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We are in the midst of a series in which I address questions posed by internationals in AIF.  This week’s answer is part 2 of the same question.

Q: How should Christians communicate/build relationships with others who have different beliefs?

 A: The previous blog addressed issues dealing with building relationships. This blog will focus on the communication part of your question.

Communication involves two issues: what to say and how to say it. You can say the right words the wrong way and do just as much damage as if you had said the wrong words.

What Do I Say?

Let’s first address the issue of what to say. Ultimately, you want to bring the gospel, but most conversations will not be hard-core gospel conversations. You’ll talk about work and classes. You’ll talk about soccer and flowers. You’ll talk about your favorite beach or the trip your friend took last week. So talk about that stuff. Talk is part of a relationship. But when you talk, don’t hide who you are. All of these topics give you opportunity to share your faith even if technically you are not giving a gospel presentation. For example, you are talking to a friend who is concerned about an upcoming exam. Ask him if you can pray for him. Then pray. Right there. Or your friend is showing you photos of his trip to Yosemite. As you see the beauty of nature spread on the screen, give praise to the God who made it. Bring God naturally into the conversation. If you want specifics, begin by listening to your friend (see last week’s blog).

Once the conversation gets to spiritual topics, share whatever is natural for the topic. If you are talking about prayer, tell them why you pray. If you are talking about sex, give them the Biblical picture of marriage — Christ and the church. If you are talking about money, let them know that you have something better than money. These conversations are not gospel conversations in the strict sense, but they will present a Biblical worldview.

Share your story. At some point in your past, you became a Christian. What were you like before? What happened? How are you different now? Keep it short and simple. In fact, if you can’t share your story, it’s time to work on it.

Share Jesus’ story. Here are the bullets:

• God created us for a great purpose — to know Him.
• Our sin ruined everything. We can’t fulfill our purpose on our own.
• We try to achieve purpose through money, relationships, power, pleasure, etc., but our attempts bring more brokenness.
• Christ came to fix what we broke. His death and Resurrection have defeated sin. Now we can know God in Christ.
• When we trust in Christ and make Him our Lord, He restores us to our original purpose.

That’s the gospel in a nutshell. Learn it and be able to share it anywhere.

I have oversimplified for the sake of space. Every conversation is different. I have merely given you some conversational tools. They are good tools, but not every tool fits every situation. Don’t use a hammer to drive screws into a hole. To know which tool to use and when, you will need the Holy Spirit.

How Do I Say It?

With boldness (Acts 4:29). Sometimes we are so afraid we’ll offend that we never say anything spiritual. Don’t make that mistake. It is possible you will offend. The gospel is an offense (Rm 9:33; Gal 5:11; I Pet 2:8). If you do offend, let the offense come from the gospel and not from you.

With firmness (I Pet 5:12). Do not compromise the message in order to better fit your culture. If your friend says that he believes that all religions are OK, don’t agree with him or soften the gospel in order to appeal to him. The gospel brings power (Rm 1:16). Change the message, and you lose that power.

With gentleness (I Pet 3:15). Your goal is not to prove that you are right and your friends are wrong. Your goal is their soul. To get their soul, you will have to treat them with honor, respect, and gentleness. The gospel will go further when you communicate it in a manner consistent with its message.

With patience (II Pet 3:9). A child does not grow up in a day. You have to let him mature over time. The spiritual world works the same way. I know you want to see your friend enjoy the peace of Christ now, but you have to let God change him. If you move faster than God, you will be more likely to manipulate your friend’s feelings than to change his heart, but if you’ll go at God’s pace, He will change the heart. Therefore, do not expect a nonChristian to live a sexually pure life or to automatically accept everything God says. You have enough difficulty living and believing the Scriptures yourself, and you have the Holy Spirit. When you see your weakness, you will be more patient with the weaknesses of unbelievers.

With prayer (Neh 2:1-5). Last week I spoke of the importance of prayer for the relationship with your friend. Here I want to talk about the importance of prayer as you talk. You should pray as you go. As you listen to your friend, ask God what to say. As you speak, ask God to speak. In the middle of Nehemiah’s conversation with King Artaxerxes, Nehemiah shot up a prayer to God. Don’t think that because you are talking you can’t be praying.

We are continuing a series in which we address questions posed by internationals in the church.

 Q: How should Christians communicate/build relationships with others who have different beliefs?

 A: This week I will focus only on the part of your question that deals with building relationships. We’ll do a second blog next week that focuses on the communication part.

I am glad that your question assumes that Christians should engage with nonbelievers. The light must shine in the darkness. I am also glad because your question shows that you understand that the light must still be light. When we go to the darkness, we are not to lose our light. We are to shine.

Here are some principles:

Walk with God

Spend time with God daily. Pray in the Spirit. Read Scripture and let it soak into your heart. Love your local church. These practices will help keep the light in your life. If you lose your light, you have nothing to share.

 

Pray

When you meet people who do not know Christ, God will be faithful to let you know whom to pray for. Pray for them. Regularly. Pray that God will open a door for you and that He will give you clarity and wisdom (Col 4:3-6). Pray that you will be bold and that God will work signs and wonders in the life of your unbelieving friends (Acts 4:26). Pray for them to repent (II Pet 3:9), and pray not just for them but those who will believe through their word (Jn 17:20). E.M. Bounds once said: “Talking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to God for men is greater still.” In other words, before you talk to your friend about God, talk to God about your friend. You will get nowhere spiritually without prayer. You may get to know this person, you may be a great help to him or her, but without God, whatever you do will amount to nothing eternal. To get eternal things, you must bring God into the equation. Start praying.

 

Go Where They Are

Jesus came to us. We did not go to Him. Therefore, these people with different beliefs?  Do they like basketball? Play basketball with them. Or watch a game together. Do they enjoy bubble tea? Take them for a bubble tea. Are they in your lab? Talk with them in the lab. Eat lunch with them. Celebrate their birthday. Study with them. Go shopping with them. Most of these activities are pursuits you were going to do anyway. Just do them with someone else.

 

Listen Well

To share the gospel, you need to know your audience. Ask them about their story. How did they get here? Why did they choose Austin? What do they most miss? What do they hope to do? Have them tell you about their family, their background, their interests. Ask them what they believe spiritually. And when they tell you, ask questions to help you understand. For example, if they say they are atheists, ask them why. If they say, “Because I have a hard time believing things I can’t see,” you’ve just learned something about them. Don’t be quick to slam them if their views are not Biblical. You are asking in order to understand, not to argue, and you are dealing with a human being, not a website comments section.  When you ask them, be genuinely interested. You will get further with people spiritually if you spend more time listening than talking. Then when you do talk you can actually address real issues they have. You know. Diagnose before you treat.

 

Meet Needs

Do they need a ride to the grocery store? If you have a car, give them a ride. Maybe you can help them when they are sick or when they have to move. Maybe they need a place to stay for a week, and you say, “You can sleep in my apartment.” Help them pick a professor or an advisor.   Show them where to find food from their country.   Be a friend. This principle — meet needs — naturally flows out of the previous two. If you spend time with people where they are and you listen well, you will discover what needs they have. Go help them.

 

Let Them Meet Your Needs

Don’t be so strong that people can’t help you. Are you having a problem understanding a concept in a class? Ask for help. An unbeliever can help you just as much as a believer can. People don’t have to have Christ to understand aerospace engineering. Maybe you need a ride to the grocery store. Ask. Maybe you are sick or need to move. Ask. Be real. Don’t be this superman or superwoman who is so spiritual that you never have any needs or struggles. Let your friends see that you are a regular human being just as they are.

 

Apologize When Necessary

This is part of being real. And the reality is that sometimes you sin and nonChristians see it. You say things you regret. You get angry over flea-size issues. You forget to pick up your friend or forget that your roommate asked you not to put the mugs in the top shelf. When you realize that you have ignored your friend or mistreated another person, take responsibility. Confess your sin and ask for their forgiveness. When they see how you handle your own sin, they may be surprised, for humility is not normal in the world they live in. Sometimes your sin can be an open door for Christ.

 

Introduce Them to the Body of Christ

No one ever becomes a Christian because of only one person. Think of your own conversion. In your story, you became a Christian because of the influence of multiple people. One Christian was praying for you though you never knew it. Another showed you great kindness when you first moved here. A third was able to explain the message of Christ in a simple way, so that the light bulb turned on in your mind. You saw the love of a group. You saw joy in more than one person. You saw a Christian show integrity when most people from your culture would not. These are the sorts of things that draw people to Christ. The reality is that you cannot bring people to Jesus by yourself. The Holy Spirit will use a community, not just you. Therefore, don’t put pressure on yourself to do everything. Instead bring them to God’s people, and let the church be strong where you are weak.

So. Throw a party and invite your Christian and nonChristian friends together. When you watch that basketball game, do it with five people instead of two.

 

Respect Their Culture as Much as Possible

If your friend is Muslim, don’t serve pork. If she is vegetarian, don’t serve meat. If he is fasting for Ramadan, don’t offer food during the day. Celebrate their holidays. Take off your shoes when you enter their home if that is their culture. People will appreciate your efforts to accommodate their cultures. Ask them about their culture and if they have any practices you should know about. Understand, however, that you may not be able to accommodate everything. You should not skip church because Sunday morning is the best time to get together in your friend’s culture. You will lose your light. Nor should you approve of Western sexual ethics just because your roommate lives them in front of your face. You have to walk with God. But in most issues, you should be able to respect the other person’s culture.

I hope you see that everything in this blog is basic, common sense. Rather than shaking your world with radical, new concepts, I hope I have merely confirmed what you already knew and have, thus, emboldened you to practice it with confidence.

This is an ongoing series in which I am addressing questions that internationals in AIF have asked.

Q: What do I say to someone who criticizes me for going to church?

 A:  The Short answer: Attending church is important … I can’t grow in Christ if I don’t go to church … I really enjoy it … I want to be with God’s people … God wants me to worship with His people.

If someone questions the fact that you attend church every week, any of these answers works, and you probably can think of others. In that sense, I don’t know that you need much advice from me. Listen to the Spirit and give them a simple, straightforward explanation of why you go to church. When people question you, they are generally not looking for a big, long discourse.

The Real Issue:  In most cases, people who criticize you for going to church are not genuinely interested in your reasons for going. They are more likely upset that you don’t do something else that they would rather see you do. Maybe they want to go shopping with you or watch a game or go to the park, but you tell them you’re going to church. Sometimes they have negative stereotypes of Christians and are concerned that you are spending too much time with “those” people. They don’t want you to become just like their stereotype.

The key to your response is not so much having the perfect answer but being OK with the criticism. You say people criticize you for going to church.  So what?  Let them criticize you. You have to walk with God, and the closer you walk with God, the less you will be swayed by people who want you to walk away from God. I am not saying, “Don’t care for your friend or family member.” Rather I am saying, “Don’t let the criticism get into your head.” Spend regular time with your local church, and if criticism comes, then criticism comes.

It is far more important for you as a Christian to understand that if you are to walk with God, you must be with His people regularly. If you abandon your local church, your faith will eventually wither away. In fact, if you abandon your local church, your faith has already begun to wither. You need the body of Christ.

Going Deeper:  I have given you the basic principle because your question is framed in the broadest way possible. But you might dig deeper. When someone criticizes your practice of going to church, you may have an open door for a spiritual conversation. They brought the topic up, so ask them what their specific issue is. You may have an opportunity to share more than just your reasons for going to church.

This blog is a continuation of a series of questions that internationals in our church have asked.

 Q: If someone asks you for the reason for the hope that is in you, how would you respond?

 A: I suppose I should begin answering this question by stating what my hope is. Biblical hope has certainty just as faith does. Biblical hope is not the sort of hope people mean when they say, “I hope it will be sunny tomorrow.” That’s something more like a wish. In addition, Biblical hope deals with the future. Thus, the hope that is in me is a certainty that my future will be glorious in Christ.

Now. To the question. What reason can I give for the hope that is in me? Lots of reasons actually. In fact I could give a thousand reasons, depending on the context of the question. Some of those reasons would deal with apologetics. Others would be personal. Some would deal with what I see in life. Others with what I see in the church. Still others with what I see in me. But, in the end, all of them would somehow deal with what I see in God through Christ as related by the Scriptures.

So why am I certain that I have a glorious future in Christ? First of all, the Scriptures promise me this. I have an inheritance imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for me (I Pet 1:4). I will see his face (Rev 22:4). I have eternal life (I Jn 5:11). We could go on. I understand that for some people, the Bible is not a reason, but you’re asking me for my reason, and that will be part of my answer because I’ve seen that the Bible is reliable.

Second, I see what Jesus has already done. If He loved me so much that He went to the Cross to pay for my sin, then will He not graciously give me all things? (Rm 8:32) The Cross is both the means to my hope and the proof that God will grant me that hope. I do not need to worry about the love of God for me. I see it plainly in the Cross.

Third, I have God’s Spirit, and His Spirit is like a down payment, a guarantee of a future inheritance (Eph 1:13-14). His Spirit gives me abundant peace and joy from the inside. Christ makes my heart bubble over. I see as plain as the sun that Christ fulfills what He promises here on Earth. How much more then can I trust Him for what He promises later?

These are the reasons I would first choose to give. These reasons may then initiate a conversation like “How do you know the Bible is reliable?” Or “How do you know Jesus died and rose again?” Those questions then take us into the realm of apologetics, and there are good answers to those questions, but they are not the question you asked me.

 

We have been addressing real questions posed by internationals in our fellowship.  Today’s question deals with suffering.

Q: How do I endure longsuffering/agony in this fallen world without falling into sin?

 A: This question certainly fits the theme of I Peter that we have been preaching through, and I suppose I need to begin with a disclaimer. When we deal with suffering, it is much easier for me to talk than to do. I make no claims of being one who suffers well. So as I point out a path, I must tell you up front that that path is hard.   It is easier to see it than to walk it just as it is easier to see the path up Mt. Everest than to walk it. Nonetheless here are a few principles that Scripture teaches.

 

Suffering is a Normal Part of the Christian Life 

If you know in advance that suffering is something God promises you (Jn 16:33; Ph 1:29), you will be better prepared when it comes. And, yes. It will come. If, however, you believe a prosperity gospel that says that suffering shows your lack of faith, then you will be ill-prepared when suffering knocks on your door. In fact, you will be questioning your faith. Therefore, the first thing I want to say is that you should not be surprised when suffering comes as if it were some strange thing (I Peter 4:12).

 

Focus on Eternal Things

Suffering is a consequence of sin. It is, thus, a reminder of the transitory nature of earth. Paul said, “our light and momentary afflictions are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (II Cor 4:17). Jesus said that it is in this world where we shall have tribulations. But Scripture shows us that when we leave this world “he shall wipe away every tear” (Rev 21:4). In other words, this world equals tribulation. Eternity equals peace. When an athlete focuses on the championship trophy, that focus helps him get through the grueling workout. He sees that the hardship is temporary, and the reward is worth it. He has a goal at the end. Paul strained for what lies ahead and pressed on toward the goal of the upward call in Christ (Ph 3:13-14). So must we.

 

Walk with God

This is easier said than done, and perhaps I am stating the obvious, but your overall walk with God affects everything. As I have said before, a healthy person handles stress better than a sick one. Spiritually, this principle is the same. Spiritually healthy people handle difficulty better than spiritually weak people. And just as physical health involves many different things — eating right, exercising, getting good sleep, shunning obvious dangers, maintaining healthy relationships, reducing stress, having a proper work balance — so too does spiritual health involve many different things. Spend time daily in God’s Word, put your heart into the Scriptures, pray from the heart, share your faith, show integrity in your dealings with others, give yourself to a local church, find a way to serve the body of Christ, abstain from the passions of your flesh, and more. If you have a heart given to Christ and not to your earthly desires, you will be better able to endure suffering without sinning.

 

Commit to the Process

Sometimes when people ask questions about how we should handle a specific situation, what they want is a magic formula — two or three specific steps that they can immediately practice. They want to take a pill and make the pain go away. But God isn’t really a God of the five steps to reducing stress. His solutions are deeper than that. He wants you. Heart. Soul. Mind. Strength. He is not particularly interested in a few magic steps. His method is to build men and women.   And frankly, one of the tools He most uses to build men and women is the suffering you mention in your question.

When a surgeon does open heart surgery, the patient willingly submits himself to having his chest cut open. Why? Why go through all the pain? You know the answer. It is because the patient believes that his heart will be better off with the surgery. The patient then must trust the surgeon. This is how it is with God and suffering. You see, your heart and my heart are filled with gunk, and God, in His mercy, puts us on the operating table and cuts us open in order to work on our hearts. And “suffering” is often the name we give to God’s surgery. It hurts, yes. But can you trust the surgeon? When you see that your heavenly surgeon is trustworthy, you will be more willing to commit to the process.

 

 

Q: If I do wrong again and again, I feel guilty. I think it makes my mind hard, but I can’t stop. What can I do?

A: People have written entire books on this question. Therefore, like many other questions in this series, my answer will stick to broad principles and merely scratch the surface.

What you describe is what Paul describes in Romans 7: “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate … For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” (vv 15, 18-19) Paul concluded from his experience that “sin … dwells in my members.” (23) In other words, he saw not just that he sins but that he is a sinner from the inside out. Your experience should make you see the same thing.

Imagine for a moment that a three-year-old boy tried to wrestle against the Olympic gold medalist in wrestling. The boy would not stand a chance. The gold medalist would defeat him, and after the boy lost, if he decided to wrestle again, the gold medalist would defeat him again. And again. And again. As many times as they wrestled, the gold medalist would win. He is much stronger than the boy. And much craftier in the art of wrestling.

Now you are the three-year-old, and sin is the gold medalist, and every time you get on the mat with sin, you lose. Sin is stronger than you. And craftier. We have to see this, and sometimes it takes the experience you describe of sinning over and over and being unable to stop ourselves to see how weak we are. The sin is not good, but when you begin to see the depths of your sin, that insight is a necessary step toward righteousness. This is when you begin to see the need for grace. This is when you begin to call upon God and say, “I can’t live without you!”

When you begin to see that you are sinful to the core, you need to deal with two things. The first is your feelings of guilt, and the second is the business of beginning to live in righteousness. The gospel deals with both these things.

First, let’s talk about your guilt feelings. Those feelings are certainly natural, but if you are in Christ, you need to understand that the sin is gone — it’s covered by the blood of Christ. You must believe this. You must hold onto it. The Cross is God’s remedy against overwhelming guilt. It is not an excuse to sin. We do not say, “Oh great! God cleanses my sin so let me roll around in it.” That thinking is an abuse of the Cross. But when we do sin, we confess it and say, “Praise you, Lord, that you have made me clean in Christ.” John said “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (I Jn 1:9)

Listen. You may be living in Romans 7 and may have committed the same sin for the 1000^th time. You may be tired of committing the same sins, and you don’t think God could ever forgive you for disobeying Him again and again. But if you are in Christ, you are clean. Period. You may not feel clean, but your feelings do not match reality. It’s time to see reality. Through the Cross, Christ has justified you, reconciled you to Himself, redeemed you from sin, and forgiven all your wrongs. Instead of doubting these truths, believe them. Praise God for them. That is how you fight the guilty feelings. You dwell on the love of God shown through the work of the Cross and you get back up.

The second part of your response will deal with living in righteousness. We must understand that while Christ may forgive our sins again and again, He does not forgive so that we may continue in sin. Forgiveness is true — praise the Lord it is — but it is not the end of the story. God is not interested in merely forgiving broken people. He wants to transform them.   The gospel is more than forgiveness. It is a new life.

From your question, however, I am guessing that sometimes you do not see this new life. This again is where the gospel comes in. In Christ, you are not just forgiven. You are new. And just as it may not feel as if you are forgiven, so too, it may not feel as if you are new. But you are new. Whether you feel it or not. The same Scripture that says you are justified and forgiven also says that you are dead to sin and alive to God (Rm 6:1-11), and that you are sanctified or holy (I Cor 1:2, 30; 6:9-11; Eph 1:4; Heb 10:10). This is your identity. Scripture says that in Christ you are clean, new, and holy. Those things are facts. We then need to align our feelings with the facts.

Please do not misunderstand. I am not saying we are perfect. Christians still sin, but even when we sin, we are still holy in Christ. It’s who we are in Him. The work of living out a holy life actually begins by believing that in Christ we are holy. We walk by faith, not by sight. So you can begin by believing that you are dead to this sin that you keep doing.

Next, it is important to know that fighting sin is not a matter of fighting sin. Think of it this way. In the beginning of Romeo and Juliet, Romeo likes a girl named Rosalind. He can’t get her off his mind. His friend Benvolio comes and tries to get him off of Rosalind, and Father Laurence chides him for thinking on Rosalind, but no one succeeds. That is, until Romeo meets Juliet. Then his passion for Rosalind disappears. “Rosalind? Who is she?” Romeo could not fight his passion for Rosalind until he found a passion for someone else. Fighting sin is the same way. You will not defeat sin by saying, “I won’t sin. I won’t sin. I won’t sin.” You will fight sin by finding a passion for Christ. Fighting sin is not a matter of keeping yourself from sin. Instead it is a matter of giving yourself to Christ. When you lose yourself in Christ you will begin to find your lifestyle changing.

Therefore, in this process of overcoming a sin that you keep falling into, I want to point you to Christ. I also want you to understand that in Christ your identity is new. You are no longer the old you who likes to argue or drink or view pornography. You are dead to those things. You are alive to God. God does not change us by changing our behavior. Instead, He changes our behavior by changing us. Therefore, do not focus on the behavior. Focus on Christ and on who He has made you to be through the gospel. Righteousness is His work, and if we will trust Him and passionately follow Him, then “He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.” (Ph 1:6)

If you want to read more, the two best resources I have read on this topic are The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification by Walter Marshall (a puritan from the 1600s) and The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee (Ni To Sheng). The book by Nee is the easier of the two to read.

 

 

 

 

The following question came from an international in our worship service.

Q: One of my relatives passed away when I was back home. And we had a three-day worship for him …  I know this situation will come again in the future because of the culture and what people think. So do you have suggestions on how to deal with this problem?

 A: I’m glad you see ancestor worship to be a problem. Not everyone does. Sometimes people view ancestor worship as just a cultural way to express grief and honor to a relative who has died. You, however, see that while your cultural practices may indeed be expressing grief and honor, they are also doing something else.

What then do you do?

1.  The first thing I would say is that you need to commit your heart and soul regularly to the Word of God, to prayer, and to God’s people. These things are essential to walking with God. I am not talking here about a specific course of action concerning this situation. I am instead talking about maintaining your spiritual health. This is just common sense. Healthy people handle difficulties better than sick people. Spiritually it is no different. You will need specific direction and strength to do God’s will. Both those things come from God. If you are not walking with God, you will conform to the culture in most every practice, but if you are walking with God, you will be in a much better condition to honor God at this difficult time.   Maintain your walk with God. Don’t let that slip.

2.  I would recommend that you find a mature believer from your culture and talk to him or her about this. I have not walked through this issue personally, but that believer probably has, and he or she will be able to give you more specific counsel than I can here. My response will stick with broad Biblical principles.

3.  It is important in this situation that you honor your family. Your family needs to know that you love and respect them, even if you might not be able to perform every function they would like you to. This means that your attitude is important. You are not to be disrespectful or arrogant about burial customs, even if you disagree with them. If you must say “no” to something, let your family know that you love them and that you want to honor them. They may interpret your “no” as disrespect, but don’t actually be disrespectful, for then you give them evidence to confirm what they think.

In order to show respect, I believe it is important for you to participate in as many of the funeral customs as you can without violating your conscience. Then, if you must say “no” to the request that you pray to a dead man, your family will see that you are making distinctions. If you say “yes” as much as you can, you are buying some trust.

But what if every aspect of the funeral and successive ceremonies requires you to violate your conscience? In other words, what if you can’t say “yes” to anything? First, I doubt that will be true. When someone dies, you will have people to visit, care to give, arrangements to make, and all sorts of activities going on. I believe you will have an opportunity to help. Death is an open door for ministry. But if the main ceremonies violate your conscience, you may need to skip them. You need to be prepared for that, and if you do skip them, you need to find another way to honor and respect your relative and family. The Holy Spirit will be crucial in communicating to you where you have a green light and where you have a red light.

4.  Because you need to honor your family, you will need to communicate well. Your family will not understand why you refuse to hold a vigil for the dead. You need to be clear to them where your boundaries are and why. If you must skip something, let your family know that your reason has nothing to do with disrespect and everything to do with the fact that you see the spiritual reality in a different way. Because you see the spiritual reality in a different way, you show honor in a different way, and you need to communicate that. They need to know that you are not rejecting them. What exactly you say, I will leave between you and the Holy Spirit.

5.  Death brings out the spiritual side of the human race, and our funeral and burial customs often reflect specific spiritual beliefs.   What you want to avoid is personal involvement in or endorsement of an alternate spiritual system. Worship of the dead, praying to the dead, leaving food out for the dead to eat, holding vigils for the dead, burning incense to the dead, reading unbiblical spiritual writings, and other similar practices are tied to a spiritual system. In Christ, you do not want to participate in that system.

Of course, your family may perform such practices while not believing any of the spiritual stuff. That does not mean, however, that the spiritual stuff is absent. When you pray to someone who is not God, you are doing something spiritual whether you know it or not. And if your family does not believe the spiritual teachings, their unbelief may be a path toward helping them understand you. That’s common ground.

6.  Some questions to ask yourself to help navigate what you can and cannot do.

• Is the practice I am being asked to do tied to an alternate spiritual belief system? Not every funeral custom involves unbiblical spirituality. If someone asks you to bring food to the widow, you may be just caring for the widow. If a funeral custom involves viewing a body, you may be merely showing respect. If you are asked to give a speech about your memories of the person, you may be showing him honor. None of these practices is necessarily tied to an unbiblical belief. You can think of other such practices.

• How central are the spiritual practices to what I am being asked to attend? Let me illustrate. Are you being asked to attend a worship service for the dead? Or a memorial that may include objectionable elements? In the first situation, the whole point of the event involves an unbiblical spiritual purpose. In the second situation, the whole point of the event may be to show respect to your dead relative. In the first situation, your presence could be considered an endorsement of the spiritual belief system. That’s the point of the event. In the second situation, your presence is not necessarily an endorsement of the spiritual practices that go on. That’s not why you are there. You’re there to honor your grandfather. In reality, over the course of several days, you may be asked to participate in both types of events.

• Are you an observer or a practitioner? Are you watching someone burn the incense or are you burning it? Are you merely present when someone asks the dead for good fortune or are you asking the dead yourself? Do your parents have an altar to the dead in their home or do you have one in your home? Do you merely see the feast left to the ghosts or are you laying out the feast? It is true that in some situations, God may not want you even to observe, for sometimes observation is participation. But that is not always the case, and when you move from observing to practicing, you are going to a different level. Observing may be OK in some situations. You can’t control what other people do. But you can control what you practice.

7.  Be prepared for difficulty. Peter tells his readers that they are aliens, exiles, foreigners, outsiders in their land (I Pet 1:1,17; 2:11). Christ makes us an alien where we live. In the case of ancestor worship, you see this. In Christ, you have become a spiritual alien within your own family. This is not bad. In fact, you can love your family better because of Christ in you, but it does cause problems. Your family may be angry. Your parents may slander and insult you because of your stance just as the Roman culture in the first century slandered and reviled the Christians Peter wrote to (I Pet 3:9, 16-17). You may face difficulty, but in Christ you are victorious in the end. Let that fact encourage you. Be patient with your family. They do not understand Christ. And if you must suffer their scorn, do so with joy, for God sees your faithfulness and He will reward it in the end.

I pray that when this happens again, Christ will fill you with His wisdom, grace, and strength to honor Him and your family.

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AIF has been preaching through I Peter on Sundays, and to make I Pet 3:15 practical, we took questions about Christianity last week and answered them. If you want to listen to those answers, go to the media page on this website and click on the sermon for Feb 19^th. On that day, however, we had many more questions than we had time for, and since we will not devote more time in church to those questions, I thought I would take time and address some of them in the blog. Today is the first week of that project. This means that I will be taking a break covering the Christian teachings on the human race.

Q: Why Christianity and not other religions?

A: Wow. That’s a hundred questions all in one. If a Muslim asked that, he would likely mean, “Why Christianity and not Islam?” If a Jew asked it, he would likely mean, “Why Christianity and not Judaism?” If a universalist asked it, he would mean, “Why Christianity and not any religion?” And my answer would be a bit different to each of those situations. Therefore, for the purposes of this blog, I will have to paint with broad brushstrokes, but please understand that I would not normally paint this way in a live situation with a real person. Instead, I would first ask some questions to see where this person is coming from: “Why do you ask the question? Which religion do you think is as good as Christianity? Why?” I would then address my answers to the specifics, but here I can’t do that.

So then, Why Christianity and not other religions? Here are some thoughts:

1.  Let’s turn the question on its head for a minute and ask, “Why other religions and not Christianity?” OR “Why no religion?” OR “Why all religions and not one?” If we are going to ask the question one way, we should be able to ask it any of those other ways as well. Now I’m not saying that a Muslim or a Hindu will give you no reasons to adopt his faith, but I am saying that if you see the question as a sort of criticism of Christianity, then it is equally a criticism of any belief —including the beliefs of the person who asks it.

2.  Why Christianity and not other religions? Let me give a short answer with an explanation. The short answer is Jesus. I know that may sound trite, and I don’t mean it to be. I’m dead serious.  You see, Jesus sets Christianity apart from all other religions. In no other religion will you find anything like the Christian teaching that God visited Earth to save people from themselves. This idea is radical. The Bible teaches that in Jesus, God came to Earth to die, that His death was the payment for sin, that He bodily rose from the grave on the third day, and that all who trust in Him are made new now and will inherit His future later. This death and Resurrection brings you to God, and the One who did the work is Himself your Creator, to whom you will bow.

These teachings are either true or false. If they are false, then Christianity is the biggest hoax ever played upon the human race. But if Christianity is true, then other religions will not lead you to God. If the problem of the human race is that “your sins have separated you from your God” (Is 59:2), and if God came to Earth to remove your sin and called you to trust in what He had done, then you cannot move toward God by praying to idols in your living room, by emptying yourself of desire, or by fasting at Ramadan.

Let me put it simply. If Jesus is risen from the dead, then all these other options are not options. If Jesus is not risen from the dead, then Christianity is not an option. You can’t have Jesus and other religions at the same time.

3.  Why Christianity and not other religions? Let me describe what I said above in reverse. Let’s suppose all religions could get you to God.   Why then would God need to send His Son to die on a Cross? If you were God, would you submit yourself to the pain of Crucifixion for no reason? If the Cross of Christ is not necessary for human salvation, why go through with it?

4.  Why Christianity and not other religions? I find Christianity to be the most realistic to the human condition and the most focused on God. I’m going to make general statements for the sake of space, but here is how most other religions work. In Buddhism, you practice the philosophy and reach nirvana. In Islam, you do good deeds, including the Five Pillars, and maybe Allah takes you to heaven. In Hinduism, you live a good life, worship the gods and goddesses, practice the right rituals, and you escape the cycle of rebirth. The central point of these religions is what you do. Christianity is quite the opposite. The central point of Christianity is what God has done. The Cross and Resurrection are God’s work, not yours. This is immensely freeing. This means that you do not have to perform to perfection in order to attain God. God has attained you. In Christ, God has given you a gift. Himself. In Christianity, our responsibility is not to perform but to say, “thank you.” It takes faith to say “thank you,” but when we do so from the heart, God comes to live inside us. He makes us new creatures, and we then go on to live new lives.   The new life does not bring us to God. God brings us to the new life.

This puts a greater emphasis on the glory of God. In addition, it is the simplest religion on the planet. I don’t mean simplistic, just simple. In Christ, salvation is a gift. This fact makes salvation accessible to everyone on Earth. A three-year-old with a right heart can do this.

5.  Why Christianity and not other religions? If you have been following what I said above, you see that you cannot have Christianity and other religions together. They operate on different principles. Whether it is Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, spirit religions, whatever, you are going to have to perform. You will have to be good in order to achieve the ultimate goal. You will have to perform the prayers or the incense or the rituals or get rid of your sin. But Christianity says that you don’t have to do any of that stuff. God loves you and has died for you while you were yet a sinner (Rm 5:8). Christianity says, “Come as you are. Confess your sin. Believe that Christ has wiped it away, and receive the gift of God.”

Christians call this approach grace, and the reality is that you can’t have a grace-based religion and a performance-based religion at the same time. The moment performance is part of your salvation, grace isn’t. These two approaches can’t both be true. You will have to choose which you think is the better approach. If you pick performance, I hope you perform well because God is holy. If you pick grace, you’re picking Christ.

Those are a few reasons why I would say Christianity and not other religions.

 

 

This past week my daughter, Rebekah, made a wreath out of paper roses. She made it for a purpose. She wanted to give it as a gift to my wife, and she wanted it to be pretty. Then on Tuesday, she made an apple pastry. It, too, had a purpose: she wanted us to eat it. The reality is that everything we make we make for a purpose. When Ford makes a car, the car has a purpose. When a construction company builds a home, the home has a purpose. A screw has a purpose. A broom has a purpose. A painting has a purpose. A doorknob has a purpose. Everything we make has a purpose. In fact, if no purpose existed, we wouldn’t make anything. And the purpose doesn’t always have to be physical. Sometimes the purpose is simply to show love, like my daughter’s wreath. Sometimes the purpose may be to learn or to explore. Sometimes the purpose may be to express beauty. But our experience shows that created things have a purpose, and based on what we can see, they have a purpose 100% of the time. When you find something created, you find a purpose. Period.

OK.  What then do we do with this universal human desire for purpose? The desire is certainly not proof that there is a purpose, but it does seem as if, deep down, we humans have yearnings you would expect us to have if we were created. Created things have purpose; we want purpose. Hmm.

Now this desire we have for purpose is not just generic. We do not want merely for life to have meaning in some vague sense; we each desire personal fulfillment in our own lives. Purpose gets personal. You want to reflect the purpose for which you exist. You do. This is what a fulfilling life would be. The pursuit of purpose is a pursuit of fulfillment.

Even the atheist wants this. He wants to be helpful, useful or good. He wants to positively impact people. He does not wish to let life pass by without living it. The pursuit of “the good life” is a pursuit of fulfillment. The grabbing of power, the quest for influence or fame, the indulging of pleasure are all attempts to gain fulfillment and purpose from life. The single woman thinks a husband will fulfill her, so she pursues one. The executive thinks that turning around a flailing corporation will fulfill him, so he pours his life into the project. The young couple think a better home and nicer vacations will fulfill them, so they work toward that end. A father and mother believe that a respectful son will fulfill them, so they live for him. When people pursue whatever they pursue, they are really pursuing fulfillment. They want purpose.

But this pursuit is hopeless apart from God. Without God all the money in the world will not satisfy. Fame, influence, accomplishments, seeing the world, sexual encounters, a husband and wonderful children all fail to deliver what we hope they will. Many of those things are good; but when we try to make them ultimate, they cannot fill the shoes. Ultimacy can be met only through that which is ultimate, and life on earth was never created to be that thing. The good things in life are just pictures. They are not the real thing. I may keep a picture of my wife on my computer and pull it up and look at her and derive some enjoyment from it, but the picture will not hold me, talk to me or care for me. If I want those things, I must leave the picture behind and go home to the reality. The pursuit of earth is an attempt to replace God with His gifts. It is pursuing God in all the wrong places.

You see, in the end, there is no purpose apart from God. Genuine purpose goes beyond a shallow survival of the species or a “let’s all be happy” mindset. Those ideas will give no purpose to your life, and deep down you know it. If you want real purpose, you need a Creator. Because … purpose … flows out of … creation.

 

“… everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”  (Is 43:7)

Lord, you have made me for your glory.  May I, by your grace, reflect that glory for which I was made.

Last week we talked about the fact that everyone is a moral creature, that we all believe some things to be right and some things wrong. Of course, every now and then, you hear someone say that moral absolutes do not exist, but these people do not believe what they say. If someone were to walk up to them and slap them in the face for no reason, what do you suppose they would do? Would they say, “That’s OK. You could not have done anything wrong since wrong doesn’t exist”? Of course not! Instead, they say, “Hey, you can’t do that!” But if there is no such thing as right and wrong, why can’t you do it? What’s wrong with it? As long as we are talking about vague, general theory, these people can convince themselves that right and wrong do not exist, but once we get specific and wrong them, they contradict their theory. Real life gets in the way. Deep down, they know right and wrong exist because deep down they are human.

Now once you start thinking about morality, you must begin to acknowledge the existence of some other things that go with it, like personality, authority and purpose. Without those things, morality makes no sense. Today, let’s talk only about purpose. Imagine a world that had no purpose. Why would it be wrong to kill my neighbor in such a world? You say, “Because killing your neighbor harms him.”

“But if there is no purpose, what is wrong in harming him? He had no purpose.”

And you may say, “But the human race cannot survive if people were to consistently behave that way.”

“But if there is no purpose, why should the human race survive? We have no purpose. You are still assuming a purpose.”

You could continue this dialogue a long way, but once you assume it is wrong to kill your neighbor, you also assume some kind of purpose that the killing violates. The purpose may be in you, in your neighbor, or in the fabric of the universe, but the existence of right and wrong seems to point to some bigger purpose in life.

Instinctively, we all sense this. We all desire life to have purpose, and most people believe it does. To be sure, there are scientists and philosophers who say we are nothing more than a collection of atoms, but they had to work hard to get their thinking where it is, for they have had to fight constantly a powerful and pervasive sense everywhere they turn that there is more to life than atoms. Such thinkers are in the minority even within their own fields. To think as they do is not natural. As long as humanity shall exist, such thinking shall be paddling upstream, for the stream of human experience flows against it.

Even the atheistic existentialists write of the despair that their thinking produces. It is ironic. They claim that life has no purpose and then despair of that belief. But the despair they write of is a curious phenomenon. It indicates that their very insides feel that their philosophy ought not be. Their despair arises from the fact that they desire meaning in life. They may believe no such meaning exists, but deep down they wish it did. They are human. This universal desire for meaning (held even by those who deny meaning) is difficult to explain if we are just atoms. Why should atoms care that life has purpose?