If you’ve made any effort to share Christ with people who don’t know Him, you’ve likely encountered this common response: “Christians are hypocrites.” What is usually meant by this statement is that because Christians do not practice what they preach they cannot be taken seriously.
This brings up one of the most important ingredients of effective mission—virtue. Without virtue, people will not only disregard our message but can even become strengthened in their position against the Christian faith. Virtue is essential.
What I mean by virtue is the quality of moral character we possess. Several Bible words come to mind, such as holiness, purity, righteousness, godliness, and love. It’s how we live. And how we live deeply affects how effective we are in sharing Christ with others.
Jeep dealership
Years ago, my wife and I were looking to buy a Jeep. We started making our rounds to local Jeep dealers to test out the particular model we were interested in. One dealership made a very strong negative impression on us. It started out okay. In fact, they were overly friendly. The manager walked us out to the lot and acted as though we were new best friends. They took my keys to my old FJ Cruiser to see what it was worth to trade in toward a Jeep.
Though we were the only people at the dealership, everything was taking so long. We’d ask the sales guy a question and he’d disappear for 20 minutes. On the test drive it was obvious he knew very little about the vehicle, and yet was pressing us relentlessly that we should buy it. The vehicle we test drove didn’t even have the features we wanted, but that didn’t seem to matter to him.
The financial discussion took the experience to a new level of ridiculousness. You probably know when buying a car that there are four essential pieces of information you need to determine if you are getting a good deal: the price of the vehicle, the trade-in for your present car, the interest rate on the car loan, and how many months the loan will be. This tells you what your monthly payments will be. It took us about an hour to get an answer to these simple questions. We would have left, but they had our keys and would not give them back! We finally escaped and never returned.
The Jeep wasn’t the problem. We wanted a Jeep. But the Jeep messengers were so fake and deceptive that they made us want to run. The problem wasn’t the Jeep product, but it was the lack of virtue, honesty and consideration. When people interact with Christians devoid of virtue, it is no wonder they don’t respond positively to an invitation to come to church. When Christians in the workplace lack integrity or have a poor work ethic, it’s no wonder that coworkers do not listen to their lunch hour gospel preaching.
The Bible talks a lot about this idea. It teaches us that we should live such good lives amongst the pagans around us that they’ll be drawn to Christ. It doesn’t mean that we must be morally perfect. But we can be humble, honest and filled with love. People are drawn to beautiful virtue.
Hidden life
I’m not talking about merely giving a good public performance of virtue. If we were cast in a movie as a righteous person, I’m pretty sure we could all act the part. If we are really good at acting, we can succeed in fooling people that we are something we aren’t. This is what hypocrisy means. The idea in the original language of the New Testament has to do with acting a part. It’s not enough to pretend to be righteous. We must actually be righteous.
Again, some people are gullible, but most people detect a phony right away. When we preach to others but lack virtue ourselves, it comes across as a person selling perfume who smells like rotten eggs. Our lifestyle essentially voids out our message.
Virtue flows out of who we are. It is the result of thousands upon thousands of decisions we make in secret. It’s what we think about. It is who we are when no one is looking. What we do publicly is important, but virtue is formed in the hidden life. This kind of virtue flows effortlessly when we are around others. People might not yet believe in our God, but they definitely respect our character. They may disagree with us, but they take us seriously.
Our mission of going into all the world and sharing Christ with people is a special challenge in the United States because most people have deep misconceptions about the Christian faith or have had bad experiences with hypocrites. What I’m talking about isn’t optional if we are going to be effective. We can have vast Bible knowledge and wonderful communication skills, but if we are devoid of virtue we will not make an impact. We can be hyper friendly when we are with people, but without genuine virtue forged in the hidden place, we will not succeed. Let’s see to it that we are following Christ in virtue before we attempt to follow Him in mission.
- Scott A