1 Timothy 4:12
After Paul implores us to set the believers an example in our speech, he then directs our attention towards our conduct. You might be thinking (along with me): "Man, oh man. I felt bad enough about the example I set in my speech. But now, as if kicking a man when he's down, you throw my conduct into the mix." Yes, you have a wonderful and beautiful opportunity to set the believers an example in your conduct!
Essentially, Paul is telling Timothy to practice what he preaches. We call ourselves Christians, but how well does our conduct and daily behavior reflect our faith and belief? I don't want to go down the same road I did with expostulating what proper Christian speech is as it is presented to us in the Holy Scriptures. We all know what Christian conduct is supposed to look like, and if you need a crash course because you are unsure then all you need to do is open your Bible to the book of Matthew and read until you reach a book called Acts. If you are still uncertain as to what the Christian life should look like continue reading through Acts and the epistles.
If you want to know what Christian conduct should look like, then you must look first and foremost upon Christ Himself. He has laid before our fallen and sinful eyes a perfect example of what is required of us as children of the true living God. If the first gospel book is not enough to help you understand, don't worry! There's three more! If you still have questions after that, don't worry! There's an entire Bible full of the work of Christ, expounding upon the perfection and flawless conduct of our Heavenly Lord and Savior, so that you may never fear that you do not have a proper guide to light the way. You could scour the bookstore shelves, frantically looking for a book that will layout how to act like a Christian, and I have no doubt that you'd eventually find one to your liking. But the Christian faith is not an act or show we put on, but a true and real change in our hearts. We are being sanctified daily into the perfect and flawless image of the man we must be in order to redeem us before a Father that demands perfection! As Christians, we are not called to act more and more like Christ in all that we do every day, but rather, we are called to become more and more Christlike, walking by faith, resting in grace, seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and placing our only hope for salvation in Christ our Lord!
It is no wonder that Paul ends the epistle to the Thessalonians with these wonderful and very applicable words:
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
Rest in God, and He will perfect the work that He has started in you. If you feel like your conduct is not becoming of a person that claims Christ as his Lord and Savior, then repent and believe. Place your faith upon the God of peace! Be at peace. He who called you to be a member of His body is faithful. You might be ashamed of your poor example of what Christian conduct is supposed to look like, and that's a good thing. We should all be ashamed of the poor example we set, but we must also never lose faith in Him that will surely sanctify us completely, where our whole spirit and soul and body will be kept blameless at Christ's return. Perfection is found in Christ and Christ alone, and in the meantime, we must find comfort in the fact that we struggle with our conduct. As James points out in the first chapter of his epistle, as Paul points out in Romans 5, and as Peter emphasizes in 1 Peter 4:13-16:
But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.
1 Peter 4:13-16
Struggling with sin is a wonderful thing. "To struggle" implies that we are not merely admitting defeat and letting sin have free reign in our lives. We struggle with sin as we seek to mortify the deeds of our flesh. This is a work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, a sign of our sanctification, and assurance of our faith. Sin will not die easily, and we cannot expect to defeat it this side of glory. In Ephesians 6, Paul paints a beautiful portrait of a unified army of Christ standing firm, using the whole armor of God to defend them as the enemy lunges upon them for their destruction. Although many contemporary teachers like to use this passage as a call to spiritual warfare, you should notice that the call to "fight" or "destroy" are never in the passage. Paul emphasizes time and time again, stand faithfully. The evil one will be destroyed, but not by us. Our struggle with sin will never subside in this life, because we cannot destroy sin and death. We can only learn to stand firmly in our faith, struggle daily with our fallen nature, and find hope in Christ our Lord, who has defeated sin and death once and for all by His perfect sacrifice upon the cross for our sins!
As Christians who are still far from the perfection of Christ, we have to consider the consequences of when we set a bad example not only for believers but also for a doubting world. Under the scrutinizing eyes of a world searching out and holding the Christian faith under a microscope for any little flaw, we as Christians have to set a Christian example in our conduct. Sadly, the world does not need a microscope to begin seeing the flaws in the Christian church. They can already see our faults and our hypocrisy with their own two eyes. We will never be perfect in this world, but we should live our lives according to the faith we have in Christ Jesus. When we sin, we need to beg for forgiveness. If we wrong our neighbor, we need to apologize and ask for forgiveness. We need to reiterate to the world that we are not perfect. That is not what the Gospel is all about. The Gospel is not about an all loving God that wants everyone that is a good and perfect person to come spend eternity with Him. No, the Gospel is about a fallen, sinful, and despicable people that are capable of no good thing apart from Christ. The Gospel is about grace and perfection attained vicariously through the perfect and completed work of Christ, the Son of God, on the cross to make propitiation and atonement for our sins. The Gospel is about forgiveness of sins by the power and through the authority of Him who alone is able to wipe the slate clean, Jesus Christ.
However, "Christian" is not always a title held by the children of God. Unfortunately, false teachers and false converts can place the holy name of Christ upon themselves without merit. Jude speaks of these people in his epistle:
For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
Jude 1:4
These people call themselves Christians, but they only put on an act and bear the name of Christ in vain. They deny Christ and His work, and try to gain salvation by their own merit. They strive to be a "good" person and live a pious life without any piety. They endeavor to bring honor only to themselves and work to hold everyone to a perfect standard that only God can judge. They too often see a splinter in their neighbor's eye despite the forest steadily growing in their own. They blaspheme and ridicule Christ's true body in a similar way that the legalistic Pharisees hypocritically misapplied the Law of God for acquiring salvation. They do not believe in Christ, instead their faith rests completely and wholly in themselves. They are not true Christians, but so shamefully blaspheme the name of God and bear it in vain.
What happens when these men and women call themselves Christians but do not set a Christlike example of conduct? The following is a few excerpts from a website that is devoted to unabashedly despising the hypocrisy in the church today (http://www.evilbible.com/christians_are_hypocrites.htm). Most of the hypocrisy outlined in the article (which does contain plenty of expletives, so beware!) is Scripture taken out of context, but the problems that the writer sees in the Christian church should be problematic to us too. The criticism is harsh and shameful, but I cannot say that it is unwarranted. As the visible church in America grows, as mega-churches reach staggering numbers of attendees every week, as these people listen to a watered down gospel of some Jesus and some of this and that, and as these people go out into the world bearing Christ's name, we unfortunately see many of them perverting the grace of God. They all proclaim a false gospel of, "A little bit of Jesus, but a whole lot of me doing good works." A gospel of, "Grace is nice, but the less I need it because I'm a good person the better." Sadly, these people do not have the Gospel truth, but a false gospel lie. Although they strive for goodness as a Buddhist strives for good karma, their "goodness" is foolishness and nothing but filthy rags to God. What results when a watered down Gospel reaches millions of Christians that live and conduct their lives contrary to the faith they confess?
The problem with their approach lies not only in an oft- noted failure to practice what they preach, but an equally pronounced tendency to ignore what the Bible itself, preaches. Christians practice what can only be described as “selective morality”. What they like, they cling to and shove down other’s throats; what they don’t like, they ignore vehemently. That which is palatable and acceptable is supposedly applicable to all; while that which is obnoxious, inconvenient, or self-denying is only applicable to those addressed 2,000 years ago. Their hypocrisy is so rampant that even the validity of calling oneself “Christian” is in question.
Remember that 80% of this country is Christian yet we have a 50% divorce rate. A majority of divorces are a result of irreconcilable differences, not adultery, which implies that Christians are again practicing selective morality. How many Christians are working on a second, third or fourth marriage?
Another tenet clearly prohibits women from being ministers or otherwise speaking in church (“Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak”-- 1 Corinthians 14:34). It’s difficult to see how Paul could support the current movement to ordain women. Why, Jesus would (be ashamed) knowing that even I, an ATHEIST WOMAN, has managed to get herself legally ordained.
There is a problem in the visible church today. Although I only selected one website to pull a few excerpts from, there were 528,000 hits on Google when I searched "Christians are hypocrites." There are only 410,000 hits for "Liberals are hypocrites," 333,000 for Muslims, 222,000 for atheists, 102,000 for Buddhists, and only 500,000 for politicians. Although this is certainly not conclusive evidence, this should be more than enough evidence to show that there is a problem with the way we as Christians conduct our lives. There is a problem with the false gospel of good works that is spreading across America. Sadly, more people think that the third commandment addresses saying "Oh my gosh" rather then placing Christ's name upon yourself and setting a good example in your Christlike conduct. When we bear God's name in vain, we not only deface the church, but much worse, we dishonor the most glorious name of all names, Jesus Christ!
I leave you with these words of Paul in Titus 1:7-16 to digest and meditate on:
For an overseer, as God's steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach. One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, "Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons." This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth. To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.
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