From Grace to Judgement: Excuses Not Accepted

Speaker 1: 0:00

You know, people as a whole are notorious for bad behavior. Even Christians can fall into this. Some Christians and church people are just downright mean. Why is this? Why are some Christians so mean? I mean, looking at the world we live in, it appears that most people in our culture believe that Christians are just about as trustworthy as car salesmen and lawyers. And I will admit, I can behave pretty badly at times. Years and years and years ago, my boss told me Rick, you're one of the smartest people I know, but you can be an up. Well, I won't repeat what the word was, but we all have one. Really, many of the Christians I know behave far, far worse than many of the unbelievers I know, and I'm always amazed at the grace and love and support and forgiveness that's found with the unchurched, which is rarely found among those who go to church. Now, there's lots of reasons for this. I've actually come up with about 10 of them, but most of it is our theology. Many Christians develop a sense of entitlement because we're the chosen ones or the elite, the members of the family of God, and I guess we feel like this gives us the right to look down on others who are not one of us and sometimes our behavior is a result of understanding of God's grace and forgiveness. We feel that because God forgives us for all our sins, that we can treat others in terrible ways and God will still forgive us. Now, that's true that God's going to forgive us for that behavior, but his grace is never a license to treat others in horrible ways. Then there's that critical, judgmental, legalistic attitude that's taught and practiced in a lot of churches. Since we feel that we have a corner on the truth and that we're the ones who are always right. It makes us believe that it's our responsibility to be the world's policeman, going around pointing out where people are wrong and how they're sinning. Now, when we do that, it's very rarely received well by anyone, especially when we have obvious sins in our own life. That, my friends, is better left off to those who are called to be prophets. Ask one sometime. They correct the church and church leaders and are treated horribly by those that should know better. My pastor has that gift of prophecy, and you would not believe how other pastors respond to a prophetic word from God. It reminds me of mean 13-year-old girls on a TikTok post. Then there's the fact that Christians just love to pick and choose which sins are the worst, like homosexuality and abortion. Well, they ignore sins that are so prevalent in their own churches, which might be worse, like gluttony and greed and pride. The world watches us and sees blatant hypocrisy and criticizes us in return for our unjustified criticism of them. Now, over the years, I've personally engaged in hypocritical and sinful behavior and I've watched other Christians do the same, and I've found out that there's several excuses that we give for our poor treatment of other people and for the sin in our own lives. When we treat others badly, we give excuses for why our treatment of them is justified. Here's just the best ones I could think of. First, people say well, Christians are sinners too. The idea behind this excuse is that the world has been watching us and it's put unrealistic expectations on Christians, and we complain that they seem to think we should live a perfect life, which is impossible. So when we sin and our sin is pointed out to us, we excuse our actions by reminding others that we're sinners too. Now, theologically this is correct, but we shouldn't be using a statement like that to excuse our sin. When our sins pointed out to us, either by a Christian or a non-Christian, the proper response is not hey, I'm a sinner too, so get off my back, but it should be. You know what. You're right. I messed up and I'm sorry. Thanks for pointing that out. With God's help, I'll do better next time. Another one that I hear is it's nothing personal, it's just business. Most people say work has nothing to do with my Christianity. Now, christians who say these things reveal a deep misunderstanding about what following Jesus is all about. For a follower of Jesus, there's no such thing as it's just business. Truly following Jesus requires that we make changes in all aspects of our lives, not just our behavior and our dress code on Sunday morning. If we're treating others shamefully at work and through our business practices, we are not properly representing Jesus in our lives. We can't divorce our spiritual life from our personal life or from our work life. Now, I know you've heard this one a thousand times judge not lest you be judged. It makes the hair on my arms and the back of my neck tingle when I hear that People don't like their sin pointed out to them. I know I don't, and it's easy to get defensive and tell people to mind their own business. But if we're failing to be salt and light in the world, then we're supposed to be held to higher standards, and sometimes this means people are going to point it out to us, and when this happens, it's easy to get upset and lash out and tell people that they have their own sin to take care of, which is likely true, but an argument about who's the worst sinner rarely leads to anything good. This one I've been waiting for years to talk about, it's the well, it is an illegal excuse. Now I heard a story about a Christian lawyer who steals money from others, and it's legal. My pastor at the time said he challenged this man on it and the man replied that he's not doing anything illegal, which was technically true. He had the law of the United States on his side and he'd figured out a way to legally swindle people. Nothing he was doing was breaking any of our nation's laws, but there's a big difference between not breaking the laws of our nation and treating people with love, respect and dignity. God's laws are higher than man's laws, and even though a person may not be following man's laws perfectly, this doesn't mean that they're following God's laws. So be careful when you justify your actions because you're not breaking any laws, and in this one, an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, or I'm just treating them the way they treated me. It's funny how a lot of times, christians feel that retaliation is within our rights and we quote scripture to prove it. In Matthew, chapter 4, verses 1 through 11, the devil tempts Jesus out in the desert and he's quoting Scripture to trip up Jesus. The Scripture is ripped out of context and it's completely misapplied. And notice when you read it that Jesus fights back. When he was tempted and in a difficult situation, he looked to God's Word for guidance. If we're truly following Jesus, we will forgive our enemies and love, bless and pray for those who mistreat us. Another excuse is well, they're not Christians. Some people are so misguided that they believe that we're only supposed to treat those within the family of God with honesty and respect, but those outside the family of God can be slandered, abused and swindled. These Christians will say when in Rome, do as the Romans do. In other words, they're saying the world operates on a different set of ethics than Christians do, and so when we deal with Christians, we must use their set of ethics. All I can say is where is that in Scripture? Oh, the next. I'm sorry. I keep laughing at these because people are so sure of themselves when they say it. This next one we have righteous anger. In your anger, do not sin. Be careful if you ever find yourself quoting this verse when this verse is being quoted very rarely is the anger in question actually righteous anger. Usually it's self-righteous anger and we're sinfully lashing out at someone who slideth us and then justifying that anger by calling it righteous anger. Come on, you know what you're doing. How about this? Throw pearls before swine? I actually know some Christians who say this. They say that all non-Christians are swine and should be treated as such. So we are only to treat Christians nicely. Is that what we're supposed to do? Number nine what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. No, it doesn't. Enough said. Or this one? Hey, I'm not in church Now with some of the other excuses above. This excuse reveals a deep-seated misunderstanding of what the church is and how followers of Jesus are supposed to live and function. Church is not a place you go for a couple hours on Sunday morning. It's not an event where you just temporarily change your clothing and behavior. Church goes with you wherever you go. So, no matter what you're saying or doing, you're representing Jesus Christ in his church. And the next one, oh, it's kind of a bonus. We're supposed to please God rather than men. I love this one, especially when Christians quote it, especially when they quote it as a way to justify being mean and rude to other people. Somehow the twisted logic is that we can please God by ticking off other people or something like that. But I have a feeling that if we're trying to please God and, in the process, are making friends and family and co-workers and neighbors hate us, we're probably not pleasing God either. Do you know of any others? Have I missed any? You can always send a message. I'll add it in. What we need to remember, of course, is that Christians still sin, but when our sin is pointed out to us, don't make excuses. The proper response is not to make those excuses but to say you're right, I'm sorry, can you please forgive me?