Articles
Perfect? Nope!
We even see Apostles in the Bible doing hypocritical things, (Gal 2:11-13), so for any of us to say we've never been a hypocrite would be a lie. I've been one, am still one at times of weakness, and I've had many people be one toward me.
But for anybody to refuse to follow Christ because the church is full of hypocrites is a pretty lame excuse. Jesus, although He was not called a hypocrite by name, was accused of "eating with tax collectors and sinners" which He indeed did, but the question came because Jesus' message was against such a life style, and here he was eating with them. They deemed His actions hypocritical and tried to call Him out amongst His followers.
Jesus had gone to the house of soon to be Apostle Matthew to eat, after Jesus passed him in his tax collectors booth and said, "follow me". Matthew walked out the door leaving his old life in an affirmative response to Jesus. Matthew was the worst of the worst, a Jew who had basically sold his soul to the Romans to collect taxes for them, and also keep for himself anything he could collect over and above their cut. To Jews, he was the bottom of the barrel, sinner and thief.
When Jesus was confronted for eating at the house of such a person, His reply was simply this. “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance") (Mark 2:13-17)
The church is the perfect place for hypocrites. No, we don't want to remain that way, nor grow and re-produce hypocrites, but the church is made up of such people who are sincere, trying to follow Jesus and trying to stop being hypocrites and sinners. If the church were made up of only perfect people, Jesus would be the only one in it! It has often been called "the hospital for sinners", a place full of repentant people trying to get better, and overcome sin and unrighteousness.
In our way of thinking as humans, if we were perfect, we wouldn't need Jesus or His church. But God has shown all mankind the futility of that kind of thinking by informing us that all of us are sinners (Rom 3:23) and therefore He calls ALL sinners to repent. Some say "give me Jesus but not His church". Jesus is the head of His church, and the church is His family of believers. It has nothing to do with 'joining'a church. If you become His through repentance and obedience to Him, He puts you in His church, so rejecting His church is rejecting Him! (Eph 2:19, Acts 2:38-47, Eph 5:22-33, Matt 16:18)
If anyone today is waiting to be part of Jesus' church until there are no sinners or hypocrites in it, time will run out before that happens. If someone today is waiting until they themselves can get their own lives perfect, time will run out before that happens. We are all sinners and will still be sinning when we die or Jesus comes back, which ever happens first. Don't let some old lame excuse that's been around for hundreds of years keep you out of God's family. He calls us into His family, 'the church', because we need God and His saving grace that only comes through Jesus Christ, BECAUSE we are not perfect, and never will be....
