Sermon: If Christianity is Good, Why Have Christians Done So Many Bad Things?

Uh, good evening. If you don't know me, my name is Dave Hinkley. I am a ruling elder here at University Reform Church, as well as the children and youth ministry director on staff. And we at our evening series here, evening service are about halfway through, uh, answering 10 hard questions about Christianity. My task tonight is the question, if Christianity is good, why have Christians done so many bad things? My own experience?

Uh, this question or questions very similar to this question have, have been one of the more common objections raised against faith in Christ. It can take different forms, this objection. Um, I've heard people ask about the crusades or slavery and argue that since the faith has been used or the Bible has been used to justify bad things, uh, it must be therefore untrustworthy. Another variation of this seems to be that Christians claim a moral high ground,

but actually are just as bad or even worse than everyone else. Sometimes what's meant by a question like this is that a Christian or Christians have wounded the questioner or someone close to them. I think a, a more contemporary variation on this question has raised the stakes, arguing that the Bible teaches things that are immoral or cause harm to people today. But since, since different things are meant by this question

or this objection, historical things, doctrinal things, things about personal re interactions with Christians, answering it, uh, feels a little bit like trying to plug holes in a cracking dam. Uh, it's most likely as much a pastoral question as it is an apologetic one and one night's teaching seems insufficient, or the task of answering all that might be meant, uh, in my own life, uh, as a young man with very little experience of the church, my perception

of the church was that believers were either ignorant or actively immoral, probably predatory in some way. Uh, and the historical examples, which I knew very little also, uh, seemed just to confirm this. Uh, likewise the moral teachings which I found retrograde and assumed Christians did not actually follow. Uh, I remembered vividly the image of Jimmy Swaggart crying and drawing. I have sinned against you to his congregation

after being caught with prostitutes. My favorite punk bands at the time had songs about how Christian leaders just wanted your money. So when my fiance wanted to return to the faith of her childhood, get married in the church, I was willing, I really liked this girl. I still do, but I was not in any way eager, I was on guard against what I perceived to be a potential threat to the both of us. Uh, it's possible that, uh, you here tonight feel

or think something similar to what I felt or you know, someone with these questions. And as I said, there's so much that could be said in response. You kind of have to choose. So I want us to think about three things. First, I want us to think about what bad things, bad things are actually in view, uh, and spend a little time thinking together about modern critiques, uh, of the Bible and its moral teaching. Second, I think we should think about the pervasiveness

of sin and how this question that's raised before us helps to illustrate the gospel to us. And finally, we should think about Jesus' own relationship to religious hypocrites and the life transforming contrast that he presents to this question. So let's ask the Lord's blessing before we, we dive in. Father, help us tonight as we consider another reason that is offered against trusting you and your word. May this meditation tonight be a mercy on those who doubt

and offer proper encouragement and correction where it is needed. Help us as believers to, to grow in compassion for the lost, to, to promote the honor of salvation in your name and to trust wholeheartedly in your word, and help us to be transformed by the renewal of our minds, by the power of that same word, Christ name that we ask. Amen. Okay, so to start, what, what are the bad things that are in view by starting here?

I'm, I'm not denying that Christians have done bad things. It seems obviously to be the case that people who follow or who claim to follow Christ, whether they do authentically love him or simply claim his name have done evil, it would be ridiculous to deny that. What I feel the need to address first are the claims that Christianity does evil in teachings that are not actually evil. Uh, my oldest daughter was small and would run around outside

and she would scrape her knee on the concrete. We would bring her inside and we would treat the wound with, you know, one of those antiseptic wipes or rubbing alcohol or whatever, whatever it was, uh, the topical cleanser and then put a bandaid on. We sometimes would have to use that, and she did not like it. She called it sting medicine. Uh, to her perspective, her limited perspective, we were doing something bad to her, uh,

but in reality we were protecting her from something worse down the road sometimes, especially today in the culture that we live in. Uh, it seems like when Christians teach or advocate for biblical teaching, biblical values, biblical teaching that actually promotes human flourishing, it's called evil, it's called hateful. Uh, it might be hard to hear, but telling you that you should not sin because sin will destroy you is not hateful

or in any way a bad thing. Quite the opposite. In fact, and more than this, uh, modern sweeping claims that the Bible promotes oppression or systemic injustice are profoundly wrong and need refutation. There's no argument from me that the Bible gets used by false teachers to justify evil. No question again. But what is asserted, uh, today is that sometimes by some today, is that the Bible itself is merely a tool for the powerful to hold the weak in place.

None of the progressives that are, that are espousing this today say it as well as Deisha said it 150 years ago when he called the teachings of the Bible, the slave morality, meaning the main purpose of, uh, these teachings is to keep the masses occupied with virtues like meekness, humility, forgiveness, and turning the other cheek so that the ruling class could get on with living the real authentic life. This is a tragic

anachronistic irony. Look those up. There seems to be very little awareness of where modern ideas like justice, human rights, and the brotherhood of mankind come from, and even less awareness that these values have no real sense apart from the Christian worldview. Put it more simply. People who make sweeping claims like the Bible suppresses human rights or the Bible props up slavery or the Bible promotes the oppression of women do not seem

to understand that they're using the concepts and morals that were introduced to humanity by the Bible in order to complain about the Bible. It's like in one breath complaining about the box you're standing on and in the next breath complaining how you wish you could see better over the fence. It's like complaining about your ability to complain. I wanna, I wanna prove this to you by using what most progressives today would probably consider

a problematic text. This will be our first, uh, text of the night, Ephesians chapter six, and we're gonna look at verses five through nine. In Ephesians five and six, Paul is in, is laying out for, uh, the, the Christians at Ephesus ethics and Exhortations that uh, are about the Christian household. He has just explained how Christian husbands and wives should relate and Christian fathers and their children, and now he turns his attention

to servants and their masters. Paul writes, starting in verse five, bond servants obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling with a sincere heart as you would Christ. Not by the way of I service as people pleasers, but as bond servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not man knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive back from the Lord.

Whether he is bond servant or free masters, do the same to them and stop your threatening knowing that he who is both their master and yours is in heaven and that there is no partiality with him.

Now, certainly it is the case as you've heard, uh, that the biblical institution of slavery was very different from what the word slavery conjuress up into our modern mind, but even as different as the two institutions are, we should keep most of our offense at the concept. Nobody thinks well, well, slavery in the time of the Bible was a good thing. No, it was a bad thing, it was an evil and it needed to be abolished.

But the modern mind can read this passage which is about, uh, bond servants in their masters and expect that Paul should have given a revolutionary call instead of commands about how to behave within the institution. Giving commands about the institution is seen as a tacit approval of it. This expectation on Paul is ex could not be more anachronistic. The truth is that no one in the world at that time would have the abolition of slavery in their mind

because no one in the world at that time had what Paul teaches here in this text in their mind.

Look at the text. Bond servants are instructed to believe or excuse me, to behave in a God-honoring way as they work. Why verse eight? Knowing that where whatever good anyone does this, he will receive back from the Lord whether he is bond servant or free. Paul isn't being too timid on this topic. He's just said the most revolutionary thing possible about this topic, the slave and the master are equal before the eyes of God.

That is the most revolutionary thing that is possible to be said on this topic. You and I take that concept for granted today, but no one in the Roman empire or any other empires around the world at the time thought that we take it for granted because Paul's words here literally transformed the way humans look at this subject. Apart from this influence, if you were a master, you were favored by the gods. Those under your authority, your social inferiors were yours

to dis to dispose of as you pleased. Now, there were some rules, but no one had ever said before you and your, your master, slave and master have an ontological that is value of being, uh, equality be in the eyes of God. Paul says, slave and master, you both get the same reward. Paul even flips the normal script here in this text. You notice in the earlier parts of this text, he addresses the social superior and then the social inferior husband wives,

fathers children. Uh, here he says slaves, masters. And as he does this, there is a brilliantly subtle but strong warning to the master. Verse nine, masters do the same to them. Pause there. What does that mean? The last active verb was render service. What on earth in the ancient world does it mean for a master, the social superior to render service to his slave? And in what context? Would that make any sense? Keep going and stop your threatening knowing that he

who is both their master and yours is in heaven and that there is no partiality with him. Paul, here underscores again the idea that both a master and the slave are equal in value before God, but he also puts very subtly the threatening master in mind of his own heavenly master who has every right to judge and bring wrath against those who would mistreat a brother or sister without using the words. Paul says something like this very clearly,

if you would wield the whip, remember that the whip of your heavenly master is far, far more terrifying.

A call to free slaves doesn't really mean anything unless someone has convinced the world, the world that believes that Mike might, makes right that slaves are objectively equal to their masters. And who do you think taught that to the world? We can do another, we can do the same thing in another hard passage, hard verse. Peter chapter three, verse seven. Likewise, husbands live with your wives in understanding way showing honor to woman,

the woman as the weaker vessel since they're heirs with you of the grace of Christ of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered to the modern western ear. The modern western ear is scandalized by weaker vessel, but the ancient mind was scandalized by heirs with you of the grace of life. Aristotle, the father of science, like all science, believed that women weren't even fully human. He at least thought that Greek women were closer

to fully human than, uh, men and women from other ethnicities. The Roman household was built on the dominance of the Patar Famis. Women had dignity in this culture, in this time in history based on their connection to and favor from the man in their house. He did with them as pleased and their only hope was his favor. Peter, on the other hand, says, your women deserve honor because they have the same inheritance that you do.

Again, far from being the enemy of gender equality, the Bible introduced it to the world. This concept of the human's equal value before God regardless of social status, gender or race, enters into the human experience through the Bible and is the foundation of any modern notions of equality or human rights. Moreover, these concepts, equality of human rights become incoherent without the grounding that the Bible provides.

Think about it. This will get a little abstract for you, but think about it. The force or objectivity of these concepts comes from their divine origin. When we talk about inalienable rights, what grounds the inalienable ness of the rights? What makes it so that no one can take our rights away from us? It can't be common consent. It can't be democracy. Inalienable human rights only makes sense with a sovereign good objective God as their anchor.

And the only God like that is the God of the Bible.

Human rights that are only rooted in common consent are by definition alienable. If if each human life has equal value, just because we all feel like it woe to us when the majority stops feeling like it. Morality that is determined by democracy is the actual recipe for oppression. The fickle and finite moral reasoning of humans even banded together with good intentions will inevitably fail because without God in the picture, the objectivity

of morality is illusory. This is something that's fascinating about Nietzsche. I mentioned him earlier. He saw this clearly, uh, moderns are like, we can find morality and equality without objectivity and and meaning without God. And Nietzsche was like, no, that's, that's nonsense. You can't do that. Everything is relative so will to power and made the best Superman win. That was Nietzsche's approach without a transcendent provenance to the concept of

of the universal brotherhood of man. Human rights or equality are as relative as the preference of majority and the preference of those in power. By contrast, the God of the Bible, creator of the universe who made mankind, male and female in his image redeemed for himself, a people from every tribe, Tongan nation in whom there is neither slave nor free is unshakeable ground from which we can reason for the good of our fellow man.

There's much more to say here and lots of objections that I could take on. I've said a lot. Uh, suffice it to say far from being the roadmap to oppression as it is sometimes asserted today, the Bible is the only actual roadmap for objective equality of value of, of humans, and thus its teachings. The Bible's teachings are the only actual road out of oppression and injustice. Second thing I want us to think about, how should we,

how should the reality of sins pervasiveness affect the way we think about our question today? Re recall our question. Christianity is good. Why have Christians done so much evil? Now, again, back when I was asking this question 30 years ago, I assumed that Christianity was just a people, just a religion of people trying to be good and judging others who they didn't think were good enough. I think many people percer perceive the Christian faith

as merely religion about improved morality.

Did did Jesus just come to teach us a better way to live The world around us seems to see any religion that way, but particularly Christianity. But, but this fatally reduces Christianity. It is a profound misunderstanding of our faith. Jesus' calling of the tax collector Levi, later known as Matthew, the evangelist, is recorded for us in chapter two of the gospel of Mark. After calling Matthew from his life of sin, Jesus visits

his new disciples home for dinner. And there are many other tax collectors and others from a sinful life there at the dinner. And the scribes and the Pharisees notice this and they confront Jesus' disciples asking them why their master eats with such people. And in verse 17 of chapter two says, and when Jesus heard it, he said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous

but sinners, scribes and the Pharisees objected to Jesus' choice of company because a truly righteous man would not associate with such people. But Jesus' mission was to the unrighteous. His mission was not merely to call them to repentance, although it was that he was sent to rescue them from their sin. It's not a course correction that Jesus offers to us. It is redemption through faith in him. Another way of asking our question of the knight is to say,

if Christianity is so good, why are Christians such sinners? And the simple answer is because we are all sinners. And in fact, Jesus came to save sinners,

skeptic or doubter who might be listening. My case to you as a believer in Christ is not join me among the privileged and smart people. It's not be like me because I'm awesome and you stink.

It's not a self-righteous appeal for you to join my cool squad. My case to you is that I a man broken by my sin and hopeless without redemption, a slave to the world and to my own self-interest have heard the voice of the healer. This Jesus, the hope of the lost, the only way off this sinking ship I was dead, but now live I was blind, but now see and I want the same joy, meaning, and hope for you because I care about you.

But more than that, and perhaps more importantly than that, because Christ caress enough about you, he has commanded me to present this offer of hope to you.

I in no way mean to minimize the sin that an individual Christian May have committed against you. But if sin is as bad and pervasive as the Bible says it is, then of co course you've been hurt by the sin of a Christian. It's probably safe to say that if you know a Christian, you've been heard by their sin, not because they are Christian, but because they are human and not yet free of their sinful nature. Because sin is ubiquitous and

although it has been atoned for sin has not yet been cured. Sin is the natural state of the human after the fall, and the only human ever free of it was Jesus himself. Now, hear me clearly, we Christians should do better because of the great hope that we have because of what we know we should be better. But the reality of sin will always be with us until the the new heavens and the new earth and skeptic or doubter, I I want you to consider this, the existence

of sin, regardless of its source testifies to the profound brokenness of this world around us and the profound need for a solution to this problem. Every sin causes pain, every sin causes suffering. And the pain of sin causes every one of our souls to cry out. Every one of our souls cries out that things are not as they should be. This question itself, our question of the night is a manifestation of that crying out the question affirms the way things should be

and is in a way a lament that things are not that way. The doubter, I present this to you if you can see that, if you can see the brokenness that sin has caused, maybe the brokenness that the sin of a Christian has caused to you, and you also see the brokenness that your own sin has caused, not saying that you necessarily have done great bad things or even that the sin that you have done to others is as great as the sin that's been done to you.

Not saying that at all. I'm asking you if you see that the problem facing the world, the problem in the heart of each Christian is also the problem in your own heart. We all come before Christ as broken sinners in need of his rescue. You and I come before a throne of grace as imperfect people, as the sick in need of a healer. The good news of Jesus Christ is that his death began the recreation of all things. The good news is that God has fixed the problem of sin

and the suffering and the damage that it has caused by sending his son to live the sinless life, to die, the sinner's death and to overcome death on the third day. It may seem paradoxical to you, but sin any sin, even the destructive sin of someone who claims to be a Christian is just an illustration of the brokenness and neediness of this world and the solution. The only solution is Jesus himself. Jesus himself is the absolute counter example

to this, uh, sin hypocrisy and destructiveness. Final thing that I think we should think about in relation to our question of the night is Jesus' own relationship to the religious hypocrites. I told you that tonight's question was a, a question that I asked before I became a believer and it was a question that I posed to Tom Stark, the founding pastor of URC those decades ago. Aren't Christians just after self-interest

and aren't they just hypocrites? Aren't Christians the one on ones on TV who want to take the money of the weak-minded and offer false hope? Tom's strategy with me was for us to simply read together Matthew 23 starting in verse 25. This will be our, uh, third passage that we're we're looking at tonight. Uh, Jesus is speaking to, uh, the crowd and he is speaking about these, uh, scribes and pharisees who have been so against him.

Starting in verse 25, woe to you scribes and pharisees, hypocrites, where you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside their full of greed and self-indulgence you blind Pharisee first clean the inside of the cup and the plate that the outside also may be clean.

Now at the time, I needed to learn what a Pharisee was and what this context was. Uh, these were the religious leaders at Jesus time who were threatened, very threatened by his ministry. And here is his assessment of them and his rebuke to them, your life is like a dish. The outside of the dish he says may be clean. You spend time making the outside look good, but the inside is full of poison. The external life, your rhetoric can mask

evil motives and even predation. Think about it. Is there an easier way for someone to gain trust for the purpose of taking advantage than to present himself as religious and as righteous? Jesus goes on in verse 27, woe to you scribes and pharisees, hypocrites for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncles. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others,

but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. These religious leaders at the time were exactly, are exactly the people that our question of the night has in mind. Uh, and they were the ones seeking to put Jesus to death for what he said to them and what he did, uh, in love to the people what he taught. Uh, these are people who claim the name of God, but in fact are servants of their own desires. These are the ones who oppose Jesus as he taught the truth,

as he healed the sick, as he preached good news to the poor and spirit. And you can almost hear Jesus asking a similar question to our question tonight, but his answer is not so get rid of the faith. His answer is turn to the one who is above all others trustworthy. His answer is turn to me. Tom's approach with me was not to deny that workers of evil took God's name in vain and did evil things. Why would he do that? Rather, it was to point out

that evil religious leaders, uh, were not only a part of my experience, they were a part of Jesus' experience. Part of what Jesus did in his earthly ministry was to set himself up in contrast to that kind of abuse of authority, to that kind of sin and injustice. The the truth. It is true. I would say this carefully. It is true that the truth of Christianity rests upon the trustworthiness, morality, and authority of an earthly human

representative of that truth. But it rests only on one of them, only on one of those human representatives, Jesus Christ himself.

The truth of Christianity from front to back, first to last, top and bottom is Jesus himself again, unbeliever, skeptic, doubter. The question before you tonight is not whether or not I am a good representative of Christ. That could not be a more important question for me personally. That question needs to shape who I am above all other considerations. But my righteousness is not your more, most important question. Your question is about the one who set himself in contrast

to the hypocrites who loved us enough to be unjustly put to death by those hypocrites on our behalf, whose teaching transformed the human conversation from tribalist tribalism and the ethics of domination to ontological equality. This is the one that stands before you and who offers to you freedom from slavery, freedom from slavery to earthly passions who offers your soul? Meaning who offers truth, the hope of eternal blessedness.

Do not pass by this great and gentle savior because you have met or heard about some jerks who act claimed to act in his name.

And let me say again this call to you, this offer of rest and peace to you is not my offer. I pass it along. I pass along to you what I have heard myself as imperfect a messenger as I am. I am trying to present to you the offer of the one who is perfect, the one who is trustworthy, the one who is sure he is the one who is calling to you today to trust in him and find your redemption. Let's pray.

Lord, we come before you humbly as sinners before the throne of grace, acknowledge that we have not lived as we should before the watching world. We acknowledge that our only hope is in your mercy to us and we rejoice that this, this hope, this hope in your mercy is in actual fact the safest place to be resting. Not upon our performance, but upon the freely offered promise of grace. Because of the glorious and sure work of Jesus Christ.

He deserves all our praise. He deserves all glory and he deserves our lives offered as a living sacrifice. Help us. Help us. We ask command what you will and grant us the ability to do what you command.

And Lord, for those who are here or listening who do not know the joy and souls rest of union with Christ by faith, we ask that you might transform their hearts. Even now turn their hearts to you that they might receive mercy. Isn't a great name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.