Christians Are The Worst | Travis Finke

Now hear me out on this a little bit. I think this is true. I think a lot of us are hypocrites because we just forget that the same thing that other people do that drive us crazy, we do the exact same stuff. And I think that we just forget watching other people sin. It gives us amnesia. Watching other people make mistakes. It makes us forget that we've ever made a mistake. We're bound to say these words. How could they? How could they fill in the blank? Here's our action step. When you find yourself asking how could they, whatever it is, say out loud right after that. How could I forget? Truly honored to get to be with you today, genuinely. If we've not met before, my name is Travis. I get to be one of our pastors here. And again, I'm just thrilled that I get to share with us today. Something about me, this is actually probably the coolest thing about me, is my four-year-old daughter Campbell. Campbell is the absolute best. My wife, Jessie, and I, we have three kids together. Campbell is our middle child. And you can just see it. She's just absolutely beautiful. She is sweet. She is quirky. She says the most random stuff.

The other day, I was driving her to school. And just out of the backseat, just out of nowhere. She's like, "Daddy, I don't like peanuts." It's like, "Why don't you like peanuts, babe?" She's like, "You just got so many peanuts in them." And I was like, "Yes, they do, babe." That is like the main ingredient of peanuts. My wife and I were trying to teach her about Jesus the other day, and we were like, "Hey, Campbell, Campbell. Lock him for a second. Jesus, he is in your heart. You got it? Yeah, I got it. Okay, who's in your heart, Campbell? Jesus, good job. And she gets this far away looking her eyes. "What's he doing in my heart?" It's like, "I don't know how to explain to you what he's doing in your heart. He's in there, all right?" Kids will keep you on your toes, gang. If you didn't know that, and speaking of being kept on our toes, this message series that we have been in has definitely done that. If you've not been around, the series is called Soundbite. And guys, it's the wildest thing, but you and I, we are often shaped and formed by these 30-second clips of people on the internet.

People that we've probably never met in person that are talking about these really big ideas that are often related to sports or politics or people or faith. And based on this 30-second clip, our opinion about these big and often nuanced topics is formed like that. And so the hope with this series is that we would learn how to respond to some of these ideas, particularly these bigger ideas related to faith in a way that might be helpful to us. And hopefully, we might be able to learn a little bit of what God might have to say about these bigger ideas. So we're going to get started and jump right into it. Let's take a look at our Soundbite for the day. Despite all of the verses in Jesus's teachings telling people not to be judgmental, that fundamentalist Christians are some of the most judgmental and angry people on the planet, what a hate as a Christian, other Christians. Some of the meanest, most conniving judgmental people are sitting front row on Sunday at church. That's something that really drove me away from God, Christianity, Jesus. Whatever you want to call it is the picture-perfect snapshot Christian. Extremely judgmental. I think a lot of them have just been handed everything. And then they become super judgmental and they judge everybody who's going

through some type of a hardship. All right then. Anybody feeling a little bit attacked in that one? So a bit of a rougher soundbite for today. I'll sum it up for us though. Essentially what the clip is saying is that Christians are essentially just the absolute worst. Right? How are they the worst? Well, in every way the clip said, we are just the worst. Maybe you caught it. One of the guys in the video is a Christian. The thing he hates most, other Christians. Other Christians, there was kind of an underlying theme to this video though. And I'll sum that up for you. Here's our kind of full takeaway from this soundbite in this. Christians are the worst because they are judgment. Christians are the worst because they are judgmental. And so again, what we want to do today is we want to respond to this idea and hopefully figure out what God might have to say about it. So we're going to respond by taking a look at a story in the Bible. If you have your Bible with you, feel free to grab it and turn to Matthew chapter 18. If you don't have your Bible, we do have Bibles around as well.

But Matthew chapter 18. Here is what we are told. It says this, "Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother "a sister who sins against me? "Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, "but 77 times." Then Jesus goes on to tell this story to Peter. Jesus is saying, "Hey, therefore, the king of a heaven "is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants." And so as this king, as he began the settlement, a man who owed him 10,000 bags of gold was brought to him. Since this man was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. At this, this servant, he fell on his knees before the king and he said, "Be patient with me "and I will pay back everything." And then the servant's master took pity on him and he canceled the debt and let him go. So this is a cool story, fascinating story, a lot to it, but it gets started by Peter asking Jesus a question. Now Peter, if you didn't know, Peter is one of Jesus' disciples. Peter's main job is to just learn from Jesus. So he asked Jesus all kinds of questions. He asked Jesus this great question, "Hey, how many times should I forgive my brother, "a sister who sins against me?"

It's a great question. I will get more to that question in just a moment, but it's a part of Jesus' answer. Again, Jesus tells this story about a man who owes his king money. Hey, like a bunch of money. It says 10,000 bags of gold, which in today's money is millions, if not one billion dollars. Okay, so it's this unpayable debt and everybody during this time knows that this debt is unpayable. So it goes on to say, "Hey, the king says, "Hey, I've got this idea, servant. "I know that you can't pay me." So what if, what if, hear me out, what if we just sold you and all your stuff and your entire family to maybe get started? It won't cover all the debt, but what if we just get started by selling you and all your stuff? And the servant responds, "I like it, I like it." It's creative, okay? But hear me out, what if instead, what if instead I just paid you back over time? I have a little bit of fun with this story, but this is actually serious. This servant is out of options. Okay, he has this unpayable debt that is crushing him and his only option that he has left is to go to the one person who can help him

and humbly ask that person for mercy. There's no reason for him to get it, but he goes to this king and he says, "Will you just please give me mercy?" And the wildest thing, the king thinks about it, he considers his option and then he says, "Yes." He says, "Yes, I will, I will wipe out your desk. I will show you mercy." Now, to being judgmental, okay, that's what we're trying to respond to, right? Christians are the worst because they are judgmental. Let me give you a definition. Here's how the dictionary defines the word judgment or being judgmental. It's the act of forming a decision based on comparing, discerning, and careful thought. That's what being judgmental is. It's the act of forming a decision based on comparing, discerning, and careful thought. Now, according to this definition of judgment, the king in our story is incredibly judgmental, right? He takes in all of this information and then after careful thought, he makes a decision. Now, I don't know about you, but I like this judgmental king, okay? He seems awesome, his judgments, they are kind and forgiving and merciful. And what I think this part of the story teaches us is that being judgmental is not the problem. Hey, Christians, we might still be the worst,

but it's not because we're judgmental. We all make judgments. That's a part of everyday life. We take in information and we make decisions. So, if being judgmental isn't the problem, what is it? What is it? Well, let's continue on in our story. It goes on to say this. Jesus is telling the story, again, continuing on. But when the servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants. So, the guy who just got forgiven all this debt, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him 100 silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him and said, "Pay back what you owe me." Whoa, okay, his fellow servant fell on his needs and begged him, does this sound familiar? He fell on his knees, he begged him, "Be patient with me and I will pay it back." But, the servant refused. And instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, everybody's watching, right? The other servants saw what had happened. They were outraged and went and told their master, Hey, good news guys. I think we found the problem, right? This servant is not cool, okay?

If you missed it. This guy who was just forgiven all this debt, shown this mercy, he went out into this great big world and just happened to be given the opportunity to extend the exact same thing to someone else. He went the other way. He went the other way. This servant, he was shown kindness, and he showed to another person no kindness, okay? He was shown forgiveness, and he showed no forgiveness. This is maybe the most important one. He was shown mercy. He showed no mercy. Let me give us another definition. This is a different word. The word is hypocritical. Here's the definition for hypocritical. The behavior that contradicts what one claims to believe, that contradicts what one claims to believe. Now, this servant, he claims to believe in mercy. If he didn't believe in mercy, he wouldn't have asked for mercy from his king, but he did. But when given the opportunity to extend that same mercy to someone else, his behavior, his actions, completely contradicted what he claimed to believe. In the same way, I don't think people have a problem with Christians because they are judgmental. I think people have a problem with Christians when their judgments are hypocritical. And their words, when their actions,

the things that they say are important to him, when the things that they do contradict what they claim to believe. And, and, this is important. It's not just people that have a problem with this behavior. Jesus, he is telling us this story because he has a problem with it as well. The hero in the story is not the hypocrite. Jesus goes on to finish this story. Let's see what happens. Says the master called the servant in. Can these are Jesus' words? "You wicked servant," he said. "I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you in anger?" The master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed. And then Jesus crescendos his story. I've taken it to our neighborhood and he says, "Hey, this, Peter, you asked this question. This is how my Heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from the heart." This story, in Scripture, these stories are called parables. Jesus tells a lot of these stories, a lot of times in parables. Jesus lets us draw our own conclusions. He just tells the story and then we kind of have to figure out what it means, not so with this story. Jesus breaks it down for Peter.

He says, "Peter, look at me, look at me, look at me." And he says to you and I, "Look at me, look at me." The king in this story is God, okay? And God, he's kind, he's loving, he's forgiving. You, you are the servant, your job. Treat people the way that God treated you. And if you don't, it will not go well for you. And people, people are like, "Peter, Christians are the worst. They are so judgmental. They are so hypocritical." And yet Jesus, he's like, "Do not be the worst. Treat other people the way that your Heavenly Father treated you kindly, forgiving with mercy." So the question we left with is, "Okay, how do we do that? How do we do that? Because it'd be easy to say, "Okay, Jesus, we get it. We're not going to be hypocritical anymore. Okay, we're going to be really forgiving. And then you're going to be proud of us. And other people aren't going to find us so annoying." See, the thing is, this story, it was written thousands of years ago, and yet it might as well have been written yesterday, because we can't figure this out. So how do we do it? How do we respond to this problem that we've had for literally thousands of years? Well, that's what we're going to spend the rest of our time on. I noticed two things in this story that I think will be helpful to us, just two things that I drew out of this story for us and one action step for each one of these things. And that's where we're going to spend the rest of our time doing.

So here's the first thing that I noticed in our story. And it's this, we are most hypocritical when we are most forgetful. We are most hypocritical when we are most forgetful. Now hear me out on this a little bit. I think this is true. I think a lot of us are hypocrites. that other people do that drive us crazy, we do the exact same stuff. And I think that we just forget. Like seriously, like think about the servant in our story. And just for a moment, assume that he's just not the worst human being on the planet. And instead he just forgot, right? Like expecting someone to pay back a debt that owes you a debt and then having them pay a punishment if they don't pay it back, that's a very reasonable interaction, okay? Wells Fargo does that all the time when they take cars and houses and things like that, okay? This is a normal thing. What makes us also upset and disappointed about this servant is what happened to him right before he did this. He was shown mercy and he showed none. We would expect him to pass that kindness along. We would expect him to pay it forward, but he didn't. So what I'm gonna assume is that he just forgot. He just forgot. He must have just spaced off completely what had happened to him because if he would have remembered, gosh, he certainly would have reacted a little bit differently.

And again, before you roll your eyes at this idea, let me just take you a little bit of a scenario for you. Picture this, you're driving. You pull it behind somebody out of stoplight, the light is red. And then the light turns green and they don't move. What do you do? You honk at them or if you're polite, you quietly judge them in your car. How could they not see that the light term green? What are they doing? I can't believe that they're on their phone. How could they do this pay attention? Well, based on that response, I'm gonna assume that like our servant, you must have just forgot about yesterday when somebody texts to you while you were at the light and you're just gonna check it super quick and they ain't gonna get caught up, honk. Oh, sorry about that. I just, I was just, this doesn't usually happen to me. I was just checking this message fast forward to today. Go, what are you doing? How could you ever possibly not notice that the light turned green, guys? It's the craziest phenomenon. But watching other people sin, it gives us amnesia. Watching other people make mistakes and makes us forget that we've ever made a mistake. Again, the thing that I notice in our story, we are most hypocritical when we are most forgetful.

So our action step, what I want us to do, how I want us to respond in these moments that will inevitably come up whenever someone does something that we don't like, we're bound to say these words. We're bound to say these words. How could they? How could they fill in the blank? How could they not see the light? How could they swerve into my lane? Maybe something more serious. How could they treat me like that? How could they do that to me? How could they not see what I'm going through right now? How could they not see the damage that they are causing right now? In those moments, here's our action step. When you find yourself asking how could they, whatever it is, say out loud right after that, how could I forget? How could I forget the times that I have done the exact same thing? How could they not see what I'm going through? How could I forget the times that I am distracted and I just gloss over people in my life? How could I forget the times that I messed up, the times that I let people down? How could they? How could I forget the times that I do, the exact same thing? Before I move on, I just want to call out.

If someone has done something to you that is crime, something more serious, this is not what we are talking about. This exercise is not applicable. But in general, guys, I think if we did this, it would change our life. I've been having this rattle around in my mind all week long, I've been trying to apply it. It has changed the way that I look at other people. Again, instead of saying, how could they fill in the blank? Or when, inevitably, we say, how could they fill in the blank and we catch ourselves? Say out loud, how could I forget the times that I do, same thing? Okay, here's the second thing. And again, what we're trying to do is we're trying to figure out how to be less hypocritical, how to honor God with our life, how to be attractive to other people. Our second thing is this. A following Jesus is about growing, not graduating. Following Jesus is about growing, not graduating. I noticed this in our story, but I also noticed this in my life. It's kind of interesting. A Christians are actually Like most Christians actually love the idea of learning new things and even doing new things as they learn more and more about what it looks like

to follow Jesus. But the problem is, is that eventually we all want to graduate. Like eventually we all want to transition from being the student to being the teacher. We see that in Peter in this story, you know, remind us. It says, "Then Peter came to Jesus and he asked, 'Lord, 'how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister "who sins against me?'" Up to seven times. Now this seems like a very simple question from Peter, but what Peter's doing actually, he's flexing in this moment. He's just going to show him off in this moment. He's trying to become the teacher in this moment because what's happening during this time, all the teachings said that three, three is the magic number when it comes to forgiveness. Like if you want to be a super righteous person, you want to be at the tippy top. A three is the number. What Peter says is like, "Hey, hey Jesus, check this out. "How many times should I forgive my brother?" Up to seven. Oh baby, I'm raising things up a notch now, aren't I, Jesus? You used to hear like, "Hey, three is this number." I'm setting a new standard for us. Seven is how many times I'll be forgiving people. ♪ Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun ♪ Peter, he's got his little hat thing on. He's ready to move that tassel thing.

He's graduating in this moment. The student has become the teacher. That is until Jesus responds to Peter's question. Jesus answered, I tell you, not seven times, Peter. Good try though. 77 times. Essentially telling Peter, "Hey, you're not done learning, "but you still got more to learn." Because following me, it's about growing, not about graduating. We have so much more to learn. And if you're anything like me, most often, we actually have a lot more to relearn. I mentioned my sweet little girl, Campbell earlier. I've got another picture of Campbell just so we can all enjoy that sweet little girl there. So the other day, my whole family is just doing the thing in the morning where we try not to lose our minds and get a house on time if you guys ever done that whole thing. By the way, if you have kids here and they have clothes on, they ate recently, a very well done, Adiya. Very, very nice job. So we're at my house, we're doing that whole thing. And my sweet little Campbell here, she decides that she's gonna sweep up after herself, after breakfast. So she gets the broom and the dust pan out. She's sweeping and it takes her about 12 minutes to cover about four square feet, but she's doing it.

And she does it and she takes the broom, she takes the dust pan, she brings it over the garbage can. And she dumps the contents of the dust pan directly onto the floor. And I don't wanna brag or anything, but I actually wasn't even mad. Okay, I just calmly walked over there and I was like, oh bud, you missed. Let dad help you. And so I went to grab in the broom and the dust pan from her to help clean it up, and she wouldn't let it go. So I said, hey Campbell, you have to add the broom in the dust pan so I can clean this up. And she said, no. Now, I'm starting to feel that ticking clock happen here. I feel like ticking clock at home. We gotta leave now, otherwise it's gonna be big trouble. Everybody's gonna be late, whatever. And so then something happened that I think surprised everybody, including me. I looked at Campbell and I shouted, give me the broom and the dust pan, Campbell. And my sweet little four year old burst into tears, ran away. Everybody in the house was completely silent because for whatever reason, now dad is yelling. And I just quietly leaned up the food, put it away, got everybody in the car, no way we went. Listen to me. When it comes to following Jesus, we don't graduate.

Okay, I learned a long time ago that you're not supposed to yell at four year olds. I need to retake that class. Following Jesus, it's about growing, not graduating. And that's actually a good thing. It's actually a gift because every time we fall short, it brings us back to Jesus and it reminds us that we need him. It reminds us that he's not done with us. These little times it can crush us to fall short and let people down and yet Jesus says, just come follow me, just come follow me. You wanna be done, you wanna be the teacher, just come follow me. (mouse clicking) Here's our action stuff for this one. It's pretty simple, it's not easy, it's pretty simple. When we screw up and we will, be accountable. When you screw up and you will, be accountable and keep growing. Don't give up, don't say, hey, this is just me, this is just how I am, this is how I'm always going to be, no, no, Jesus has more for you than that. Jesus can redeem and restore anything, but because he loves you, he always has more for you. I hate when I fail, especially when I fail my kids, but on that day, I went over to Campbell, I apologize, I said I made a mistake and I asked her

if she would forgive me and she did. And back to growing, I went because that's what we do. We make mistakes, then we're accountable. Back to growing, we go following Jesus about growing, not graduating. I'll finish with this. There is one last thing that I noticed in our story, and it's actually, could be really good news and also could be kind of bad news for us. So we see these videos right online, these soundbites, like the one that we looked at today about how Christians are the worst and whatever. But the one thing that I noticed that is true in our story and also true for us today, and it's this, the world is watching and you get to decide what they see. The world is watching, but the good news or the bad news is you get to decide what they see. Look at this story one last time here. When the other servants saw what had happened, saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened. The other servants saw and were outraged and why did they see? Because that's what we do. We see and we watch and we look around and then these servants, what they did was like, oh my gosh, look what he did. I'm gonna post that to Instagram

and I'm gonna tell the world about it. I just made a soundbite, okay? I don't have to tell you this. Whether you're a Christian or not, the world is watching, they're waiting on the edge of their seat to see what you're gonna do next, but the good news is you get to decide what they see. You get to decide if you're gonna be a self-righteous, hypocritical person or if they're gonna see something different. They're gonna see somebody who knows that they mess up, who remember the times that they mess up and as a response to that, they treat people differently. They could see a person who knows that they're not done yet, that they still make mistakes every single day, but they're not gonna give up and say, they're gonna keep going. When people look at you and they will, you get to decide, will they see what they think they're gonna see or will they see something completely different? Will they see a light in this world? Will they see something different? Again, one more time, our point, we are most hypocritical when we are most forgetful. So our response to that is when we inevitably wanna say, "How could they do whatever it is?" Remind yourself, "How could I forget?" The times that I do, the same thing. And again, following Jesus is about growing, not graduating. Be accountable.

Keep growing. It's the world that's watching. You get to decide what they see. Help them to see a light. Did you pray with me? Heavenly Father, we love you, Lord, and I'm just so grateful for your story and your word. God, these stories, they help me. They help us to understand what your will is for our life. Lord, so as we take this with us, would you show us ways to be more forgiving to other people, to understand the things that they're going through? Would you remind us of the times that we fall short so that we can treat people differently as a result? Heavenly Father, thank you for continuing to love us, to continue to pour into us and grow us and shape us into the people that you want us to be. Father, keep us near to you when we fall off track, put us back on. We love you so much, we thank you for Jesus, we pray in His name, amen. - Hey friends, it's Adam from Embrace. If today's message encouraged you, be sure to hit the subscribe button to our YouTube channel to see all new messages as they drop. Also feel free to click here and check out more of our videos. Thanks so much for watching. [BLANK_AUDIO]