Stop it! Your Just Being a Hypocrite!

So all to often it seems as Christians we love to create this nice little bubble for ourselves.  We love to reject the people of this world and their immorality because its messy and forces us to look at our own problems.  We don't like that, we like to live in a protected bubble, we have the church and thats good enough for us.  So we choose to overlook the issues people in the church have, we choose to overlook our own issues because we are Christians, the people in the church are Christians and those are the only people we feel comfortable with.  We are hypocrites, we reject the world and those in it because of their problems, yet we overlook our own problems and the immorality of those in the church.  Paul addresses this in 1 Corinthians.

1 Corinthians 5:9-13  

I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with the idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world.  But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler-not even to eat with such a one.  For what have I to do with judging outsiders?  Do you not judge those who are within the church?  But those who are outside, God judges.  Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.

The church in Corinth was getting rid of everyone outside of the church, choosing not to associate with them because they were sinners.  But they chose to ignore the problems of their fellow Christian brothers.  We do this so often, we overlook our friends issues because they are Christians, and we judge the world because of the things they do.  How dare we!  What job is it of ours to judge those who are not saved?  Thats what God does, our job is to be with them and around them, witnessing to them, trying to reach them.  Yet we reject them and ignore our own idolatry.  If someone is in the church that is living a life of idolatry, its our job to call them out,  lovingly trying to bring them back to Christ.  Instead of judging those outside the church, we need to be judging those inside, looking at ourself first and formost.  What area of our life are we not giving to God?  What are we putting above Him?  Relationships?  Drinking?  Sex life?  It is time to confront our issues, taking care of them, bringing ourselves back to God, walking with Him and trying to bring others to Christ.  So lets stop being hypocrites, lets stop judging the world and ignoring ourselves.  That will only push others away from God.  Time to change guys, its a new year, a great time to make changes, starting with ourselves!

Tim