SERIES: FAITH, HOPE, & LOVE #1/3

#1 · February 1, 2010, 2:47 pm

Quote from Forum Archives on February 1, 2010, 2:47 pm
Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>

SERIES: FAITH, HOPE, & LOVE #1/3

DEFENDING THE FAITH

January 31, 2010

TEXT: Jude 17-25

In the latter part of the 1980s, a very high profile ministry got into serious trouble. The PTL Club, with Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, was in the news a lot. Ultimately, Jim Bakker was convicted of cheating folks out of money and Tammy Faye divorced and remarried. Their world fell apart. It was common news that during the PTL scandal almost all of the high profile ministries, especially those on television, underwent some form of financial investigation.

One of the tragic side effects was that the faith and trust that some had in that ministry was violated. On a larger scale, it seems that the faith which some people had in Christianity was violated. The Reverend Jerry Falwell expressed this when he said that these events with PTL have caused some to lose their faith. This is a sad truth. I don't like to see anyone disappointed and disillusioned; I don't like to see anyone violate another person's trust through deceit and dishonesty; I don't like to see people used so that others can build little empires. But for those who felt and believed that their faith was shattered by that incident, I am led to say that their faith needed to be shaken so that they could be redirected to the proper source of the Christian faith. That proper source is not the PTL or any other ministry.

Even though the PTL scandal was tragic and monumental in scope, it was certainly not the first scandal within Christianity. There have been some whoppers. I can only imagine the press releases if Katie Couric had been around when the First Century Corinthian church began to stray from the truth. That was a newsworthy situation just right for a soap opera plot: rich taking advantage of the poor; sexual immorality; drunken parties at the church meals. Scandal is not a new invention of the modern Church. It has been around for a long time. I do not say this proudly; I bring it up to put the events that have happened in our lifetime into proper perspective.

Christianity has always weathered the storms of scandal because of faith. Christian faith has never been based upon the activities of the Corinthian church or the PTL Club or even the disciples themselves. Christian faith is based upon the action of God alone in the sending of Jesus Christ. It is on the bedrock basis of this source of faith that the disciples and Christians in every age have always been able to defend the faith.

We are still called to defend the faith, and in order to do so, we need to take a look at what faith is and what faith means. Look first to the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians. Paul had the unenviable task of confronting a church with lots of problems. He brought a lot of Christian principles to bear on them: spiritual gifts, the concept of believers being like the body of Christ, separation from pagan idolatry. Finally, though, he wrote that of all that had been introduced to explain the Christian faith, only three principles will remain or abide - faith, hope, and love. This morning we are considering faith. Hope and love will be addressed over the next two Sundays.

The first step in defending the faith is to pause and reflect upon who or what we place our faith. For Christians, the sole object of faith is God, with the recognition that God has revealed Himself in the human life of Jesus Christ. Through Jesus, we enter into relationship with God. Any other source and object of our faith is not Christian faith and will ultimately fail.

In an interview, the Reverend Walter Wangerin, Jr., author of several books on faith, said that, sometimes the object of our faith is the wrong thing. Sometimes, instead of trusting in the Lord directly, we trust in intermediate things between God and us. So we end up trusting in a certain person, instead of in the God of that person. So when that person fails or falls, we are devastated. (Wittenburg Door, #89, pp. 20-21) Quite an applicable observation about those who lose their faith when a ministry or a minister fails and falls.

For the Christian, the object of faith is very specific; our object of faith is the self-revealed God. Faith's object is not found in a system of beliefs or in the PTL Club or in the pastor who stands before you in the pulpit. It is found only in God who has revealed Himself to all of humanity in Jesus Christ. John 14:1, 6-12 reveals the object of our faith: Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me... Jesus answered, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him. Philip said, Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us. Jesus answered: Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, Show us the Father? Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will even do greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. To place our faith in anyone or anything else is to trust in a false god which will fail.

There is also another side to this matter: our faith is in a revealed God who is Himself faithful! It is a matter of fact and record that God is infinitely more faithful than we are. Simon Tugwell emphasized this when he wrote: Another picture that our Lord loves to use is that of the shepherd who goes out to look for the sheep that is lost (Matthew 18:12 ff, for instance). So long as we imagine that it is we who have to look for God, then we must often lose heart. But it is the other way about: he is looking for us. And so we can afford to recognize that very often we are not looking for God; far from it, we are in full flight from him, in high rebellion against him. And he knows that and has taken it into account. He has followed us into our own darkness; there where we thought finally to escape him, we run straight into his arms. (A Guide to Prayer, p. 161)

God is revealed to us throughout Scripture as the One who is faithful. Deuteronomy 7:9: Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. Isaiah recorded in 49:7: This is what the Lord says - the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel - to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation, to the servant of rulers: Kings will see you rise up, and princes will see and bow down, because of the Lord, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you. God was faithful when He established the Hebrew nation, and He was faithful when He reestablished them after their captivity.

New Testament writers also revealed faithfulness of God. In 2 Thessalonians 3:2 and 3, Paul wrote: And pray that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men, for not everyone has faith. But the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one. In Hebrews 10:23, we are encouraged to hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.

Not only is God's faithfulness attested to in particular verses of Scripture, it is also one of the great themes of Scripture. It is because of God's faithfulness that Abraham was called out; it was because of God's faithfulness that the Hebrew nation was led out; it was because of God's faithfulness that, through Christ, we are sought out.

Faithfulness is one of God's attributes; that is, it makes up a part of who He is. God cannot be unfaithful to Himself. Because of this, God will always be faithful to His promise no matter what we might do. God does not depend upon us in order to keep His promises. As Paul wrote in Romans 3:3-4, What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God's faithfulness? Not at all! Let God be true, and every man a liar. As it is written: So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge. And again in 2 Timothy 2:13, if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.

Because God is faithful and reveals Himself to those He has created; because He is faithful to keep His promises; because He is faithful to seek us out; we have a faith worth defending. Each of the New Testament writers believed so. Most of the New Testament letters were written in defense of the Christian faith. Jude was one of those defenders writing against the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.

Jude gives to us a brief glimpse into what it means to defend the faith in Christian style. Defending the faith starts at the only place it can start - you and me in relationship with God. We are to first build up and purify our own personal faith. Look at Jude verses 17 through 21: But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires. These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit. But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you into eternal life.

Judes description of defending the faith is an exciting adventure. Charles Campbell, writing in a Bible study curriculum on the book of Jude, says that to defend the faith by building up oneself spiritually is a powerful idea. This is a radical method of defense. It means that we are not to spend our time on seek and destroy missions - searching out and attacking sinners. In place of wondering who the sinners are or working to throw people out of the church, we are to concentrate on our own spiritual vitality. The Christian's best defense is the quest for personal holiness." (David C. Cook curriculum, April 13, 1986, teacher's manual, p. 53)

This does not mean that we can or should bury our head in the sand and not stand up against immorality, injustice, and un-Godliness. We do stand and speak out and work against those things that are not a part of the kingdom of God. But we must maintain our spiritual vitality so that we will have the strength and the knowledge to do so. We need to know how to go about defending the faith.

After Jude instructs us to build ourselves up in the faith, he then lets us know how to deal with those outside of the faith. Read along with me verses 22-23: Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear - hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.

It is out of our faith and spiritual strength that we minister with compassion to others who attack the Christian faith. Some will hear and be saved; those snatched from the fire. There will be others, though, who will not listen. They will continue to cling to false gods. They will continue to deride and mock Christianity and Christians. Nevertheless, we are to show mercy, mixed with fear - hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh. We are to hate the sin and love the sinner, all the while being watchful for the contaminating effects of sin. The Christian's duty is to save, not to destroy; love, not to hate. We are not only to contend for the faith, we are to also commend the faith.

This can be difficult to do. I sometimes become impatient. I am angered over the entire PTL type scandals. They give fuel to those who seek to trample the faith of Christians. There are many false gods that draw people away from the revealed, true God. There is a part of me that wants to go smash down the false gods and force people into worshipping the one and only true God. Over against this, the Reverend Wangerin responded in much the same manner as Jude: That is a temptation, but we have to remember that false idols always fail. If you trust the wrong thing, the wrong thing will fail you. What you and I need to do for those who are trusting in false gods is to watch, wait, and be there, because the false gods will fall - but we do not [cause] that fall... As a pastor, I get upset when I see someone whose life is on a collision course with disaster. I am upset and torn because they won't listen to my advice. But, finally, I realize that the crash is often what God uses to put meaning into the words that God spoke through me... What we don't want to do in this culture is to reach out and snatch people's false gods away from them. That is not effectual because the people will hold onto their false gods all the more, and they will hate us besides. Instead, what we should do is to continue to speak the truth and continue to define the consequence. God is writing the script. We are the reviewers who describe what the play means so that, when our society faces a crisis, it can remember the truth we spoke. But we must wait for God to put meaning into our words. (Wittenburg Door, #89, p.19)

Defending the faith according to Jude requires personal commitment and discipline. It requires a step of faith for us, because it is different than the defensive systems we set up in the world. It requires that we place as the object of our faith the one and only and true God who redeems through Jesus Christ; it requires that we recognize that our faith is in a faithful God; it requires that we give ourselves to God and to others in humility and service. We must grow in personal commitment to God if we really hope to convince anyone else that there is a faith worth defending. We reach out to others only as much as we are strengthened through our personal devotion to God. Then, and only then, can we defend the faith with compassion so that others are encouraged to build, grow, and love.

Victory comes to us not because of our works, or even our faith, but because of the faithfulness of God. Our victory is found in Jesus!

Rev. Charles A. Layne

First Baptist Church

PO Box 515

179 W. Broadway

Bunker Hill, IN 46914

765-689-7987

bhfbc@bhfirstbaptist.com

www.bhfirstbaptist.com

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Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>

DEFENDING THE FAITH

January 31, 2010

TEXT: Jude 17-25

In the latter part of the 1980s, a very high profile ministry got into serious trouble. The PTL Club, with Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, was in the news a lot. Ultimately, Jim Bakker was convicted of cheating folks out of money and Tammy Faye divorced and remarried. Their world fell apart. It was common news that during the PTL scandal almost all of the high profile ministries, especially those on television, underwent some form of financial investigation.

One of the tragic side effects was that the faith and trust that some had in that ministry was violated. On a larger scale, it seems that the faith which some people had in Christianity was violated. The Reverend Jerry Falwell expressed this when he said that these events with PTL have caused some to lose their faith. This is a sad truth. I don't like to see anyone disappointed and disillusioned; I don't like to see anyone violate another person's trust through deceit and dishonesty; I don't like to see people used so that others can build little empires. But for those who felt and believed that their faith was shattered by that incident, I am led to say that their faith needed to be shaken so that they could be redirected to the proper source of the Christian faith. That proper source is not the PTL or any other ministry.

Even though the PTL scandal was tragic and monumental in scope, it was certainly not the first scandal within Christianity. There have been some whoppers. I can only imagine the press releases if Katie Couric had been around when the First Century Corinthian church began to stray from the truth. That was a newsworthy situation just right for a soap opera plot: rich taking advantage of the poor; sexual immorality; drunken parties at the church meals. Scandal is not a new invention of the modern Church. It has been around for a long time. I do not say this proudly; I bring it up to put the events that have happened in our lifetime into proper perspective.

Christianity has always weathered the storms of scandal because of faith. Christian faith has never been based upon the activities of the Corinthian church or the PTL Club or even the disciples themselves. Christian faith is based upon the action of God alone in the sending of Jesus Christ. It is on the bedrock basis of this source of faith that the disciples and Christians in every age have always been able to defend the faith.

We are still called to defend the faith, and in order to do so, we need to take a look at what faith is and what faith means. Look first to the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians. Paul had the unenviable task of confronting a church with lots of problems. He brought a lot of Christian principles to bear on them: spiritual gifts, the concept of believers being like the body of Christ, separation from pagan idolatry. Finally, though, he wrote that of all that had been introduced to explain the Christian faith, only three principles will remain or abide - faith, hope, and love. This morning we are considering faith. Hope and love will be addressed over the next two Sundays.

The first step in defending the faith is to pause and reflect upon who or what we place our faith. For Christians, the sole object of faith is God, with the recognition that God has revealed Himself in the human life of Jesus Christ. Through Jesus, we enter into relationship with God. Any other source and object of our faith is not Christian faith and will ultimately fail.

In an interview, the Reverend Walter Wangerin, Jr., author of several books on faith, said that, sometimes the object of our faith is the wrong thing. Sometimes, instead of trusting in the Lord directly, we trust in intermediate things between God and us. So we end up trusting in a certain person, instead of in the God of that person. So when that person fails or falls, we are devastated. (Wittenburg Door, #89, pp. 20-21) Quite an applicable observation about those who lose their faith when a ministry or a minister fails and falls.

For the Christian, the object of faith is very specific; our object of faith is the self-revealed God. Faith's object is not found in a system of beliefs or in the PTL Club or in the pastor who stands before you in the pulpit. It is found only in God who has revealed Himself to all of humanity in Jesus Christ. John 14:1, 6-12 reveals the object of our faith: Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me... Jesus answered, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him. Philip said, Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us. Jesus answered: Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, Show us the Father? Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will even do greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. To place our faith in anyone or anything else is to trust in a false god which will fail.

There is also another side to this matter: our faith is in a revealed God who is Himself faithful! It is a matter of fact and record that God is infinitely more faithful than we are. Simon Tugwell emphasized this when he wrote: Another picture that our Lord loves to use is that of the shepherd who goes out to look for the sheep that is lost (Matthew 18:12 ff, for instance). So long as we imagine that it is we who have to look for God, then we must often lose heart. But it is the other way about: he is looking for us. And so we can afford to recognize that very often we are not looking for God; far from it, we are in full flight from him, in high rebellion against him. And he knows that and has taken it into account. He has followed us into our own darkness; there where we thought finally to escape him, we run straight into his arms. (A Guide to Prayer, p. 161)

God is revealed to us throughout Scripture as the One who is faithful. Deuteronomy 7:9: Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. Isaiah recorded in 49:7: This is what the Lord says - the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel - to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation, to the servant of rulers: Kings will see you rise up, and princes will see and bow down, because of the Lord, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you. God was faithful when He established the Hebrew nation, and He was faithful when He reestablished them after their captivity.

New Testament writers also revealed faithfulness of God. In 2 Thessalonians 3:2 and 3, Paul wrote: And pray that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men, for not everyone has faith. But the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one. In Hebrews 10:23, we are encouraged to hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.

Not only is God's faithfulness attested to in particular verses of Scripture, it is also one of the great themes of Scripture. It is because of God's faithfulness that Abraham was called out; it was because of God's faithfulness that the Hebrew nation was led out; it was because of God's faithfulness that, through Christ, we are sought out.

Faithfulness is one of God's attributes; that is, it makes up a part of who He is. God cannot be unfaithful to Himself. Because of this, God will always be faithful to His promise no matter what we might do. God does not depend upon us in order to keep His promises. As Paul wrote in Romans 3:3-4, What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God's faithfulness? Not at all! Let God be true, and every man a liar. As it is written: So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge. And again in 2 Timothy 2:13, if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.

Because God is faithful and reveals Himself to those He has created; because He is faithful to keep His promises; because He is faithful to seek us out; we have a faith worth defending. Each of the New Testament writers believed so. Most of the New Testament letters were written in defense of the Christian faith. Jude was one of those defenders writing against the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.

Jude gives to us a brief glimpse into what it means to defend the faith in Christian style. Defending the faith starts at the only place it can start - you and me in relationship with God. We are to first build up and purify our own personal faith. Look at Jude verses 17 through 21: But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires. These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit. But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you into eternal life.

Judes description of defending the faith is an exciting adventure. Charles Campbell, writing in a Bible study curriculum on the book of Jude, says that to defend the faith by building up oneself spiritually is a powerful idea. This is a radical method of defense. It means that we are not to spend our time on seek and destroy missions - searching out and attacking sinners. In place of wondering who the sinners are or working to throw people out of the church, we are to concentrate on our own spiritual vitality. The Christian's best defense is the quest for personal holiness." (David C. Cook curriculum, April 13, 1986, teacher's manual, p. 53)

This does not mean that we can or should bury our head in the sand and not stand up against immorality, injustice, and un-Godliness. We do stand and speak out and work against those things that are not a part of the kingdom of God. But we must maintain our spiritual vitality so that we will have the strength and the knowledge to do so. We need to know how to go about defending the faith.

After Jude instructs us to build ourselves up in the faith, he then lets us know how to deal with those outside of the faith. Read along with me verses 22-23: Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear - hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.

It is out of our faith and spiritual strength that we minister with compassion to others who attack the Christian faith. Some will hear and be saved; those snatched from the fire. There will be others, though, who will not listen. They will continue to cling to false gods. They will continue to deride and mock Christianity and Christians. Nevertheless, we are to show mercy, mixed with fear - hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh. We are to hate the sin and love the sinner, all the while being watchful for the contaminating effects of sin. The Christian's duty is to save, not to destroy; love, not to hate. We are not only to contend for the faith, we are to also commend the faith.

This can be difficult to do. I sometimes become impatient. I am angered over the entire PTL type scandals. They give fuel to those who seek to trample the faith of Christians. There are many false gods that draw people away from the revealed, true God. There is a part of me that wants to go smash down the false gods and force people into worshipping the one and only true God. Over against this, the Reverend Wangerin responded in much the same manner as Jude: That is a temptation, but we have to remember that false idols always fail. If you trust the wrong thing, the wrong thing will fail you. What you and I need to do for those who are trusting in false gods is to watch, wait, and be there, because the false gods will fall - but we do not [cause] that fall... As a pastor, I get upset when I see someone whose life is on a collision course with disaster. I am upset and torn because they won't listen to my advice. But, finally, I realize that the crash is often what God uses to put meaning into the words that God spoke through me... What we don't want to do in this culture is to reach out and snatch people's false gods away from them. That is not effectual because the people will hold onto their false gods all the more, and they will hate us besides. Instead, what we should do is to continue to speak the truth and continue to define the consequence. God is writing the script. We are the reviewers who describe what the play means so that, when our society faces a crisis, it can remember the truth we spoke. But we must wait for God to put meaning into our words. (Wittenburg Door, #89, p.19)

Defending the faith according to Jude requires personal commitment and discipline. It requires a step of faith for us, because it is different than the defensive systems we set up in the world. It requires that we place as the object of our faith the one and only and true God who redeems through Jesus Christ; it requires that we recognize that our faith is in a faithful God; it requires that we give ourselves to God and to others in humility and service. We must grow in personal commitment to God if we really hope to convince anyone else that there is a faith worth defending. We reach out to others only as much as we are strengthened through our personal devotion to God. Then, and only then, can we defend the faith with compassion so that others are encouraged to build, grow, and love.

Victory comes to us not because of our works, or even our faith, but because of the faithfulness of God. Our victory is found in Jesus!

Rev. Charles A. Layne

First Baptist Church

PO Box 515

179 W. Broadway

Bunker Hill, IN 46914

765-689-7987

bhfbc@bhfirstbaptist.com

http://www.bhfirstbaptist.com

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