"Imagine being lectured by a car thief and him being right." - Professor Barclay
Imagine indeed. For one mother, this was her reality, as a car thief, noticing her child was still in the car, decided to return the vehicle and give her a good telling off. Surely, the irony can't be lost on either of them. On the one hand, you have a car thief, whose activities are so universally recognised as being immoral, society locks people like him in cages. On the other hand, you have a bad mother, who leaves her children in harm's way, to the point where she was lucky this particular thief has a conscience.
Here's the problem: You can replace "car thief" with a number of sins, and it all makes the same amount of sense. Imagine being lectured by a glutton, a liar, a gossip, a porn addict, a murderer etc. and them being right. I could list sins all day long, I'd eventually cover all of humanity. And each of those sinners can be right.
As human beings, we really don't like self reflection, much less criticism. When we receive the latter, it's tempting to turn the tables on our accuser. But how wise is this? "I may be a bad mother, but you're a car thief." Ok, well he may be a car thief, but you're still a bad mother. All that happens in this case is you're both evil people. (Not that this particular mother was necessarily bad, she could be a wonderful mother who just made an unfortunate mistake, but for sake of argument.)
We especially see this with unbelievers. They often see Christians as filthy hypocrites, and as a result, they throw the whole proverbial baby out with the bath water. Now, imagine being lectured by a hypocrite and them being right. Does their hypocrisy absolve you of wrong doing? No more than your wrong doing absolves them of their hypocrisy.
But here's the glorious thing: Christians are right. Much like all of humanity, our sins are deeper than the sea, higher than the sky, scarlet as a robe drenched in blood. But our message was never "we're better than you". It was always about Jesus, the one and only human being who never did anything wrong. He never stole a car. He never left a child in a precarious position. His actions always matched His preaching. Yet, what Christians preach is that He died on our behalf. For every time we did wrong, He hung on the cross. He was punished for our transgressions.
Now, obviously, in order for Jesus to die for our sins, we must have sins that require such a death. Therefore, the ultimate hypocrites are those who profess faith, yet somehow manage to convince themselves they can do no wrong. According to our own Bible, these aren't even real Christians. This is the same kind of person who stood in the crowds shouting "crucify!" Jesus likely would not even grace such churches with His presence, knowing full well they wouldn't let Him in. Fear not, they will receive their judgement.
But we're going to receive ours, too. When we die, everything we've ever done will be examined by God, and there are only two outcomes. We can be punished according to what we have done, or we can have all of those sins forgiven, receiving a reward as if we'd lived like Jesus. The thefts, the reckless endangerment of our children, the hypocrisy, everything we've ever done wrong can be nailed to that cross and buried in Hell without us. You want to throw that away because Karen is always busybodying while aggressively guarding her skeleton filled closet?
Human beings are all sinners, and that means even the best of Christians are hypocrites. When we preach Christ, we are being hypocrites, because we dishonor Him in our minds, with our mouths, with our bodies, every single day. Some of us, rather badly. But even the sins we consider "small" are worthy of death in the eyes of the Holy God. Yet still, we claim the life He bought for us with His own blood. Hypocrisy at its finest. But is that not better for us than being consistently sinful? You hate God with your mind, your mouth, and your body, to such a degree that your whole spirit rebels against Him until you stand before Him to be judged.
So let us go back to our car thief and our mother. Let's imagine this encounter changes neither of them. Imagine, the thief decides "I'm not listening to her, she's a bad mother", and hops back in the car. Imagine the mother decides "I'm not listening to him, he's a car thief", and she continues leaving her 4 year old in constant danger. Who's right? Neither of them. They're both permanently in the wrong. This is obviously not good. And this is what it's like when you continue to rebel against God. You're not being noble just because the people who tell you about Him are hypocrites. You're a flawed individual who has no interest in character development.
The right thing to do is to get saved. Become a hypocrite for Christ. You'll be a sinner for the rest of your life, but what if you can be freed from your sin? What if all the pride, sloth, lust, gluttony, anger etc. can not only be forgiven, but gradually removed from your life? What if you turn from your rebellion, and become reconciled to the God who is pleased to grant you eternal life? That's far better than happily walking into Hell.