Arrogant Christianity in a Lost World

Deuteronomy 8: 14: then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

I am tired of arrogant Christianity. I am tired of watching people be hurtful and abusive towards others in the name of Jesus Christ. There is the problem in American Christianity where some believers have embraced a candy-coated Gospel, where there is seemingly no consequence for sin. But there is also the opposite problem; where some have embraced a barb-wired Gospel where there is no room for the love of Christ. There needs to be a balance between the two. The cold hard realities of hell need to be surrounded by the warm loving forgiveness offered by our Lord and Savior. But this goes beyond topics for discussion and evangelizing the lost. This speaks to the way we approach people. The manner in which we walk. You can be stern and serious and loving at the same time. Jesus was clearly the best at it and He is supposed to be our model. There was no arrogance in Jesus. But we see this arrogance at times even in His apostles. The Gospel of Luke tells us a story of when Jesus was turned away by some Samaritans (worldly people) and the Apostles asked him if they should call down fire from heaven to consume them. Here was Jesus response:

But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And they went to another village. Luke 9: 55-56 (KJV)

Sometimes we can be like those Apostles that day, arrogant in our approach to people and forgetting that Jesus came to save them, not to destroy them.

The dictionary defines arrogance as:

Offensive display of superiority or self-importance; overbearing pride.

Sound like anyone you have to deal with? How many Christians today approach their walks with such an offensive display of superiority and self-importance? Such overbearing pride. Hiding behind God, misusing Scripture, and berating people with fire and brimstone is not the Great Commission. It is not the Gospel message. The truth about us all is we are no better. The Apostle Paul reminds us:

What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." "Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit." "The poison of vipers is on their lips." "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." "Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know." "There is no fear of God before their eyes." Romans 3: 9-18

The words Jews and Gentiles can be replaced with Christians and unbelievers today. Are we any better? No beloved. There is no one righteous, not even one. So why then do some in the modern church feel compelled to deal in judgment and hellfire without the love of Jesus? The key verse from Deuteronomy gives us some insight.

First of all, our hearts can become proud. Somewhere along the line, we can acquire a sense of being superior as opposed to how the Word says we are to be:

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Colossians 3: 12-14

Sometimes however, we can start to think that we know better than God. Suddenly Scripture becomes a little less ironclad than it had been in the past and we can use God as an excuse for having a loveless Christianity. The Prophet Jonah is a good example. God gave Jonah an instruction. He was instructed to preach repentance to the city of Nineveh. Jonah knew that the city of Nineveh was an extremely wicked city that had committed many atrocities against the Jewish people. He concluded that Nineveh did not deserve the opportunity to repent. So, he decided that he would not follow the directive of God and he fled. His pride made him believe that he knew better than God. Remember, God did not ask Jonah's opinion and today, he does not ask us for ours either. He has given us his word and we are expected to follow it. Not debate it with God. Not argue about it. Not think that we know better because of the knowledge we feel we have gained, or because of cultural differences or because of historical nuances.

God eventually got Jonah's attention but he still displayed an arrogant and petulant attitude and actually hoped against the plan of God! Even after Nineveh repented Jonah still sat off at on a distant hill, hoping God would destroy the city. He would get angry with God eventually because He allowed for a vine to grow for shade and then took it away. Finally, God had to remind Jonah that it was not all about him:

But the LORD said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?" Jonah 4: 10-11

We too get concerned about things that we have nothing to do with. We can fall into the trap of confusing the righteousness of God for our own. We forget that there is a lost and dying world with more people than Nineveh who do not know their right hand from their left. God has told us to bring the Gospel to them, not only judgment. He has instructed us to love them, not just condemn their sin. He has demanded humility, not arrogance. Does this mean we avoid the topics of sin and hell? Absolutely not. But there has to be love in the message. The true Gospel message is that Christ died for our sins and because of that we have union again with Almighty God.

The next part of the key verse shows how this is possible we can forget God! Jonah certainly forgot God. So we can today as well. We can come to church on Sundays and raise their hands but on Mondays we can slip back into the judgment business without the love of Jesus. We can walk around with our noses in the air and have a false sense of superiority. You cannot have a heart of pride and remember God at the same time. But some Christians are on a mission to bring the morality of Christianity to an immoral world. They want to break the yoke instead of God. We are supposed to bring the lost to the foot of the cross not hit them over the head with it. Christ breaks the yoke.

Continuing in the key verse we see what specifically we can forget about God. We can forget that God brought us up out of Egypt, out of slavery. This is a reference on two levels. First, He is the God that literally brought the Israelites up out of the land of Egypt, where they were slaves. But it also applies to us as well. At some point in our lives we were slaves in Egypt. The world is represented as Egypt. We used to be in the world and in bondage. We were slaves just as the Israelites were. Maybe we were slaves to addiction. Maybe we were slaves to pornography. Maybe we were slaves to cruelty. But Jesus reached down and picked us up, didn't He? The Psalmist describes it as such:

I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD. Psalm 40: 10-3

Jesus Christ reached down into the depths of our Egypt; into the depths of our slavery and pulled us up. He cleaned us up with His righteousness and reestablished our goings. Somewhere through the course of time though, some of us forget exactly how far down God had to reach to save us. Somehow seeing other's people's sins makes us more comfortable with our own. So, we forget God and what He has done. We start to think that surely we know better. We stand off on a hill like Jonah and wait for God to destroy the sinners we see all around us. But what we forget is that none are righteous, not even one. We are what we rail against. We are the sin.

And so the heart hardens with pride. We think that by telling the world how bad they are that we are somehow doing the will of God. Somehow Christ is left out of their Christianity. If we are not careful we can become paragons of virtuous perfection; forgetting that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We can even twist Scripture to fit our burgeoning pride. Recently, I had someone actually tell me that their harsh stance with the world was Christian because Jesus "beat people with a whip." No He did not. In the story about the moneychangers, Jesus used the whip to scatter the animals and he overturned their tables. He did not hit them. He did not whip them. Furthermore, if you understand the situation, you would understand that the moneychangers were fleecing people, primarily unbelievers. This was not Jesus taking a stand against the immorality of the world but rather against those who would seek to treat the unsaved poorly or take advantage of them.

These are the people who stand at gay parades with signs saying God hates them. There's an effective witnessing tool. God does not hate them beloved. He hates the sin; just as much as he hates our sin. The truth is we can feel better about our own sin by decrying the sins of others. Now, does this mean we turn a blind eye toward sin? Absolutely not. Does this mean that we cannot take a principled stand as Christians in a fallen world? Of course we can. But we should not be Jonah. We should not stand off on a hill hoping against the world. We should not be surprised or angry when the world that walks in darkness does not understand the things of God. We should not approach things in arrogance and then hide behind Christ for our defense. The Apostle Paul reminds us:

Do everything in love. 1Corinthians 16:14

Jesus actually said that they will know we are His when we treat each other in love. If we cannot witness in love, then we should not witness. In our zeal to teach about hell, let us not forget heaven. In our passion for speaking against sin, let us not forget there is forgiveness. The world may be in darkness but they understand hypocrisy when they see it. A study has concluded that 72% of unchurched people believe that Christians are hypocrites. How does that affect the witness of Christ? Amidst all the political rhetoric about what Christians are supposed to stand for we have been given one charge winning the lost. But that is difficult for a lot of us. It is hard work to have to live correctly as your first witness to the lost. It is even harder sometimes to have to break down those barriers of communication and actually tell someone what Jesus has done for us. It's much easier to just tell them they are wrong and going to hell. But there is no love in that. It is a loveless Christianity being practiced by some whose hearts have grown hard with pride. Who think they know better. Who have forgotten how far down God had to go to save them. They stand off on a hill and wait for judgment against a world that doesn't know its left hand from its right. I just pray that we realize arrogance will not save anyone. Only the God we too easily forget can do that.

Father God, we come to you in thanks today. We thank you for saving us when we did not deserve it. When we were still deep in our pit. Deep in our sin. Deep in our slavery. But we thank you that you reached down into Egypt to lift us up and clothed us in Your righteousness. I pray for the lost world Father. I pray they too come to Your glorious salvation. I pray that they too realize their condition and seek to be saved. I pray that as You put people in our lives to minister to, that we always remember how far down You had to go to reach us. That we always approach people with the love of Jesus Christ. That we clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience and with the love that binds them all together. All for the glory of Your name. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Reverend Anthony Wade January 23, 2009