Wait. There is a world of articles, books, and information out there when it comes to Christianity, but we are mostly stuck with rhetoric and double talk when it comes to our relationship with the Lord, our new identity as believers, and the security and finality of the work of Christ. Are you getting everything you need spiritually from your church? Or do you find yourself feeling hungry for more? Join Lenny as he unpacks what Scripture really taught about our Lord Jesus Christ in context and why this matters to you. Wake up, wake up, wake up to grace.

Out here in the Midwest, churches love to teach on what they call holy living. It's not just here though. You can travel all around the United States and find the same thing. You think an area called the Bible Belt would be a great place to learn all about holy living. But even what we find in the Bible Belt is not often what we find in the Bible. Someone told me once in conversation that God's word, referring to the Bible, is truth. So when we speak it out loud, what we say is always true. But while this may be the case, if we don't understand the meaning or context of the verse, it doesn't do anyone much good speaking or hearing it, does it? If we listen, but do not hear, we gain nothing. I'm going to be contrasting holy living with hypocrisy today. The goal here is to expose hypocrisy so that we can see it with clarity and defend our minds against it. Fair warning, this might make it hard to sit through your local church sermon on Sunday morning. If you'd rather continue in ignorance, don't listen anymore. But first consider that ignorance may well be the leading cause of hypocrisy. I'll be focusing on the predominant Protestant teaching in my area. It's what fills the church institutions, large and small. Many label themselves non-denominational free churches. This sounds so liberating on the surface. But like the old saying goes, devil's in the details. I'm taking a different approach here than I have in the past, and I'll focus mostly on the behavioral hypocrisy that bad doctrine creates. I want you to see that it's not only spiritual error, but it lacks all common sense as well. The teachings are all the same at the core, but they're taught from different angles, such as these. In order to be a disciple, you must follow the commands of Jesus. To maintain fellowship with God, you must repent and ask for forgiveness for each sin you commit. Your fellowship and salvation from sin are positional, not relational. Relational fellowship with God is conditional, and we can lose it. Now we must understand that being out of fellowship or not being a disciple doesn't affect our eternal salvation, we're told. But it fully affects us now. In other words, we're good enough for heaven, but not good enough for God here on earth. This leads to much confusion, as you might imagine. How can a God that despises me now love me later in heaven? This is what I call a Christian identity crisis. Churches teach a broad range of views on what it looks like to be out of fellowship. A church I attended made it more like a time out. You'd suffer by not receiving temporal blessings and answered prayers. Another important part of their view was that tithing or giving them 10% of your income was the only way to expect financial blessing from the Lord. You don't want to rob God, do you? They would say, quoting the prophet Malachi, who spoke to old covenant Israel. Other churches see timeout as a weak way of describing the Lord's discipline on his misbehaving children. They misquote Hebrews 12, applying the whipping and scourging to sinful Christians. And then further they quote Old Testament passages where God was dealing with his people under the law. These institutions are telling people that God scourges and paddles Christians hard for sin. When asked how much love we must have to be in fellowship, the answer is more. Keep trying. There's never enough or too much. Just keep trying. So how are we told to avoid punishment from our Lord? How do we know if we're in fellowship or out of fellowship? What do these doctrines teach us on holy living? Well, that depends on the angle they're coming from, I suppose. There are a couple ways they like to approach their disciplinary strategy. Love like Jesus loved. In other words, this is a new rule for you to follow strictly. Another one is stop sinning. Interpreted, this means repent sincerely and do not repeat the sin. Repeat sin is a sign of false repentance. False repentance is the number one reason for being out of fellowship. Can you see any concerns with this? If you don't live up to the standard that Jesus lived up to, you might be whipped, scourged, ignored by God, or become financially destitute because of your sin. God may not ever be listening to you when you pray. He's probably too upset to even look at you due to sin. Christ Jesus did try and save us from this type of rule keeping despair. It's just that most of us never come to understand it. We listen, but we do not hear. What we have today is church leaders directing us back under a law of condemnation. In order to protect ourselves from this holy living hypocrisy, we must review our Lord's standard on sin. Let's see what Jesus taught. In Matthew five twenty one, Jesus says, You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the counsel, and whoever says you fool will be liable to the judgment. Matthew five twenty seven says, You have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you, that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away, for it is better that you lose one of your members than your whole body be thrown into the judgment, and if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off, and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members, than your whole body to go into the judgment. Matthew five forty three Jesus says, You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven, for he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. These are the words of our Lord Jesus, who we are trying to maintain our fellowship with. This is the level you must put forth if you expect to maintain a holy lifestyle under today's doctrine. If it's about rules and measures, this must be the standard. And these are only a few of the things that Christ had to say about sin. How's your fellowship looking right now? I think a better question might be, how's your pastor's fellowship looking right now? Do you really think he or she is living up to this golden standard? Do they really think they're living holy lives? How can a person who is out of fellowship be communicating with the Lord on what to teach others? If your pastor is not in fellowship with the Lord, where are they getting their content? Maybe there's a central hub that they get their messages from that maintains their fellowship perfectly? Sadly, most churches do get their messages fed to them from third party organizations. That's the benefit of big business. But are we to believe that the thought life of our leaders is keeping them in fellowship under their own holy living standards? It's common to judge the eternal salvation of others by their walk or their behavior. The problem is when we do this, we're condemned by the words of Jesus. We condemn ourselves by our own system of weights and measures, while in our minds, we are secure, because we don't sin like other people do. Our sin is minor, we tell ourselves. I only get sarcastic when people attack my beliefs, or I only get angry when other people drive poorly, so many tell themselves. That's judgment. You just disobeyed the Lord. But we even hear some of these confessions at the pulpit. Leaders will admit to these sins in order to relate with the general public. But under their own doctrine, they spent their drive to church out of fellowship with the Lord, and are likely in and out because of their thoughts, even while performing their pastoral duties. Oh, but they just have to repent. Yes, that's it. The reason they maintain their fellowship is through the art of steady repentance. Okay, let's slow down a bit here. What exactly does that mean? You just sin and repent, and everything is good again? According to the words of our Lord, your anger today was murder. This isn't a joke. Jesus wasn't kidding around with these people he spoke to. Under the standard, how many times have you committed murder this week? And do you think it's okay with a holy and just God that you just ask him to forgive you and yet continue to commit this heinous crime? Oh, I'm really sorry this time, and tomorrow you do it again. What would Jesus say to your performance if you asked him? In Matthew 5.48, Jesus says, You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. You're ever failing at this, aren't you? How's your pastor doing? Have you asked them their take on this passage? You'll suddenly hear a lot of we gotta do the best we can when you ask how they interpret this. So I guess we just continue on that spiritual treadmill of getting right with God, and accept that salvation is only for the heavenly realms and not here on earth. We can only get so far, but just keep trying. Don't let your constant failure hold you back, after all, you will at least get special recognition in heaven, right? Did we already forget the standard of holiness? You must therefore be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Yeah, but we just repent, they argue relentlessly. And what does the Lord say? But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Matthew six fifteen. Back to the drawing board. It's just not that easy to get right with God, is it? I guess if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. Is this why we have so few pastors out there? Is this why so many are failing in their Christian walk or have adopted the fake it till you make it mentality? I'm afraid we've missed the point entirely. Christianity is not about doing the best we can. That's a mark of false religion, it's pagan stuff. Throw away that mentality. Repent and turn to truth. Change your mind and turn to the Lord. I brought these things to your attention that you might be saved. I'm not referring to your eternal life. If you trusted the Lord once, you probably don't need eternal salvation, you need salvation now. Stop beating yourself up. Christ Jesus was perfect, so you wouldn't have to be. You're expected to fail apart from him. But you do all things in Christ who strengthens you, Paul tells us. The only problem is that you have to believe it. We believe it at salvation, but then we get pulled into a journey led by our own effort. Our holy living standard is become do what is right in your own eyes. Deuteronomy twelve eight says, You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes, for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance that the Lord your God has given you. Do you know what was taking place here? The people of Israel were wandering in the desert for forty years before they were able to enter into God's rest. Why was this? Because they were doing what was right in their own eyes. Have you ever lived this way? Are you being guided by what is right in your own eyes? Do you search everything in Scripture to be sure what you believe is true or do you trust that your pastor has it all right because he quotes from the Bible? God is not pleased with willing ignorance. Israel wandered in the desert for forty years, fixated on their bondage in Egypt. Their lives had become barren and hopeless. In their faithless ways they did not understand God's desire for them was to depend on Him. People of Israel never trusted Him to deliver them. They kept trying to do it on their own. Israel didn't trust the Lord. They were in the desert, fully vulnerable to their enemies, dealing with starvation, famine, yet they clung to their own ways and ignored the truth. All of God's commands to them required them to depend on him, but they failed to trust. They were afraid to trust the Lord, so they remained desolate. How much of your life do you trust the Lord with? Be honest, this isn't for me to judge you, this is for yourself. How much of your life are you willing to surrender to God? Do you trust him with your finances? Then stop worrying. Do you trust him to provide a husband or wife? Then stop dating and seek marriage. Do you trust him with your future? Then stop stressing out about what you can't control. Do you trust him with your daily life? Then ask for his will to be done, not yours. Do you trust him with your whole life? Then ask him to change anything that is unhonorable in your life. Do you want to serve him more? Ask him what would please him. This is scary, isn't it? It can be hard to trust what we don't see, can't it? But is that not the faith we are exhorted to seek in Scripture? Hebrews eleven says Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. So this all sounds kind of mystical, doesn't it? We just stop living for ourselves and let God live through us? Yes, that's exactly what we're taught in Scripture. In Galatians two nineteen, Paul writes, For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. In the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Are you letting go of your self effort and asking God to do what He will with your life? Or are you still hanging on to something? Are you afraid of what God might do if you ask him for his will to be done? The Lord promised you peace on earth. He promised salvation and peace with the Lord. He promised to make you right with the Father. He promised to save you now from the perils of sin. Do you trust him? Are you still wandering around in the desert looking for a future redemption? Holy living is letting go of our own ways and entering into peace on earth. Trust the Lord with everything. What do you have to lose? Do we really think by clinging to the world that we can create our own peace? Should we not trust the one who raises the dead? Why do we hold so tightly to our worry when all we have to do is let go? Why do we try so hard when we have the supernatural power of Jesus living in us? A love that transcends anything we could ever imagine. Peter said, Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you. This isn't just about giving your worries to God. This is about holy living, this is about trust. Humble yourselves, Peter said. Why does this matter, you ask? This is very important, I promise you. Think again about Israel in the wilderness. Did they humble themselves? Did they cast their anxiety on the Lord? No, they didn't. They relied on their own ways. And what was the result? The result was forty years of wandering. That was an entire lifetime for that first generation of Israelites. How long are you willing to wander? Did God consider Israel faithful for their worry and anxiety? Was it holy for them to trust themselves over the Lord and doubt his promises? Paul writes, but whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith, for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. Think of this passage in light of the mana that God gave Israel for food in the desert. What did Israel do when the Lord promised them that they would have plenty every single day? Only gather what you need, he told them. But what did they do? They gathered extra. They didn't trust God. That was their greatest sin. When we're afraid to trust, we're guided by sin. It's not our own ways that are to guide us. And we're not taught to be guided by our feelings either. Our Lord wants us to trust in Him and be guided by His truth. God wants us to believe what He promised us. Peace on earth, a right standing with the Father, salvation from sin. Salvation from sin is salvation from our own ways. It's about trust in the Lord. As an old nineties song once said, free your mind, the rest will follow. Sorry, my sister played that a lot when I was young. It's still in my head at times. But think of this in context of grace, and don't go chasing waterfalls. Let the true living water flow through you. Rest in the grace that you've been given in Jesus. You are in the promised land. Embrace the peace of our mighty Lord and Savior. Let's end with a chart I made for you, comparing grace and hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is love like Jesus, with Jesus love as the standard of measure. Grace says, trust Jesus with your life and let him produce the love. Hypocrisy says repent and stop sinning. Grace says repent and trust Christ with your life. Hypocrisy says, try harder. Grace says let go. Hypocrisy says, make your life pleasing to God. Grace says, offer your life to the Lord to produce his fruit. Hypocrisy says, do more good deeds. Grace says, stop trying to do it on your own. Hyprisy says, live a holy life by behavior. Grace says, trust God with every element of your existence. Hypocrisy says, walk by the law teaching of Christ. Grace says, walk by faith in the cross and resurrection. Hypocrisy says, turn away from sin. Grace says, turn to Christ living in you. Hypocrisy tells us look forward to eternal salvation. Grace says, embrace salvation now. Hypocrisy leads us to stay in fellowship with God. Grace tells us enjoy the perfect fellowship provided by Jesus. Hypocrisy says, ask for forgiveness when you sin. Grace says, be forgiven of all your sin. Hypocrisy says, build up rewards for yourself in heaven. Grace says, be filled with the work of the Lord Jesus. Hypocrisy will tell you manage your stress and anxiety. Grace says, cast your anxiety on Christ. Hypocrisy will tell you to do the best you can. Grace tells us to depend on Christ. Hypocrisy tells us to get right with God. Grace tells us be right with God. Hypocrisy says do what is right in your own eyes. Grace says do what is right in the eyes of the Lord. Don't see your pastor as your superior. They're supposed to be servants. See your behavior as an indication of who you are depending on, not who you're out of fellowship with. Disagree with teaching because it isn't true, not because you feel like you don't agree with it. See anxiety as a sign that you're depending on yourself. And don't fall for self-empowering doctrines. Depend on Christ alone. That's what I got for today, guys. I look forward to seeing you next week, so stick around and I'll see you then. Grace and peace. The content of this message can be found on my blog post at waking up to grace.com. My writings include linked references and visual aids, which will give even more valuable insight, and it's always free of charge. The comment section below each message is a place where we can share mutual encouragement and insight with one another outside of the social media net. My blog post is always a pleasure.