Defending Your Faith #2

We’re talking about defending our faith. Our faith is most certainly under attack—what should we do about that? Everywhere we look, people attack the church, calling us frauds, hypocrites, phonies. Like Christian faith is what’s wrong with the world. But the truth is, all the problems going on, the descent into madness that we all have a front row seat to—it’s all caused by a lack of faith. A lack of faithfulness. A lack of faith in the God who revealed Himself and His will to us in Jesus—all the problems in the world are caused by not trusting God and doing what He told us to do. Unfaithfulness. There are no political solutions to all the problems in the world unless they come from faith in God. 

We’re doing this series because we need to know how to defend our faith. I mean, first we have to have faith to defend. We have to know something about it—which includes Bible knowledge, but also the wisdom to apply it in theology, doctrine, and how to live it out. You can’t defend faith that you don’t know much about. 

So we have to train. This is Christ Kwon Do. Faith defense training. Spiritual martial arts. Because we’re at war. That’s why we have to be here. To train. To learn. To encourage each other. So we don’t feel like we’re all alone in this fight. To be reminded of the things God has told us, commanded us, promised us, and what we ought to be doing in response. 

We’re the church, the people of God. But you can’t be the church at home by yourself. I don’t know why people don’t understand this. The word “church” means “the gathered,” “the assembled.” Jesus said He was going to build His church and the gates of hell would not stand against it. The church is His body, His bride, His presence in the world, His people, His army. You don’t want to be outside the church. But to be in the church, you have to actually gather when it gathers. I’m going to keep saying this until it gets through. What we do here on Sunday morning is not optional. Showing up here is vital to the faith we need to defend—it’s the main way we defend it. “I will build my church and the gates of hell will not stand against it.”

We’re trying to build a local church that’s on the front line of this culture war. I need you guys to train hard. To get ready. To be able to defend your faith no matter what attack the enemy throws at you.

And we never defend our faith by pointing to ourselves. We defend our faith by pointing to Christ.

People love to dismiss faith in Jesus by pointing out the failures of the church. Calling Christians hypocrites, pointing out the failures of celebrity preachers, remembering how church people have hurt them, judged them—they can’t see Jesus because of all the bad things His followers have done in His name.

Imagine a fitness club that said they had the best program in the world. The best exercise systems and machines, the best nutritional diet plans for getting in shape. If you showed up to their gym and there were only a few people there half heartedly using the machines wrong—all out of shape and sick looking. What would you think about that fitness club? Probably wouldn’t join, right?

I think that’s what the church looks like to a lot of people. 

God might be awesome. His love and grace might be perfect. The promises offered to us in Jesus might be everything we ever wanted or needed. But His people aren't working the program.

Hypocrites So when people reject God and attack Christianity saying all Christians are hypocrites—it’s easy to see where they’re coming from, right? 

It’s also easy to defend our faith from that attack.

First, we just need to be honest. Let them know we agree with them. We are hypocrites, but that’s not really the issue. The only thing that matters is whether Christianity is true or not. You can’t judge the truthfulness of our faith based on people who aren’t doing it right.

I think you’d want to check out the people at that fitness club who actually did the program and followed the diet to find out whether it worked or not. 

We don’t defend our faith by pointing to how awesome we are. We defend our faith by pointing to how awesome Christ is.

So if someone says “Christians are a bunch of hypocrites,” you’re going to need to defend your faith. But you don’t have to be defensive about it—you don’t have to fight about it. Be kind. Doesn’t matter how aggressive they’re being. They might come out swinging, looking for a fight. Remember Jesus is the original “turn the other cheek” guy. So take a deep breath, and try to lower your blood pressure. You’re not looking to win the argument, you’re looking to remove their objection so they can hear about why Jesus gives you hope. 

And there’s a real easy defence move to get from this objection to the Gospel. 

First, you just agree with them [everyone hates a hypocrite], there is a lot of hypocrisy in the church. People say one thing and do another—it’s awful. Admit that you’ve even done it yourself, and you hate it. Because everyone hates a hypocrite. The church isn’t the only place where hypocrisy happens, though. The unbelievers are holding Christians to a standard that they can’t keep themselves—the world is full of hypocrisy. Like when a prominent doctor tells everyone to wear a mask and then he’s not wearing a mask at a ball game, a politician orders salons to be closed but she’s caught getting her hair done. If some lawmaker makes a law, and then they get caught breaking it—man, everyone wants to crucify that person, right? Everyone hates a hypocrite.

That’s where Jesus comes in. In the Christian faith, we don’t trust in our ability or our Christian leaders to get it right. Our faith is in God who shows mercy and forgiveness to people who do everything wrong. We have a whole Bible full of screw ups and hypocrites to drive that point home—people just like you and me—God chooses to love them anyway. God loves the world so much that He gave His only begotten son so that anyone who believes in Him wouldn’t die in their hypocrisy but instead He would forgive them and give them eternal life.

Jesus is the only person Christians believe ISN’T a hypocrite—and we crucified Him anyway. 

So the objection that the Christian faith can’t be true because there are hypocrites in the church is nonsense. Christianity is true because everyone is a hypocrite—not in spite of it. Hypocrites like you, that have been forgiven and shown grace so your sin won’t drag you beyond death and the grave to hell and judgement. Your hope isn’t based on how faithful you are, your hope is based on faith in Jesus who was faithful for you. His faithfulness.

That’s the bold claim of the Christian faith. It should be judged on whether that claim is true or not. That hypocrites can be forgiven because of Jesus and given hope of a new life.

That should take all the wind out of their argument. You agree with them, the church is full of hypocrites—but so is the rest of the world—and show them how God hates hypocrisy even more than they do—but He loves people so much that He made a way to rescue them from it.

Christians are just hypocrites who repent and believe. That’s the pattern of a true follower of Jesus. It’s not about how perfectly you keep God’s commandments, it’s about whether you repent and believe or not. To repent means to turn away from the sin you’re doing, confess it, call it what it is, stop justifying it and pretending like what you’re doing is okay—stop doing it. And then turn back to God in faith. Turn away from your sin and back to the promise of grace and forgiveness because of Jesus. Repent and believe. 

Step 2 — The Standard of Truth But there’s another layer of our defense hiding underneath this idea that it’s a bad thing to say one thing and do another, to live a false life—that being a hypocrite is bad. Why do we hate hypocrites so much? 

Unless there’s a standard of truth that’s outside of us, why does it matter? If it’s just “your truth” and “my truth,” then it’s all subjective, there is no truth. So what does it matter whether anyone is consistent or not? 

But see, that’s a lie. There is a standard of truth. And it’s not inside us. The job of the Christian is to point people to that objective truth that can only be known through the Word of God, through Christ. All of the world’s ideas of right and wrong and truth have to be borrowed from God’s truth. The reality that was created by God—because there’s not another one.

There is no truth outside of truth that has God at the foundation. So any conversation we have with unbelievers, our job is to make them defend their reasons for why they believe what they believe. Eventually you’ll find that place where they are borrowing from God’s truth.

The message of the Christian faith, if we get it right, rings out so clear and bright in the middle of all this cultural madness.

The unbeliever’s worldview is always on a collision course with Christian faith. And it’s never going to end well for them. Unbelief is always going to be broken to pieces on the Cornerstone of our faith—Christ Jesus. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord.

This life is a battle. We’re going to have to train for war. And we’re going to have to learn how to bring our minds into this fight. This collision of worldviews—you’re going to have to work at it if you’re going to be able to defend your faith.

We can’t just go along with the crowd. We can’t just buy into the empty-headed, mindless cultural stupidity that’s everywhere we look. Our culture has refused for so long to deal with God that they’ve lost touch with reality itself. That’s why it seems like nobody can think straight anymore.

It says in Ephesians 4:17-20 that we should

“Live no longer as the Gentiles do (the unbelievers), for they are hopelessly confused. Their minds are full of darkness; they wander far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against him. They have no sense of shame.”

Sounds like the world all around us, right?

“But that isn’t what you learned about Christ.”

And it’s your job to share and defend what you’ve learned about Christ with the unbelieving world. In 2 Timothy 2:25-26 we’re told to

“Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people’s hearts, and they will learn the truth. Then they will come to their senses and escape from the devil’s trap. For they have been held captive by him to do whatever he wants.” 

Unbelievers in the world will stay blind if we don’t point them to Christ. A lot of people think there might be truth but it’s unknowable. But that’s not what we believe. God told us that faith in Jesus is the way to knowledge and the way to teach unbelievers about spiritual truth:

    “Who can know the LORD’s thoughts? 

      Who knows enough to teach him?” 

But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 2:16

We need to have confidence in our Faith in Christ. It’s like people think they get to judge whether there’s a God or not, or whether Christianity is true. God isn’t the One who's going to be judged. Our faith isn’t on trial. 

We don’t defend our faith by pointing at ourselves. We point to Christ.

Worldly Hypocrisy Although it’s true that the church is full of hypocrites like you and me, the unbelieving world is the ultimate hypocrite. They know in their heart that there’s a God and that He created everything but they deny it.

Our worldview is consistent with there being a God who created us and saved us from our failings—but their worldview is not. They’re the ones who are on trial. They’re the hypocrites who are going to be judged and found lacking. 

It’s not about winning the argument That’s why our most important job in defending our faith is not to win the argument. It’s not to destroy our enemy. It’s to answer their objections and invite them to join us in faith. All hypocrites are welcome here in the church.

In the documentary “Collision” which is a behind the scenes look at a book tour for “Is Christianity Good For the World?” a debate between atheist best selling author Christopher Hitchens and Pastor Douglas Wilson—they have a lot of great conversation about the benefits of believing in Jesus or not believing. 

At the end of the documentary, Christopher Hitchens is alone in the back of a limo and the narrator asks him a question. He says, “If there was only one Christian left in the world and you knew that if you tried, you could convince him to stop believing in God—would you do it?”

Hitchens thought for a minute and said, “That’s an interesting question. No, I don’t think I would. I’m not sure why, but I wouldn’t do it.”

How do you think Pastor Wilson would answer the opposite question? If there was only one unbeliever in the world. I’m certain he would be happy to give them the gift of faith and hope in Jesus. Which I think answers the question “is Christianity good for the world or not?”

Do you see how grace and mercy are the ultimate weapons to strike down hypocrisy? 

Everything is at stake here. Your faith. Your family’s faith. The future of our culture and this country. You have to learn how to defend your faith. How to defend it when it’s attacked, and how to defend it when people ask you about what you believe. The time for lazily drifting along with culture, half-heartedly doing this Christian thing, making everything in your life a higher priority than your faith—that has to stop. It’s time to repent and believe. Stop being such a hypocrite.

Everything you think you know about love and truth and goodness only makes sense in the light of what Jesus has told us and done for us. If you think the world is a confusing terrifying mess—and it is—nothing is going to get any better by going along with it. It’s an abyss. The longer you stare into it, the longer it stares into you. You will grow darker and more dismal and hopeless with each passing year until your time is up. Unless you repent and believe.

All that time listening to the world’s lies has to be countered with deliberate faith-building training. 

A Practical Suggestion for Building Your Faith When you first wake up in the morning, you are in a nearly hypnotic, suggestible state.  Don’t waste that time. Don’t sabotage yourself. Instead of reaching for your phone and checking email, text messages, social media, news headlines—instead of laying there in bed letting all your worries fill you with anxiety and fear. This is what I want you to do: As you open your eyes, first thing out of your mouth say, “Good morning Lord. Thank You for another day. Now, where’s my Bible, what do you have to say to me this morning?” Then get out of bed, and before anything else, do your daily reading in the Bible. There are so many Bible verses telling us to seek God in the morning.

“Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.” [Psalm 143:8]

That’s how you train yourself to defend your faith—that’s how you start the day.

A bunch of us are reading the Bible straight through in a plan called “Bible in A Year.” You can join us doing that, or you can find some other reading plan. But have one. And do your Bible reading first thing in the morning when you’re in that open, undistracted state. After you do the reading, then pray. Something like, “Well Lord, today I read about such and such—I’m not sure what this part meant, or this other thing it said was interesting. In your prayer, ask God what He wants you to do with the reading. What needs to change in your life? Was there challenge? Comfort? Then ask God what He wants you to do with your day. What are the big things He wants you to get done? 

Then you can check your messages and post a picture of your breakfast on Instagram or whatever.

We have to be deliberate if we’re going to grow in our faith. If we’re going to be able to defend our faith. If we’re going to have any faith to defend.

You can do this: Rest in the knowledge that God created the world and He loves you in spite of your hypocrisy, your sin, even your unbelief. Jesus came into the world to live a perfectly unhypocritical life for you. Because of His death on the cross, you are forgiven. Because he rose from the dead, you have hope. Hold onto that gift of life and salvation by faith. Walk in that faith and train like a warrior who’s getting ready for the fight of his life. 

“Blessed be the LORD, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle.” 

[Psalm 144:1]

May God help us to learn how to defend our faith.

AMEN