When Religions Collide Part 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. The Bible gives clear direction on how Christians should respond to an antagonistic culture.

It also tells us how not to respond. Today, how to live in a godly way in an increasingly godless society. Stay with us. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, tell us where we are today in Scripture and what our focus will be. Dave, one of the things that we have to do as believers is to walk the fine line between truth and love. As a matter of fact, there are many Christians who try to witness, but they do so self-righteously, judgmentally.

And of course, they only turn people off. On the other hand, there are those who are so loving, they never get around to the truth. So what we must do is to avoid self-righteous judgmentalism, but at the same time, we have to witness to the truth. Peter put it this way, that we should witness to others with meekness and fear. That is our privilege.

Even as we live here in the West, it's also the privilege of those who live in other countries. My wife and I have written a book entitled Life-Changing Bible Verses You Should Know. I have to say that it covers 40 different topics. Of course, each topic is covered briefly, but it has to do with theology. It has to do with Christian living. If you want a well-rounded understanding of what Christianity is all about, I believe that this book will be of great help. Here's what you can do.

Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Now let us listen carefully as we continue trying to understand biblically how to live in a pluralistic culture. Just living in your little ghetto, you know, we go to church on Sunday, but we don't share Jesus Christ when we get a haircut or when we work with a person next to us at work.

Oh, no, no, no. That's another possibility. The other possibility is militarism, to become very fighting and angry and to say, what are all these people doing with our freedoms and with our country? And we can get more angry than we are repentant.

That's another possibility. The other is to engage the culture, to say, God, you've given us unique opportunities to prove ourselves in a different kind of environment and welcome the opportunity, welcome the opportunity to live for Christ authentically in a pluralistic culture. And with that, we're turning to God's word.

All right. Would you take your Bibles and turn to 1 Peter, chapter three, 1 Peter, chapter three. Peter is the one you see who initially drew his sword. He drew his sword when they came to get Jesus because he was a fighter. He said, let's, let's fight the people. And Jesus said, Peter, my kingdom is not of this world. You can take your sword and you can put it up into its sheath.

Let's not use a sword here. And Jesus submitted to those who were coming for him to kill him. Peter is writing to a church that has experienced persecution, not the full intensity yet. That was coming and he prepares them for it because you see the church in history has always, the true church has always been a minority. It has always had to struggle with pluralistic religions, in this case, paganism. And so the question is, how do you live in a pagan society? The book was written to help us understand that. Church has always been an island of righteousness in a sea of paganism.

How does it engage culture? Very quickly, first of all, please notice that we must live by kingdom values. We must live by kingdom values. Wherever God has planted us, wherever your office is, wherever your hospital is, wherever you find yourself working in a factory or building or whatever it is that your vocation is, you should live in such a way that people will say to themselves, why is this person different? Notice the apostle Paul says in verse eight, first Peter chapter three, finally, all of you have unity of mind.

That's the kind of unity of mind that is brought about through our love for Christ. Have sympathy. When you walk past the poor, don't simply say, well, that's what they get because they're too lazy to work or it's their fault. Many instances, it is not their fault.

They're locked into a system. Do we have sympathy? Can we weep with those who are weeping? Brotherly love, specifically Christian love.

As we have been loved, so we love. Tender hearted. God, you see, has been tender hearted toward us and tender heartedness in scripture is closely related to forgiving. Ephesians chapter four, be tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. Be humble, humility, clothe yourselves with humility, Paul says.

Why? Because we are sinners. We are sinners. The fact that God has graciously saved us, we had nothing to do with it.

We responded to his grace. The idea of a proud, arrogant Christian is an oxymoron. It is, it is a square circle. It is a donut without a hole. It is a toothpick with a wood shaved from it.

It simply cannot exist. The gospel, if it does anything to us, if it saves us, it humbles us and breaks us so that we are not angry people, so that we are not the kind of people who are more concerned about what others are doing to us than we are about our own humility and repentance. And so Peter here is telling us, look, what you need to do is to remember that you live with kingdom values wherever God has planted you in a pluralistic world. How did the Chinese church grow so much without television, without Christian radio, without tracts, largely without books? How did the church become so great? It's the way in which Christians lived one next to another until one would say to the other, why are you able to endure this repression so much better than I am?

What is your secret? It was personal evangelism, one person telling another person, like the old saying goes, one beggar telling another beggar where bread can be found. So, you live with Christian values. You live with a Christian perspective.

We don't have time to go through this whole beautiful text. You can do that on your own reading the next verses, but let's jump to verse 13. Now, who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. You see, because America has always had a Christian consensus, we've always expected special privileges.

Suffering to us is deemed to be fundamentally unconstitutional. We think to ourselves that there's no way that we should ever have to be challenged about our faith or have the kinds of conflicts that pluralism brings. Well, what he's saying is if you have to suffer for righteousness, understand that it comes with a blessing. Comes with a blessing. Your Bibles are open. Notice chapter four, verse 12. Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings. To share the sufferings of Jesus means to endure the kind of hardship and suffering that you endure because you belong to Jesus.

It isn't because you have cancer or because things are going badly at work. It's the kind of stress and persecution we have because we belong to Jesus. Rejoice that you also may rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. What we should say to ourselves in this pluralistic world when we feel that we are no longer getting a fair shake is praise God and I hope that there is some persecution and some marginalization of me in the midst of it all because it comes with a blessing. What are you when men revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake? You are blessed because that's the way the prophets before you were treated.

So we accepted with optimism. Tertullian in North Africa said that the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church and he said regarding being in prison, the body is shut in but all is open to the spirit. The spirit may roam abroad to God.

The leg does not feel the chain if the mind is in heaven. Now that's a very very optimistic view of imprisonment and I do not want to glorify martyrdom. I do not want to glorify martyrdom because I don't know how you and I would do if we had to die for our faith. I hope that we do so valiantly in the name of Jesus. But let's not criticize those who perhaps haven't endured martyrdom too well because we've not been there so we approach this with humility. But I will say this that even the persecuted church that we talk about and we should be praying for our persecuted brethren and we should be lobbying for our persecuted brethren and doing all that we possibly can to change their environment and their circumstances. But even in the midst of that, there is God's blessing because the scripture says that ultimately nothing can destroy the Christian.

Nothing can destroy him. The body they may kill, God's truth abideth still, his kingdom is forever. So we approach it with a sense of perspective and hope and optimism. We live with kingdom values. We go deep into the culture. We don't avoid the culture, but we remain distinct within the culture and we live with kingdom values. And then let me say also that we live understanding our testimony and being willing to share our testimony.

Notice what the text says. I'm now in verse 15, but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord is holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is within you. Yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience. By the way, one of the reasons that we can teach people personal evangelism and they can learn it all and still don't evangelize and still don't witness is because if Christ is not sanctified in your heart as Lord, if you've got other agendas that mean more to you than Jesus, it's hard to witness. If your heart is cold and you're kind of indifferent and the passion for Jesus is gone, it's difficult to share your faith.

What you want to do is to just retreat. Like one woman said, I don't want others to know that I'm a Christian at work because I've got some issues in my life and I don't think that I'd be a good witness for Jesus. Well, God bless her. I understand what she's saying, but she'd better take care of those issues so that she can sanctify the Lord as God and then give a defense. The word defense in Greek is apologia from which we get apologetics or apology. It doesn't mean that we're apologizing for our faith by no means.

It means that we're defending it. Are you able to defend your faith? If somebody says to you, well, you know, I think Jesus is one way among many.

Are you able to answer that question? You say, well, I don't know. Well, you know, there have been so many books and I know somebody who's preached a lot of sermons on those kinds of topics that can be used to study and to learn and to say, I need to be able to answer that so that I can give a reason for the hope that is within me and I can tell people why I belong to Jesus Christ and not to some other faith. And what are the roots of our faith? You see, we learn then, we learn then to do apologetics by lifestyle and when we're asked and sometimes even when we aren't asked, but there's an open door, we share with others the reason for the hope that is within us. That's the way in which we live in a pluralistic world. Now, let me give some practical suggestions and then I'll say like Luther at the Diet of Worms, Ich bin Hindorch, which is to say, I'm out of here.

That's the way he ended it when it was over. All right. First of all, respect other people's freedom of conscience. You expect them to respect your freedom of conscience. You respect their freedom of conscience.

Notice what the text says. When you are giving a reason for the hope that is within you, yet do it with gentleness and respect. You respect other religions. Sure, there's going to be conflict. Sure, there's going to be misunderstanding. Remember this, that if you were born in Saudi Arabia, it's entirely possible statistically that you would grow up Muslim.

And if you were born in China, you might be Buddhist. You see, what we need to do is to realize that we're dealing here with real people in real situations, in real contexts, so we don't come with an attitude of superiority. We don't come with an attitude of anger, but we do in humility give a reason for the hope that is within us. We do it with meekness and we do it with fear, not judgmentalism and superiority. So we respect other people's religions. Secondly, we dialogue with them. We dialogue and we learn. As I was preparing this message, I thought to myself, you know, one of the tragedies in my own life is that I know so few of other religions in any kind of an in-depth, intimate way. I'd like to get to know other religions. In the work that I do, I'm somewhat isolated. What an opportunity God has given us by bringing so many different people from so many different countries and so many different religions to the shores of the United States.

But then at some point you can accommodate, but at some point you can't. When I was in Istanbul a few years ago, I had a guide, a Muslim guide for an entire day. He met me at the hotel in the morning and we didn't come back until after dinner that night and he was giving me a tour of Istanbul, going to all kinds of interesting places and it was just he and I. He said that he was a very devout Muslim and that because of his devoutness, he'd prefer if he could pray during the day. Muslims are to pray five times.

I know that there was one time I think in the morning and one time in the afternoon. I told them, look, when it's time to pray, you simply go into the mosque. You stay there as long as you want and when you're finished, you come out and I'm going to be outside waiting for you. I said, I want to respect your faith. We had some very interesting conversations by the way that I will tell you about sometime in another context, but I respected his faith.

In the afternoon, he washed his feet. He went into the mosque and he said, come in with me. So I went into the mosque and there I saw just hundreds and hundreds of men bowing and saying prayers and then he knelt and he said to me, he said, you can't stand when you're in the mosque and everybody's praying. He said, he said, why don't you just kneel down? Why don't you just kneel down? I said to him, look, I'm glad that I have the privilege of seeing everything here, but you know what?

I'm just going to go and I'll meet you when you're finished and I went outside. You see, I couldn't kneel down because even though Allah and Jehovah have some similarities, they have such radical, radical differences that this isn't the same God and so I said, there's no way I can bow down and then I met him after he came out of the mosque. In other words, what we do is we go as far as our conscience allows us to go, but then we don't overstep that conscience and we say to ourselves, I can do A, B, C, but I can't do this. That's the way we live in a pluralistic world and we do so dialoguing and understanding. When we send missionaries to the mission field, we expect them to learn the culture, to learn the religion that they are going to and what we need to do is now in America is to look at America as a mission field.

It's a mission field. That is to say that we need to understand better other people, other religions and then speak Jesus Christ within that context. Finally, we have to be ready to die for our faith. It's been the whole history of the Christian church and who do we have for our example? Well, your Bible is open, isn't it? You'll notice it says in verse 18, for Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.

There is our example. Jesus lived when religions collided. The religion of Judaism, which had calcified based on the Old Testament with many, many traditions, conflicted with Jesus, who was trying to help them to understand that he was the son of God and the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy and as a result of the collision, he was crucified and in the process of that crucifixion, God accomplished his work and it is through the suffering of Jesus that we are brought to God.

Every single believer therefore should be willing to die for his faith and perhaps that can even happen to you and to me and that's a topic for a future time. But here's what the text says, is that Jesus suffered, he was righteous, we are unrighteous. When he died on the cross, he got what he didn't deserve, namely our sin and our unrighteousness and because he died on the cross, we now can get what we don't deserve, namely his righteousness, that he died in our place to bring us to God. And so as I come to the end of the message, I finally come to the focal point as to why Moody Church exists, why you and I are still left on this planet. It is to help people to be brought to God through Jesus Christ our Lord who suffered in the place of sinners.

The wages of sin is death and he said, I will take the eternal death of the cross so that you will be exempt, so that you will be declared as righteous as I am. I mentioned that Helen Needham died this past week, Jerry Newcomer, also another member of ours, had her memorial service yesterday. When they arrived in heaven, they arrived in heaven as if they were Jesus based totally upon the merit of Christ. We live differently because we have been saved differently by the generosity and the grace of God our Lord. Let's pray. Our Father, we ask in Jesus' name that you will help us in the midst of a culture that is pluralistic. Help us, Father, as you've brought to America so many different religions of the world, so many different opportunities, so much for us to learn that is new and different. Help us to be humble witnesses of your saving grace. And we pray that even those who have listened to this message, perhaps on the internet or radio or right here at the Moody Church, who've never trusted Jesus Christ as Savior, may see that the way to God is through Him and through Him alone.

Thank you. Thank you that you died for sinners like us. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. Well, as you already know, my great desire is to help people to understand the wonder of the Gospel. My wife, Rebecca, and I have written a book together entitled Life-Changing Bible Verses You Should Know. This book covers 40 different topics, and I'm just looking at the table of contents here, the armor of God, assurance, conscience, courage. I remember writing the section on the fear of the Lord, forgiveness, the glory of God, heaven, hell, the Holy Spirit. This will help you in your own walk with God. All of these topics are covered briefly and biblically. Now, for a gift of any amount, this book can be yours.

Here's what you do. Go to rtwoffer.com. Ask for the book entitled Life-Changing Bible Verses You Should Know, rtwoffer.com, or pick up the phone right now and call 1-888-218-9337. Thanks in advance for helping us, because together we are making a difference.

I hope that you got that phone number, 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60614. Running to Win is all about helping you understand God's roadmap for your race of life. Some critics of Christianity look at its many denominations and ask, where is the unity Jesus talked about? Bible interpretations vary widely. How should believers deal with the many ways our faith is portrayed? Next time on Running to Win, we'll find out as we see what happens when beliefs collide. Thanks for listening. For Dr. Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.