And the Lord said, “To what then shall I liken the men of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, saying: ‘We played the flute for you, And you did not dance; We mourned to you, And you did not weep.’ For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’”
Luke 7:31-34

Non-believers, and scoffers in particular, will find reasons to reject the gospel. Those reasons often make little or no sense, but in the mind of one who does not want to believe, their reasons are “enough, thank you!” Jesus pointed this out in a way that is as true today as it was then.

The scoffing non-believers in Jesus’ day rejected John the Baptist because he was too austere for them. Meanwhile, they rejected Jesus because He was not righteous enough for them. They wanted it both ways and there are people today who do the same thing.

They reject the gospel because “Christians (so they say) are too strict,” or as they say, “too self-righteous.” Meanwhile they also reject the gospel because, “Christians are a bunch of hypocrites!” because we aren’t sinless. Both accusations are sometimes true, while at the same time neither is true, and neither has anything to do with rejecting the gospel.

But since people simply refuse to believe, they comfort themselves with the erroneous thought that their unbelief is the fault of Christians.

Two take-aways:

(1) People need to judge Christianity on the merits of the gospel and the person of Christ—not on the merits of Christ’s followers.

(2) We Christians must live our lives striving to follow Jesus, while encouraging people to judge Jesus—not us.