We Are Hypocrites. Praise God!!!
John 20:1-18 NIV
Purpose:
To empty ourselves to let God fulfill us with His presence
20 Early
on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to
the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.
2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple,
the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and
we don’t know where they have put him!”
3 So Peter and the other disciple
started for the tomb.
4 Both were running, but the other
disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent
over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6 Then
Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the
strips of linen lying there,
7 as well as the cloth that had been
wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate
from the linen.
8 Finally the other disciple, who had
reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed.
9 (They still did not understand from
Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) 10 Then the
disciples went back to where they were staying.
11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she
bent over to look into the tomb
12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had
been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They
have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”
14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but
she did not realize that it was Jesus.
15 He
asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she
said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I
will get him.”
16 Jesus
said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out
in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).
17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet
ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am
ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples
with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these
things to her.
This
is the Word of God
for
the people of God.
Praise
be to God.
Amen
We Are Hypocrites. Praise God!!!
John 20:1-18 NIV
Purpose:
To empty ourselves to let God fulfill us with His presence
Outline
I.
Introduction
II.
Are we Christians hypocrites???
III.
Explanation of the biblical text,
John 20:1-18 NIV
Answer why are we or aren’t we
Christians hypocrites
IV.
Conclusion[s]
V.
Prayer
I remember my years of being hypocrite. The worst part is
that I didn’t know I was being hypocrite. For example, if one person didn’t
agree with one of my moral or ethical points of view, then I used to listen to
the point that this person was making and I just said, “Oh, yes, yes. I agree
with you.” Of course, the friend in turn used to smile and be very, very polite
to me, then he/she proceeded to ignore me kindly, and to become suspicious
through the rest of the conversation. If a third person was there, and this
other friend knew me, the reaction was disappointment, a little movement of the
head, and a face that was saying, “Really, Claudia, I didn’t know that you
agreed with such and such thinking.” Of course, the third person didn’t take my
comment seriously either. In the case of my poor children, they were trapped,
because I was their authority. They used to say to people, “Oh, no my mother is
not in this way. She is different when we are at home. Tell them mom.”
Obviously, the expression on my face toward my children was, “Wait until we get
home. I am going to squish you like a bug!!!” I didn’t understand that I was being hypocritical when I didn’t stand
for what I believed. I tried to please people at all costs. I wanted to be
loved, accepted, and praised. Have you been a people pleaser??? Have you
wanted to be loved and accepted by others???
Truthfully
speaking, it feels good when others agree with us. It empowers us. It gives us
the opportunity to have a voice, to be heard, even to feel important, because
we have the attention through the common agreement of moral and ethics and
ideas. On the other hand, being people pleasers doesn’t give us peace. It
doesn’t give us joy. It doesn’t give us assurance of one self. It doesn’t give
us authority. It doesn’t give us credibility and it doesn’t give us
self-respect and respect in general. It doesn’t give us anything good.
Being people pleasers divides us and
confuses us because, like any other deceitful and dishonest attitude, it is
going to take us to the land of the unknown self. We are going to be lost in our
deceptions and lies. Have you been
lost??? It is not a very pleasant experience to be lost. The sense of not
having direction and purpose in one’s life is sad and depressing. The sense of
lack of fulfillment gives us the impression that we are just existing instead
of living!!!
Sadly, the deception of the mind and
the lack of fulfillment of one’s heart is equal to the emptiness of one’s life. This is very common reality in so
many people and Christians have been affected too. That is why Christians have
been called hypocrites. We confess that we are Christians because we know that
God expects this from us, but it is difficult to stop pleasing people. What does happen here, when we have been
people pleasers? We turn around and do the opposite that what God wants us
to think, to say, and to do. So at the end of the day, when we should have a
truthful and honest conversation with God, we just finish thinking that we are
tired and ready to go to bed. We don’t want to have a conversation with God
because we know that we are not on honest and good terms with Him. And it is
because of us that we are not on good terms. God is in perfect disposition to
talk. As a result, we don’t want to
think and we don’t want to hear if we said or did the Will of God. Sadly, we
become Christians by name, not by commitment.
On the
other hand, we have to recognize that there are some serious and loyal Christians,
Christians who really desire and try to do the Will of God, Christians who have
let the Holy Spirit change them. It is a dramatic change. The change that we
have experienced is from doubt to assurance, from anxiety to peace, from
emptiness to fulfillment. Then people who are not committed Christians or who
are not Christians at all think that all of us are hypocrites.
Here is
Mary Magdalene, who came very early to the tomb and she sees that the stone has
been removed from the entrance. She runs
and tells the others disciples that the tomb was empty. The tomb was empty. Just
imagine Mary Magdalene, that she was so desperate that she was screaming, we
don’t know where they have put Him!!! Can you imagine, for example, leaving
your child in a place such as the school and coming back to pick him/her up and
not finding him/her?!!! It has to be a situation of almost becoming irrational
and crazy. Jesus was everything for them, as He should be for us. Have you felt in this way? Have you felt
unwanted, misplaced, or rejected??? Have you been confused? Well, Mary
Magdalene was confused, afraid, lost, and felt unwanted and empty. She thought
that the center of her life was being stolen, when in reality, no one could
steal Jesus. But in this moment, she didn’t understand. She just felt lost and
empty.
My dear
ones, Mary Magdalene and the disciples found an empty tomb. How many times have we been empty? Actually,
in order to be fulfilled, we need to be empty first. Mary Magdalene recognized
that Jesus was there the entire time. He didn’t go anywhere but she didn’t pay
attention. She thought that someone had stolen Jesus’ body because her
attention was on the surroundings. Jesus was there the entire time!!! She even
confused Him with the gardener. Jesus was next to her the entire time. He has
not gone anywhere. How many times we
don’t recognize Jesus in our lives???
Human
nature has not changed since the beginning of time. When we don’t have Jesus,
we don’t have anything that permanently can fulfill us. Sure enough, Mary was
empty. Mary was confused. Before Jesus’ resurrection, I am sure that Mary
became a people pleaser, because the resource of her fulfillment had died. But,
wait a minute, the good news, the very good news is that Jesus didn’t remain
dead. Jesus is alive and lives inside our hearts, when we decide to say, “Yes,
Jesus, please come and dwell in my heart. Fulfill me.”
Jesus is
next to you, to us, the entire time. He has not gone anywhere. However, like
the empty tomb, we need to let go old business, our old nature, our old
resentments, painful memories, regrets, frustrations, and failures, you name
it. The old in us has died and today we are resurrected with Him as new
creations, fresh, joyful, and strong. The emptiness of our lives is going to be
filled with Him. The Only, everlasting, and faithful Jesus. He wants to fill
our emptiness. He wants to give us purpose in life. He wants to change our
hearts. No matter how nasty our lives have been in the past or even in the
present, He is the Only One who can give forgiveness and fix our brokenness.
Today is the day that we have a new life in Jesus. Our old lives are behind in
the empty tomb.
So, my
dear ones, when Jesus comes to our hearts and changes us, obviously, we are not
going to be the same anymore. People who have met us one way now have to get to
know us in another very different way. Now we are able to experience
fulfillment, clarity of mind, peace in our lives, and natural joy, because to
be committed Christians means a way of living. We are not people pleasers anymore. And if this drives people to call
us hypocrites, praise God for our change and hypocrisy!!!
Let us
pray,
Dear
Jesus
Thank
You so much for Your willing sacrifice to die and to rise for us.
Thank
You so much for the empty tomb. Help us to empty ourselves in order to give You
the entire place of our hearts and minds.
Thank
You so much for changing our old human nature to please people for pleasing
You.
Help us
to keep persevering in our relationship with You.
In Your
name we pray.
Amen.
