When Christians Don’t Look Like Christ | Ep. 144

What happens to your faith when the Christians you trusted don’t live like Christ? In this episode, we talk about navigating hypocrisy, church hurt, and disappointment without letting someone else’s failures weaken your confidence in God or His Word. Anchored in Luke 6, we’ll look at what Jesus says about fruit, examine our own foundation, and resist putting Christian leaders on a pedestal. If someone’s actions have made you question what you believe, this conversation will help you separate people’s failures from the faithfulness of Christ.

👉 Listen to a related episode: What Kind of Fruit Is Your Faith Producing? | Ep. 134

Transcript

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Why Hypocrisy Hits So Hard

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is episode 144, and I'm your host, Atoya, and this is Equip the Next, where you get equipped to lead, disciple, and move the mission forward. So, what happens when Christians don't look like Christ? You don't want to miss this. Make sure you follow us or subscribe depending on where you are listening. I would greatly appreciate it. And it really does help to spread the message of Christ and to encourage people to open up their Bible, to build the confidence in believers, to show them that it's okay to study the word for yourself. That is my goal. That's my mission. That's my heart posture. And so I invite you to do that. Listen, I'm going to dive right in a topic.

Character Patterns Versus Bad Days

SPEAKER_00 1:42

I'm reading this book. I might share it in one of these episodes. I don't know. I'm still, I'm almost done. But it prompted me to do a couple of episodes on things that we see in the church that can hurt, um, hinder, discourage believers from opening the word for themselves. And one of those things is when we see people who say they're Christians, but they don't act like they're Christians. They don't do things Christ-like. And I just want to start by saying that we all have situations where we don't act Christ-like. Everybody has a moment in life where they don't act like they like Christ. You probably have maybe gone off on somebody yesterday. You know, I'm just saying, we all have moments where we may not act like Christ. What I'm referring to is a character thing. I'm referring to character issue. People who have made this a lifestyle, people who say they're Christian, but they don't act like it. Either they front in front of people and then at home they're completely different, or they just act like that all across the board. And it's a daily thing. And a lot of times that's more so a heart issue or and or a pride issue, but they may not even see what they're doing. And so we're going to unpack that today because if you've encountered someone like that, I want to encourage you. And these episodes this month, they're designed to do just that, to encourage you if you have gone through something like this, if you're going through something like this, because it can discourage you, distract you, and keep you from opening the word, and that's what the enemy wants to do. And we are not having it. So the focus here that I want to kind of highlight is that sometimes the failures of others can affect our confidence in Christ and his word. That's, you know, the failures of others can have a great impact. I'm talking more so about leaders, I think too. You know, when you look up to somebody, which is why you have to understand that everyone is human and they are all flawed, and we should not idolize leaders. We respect them, we do not idolize them. But a lot of times you'll find somebody, excuse me, and we put them on pedestals, and then when they don't live up to those pedestals, sometimes it can affect our confidence in Christ and his word, and we don't want that to happen. So I want you to ask yourself this question. How should I respond when someone's life doesn't match the faith they profess? I'm gonna repeat that. How should I, ask yourself this, how should I respond when someone's life doesn't match the faith they profess? What does that look

Luke 6 On Fruit And Foundations

SPEAKER_00 4:42

like? Well, I'm gonna go into the Gospel of Luke, gospel according to Luke, and here's the thing, I might have read this before. Um I don't know. I I love the Gospel of Luke, but I'm going to cover this very briefly, and then I'm gonna kind of unpack it. And later on in this episode, I'm going to share with you three ways that you can respond to someone like this. So you want to listen to the entire episode. My episodes are short, so you should be good. I'm gonna start in Luke six, verse forty-three, and I'm gonna read to about forty nine. So it says, For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit, for figs are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. Why do you call me Lord Lord and do not do what I tell you? Every one who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like. He is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. Verse 49. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, it immediately I'm sorry, it when the stream broke against it, immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.

Leaders On Pedestals And Spiritual Pride

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Now I'm gonna be honest with you. Um I took a course in seminary, um, it was a the parables according to the gospel of Luke course. That was the first pair, the parable of the builders was the first parable that we read, and I was completely convicted when I read that, especially when I knew what it meant. I was completely convicted because in summary, um, the two builders parable, the one after the fruit. Well, let me do the fruit one first. So the tree, um, the tree and the and its fruits, when I look at verse 4045, essentially what we're looking at is you'll be known by your fruit. Now listen, we can't judge a person's heart, we can't judge their motives, but we can judge their fruit. And a lot of times it's a character issue, but you'll be they'll be known, we'll be known by our fruit. Now, when we look at the verse before that, or the verses before that, like 39 through 32, um, you see, Jesus is talking about basically before you judge, make sure that you know your the the log is out of your eye. And then you can clearly see, so you can take the speck out of your um brother's eye. Because what we see here is that there was a warning against spiritual pride and inconsistent living. So essentially, we first have to make sure that we examine ourselves, and I'm I'm gonna say that again later on in this episode, but it's important that we examine our selves. Again, I'm not talking about if somebody just like didn't speak to you at church, you know. We all have bad days, they probably didn't see you. I'm talking about people who have a lifestyle of not acting like Christ, where you're like scratching your head and you're like, especially if they're blessed, and you're like, man, they they seem like they're doing good, you'll be surprised. The parable of the two builders, I'm gonna summarize it, is basically saying, if you do, if you if you know Jesus' teaching, he's talking to his disciples, but if you read his teachings and you do not apply them, you're like a foolish builder. You're fool. If you read his teachings and you do apply them, you're like the wise man who built on solid foundation. That's essentially summarizing what that is. And the reason why that really touched me and convicted me when I was in seminary is because it's very important that we don't just hear the word, read the word, and then go around and do whatever we want. And so that's a lot of what you see with people who don't act Christ-like. They read the word. Some people even go to seminary. They're they're professors, their pastors, they don't live it because it's not in them. They've clung or hung on to the title and the position and not the relationship. They've forgotten their first love. They've forgotten what got them there. They've forgotten the love, the fire, the zeal that they had to know Christ and who he is, and they left that at the door. Maybe pride, maybe, maybe heart, um, you know, what's going on in their heart, maybe disappointments, maybe failures, maybe greed, whatever the situation is, they left the first um the priority, the common denominator, the reason for the reason, right? They left that behind and they clinged on to other superficial things instead of Christ. And so this is what you see. You see that, and and you see that sometimes when we put people on pedestals, we can start to question our faith and our walk. We can also start to be a little bit too critical because we forget that we're dealing through or going through life and trying to process things as well. But here we see that the fruit is what we look at, and we want to make sure that we can lead by example when we see the the the inconsistencies in others. A superficial relationship with Christ. When we look at verse um 49, it's summarizing it. We're seeing that a superficial relationship with Christ will not stand in times of distress. A lot of times people are just like going through. I mean, it's 2026, we all going through. And sometimes they don't know how to process that. Now you're gonna have situations and issues where you know you're upset about something. You're you know, that these are emotions. But how you respond after you've had your wave of emotions, okay? How do you respond to people around you who did nothing to you? So it's important that we build our relationship on solid ground so that we don't have those superficial relationships. So when I remember when I pointed out my little mini thesis or whatever, and uh I'll repeat it, sometimes the failures of others can affect our confidence in Christ and his word. And see, that's where it starts. Because maybe those people they saw somebody that was inconsistent and they kind of started to lose hope and lose confidence. And it's like this cycle that repeats. Because if you don't have any confidence in Christ and his word, then you're not gonna read the word. And if you do, it's not gonna penetrate you. We're gonna stop the cycle today. If you're listening to this, I want to stop the cycle today. So when we examine this, we look at the fruit and what it reveals about the heart. Now we can't judge the heart, like I said, but what it reveals. I also want to share a quick uh little story about um, well no, it's coming. Yeah. I'll wait. Let me hold off. Let me go back because I'm gonna share an example um of what that might look like. So yeah, the fruit reveals the heart. Um, I also want you to make note of that Jesus calls us to examine our foundation. Remember, I talked about that in the verses previous, the previous verses. We want to examine ourselves. We want to examine ourselves. When you do that, actually, um you'll have more compassion. Like when you start to look at somebody's timeline and how it affected them, because it affects people differently. And when you start to see the things that they've been through, it allows you to have a little bit more compassion for that individual. Doesn't mean you're still like, you know, upset, but it allows you to have more compassion for that individual and extend that grace, you know, show mercy. It allows you to do that because you realize that you've overcome something that they're still trying to overcome, and it'll give you more clarity as well, and hopefully build that confidence in Christ's word because you were able to see it, which means that you were able to lead by example, which means that you were able to help more people. We have to see and look at the fact that people can fail without Christ failing. Christ doesn't fail. People do, we do, and sometimes people might fail or they're going through, but they're still clinging on to Christ. It just looks different because they only know a piece of Christ. The one that's convenient for them, maybe. And that's sad and that's unfortunate. But we understand that Christ is everything. You don't want peace of him, you want all of him. So we have to understand that Christ doesn't fail, but sometimes people do. Sometimes we do, sometimes we've let people down. And

A Personal Story About Integrity

SPEAKER_00 15:32

we want to make note of that. I also wanted to say something, and this is where I'll share my story. Another person's inconsistency does not make God's word less less trustworthy. Sorry, I wrote that down because I wanted to share this story. I'm gonna repeat that. Another person's inconsistency does not make God's word less trustworthy. Why? Because they have their free will. It doesn't mean that God did not hear your prayers, it does not mean that God is changing, it doesn't mean anything. It means that their inconsistencies have nothing to do with your relationship with God or how God is. Recently, um, I have been praying for things and for the Lord to show me his provision in some areas in my life and some things that I needed done, um, just getting direction, asking the Lord to give me direction and to show me and guide me and lead me. And someone, the Lord sent someone my way. I knew it was God. I knew it was I knew it was God. I'm just gonna say that. They didn't do it because they lacked integrity. And it hurt me at first because I just felt disappointed because I knew that God sent that person, and they and I didn't know that they lacked integrity. Like, I I didn't know that I mean this person is a leader, this person is successful, like I did not know that they did not have integrity like that. It wasn't, I mean, maybe I saw it in the past, but my eyes are more open now. So, and it really hurt. It really hurt me, but I stopped, the Holy Spirit stopped me and reminded me that God sent me provision, and I thanked him for that. Even though that person didn't do their part and what they were supposed to do, they had a free will. But I was grateful and I am grateful, and I thanked the Lord because even in that, he still heard my prayer and he sent someone, and that's a blessing, whether they do it or not. That has nothing to do with the sovereignty and the love and the protection that our Heavenly Father has. And so that is a really good example of like when things and failures and people don't act like Christ, and you're looking at it and you're like, Man, that's messed up, man. You played me. You know, or they hurt you or they disappointed you, don't focus on them, focused on Christ, focus on God's word. They're going to be inconsistent. They are human. If you are living in a situation where you are in direct contact from someone who's not acting Christ-like, or you know someone who's acting um unchrist-like to someone who's vulnerable.

Pray, Respond, Forgive, Lead Well

SPEAKER_00 18:42

I want to share with you three um ways that you can respond to that. The first thing you can do is pray. Pray for them. Pray for them, pray that the Lord will uh circumcise their heart, pray that the Lord will open up their eyes. And whatever God leads you to pray, pray for them. Pray for them. I'm talking about people with character flaws. I'm not talking about somebody who cut you off on the side of the road and they're okay now because they probably forgot all about that. I'm talking about people who have serious character issues that contradict Christ, but yet they say they're believers. Pray for them. And then once you pray, I want you to pray um and ask the Lord to lead you. This is kind of like segueing, so this isn't this is like one and a half points. Because when you pray for them, you're also gonna pray, you know, that the Lord will heal you and and show you what to do, so then you can do this next step, which is to respond to them. Um, you may not have to the Lord may not release you to respond quickly. The the Lord may not release you to respond to that person, maybe um to someone else um who you trust. Um, so you want to be led to see who the Lord will send you to to address the person. And they may not even receive you. Look, listen, especially if they're a leader and you go to another leader, they may they may shoot you down. So that's why you want to pray first. You want to pray first so you don't get your feelings hurt. You want to pray first, okay? But you want to um then, like I said, number two, respond to them if God leads you or when he leads you, and address them. Tell them how you feel. Don't don't go and get scriptures and and and throw it at them. Just tell them. Some things are common sense and people are just cruel. And they don't look Christ-like. And you you need to respond to them if you're able to. Some people you can't respond to, some people you can't address. And that's why I said be prayerful, because they may be so far along, they may not even be ready to receive what you say. And and maybe the Lord wants you to tell them just to tell them, and they may not receive it, but it got off your chest. But that's one way to at least hold them accountable instead of ignoring it or putting it under the rug. Next thing you want to do is you want to forgive. That doesn't mean take it, that doesn't mean become a doormat, that doesn't mean sit there and just let them to allow them to act the way they're acting to you or to someone who's vulnerable or whatever, but it just means to forgive them so your heart is mended, so you don't repeat the cycle. And then um, I want to do a bonus. This is an extra one, and that is I want you to lead by example, lead by example, as we see in Luke 6 39 42. Um you know this whole section kind of warns against spiritual pride and um against inconsistent living, hypocritical. Living and being judgmental while still having issues in ourselves. If you've been delivered from something, it's okay to then say, Hey, you need, you need help. I mean, I was there, you know? But lead by example. I'm gonna give you a good example of this. Say you're doing a team project, and that person is supposed to go left, the Lord told them to go left, you decided, I mean, they decided they're not gonna go left. But you know you have to go left. They're not doing it. You have a team and a crew, and their life depends on it. Take the leadership role and lead by example. Maybe that's God showing you how to persuade that person to go left. Maybe you take the lead if God leads you. Essentially, what I'm saying is when you lead by example, you don't allow them to deter who you are, to distract who you are, to remove, to take away your character, your godly character. You lead by example. So when we look at the Christ thread in this, we see the woven um love, the truth, and that strong foundation that we should build our lives on. Christ and his teachings and learning who he is and just having a relationship with him so that we can then bear fruit, that we can remain faithful to his word. And we you should never, never allow anyone to take away your free will to know who God is. I have people that listen to this from all over the world, and so you might be in a part of the world where you cannot just open up a Bible freely, you you might get in trouble. Whatever you've learned about Christ, hold on to that. Because guess what? They didn't have Bibles in the first century, so they didn't have Bibles when we read the the New Testament, but they had a relationship with Christ, they had a relationship with the Lord, they had the Holy Spirit moving in them, directing them, and you hold on to that. If you are in the Western world and you have access to the Bible, open up the Bible and read it. Don't take it for granted and don't allow anyone to steal that from

Build On Christ This Week

SPEAKER_00 24:32

you. So I have a challenge, and this challenge is to choose to build your life on Christ this week, regardless of someone else's example. Don't worry about other people, what they do, how they act, what they look like. Focus on how you can be an image bearer and bear good fruit. Bless you. Well, that's it for today. Thanks for listening to the Equit the Next podcast. If this episode blessed you, I'd appreciate it if you leave a review and share it with someone who can use a little encouragement. Now grow in God's word and lead boldly.