Sermons
“Everyone's a Hypocrite?”
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Generally, Jesus was Compassionate and merciful and gentle as he taught, but to those whose hearts were particularly hard.
They required a different approach.
So we're reading in Matthew 23, starting in verse 23.
Woe to you.
Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.
For you tit mint and dill and cumin.
And have neglected the weightier provisions of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness.
But these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.
You blind guides who strain out a gnat.
But swallow a camel.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.
For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence.
You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish so that the outside of it may become clean also.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.
For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.
In this way, you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly, you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
You may be seated.
One of the things that I like to do in the morning, I don't do it every morning, but I try to do it pretty frequently.
is to remind myself of some truths that I need to live by.
And so I've accumulated over time some documents that I just have in a folder that they're called morning meditations.
And they're just things that I think are good to be reminded of as you begin the day.
And uh one of those documents is a document entitled 43 Insights for Life.
It was written by John Coleman.
He's an author, uh, I don't know a whole lot about him.
But he has some pretty good insights.
I think most of, if not nearly all of the insights are good advice.
Uh, a couple of examples.
Number 9 of the 103 says work hard and show up on time.
All we control is our effort.
Be reliable, be consistent.
When you do something, do it well.
Other things have a way of falling into place.
And he echoes some of the excellent comments that Jake made about wealth when he said in number 18, money will not make you happy.
Superficially, it feels like security.
It can be used for good, but it's also a false idol.
It corrupts.
It deceives.
If money is the primary object of your life or work, it will ultimately let you down.
Like I said, I think nearly all of his life tips or insights are very good.
Many of them echo things that you would read in the scripture.
But he went off the rails with number 5.
Number 5 says being a hypocrite doesn't make someone's values wrong.
Well, I think that is a true statement.
Just because somebody doesn't live up to their values doesn't necessarily mean that those values are bad, but then he goes on to say, you're a hypocrite, so am I. No one perfectly practices what they preach.
But people can be right even about things they live imperfectly.
Don't dismiss good ideas because of hypocrisy.
And so, you're a hypocrite.
I'm a hypocrite.
In fact, Coleman's conclusion is that we're all hypocrites.
If you're not living perfectly according to your convictions, then by his manner of reasoning, you're a hypocrite.
And since none of us live perfectly according to our convictions, Hence the conclusion, we're all hypocrites.
That's not just Coleman's idea about or understanding of hypocrisy.
I ran across this uh poster uh by Paul Watson, quoted there.
Everybody is a hypocrite.
You can't live on this planet without being a hypocrite.
It's not unusual for the irreligious to level the charge of hypocrisy against religious people.
Here's someone who proclaims him or herself to be a Christian, and uh they sin and the unbeliever sees that and says, well, see, Christians, religious people, they're all hypocrites.
I believe it is certainly true that some religious people act hypocritically.
I won't deny that there are hypocrites among those who claim to be believers in God, but I, and I also believe the hypocrisy represents a special danger.
For religious people.
On the chart above, perfection there is not the perfect moral standard of God.
It represents a person's convictions.
And according to the definitions that we've been looking at, hypocrisy is always the result when you don't live perfectly according to your convictions.
I think that's a bad definition, a wrong definition of hypocrisy.
This morning, I want to shine a little light on this idea of hypocrisy.
I want us to look specifically at what the Bible says about hypocrisy.
How does God define hypocrisy?
Does the Bible suggest that we're all hypocrites because we are all imperfect?
I've already said that I think hypocrisy is a special danger for Christians, religious people, and I want to explain why I think that is true.
And then finally, I want to talk a little bit about maybe some things that we can remind ourselves of that will help us avoid.
This sin of hypocrisy.
Well, if you'll pardon the pun, what I'd like to do is unmask the hypocrite.
And I say that because the word that's translated, hypocrisy in the New Testament is a word that originally simply meant in classical Greek, it just meant uh a reply or an answer.
Then it came to refer to the play acting, the dialogue that actors would engage in on the stage.
And so they would reply to one another.
But then the meaning eventually shifted to the idea of someone who is an actor, who has a mask on, who's playing a part.
And so Vine gives us the word pretense as a key word in thinking about hypocrisy.
Vine says of the hypocrite, the person, that it primarily denotes one who answers and then a stage actor, the same kind of Uh, evolution of the, the meaning of the word.
It was a custom for Greek and Roman actors to speak in large masks with mechanical devices that augmented the sound of their voice.
Hence, the word became used metaphorically of a dissembler.
A pretender, someone who deceives.
BA in their lexicons say that a hypocrite uh is in our literature, that is in biblical literature, only metaphorically, an actor in the sense of pretender or dissembler.
And so you're seeing a theme here.
Hypocrisy talks about pretense.
It talks about the person who's deceiving others about who he or she actually is.
I ran across a statement.
I it took me a while to figure out what was going on here, but the statement was made, a hypocrite is a person who, but who isn't.
And I thought, well, maybe he's saying the same thing.
As The Bible, when the Bible says a hypocrite is one who portrays himself as one thing, but he isn't that in real life.
But then I noticed the question mark.
And I think what this individual is trying to say is, well, instead of defining a hypocrite as a person who The fact of the matter is we're all hypocrites.
I think that's the point of the statement, and that's not right.
As we noted from the definition of the words that are used to translate hypocrite or hypocrisy, there's more involved.
In the ancient theaters, the open theaters that would sometimes hold uh 215,23 people uh in a uh in a uh uh a theater, the actors would use masks that would exaggerate whatever the emotion or characteristic that they were trying to portray in this play.
And sometimes those masks actually involved the resonating of the voice so that people up in the stands could actually hear before the age of microphones and those sorts of things.
That's all well and good for theater.
But we don't need to be wearing masks.
We don't need to be involved in hypocrisy.
If we're thinking about what hypocrisy is, I think Jesus helps us a great deal with our understanding of hypocrisy in Matthew the 211rd chapter.
I appreciated the reading that uh Eric did from that passage.
Jesus is in Jerusalem for the last week of his life, and he is rebuking the Pharisees and the scribes, the religious leaders of the Jews.
Because they are hypocrites.
In Matthew 23, 22 of the most scathing rebukes that you'll find in scripture in the New King James Version, seven times, Jesus says, hypocrites.
He calls them blind guides also, but he refers to them as hypocrites.
In verse 25 in the New King James Version, woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers.
Therefore, you will receive greater condemn condemnation.
The law protected widows, but here were people who were taking advantage of the helpless, those that were uh helpless in society.
But then on the other hand, they would make these long prayers so that people would think they were exceptionally righteous people.
For a pretense.
That's a key word here.
It helps us understand what hypocrisy is all about.
In the passage that was read earlier, there are two examples given here.
He says in verse 13, you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.
Clean the inside, he says of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
They were worried about the outward appearance.
There's almost humor in the illustration.
Uh, when you eat lunch today.
And you're done with the dishes.
If you eat at home, you don't eat out.
If you eat at home and you're done with the dishes, just take that plate and clean the bottom of it.
Put it back in the cupboard, cupboard, or, or take the cup and just wipe the outside of the cup but leave whatever dregs of your drink are still in the cup.
How silly.
And Paul, uh, uh, Paul, Paul wrote everything, you know.
Jesus says then in the second illustration, That these religious leaders are like whitewashed tombs.
When the Passover season would come in the area of Jerusalem, the Jews had a custom of taking whitewash, some sort of lime, uh, uh, Mixture, and they would actually paint the tombs that were in the area so that pilgrims who had traveled in some cases, maybe hundreds of miles to come to the Passover feast and observe that feast, they wouldn't accidentally contact uncleanness, ceremonial uncleanness by touching or having contact with one of these tombs, which are full of dead men's bodies.
And so they would whiten the tombs so that you could see.
Theoretically, that they were there was uncleanness there.
Jesus said, you're like those whitewashed tombs.
You look really clean and good on the outside, but he says, inwardly, you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
And so both of these illustrations emphasize the difference between the outward appearance that these individuals were presenting to others versus their inward condition.
We need to be careful about leveling the charge of hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy is not just sinning.
We don't become hypocrites with any sin or every sin.
It is a fact that all Christians sin.
John even says in his first general letter that if we say we have no sin, we're deceiving ourselves.
Truth's not in us.
If we say we've not sinned, we make him a liar, that is God, and his word is not in us.
Now, if you believe that hypocrisy is simply someone sinning, then it's understandable why folks would say, well, now everybody, He's a hypocrite because none of us live perfectly, not according to God's standard, and probably not even according to our own convictions, which should be the same thing.
But just because a person sins doesn't make that person a hypocrite.
There are other factors involved in the meaning of the word.
Hypocrisy, again, is simply not inconsistency.
Not every man whose life doesn't match his convictions is necessarily a hypocrite.
People sin for a variety of reasons, not always in an attempt, uh, I should say for a number of reasons, but they don't always try to hide those sins from others or to present, uh, a facade that is inaccurate.
And I believe hypocrisy is not simply putting our best foot forward.
Little bit of dating advice here.
Young men, young women.
It probably will not work out well for you if the way that you approach every date is, uh, hi, I'm Alan, and I want to tell you about all my faults.
Um, most women would probably start running at that point.
Well, Appreciate the invite, but I've changed my mind.
On the other hand, we don't need to be pretenders of uh pretending that we're something we're not, but all of us naturally wish to present our best side.
But that best side ought to be accurate, uh, most of the time.
I'm not a hypocrite simply because I don't spend all my time informing others of how rotten I am spiritually speaking.
You see what I'm saying?
To avoid hypocrisy, I don't believe we have to spend time regaling people with our weaknesses or our flaws.
Hypocrisy, I think, is certainly a special danger for Christians.
And the reason I say that is, it's Christians who are trying to live right.
There are lots of people in the world who don't care anything about what others think about them.
They're not worried about sin.
They don't even necessarily believe that the way they live is sinful.
But Christians, on the other hand, understand the necessity of living a godly life because God is holy, we need to be holy also.
But here's the danger.
It's easier for us to hide sin, to, to cover it up, to pretend to be an actor.
Then it is often to repent and put sin out of our lives, to, to stop sinning.
And so sometimes I think out of just laziness or impatience rather than dealing with sin, we just try to cover it and make others think that we've managed to overcome sin.
And I think it's natural for us as brethren to want to meet the expectations of other brethren.
And so you're looking at me and I don't want you to see that I'm a failure in some area of my life.
So, so I'm gonna try to, I'm gonna try to put up that facade for you.
I'm gonna clean the outside of the cup and the dish and not worry as much about the inside.
And I'll tell you something else that I think sometimes causes hypocrisy in Christians, and that is the self-righteousness on the part of other Christians.
You remember the parable that Jesus told in Luke 21 about two men who went up to pray, Pharisee and the tax collector, and were regaled with the prayer of the tax of the Pharisee as he prays with himself, one version says.
And he tells God about what a good person he is.
And he's glad he's not like other men, and he lists some since, not even that tax collector.
Apparently the Pharisee can see the tax collector over there.
I'm not like him.
And unfortunately, sometimes as Christians, we display that same kind of attitude.
Well, you know, brother so and so or sister so and so they came up and they confess it.
I'm sure glad I'm not having that kind of a problem.
And so sometimes what people will do is they'll just hide their sin.
Instead of being willing to confess their sin and solicit the support and the forgiveness of others.
Let me illustrate it this way.
Not every person who says something false is a liar.
Would you agree with that statement?
I think that's a true statement because lying involves deception, and sometimes people say things that are not true, not because they're trying to deceive anybody, they don't know the truth.
They're uninformed or ignorant about what the truth really is.
So they say something, but that does, that's not true, but that doesn't necessarily make them a liar.
The liar is the one who intends to deceive.
Well, in the same way, Here's a man or a woman, a Christian who's not living up to their convictions.
But that doesn't make them necessarily a hypocrite.
They may be if they're trying to give the impression that they are living up to their con convictions.
But not necessarily.
Hypocrisy always involves deception.
The Bible helps us a little more with the understanding of hypocrisy by, by giving us some examples.
We've already looked at uh Matthew 22, a couple passages there in that chapter.
But there are other examples.
For instance, in the sermon on the Mount, Jesus in the beginning of chapter 21 talks about Individuals whom he calls hypocrites.
He doesn't mention the Pharisees particularly, but you almost think that they're uh in between the lines there, you ought to be seeing the Pharisees, but not just the Pharisees.
There were people who, who would announce their benevolence to others so that they'd be seen by men.
Someone says, well, that's not, that's not pretending, they're actually doing things and, and they're just telling other, no, the hypocrisy comes because ostensibly, they are serving God in this, when in fact, their motivation is very different.
They're giving the impression that I'm doing this because I'm a servant of God, because of righteousness, when really all I'm looking for is glory.
The eyes of men And he talks about those who pray and then those who fast in those successive verses.
In each case, the motivation is the same.
It's to be seen by men, not necessarily to serve God.
In righteousness Acts chapter 5 gives us a blazing example of hypocrisy, Ananias and Sephira.
Sell a piece of land, and they bring part of the purchase price to the apostles, to Peter.
They give it for the benevolence that's being extended to needy saints.
Chapter 4 gave us the example of Barnabas.
Those two examples are foils.
Barnabas comes and he does this.
Well, then Ananias and Sahira decide they're gonna do the same thing that others were doing, including Barnabas, and so they bring this money, but they give the impression.
They pretend, if you will.
They lied about how much they sold the land for, so that it would appear that they were more benevolent than they really were.
And perhaps you remember the consequence of their life.
Both Ananias and Sephira will die.
They tested the Holy Spirit on that occasion.
They were creating a false impression.
They were pretending to be something they were not.
That's hypocrisy.
In Galatians the 2nd chapter, hypocrisy is not just Pharisees and scribes.
Sometimes it gets apostles.
Peter would eat with the Gentiles, and then some Jewish Christians came from Jerusalem, where James was, and he withdrew himself from the Gentiles to give the impression that he was still keeping the law and not having contact with Gentiles who were considered unclean by Orthodox Jews.
And some Christians apparently at the top.
Paul rebuked Peter in Galatians 2.
For his hypocrisy, and he notes that even Barnabas was carried away by the hypocrisy of Peter.
I think all of these passages illustrate that the real problem behind hypocrisy is that at least among religious people, it is the result of a man-focused religion.
Instead of a God-focused religion.
Because you see, he can't fool God.
But you could fool in.
And so when people become more concerned about what others think of me and I want to present this, this great image of who I am in front of others, I am focused on men, not God.
And I think that is a problem, the real problem behind hypocrisy.
Well, it's a good thing we're not Pharisees, huh, or scribes.
You know, we can appreciate the boldness of Jesus, I think.
When in Matthew 23, he says 7 times, hypocrites, because the fastest way to make an enemy of someone is to refer to them as a hypocrite.
And so this sermon is not being preached for any reason that I think, you know, there's hypocrites in this church here.
I think it's a danger for us.
And I think it's a fair warning for all of us to be careful about hypocrisy because just like the Bible contains examples of hypocrisy, I wanna share what I think are some examples or possible ways that we can be hypocrites.
Matthew 23 is just as relevant for us in terms of our worship, whether it's pray or fasting or, or singing or giving or whatever, just as relevant for us as it was in Jesus' day in Matthew 6.
We can be hypocritical in our relationships with other brethren.
Appreciated the choice of the song, the greatest commands that we love one another.
But that love is to be without hypocrisy, sincere love.
Have you ever Have you ever had a relation with somebody, relationship with somebody, and, and, you know, they're telling you, oh, you know, I love you, I love you, and then they backstab you.
And you begin to wonder if that love really was sincere or whether it was just a pretense.
Jesus in the sermon on the Mount also deals with hypocritical judgment.
And you may recall the passage there, and let me refresh your memory beginning in verse 3.
Jesus says, why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye, or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when there's a log in your own eye, you hypocrite.
First, take the log out of your own eye, and then you'll see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.
Now, be careful here because Jesus is not suggesting that anyone who would correct another of a wrong or a fault is a hypocrite.
That's not his point.
You have to understand that the person who's doing the correct thing has this big problem in his own life.
He's got a log in his own eye, but he's giving the impression that he is qualified and able to see the speck in his brother's eye.
That's the hypocrisy.
There's pretense here again.
In the context of correcting my brother of his fault.
Well, I said the 3rd thing that I wanted to talk about was maybe how we can try to avoid hypocrisy in our lives.
Not everybody's a hypocrite.
But hypocrisy is a sin, and it's a serious problem, I think, for religious people.
And so I'm gonna suggest three things.
First of all, there's really no joy in hypocrisy.
I ran across a statement this week that I thought it was very perceptive.
I have no idea how to pronounce the last name of this guy, but, but this is the statement, he says, hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-wracking vice that Any man can pursue.
It needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit.
It cannot like adultery or gluttony, be practiced at spare moments.
It is a whole-time job, which tells me he's probably not an American.
Because we would say it's a full-time job.
You can't practice hypocrisy a little bit because what happens is as soon as you drop your mask, Somebody sees who you really are.
And so what you got to do is you gotta hold that mask there all the time.
You got to be vigilant and make sure that you don't ever let the facade slip, so people will see what's behind the mask.
I think he's right.
It is the most difficult and nerve-wracking vice.
Always have to be afraid that someone's going to see the truth instead of the facade.
The truth of the matter, of course, is that we're unable to sustain any large scale deception, even in this life.
You know, sometimes people will hide some small fault, fault or flaw, something that doesn't seem to show up a lot in their life, and you can do that for a while, but it's very difficult over a period, a long period of time to fool people about who we really are.
For by their fruits you will know him, Jesus said.
Well, secondly, remember that God sees behind the mask.
God sees who we really are.
Now, I may be able to fool you if I practice it, and I'm vigilant as uh this individual said.
But we can't fool God.
God sees who we really are.
If you and I were in the time of Joshua and we were living in the land of Palestine, there would have been a reminder for us of that very fact.
In the valley of Achor, the valley of trouble, there was a big heap of stones there, and those stones were a reminder of a man by the name of Aiken and what happened to him.
When Jericho was taken, all of the goods there were under the ban, and yet Aiken took some of it for himself, hid it in his tent.
And you can almost imagine that Aiken would maybe have been celebrating with others, you know, well, we, we were able to take Jericho and, you know, he, he was like all the other Israelites when in fact, he had done what God had specifically prohibited.
And in a way that I think is illustrative of the fact that you can't hide from God.
Joshua is informed there's sin in the camp.
And then of the tribes, one tribe is taken.
And then the, the cla clans in that tribe, one clan, and then all the way down to Aiken, so that the magnifying glass just got closer and closer and finally Illustrates the individual who had sinned.
God sees you can't hide from God behind a facade.
Proverbs says a lot about this, but Proverbs 15:3 says the eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.
He sees everything But more than that, in verse 11 of the same chapter, Shell and Abadin lie open before the Lord.
Shell was often the, the place of the grave.
You can't even hide under the, under the soil in the grave.
How much more the hearts of the children of men.
Well we can wear masks.
Which can't hide your heart from the Lord.
God sees.
And I think in that fact is perhaps one of the strongest preventatives for hypocrisy.
Because when I'm tempted to, to try to pretend that I'm something I'm not, there needs to be this niggling thought in the back of my mind.
God knows who I am.
He knows what my life is.
Even if I can fool everybody else.
Well, you know, the plays would end.
And then the the the the actors would take off their masks.
And that's the 3rd thing I would suggest to you, and that is that eventually the theater ends.
Because this isn't, this isn't it.
This is all temporary.
And even if I could fool you for the rest of my life, in the end, the mask is going to come off.
2 Corinthians 5th chapter verse 10, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each 1 may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
Well, maybe, maybe in the judgment.
I'll be able to fool God.
No, can't hide anything.
On that day, when according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
Everything will come to light.
All the masks that we wear in this life, they'll all come off.
In judgment, God will bring every deed with every secret thing, whether good or evil, every secret thing.
There's nothing in my life that God is not able to suss out.
There's nothing in my life that he doesn't know about.
Nothing that will not be brought into judgment, as though I could hide it from you and so God can't see either.
We play a game sometimes, not intentionally.
But I, I think it's a common game.
And that is, we pretend that as soon as we go through the door of our house and we shut the door where now all the rest of the world, maybe our family's in the house, but all the rest of the world's outside the house, that now somehow everything that happens in my house is hidden.
So I can fuss at my wife and yell at her and be angry or hit on her or whatever.
I can beat the children.
I can be a hypocrite at home.
But nobody will know that as though for some reason, my house protects me and keeps all my secrets hidden.
It's a game.
It's a dangerous game.
Because God looks down through the shingles or the metal roof, and he sees.
Everything Well, just Some final observations here.
I think of, of all the sins that maybe we struggle with as Christians, the sin of hypocrisy is perhaps one of the greatest dangers.
And for reasons that I've already suggested.
We need to understand that hypocrisy destroys influence.
Hypocrisy and parents will destroy the influence they have with their children.
Hypocrisy and Christians will destroy the influence that we have in the world.
But I'll tell you something else about hypocrisy.
It'll destroy the influence that we have with younger Christians, newer Christians, babes in Christ.
I have seen and perhaps you have as well.
Occasions where older Christians acted the hypocrite.
And younger Christians, those less mature, became so discouraged because they see that hypocrisy in these older church members, and they just decided, I'm gonna give up.
What a terrible thing to have to face in judgment that I'm responsible for the stumbling block that was put before this younger Christian.
Another danger of hypocrisy is sometimes we start to believe our own lies.
Hypocrisy is about deceit, it's about pretense.
We may begin to believe the pretense.
The deception that we've created for others.
Someone says, no, no, no, I know.
I ran across a statement by Nathaniel Hawthorne, at least uh attributed to him.
He said, no man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.
You wear the mask for so long that you've forgotten who you really are.
You think the mask is who you are.
Well, that's horrible. Self-deception.
And unless you've got some true friends, people who love you, to tell you, listen, you need to take the mask off, you need to change who you are, not cover it up.
We may go to our graves thinking, well, you know, I really was.
The mask When I was growing up, I had a friend Who had a propensity for telling lies.
You know, when kids are really young and they, they, they exaggerate the truth.
That's what people say.
so and so exaggerated the truth and, you know, it's kind of funny to hear the tall tales that kids, but you know, sometimes kids grow up and they get in the habit.
Of exaggerating the truth or not quite telling the truth.
And I am firmly convinced that at some point in that young man's life, he didn't.
Know what the truth was.
He told lies so much that he couldn't tell you what the truth was.
That's the danger we're talking about.
But I've worn the mask for so long that now I think the mask is the truth instead of just pretense.
The apostle Peter would write in chapter 2 and verse 1.
Therefore, laying aside all malice, guile, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, we're to desire the sincere milk of the word.
How do you lay aside hypocrisy?
Self-examination, Self-examination.
Am I being honest with other people about who I am?
Am I being honest about my attempts to live righteously, or have I been trying to Give the wrong impression.
And when I find something in my life that needs to be changed rather than covered up with a mask or a facade, repentance.
Is the course of action I need to take.
Confession of my sin.
I believe that's probably why James says that we're to confess our sins to one another.
Rather than wearing masks.
Well, we can be certain that God is no hypocrite.
When the Bible says something, we can be sure that it's the truth.
God doesn't wear a mask.
He's not hiding behind a facade.
You can read who God is and how he behaves.
And that's the truth.
But it may be that we're hiding sin in our lives.
That we're not who we show others that we are.
And if so, we need to deal with that problem of hypocrisy.
As we mentioned before.
God sees us the way we are.
He knows the sins that are in our lives.
And you can't fake God out with a mask.
You can't pretend.
And fool God.
He will bring all things into judgment.
If you're not prepared for that judgment, if there are things that you need to get rid of rather than covering them up.
And our invitation to you this morning is that you respond to the gospel.
If you're a Christian and you need to repent of those sins, you need to confess them to God.
If you desire the prayers of the congregation, it may even be necessary for them to know of things that are publicly known, then we encourage you to come forward at the invitation song.
If you're not a Christian, Understand you're like, you may feel like you're a good person and perhaps in many ways you are, but you need to understand that God knows all our sins.
And he offers to each of us the opportunity, opportunity to be washed clean by the blood of Jesus Christ.
If that's your need this morning to become a Christian, to be forgiven of your sins, and we want to encourage you to come to the front.
We stand to encourage you as we sing.
- 2025.05.18A-Hypocrites.mp3 (13.84 MB)
