can’t see they aren’t able to do what they tell others to do. They are deceived.

In a way, we’ve all been deceived. That’s why we ALL need the Gospel.

All of Romans 1-3 is Paul writing to prove that we all need the Gospel. We’ve all sinned. We are all hypocrites.

Romans 3:9 CEV

9 What does all this mean? Does it mean that we Jews are better off than the Gentiles? No, it doesn’t! Jews, as well as Gentiles, are ruled by sin, just as I have said.

Both Jewish people, who had all the privileges of God’s attention in redemptive history, and the rest of the world outside God’s special dealings with Israel in the Old Testament, are under the power of sin and are guilty before God.

Why do you think Paul talks so long, 3 chapters, about how every person who has ever lived is a sinner in need of saving?

Do we really doubt it? Well, yes, we do. We suppress the truth because it is so uncomfortable. We may be willing to make some general concessions that we are not perfect, since nobody is perfect. But not many people are willing to admit that deep down inside they are really flawed and proud and selfish and rebellious, and therefore separated from God and in need of what the Bible calls salvation.

I was reading an article this week about how the twentieth century is the bloodiest century in history—

not just because of the Holocaust

millions killed under Stalin in Ukraine

millions killed in China under Mao

20% of the population of Cambodia executed under Pol Pot

800,000 Tutsis killed in Rwanda

30 million by abortion in America

It is a great irony that at the end of the bloodiest century in history there are people who deny the existence of evil and there are still people who believe that human beings are basically good, and just need education, not salvation.

If our century teaches anything it is that with time, humanity isn’t getting better. We are just as sinful as ever before.

Even with all the bad things in the world. Even though we know our inner thoughts, people don’t feel like they are in need of saving. They think they are doing ok.

But the Bible is wonderfully and painfully realistic and will not let us off the hook. In Romans 1:18–32 Paul makes his case that all pagan Gentiles are sinners and in need of the salvation God has provided in Christ.

So, we get to our main scripture for today. Where Paul is talking to the moralist and those religious people who kept a strict moral law. This may be where many of us fit. So we need to read the text carefully.

But to get it we have to have the previous verses in our minds. In Romans 1:29–32, Paul gave a list of the kinds of things that tend to flourish where God is rejected.

Romans 1:29–32 CEV

29 They are evil, wicked, and greedy, as well as mean in every possible way. They want what others have, and they murder, argue, cheat, and are hard to get along with. They gossip, 30 say cruel things about others, and hate God. They are proud, conceited, and boastful, always thinking up new ways to do evil. These people don’t respect their parents. 31 They are stupid, unreliable, and don’t have any love or pity for others. 32 They know God has said that anyone who acts this way deserves to die. But they keep on doing evil things, and they even encourage others to do them.

He says people who do these things deserve to die! This is crazy hard stuff to hear, but it’s true. He’s pointing to the fact that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s standard.

Just think of the type of person reading this letter. Most likely, it was a Jew, a religious type who was living a the best moral life they could. CERTAINLY better than the gentiles who Paul just listed disgusting and terrible sins.

I imagine a guy hearing this letter being read standing in the corner of the room, feeling very smug and self-righteous, and thinking “I don’t hate God; I’m not full of murder and strife and wickedness and evil schemes.”

It’s this kind of person who sometimes gives Christianity a very bad name. Many go to Christian churches and are not true Christians. And I’ll be very honest with you this morning. My prayer as I preach right now is that, if you have ever blamed Christianity for that kind of hypocrisy, you will see in these next verses what God’s response to hypocrisy is, and that you will make up your mind about God and Christ and his way of salvation not mainly on the basis of what some religious people are like, but on the basis of what God is like.

Romans 2:1–5 CEV

1 Some of you accuse others of doing wrong. But there is no excuse for what you do. When you judge others, you condemn yourselves, because you are guilty of doing the very same things. 2 We know that God is right to judge everyone who behaves in this way. 3 Do you really think God won’t punish you, when you behave exactly like the people you accuse? 4 You surely don’t think much of God’s wonderful goodness or of his patience and willingness to put up with you. Don’t you know that the reason God is good to you is because he wants you to turn to him? 5 But you are stubborn and refuse to turn to God. So you are making things even worse for yourselves on that day when he will show how angry he is and will judge the world with fairness.

Of all the things we could focus on in these verses I want us to see two main things: Two responses of God to hypocrisy.

God is Just

God is just. When Paul says to the hypocrites in the first verse, “You have no excuse,” he shows God’s concern with justice. If these people had a legitimate excuse for their sins of judgmentalism and hypocrisy, God would be unjust to judge them.

But the whole point of this passage is to do exactly what we saw Paul doing in Romans 1:20 and 32 in regard to the Gentiles.

He wants to show that they are without excuse. In other words, when judgment comes from God because of sin, it will not be unjust.

No one will be able to raise any legitimate objection.

So the first thing to learn about God and his response to hypocrisy is that God is just, and his just judgment is coming not only on the so-called pagan people who live in sin, but also on the moral and religious people who disdain the pagan people, while doing many things that show they don’t trust and love God.

That list in 1:29–31 includes things like “greed,” “envy,” “gossip,” unloving,” “unmerciful.”

As believers, we can be guilty of acting just like the self righteous people Paul was writing too in these verses.

We can be hypocrites if we don’t recognize that even after we’ve been saved that we aren’t perfect. We must repent and start waling in love toward ALL people, even people living in sin. They need the gospel. We must reach them with the truth.

It’s very hard to love people and reach them if we are too busy judging them. The truth is, when we stand judging, God has every right to judge us and find us guilty.

We must humble our hearts, repent, and seek the Lords forgiveness of our self righteous hypocrisy.

Here’s the second thing we can see about God’s response to hypocrisy:

God Is Kind

Let’s look at verse 4 again:

Romans 2:4 (CEV)

4 You surely don’t think much of God’s wonderful goodness or of his patience and willingness to put up with you. Don’t you know that the reason God is good to you is because he wants you to turn to him?

The second thing this verse tells us about God and about his response to hypocrites is that God is kind. In fact, you will notice in verse 4 that Paul speaks of the “God’s wonderful goodness.” That means that he is not just a little bit kind, but that he has huge resources of kindness to pour out on us. In fact, he is pouring them out on us all right now.

Verse 4 tells us that He is patience and willing to put up with us.

The very fact that any of us is alive today is owing to this great kindness of God. He could have been done with us many years ago and taken us away to judgment. But here we are. And this should amaze us.

We should be thankful that we are alive and have an opportunity to turn our hearts to Jesus. That ending of the verse catches me every time. “Don’t you know that the reason God is good to you is because he wants you to turn to him?”

Wow, God wants us to turn to Him. That is my prayer this morning. That everyone here will be sure you have repented and are now trusting in Jesus Christ for forgiveness and for the gift of God’s righteousness.

The eternal life of every one in this room depends on the kindness of God, not our goodness. And the issue is not whether you have been baptized or whether you belong to a church or whether you have walked an aisle or prayed a prayer or signed a card. None of those things saves.

What God leads you to is repentance, which means that you have a profound change of mind and heart so that you hate sin and hate hypocrisy and turn to Jesus in humility and faith and say, “You are my only hope.” And trust him for all the promises of forgiveness and help and life that he bought when he died. They belong freely to everyone who believes in him.