Welcome to another day the Lord has made that we should rejoice and be glad in. (Psalms 118:24)

Today let’s seek wisdom from God about addressing hypocrisy.

In today’s scripture, Galatians 2:11‭-‬16 (NLT), we see Peter confronted by Paul…
But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong… When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile believers, who were not circumcised. But afterward, when some friends of James came, Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore. He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision… As a result, other Jewish believers followed Peter’s hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy… When I saw that they were not following the truth of the gospel message, I said to Peter in front of all the others, “Since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions?… “You and I are Jews by birth, not ‘sinners’ like the Gentiles… Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.”

Consider…
Jesus was full of compassion and grace for those we would call the unchurched. He also demonstrated great patience for those who followed Him, like denying Peter and doubting Thomas. However, Jesus didn’t tolerate hypocrites.

Like in Mark 7:6 (NLT), where…
Jesus replied, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

And in Matthew 23:27 (NLT), where Jesus said…
“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity.

Indeed we see Jesus passionately and sternly confronted hypocrites. The reason why Jesus was so rude and confrontational to these people, was because of their influence with others.

In today’s scripture, we witness Paul confronting Peter’s hypocrisy. The hypocrisy was Peter, born a Jew, yet saved by grace, acted like a Christian with Gentiles, but dropped them, and grace, like a bad habit when his fellow Jews showed up, and reverted to following Jewish laws.

As I read through today’s passage, I saw that Paul sternly confronted hypocrisy for the same reason Jesus did, because of the accused person’s influence. The scripture said, “other Jewish believers followed Peter’s hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.”

Just then it dawned on me, I too have an issue with Christian influencers’ hypocrisy. That’s because they cause others to feel shame for their shared shortcomings. Mind you the influencer feels no shame, and can cause the weaker believer to walk away from their faith.

Think about how many people have told you that they walked away from the church because of it’s unloving intolerance or hypocrisy. The hypocrites that condemn them for sinning, prove to be the biggest sinners on earth. It’s not a compliment that the world calls some of leaders ‘pimps in the pulpit’. Yet, as disturbing as people walking away from church seems, it’s nothing compared to the fact that these hypocrite influencers cause people to walk away from God and His grace.

This is why Jesus and Paul shared their direct and stern confrontation of hypocrite influencers. In fact Jesus gave His disciples a standing warning as potential influencers…
Jesus said to his disciples, “There will always be temptations to sin, but what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting! It would be better to be thrown into the sea with a millstone hung around your neck than to cause one of these little ones to fall into sin. – Luke 17:1‭-‬2 NLT

Not gonna lie, that scripture made me never want to be a preacher. It actually made me hesitant to share the Gospel at all, because my actions were hypocritical to His message and I took seriously the ‘millstone in the sea consequences’. However, I have grown in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ and realized that not being a hypocrite doesn’t mean getting and doing everything right, rather it means admitting that I’m wrong but God, by His grace through Jesus, has made me right. Understanding I am not right because of who I am and what I do, allows me to operate with Christ-like integrity. That’s because I know that I am saved by grace alone, because of faith alone, in Christ alone. Jesus makes me right, therefore operating with total reliance on Him, and the Holy Spirit, is operating with integrity.

Our integrity as Christ influencers is seen in our commitment to Him, despite our struggle with sin. And allowing others to see us repent and do an ‘about-face’, when we stray, because the Holy Spirit leads us back onto the straight and narrow way. Indeed our integrity is being authentic and intentional about living new, despite what our old sinful nature tempts us to do. We inspire others by not being uptight about not being always right, but rather living mindful that it’s God’s grace through Jesus that makes us right.

So today’s message takeaways include…

• Hypocrites don’t operate with integrity
• Emphasize God’s disdain for hypocrite influencers
• Realize God’s expectation for believers to confront hypocrisy
• And encourage believers to be Christ Influencers, helping others see it’s God’s grace that makes us right

In selecting the song for today, the Holy Spirit showed me the obvious, only people influenced by Christ can be His influencers. Therefore, all of Christ Influencers begin with telling Him I’m Yours! Have you told Him that today.

Today’s song is…
I’m Yours

Blessings 4HG (1 Corinthians 10:31)