Question: Is a Christian’s behavior any different from anyone else’s behavior? What, if anything, makes behavior either Christian or not? Is there any such thing as “Christian conduct?” Or, is there just behavior, either good or bad, moral or immoral, acted out of high values or low values, no matter who the person is who’s acting out?
To further clarify our questions, let’s make a more detailed distinction. If there is such a thing as Christian behavior (and for the sake of argument, at this point, let’s say there is), it should be easy to contrast that to immoral and valueless, non-Christian behavior. I think even non-Christians can recognize the negative and detrimental side of excessively bad behavior. If there is a harder distinction to make, it would probably be the comparison of a Christian’s behavior with that of a morally, well-behaved non-Christian. Is there a difference between the two? And if there’s not, then what’s so special about being a Christian?
An interesting poll has been taken by the Gallup people. They have done this particular poll over several decades. It’s a poll comparing people’s opinions on a wide variety of moral and ethical issues. When comparing the responses between people who called themselves “regular church attenders,” with those who say they seldom, if ever attended church, guess what? The difference of opinions of the two groups of people is basically nil. I don’t know about you, but I find that startling and thought-provoking. I would have expected a larger gap between the two groups.
You may remember that I started out on the first Sunday of this month saying that I wanted us to think about the difference the Resurrection makes. Why is the Resurrection so important to our daily beliefs and life? I said that I thought we needed to get in touch with someone who was there, who saw the Resurrection of our Lord first hand. We needed to listen to someone who was impacted by the reality of the Resurrection, and then tried to put down into words what it meant to him and his life. That person, is Peter. So, let’s turn to Peter and see what he has to say about living the Resurrection life, vs. just being a good person.
One of the first assumptions that Peter makes is that there is supposed to be a difference between a person's former actions and their new behavior once they have embarked on their Christian pilgrimage, once they have believed in the Resurrection of Jesus.
Two brothers, convicted of stealing sheep, were branded on the forehead with the letters ST for "sheep thief." One brother, unable to bear the stigma, moved to a foreign country. But people asked him about the strange letters. He wandered restlessly. Finally, full of bitterness, he died and was buried, to be forgotten.
The other brother became a Christian. He determined that he could not run away from the fact that he had stolen sheep. So he decided to stay where he was and win back the respect of his neighbors. As the years passed, he built a reputation for integrity. One day, a stranger saw the old man with the letters branded on his forehead. He asked a person in town what those letters meant. "It happened a long time ago," said the townsperson. "I've forgotten the particulars. But I think the letters are an abbreviation for 'saint.'"
A person can't help but go through a process of change once their lives have been touched by the resurrected Savior. At least that is the expectation of Peter. A Christian's character and behavior should be different from that of their pre-Christian days.
Now, if it is true that there is such a difference, can we not also take that a step further and say that there should also be a difference between how Christians and non-Christians behave and think? It's not a matter of having good morals. There has to be some qualitative difference between the Christian and non-Christian.
Take, for example, a baseball player. Someone may be a fairly good baseball player. They may make a few good plays. They may hit the ball every now and then. But what we mean by a good baseball player is the one whose eye for the pitch is exact. They say good hitters can even see the seams of the pitched baseball and can tell how it's spinning. These kinds of players get hit after hit.
When I was up at Seattle I went to a Mariners game with a couple of friends. The left fielder was getting booed all the time. He wouldn't run up on the ball to make a catch but let it bounce in front of him. Evidently, last season, at the end of an inning, in the middle of a game, he walked out of the stadium without telling anyone, got in his car, and drove away. That's the difference between an OK player and a really good player. There's a certain tone or quality about the person which shows through even when they aren't playing. Every thing about them is about being the best that they can be. Three days after the game I went to, the Mariners put that left fielder on waivers.
In the same way, some people can be good people. But isn't there another level of personhood that comes with being a Christian? Is there a certain quality of character that's different in a Christian? We would like to think that it is that quality, rather than the particular actions that makes the difference between a non-Christian and a Christian's behavior and character.
Peter calls that quality of character being holy. I talked some about this a couple of weeks ago. Usually if someone is described as holy, it's with a negative connotation: being a "holy Joe," or being, "holier than thou." I can't remember hearing anyone described as being holy, and it being meant to be a positive thing. It's probably one of the devil's tricks that terms like saintly, pious, angelic, Godly and holy have become negatively charged in our day. At one time it was not so. Especially with bozo's like Harold Camping saying he absolutely knows when the end of the world is going to happen. Doesn't that guy read the Bible, where Jesus said even he doesn't know about God's plans for the end? People like Camping give all of us believers a bad name when we are trying to be holy and faithful people.
The reality, though, is that we can't escape those characteristics of holiness. Holiness, in the Bible, is often contrasted with impurity and immorality. There is a moral content of holiness that can't be avoided or watered down by a pagan and indifferent society.
But there is a meaning of holiness that is not often emphasized. I shared it in my sermon two weeks ago. A good deal of the meaning of the character of being holy describes something, or someone, who has been dedicated, who has been set apart, who is single-minded in his or her purpose.
People certainly can be holy in this respect. In Leviticus, God tells the people, "Live holy lives before me because I, God, am holy. I have distinguished you from the nations to be my very own" (20:26). Notice, the reason the people are holy is not because of their behavior or stellar quality. It's because God has set them apart for God's own special purposes.
So, holiness of this kind is really a marker of identity. Christians should not have any kind of identity crisis as to who they are, or whose they are. One day, Charlie Brown was talking to his friend, Linus, about his low sense of self esteem; how he feels inadequate all the time. Charlie Brown moans, "You see, Linus, it goes all the way back to the beginning. The moment I was born and set foot onto the stage of life they took one look at me and said, 'Not right for the part.'"
We are a holy people. We don't call ourselves holy. God does. Because it is a distinction that God is making, then we know we can never say we are "not right for the part." To be called holy by God means that God has set us apart for a special relationship with God and with each other. God is the one who has cast us into this part on the stage of life.
Some might tell you that all God wants is obedience to a set of rules. That being good, that being right for the part, means following a bunch of do's and dont's. Whereas, what it appears God really wants is that we be a people of a particular character, who are willing to display a certain kind of behavior because God has called us holy. It is out of our relationship of holiness, given us by God, that makes our behavior distinctly different from a morally, good person.
Let's get back to our original questions. I hope you are beginning to see that a Christian's behavior is different from a highly moral non-Christian's mainly because our motivational source is different. The Christian's behavior and character is good, or just, or whatever, simply and only because it is within the will and purposes of our relationship with God. The Christian, and therefore the Christian's behavior, has been set apart by God. Thus it takes on a different depth and quality.
Philip Crosby in his book, The Art of Getting Your Own Sweet Way, wrote: "Much of the wasted effort in human activity is a result of a lack of clear definition of the real or total reason for doing something. If you cannot determine why you are doing something, you probably won't do it very well."
If we are, as the Santa Claus tune says, "being good for goodness sake," then we have made "being good" our god. Thus, C.S. Lewis made a whole lot of sense when he wrote, "...that right actions done for the wrong reason do not help to build the internal quality or character called 'virtue,' and it is this quality or character that really matters." (Mere Christianity, pg. 77)
Just being good for goodness sake is not enough. We have to be good for the right reasons. Maybe on the day of our salvation, we not only need to be forgiven for our sins, but also we might need forgiveness for our goodness. Even that, prior to our relationship with Christ, was done for the wrong reasons and out of misguided motivations.
One of my favorite short stories is titled "Revelation," by Flannery O'Connor. In this story there is Mrs. Turpin. She's a self-righteous kind of person who is always judging others. Someone who's been good her whole life, but defining goodness in her own way.
Towards the end of the story, Mrs. Turpin falls in her pig pen. She is covered in muck. The hogs are milling and rooting around her fallen body. She can't get up. She thinks she's going to die. In the midst of her frantic hog pen experience she sees a vision of people parading into heaven. Some are singing. Some are shouting. A whole long line of people she has disrespected and judged her whole life, all of them going into heaven. As all these people got to a certain place, all their sins were being burned away by a powerful light.
Then she sees a different kind of folks, at the end of the procession. This is how Flannery O'Connor writes the scene:
And bringing up the end of the procession was a tribe of people whom she recognized at once as those who, like herself, had always had a little of everything and the God-given wit to use it right...They were marching behind the others with great dignity, accountable as they had always been for good order and common sense and respectable behavior. They alone were singing on key. Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away.
Being a good person isn't what it's all about. I like the way O'Connor has it, that even our goodness is burned away in the end. Because all that matters is our holiness--that is our being set apart in an amazing relationship with God. And then letting all of our actions and behaviors be motivated by that relationship, rather than a sense of our own pridefulness.
As believers in Christ, you are a holy people. A special people. You have been set apart by him, dedicated by Christ for a special relationship, purpose and behavior. You are to be different, because of that relationship that God has set us in, from the non-believing world, even the highly moralistic non-believers. You are a holy people, made holy by God's own gracious choosing, through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Live according to that holiness. Live like resurrection people.
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