Wisdom in Friendships with Non-Christians
00:00:00.000 | Pastor John, over the months we have a pile of email questions from listeners who want
00:00:07.920 | to know about the certain boundaries we should have in place as Christians.
00:00:12.280 | Regarding our friendships with non-Christians, what are some categories to keep in mind here?
00:00:17.060 | Where would you draw the lines?
00:00:18.800 | We have to find the line between ignoring two seemingly opposite commands.
00:00:31.880 | One is, "Do not be deceived.
00:00:36.080 | Bad company ruins good morals," 1 Corinthians 15:33.
00:00:41.280 | Or "Your boasting is not good.
00:00:43.760 | Do you not know a little leaven leavens the whole lump?"
00:00:48.080 | Paul is talking about tolerating people in the church that you should excommunicate.
00:00:54.760 | Now on the other side, "Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of
00:01:03.040 | fools will suffer harm," Proverbs 13.
00:01:05.640 | "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, stands not in the way of sinners,
00:01:10.880 | sits not in the seats of scoffers."
00:01:12.360 | So you've got all these commands and wisdom proverbs on the one side that say, "Watch
00:01:19.880 | out.
00:01:20.880 | Hanging out with corrupt people can lead to your corruption."
00:01:26.240 | Now on the other side, of course, you've got Jesus, who not only ate with tax collectors
00:01:31.240 | and sinners, but he was called the friend of tax collectors and sinners because that's,
00:01:36.720 | in fact, what he did so often.
00:01:39.160 | And you've got Paul saying, "If you take me as me—when I say don't hang out or separate
00:01:46.200 | yourself from sexually immoral people, if you think I mean the world, then that won't
00:01:51.160 | work because then you'd have to go out of the world," 1 Corinthians 5.
00:01:54.120 | He doesn't mean don't associate with greedy swindlers, idolaters, since then you would
00:01:59.180 | need to go out of the world, he says in 1 Corinthians 5.
00:02:02.440 | So Paul is with Jesus in saying, "No, you're going to be thrown together with these people.
00:02:06.960 | You should take opportunities.
00:02:07.960 | You should become all things to all people in a biblical way."
00:02:11.720 | So we've got these two sets of admonitions, and we have to discern which ones apply when.
00:02:20.640 | And I would say, ask these two questions.
00:02:25.480 | Which way is the transforming influence flowing?
00:02:30.680 | When you're with someone, are they being transformed?
00:02:34.140 | Are you being transformed?
00:02:35.800 | Are you being drawn to minimize the value of holiness?
00:02:40.560 | Are your standards being compromised?
00:02:42.700 | Are you being made callous and hard towards things in movies, say, or on television, or
00:02:48.720 | in language that you weren't once hard to but sensitive to?
00:02:53.840 | So that's the first question.
00:02:55.480 | And the second question is, are we loving these people for their sake—that is, that
00:03:02.680 | they would come to faith and they would become godly—or do we really love them because
00:03:08.400 | we love what they enjoy and really just like being with them in their worldliness?
00:03:17.000 | I think a lot of people justify hanging out with worldly people because they are worldly
00:03:24.000 | Christians and they feel at home with those worldly Christians.
00:03:29.300 | And the things they laugh at, they don't regard as offensive.
00:03:32.680 | The things they watch in movies, they don't regard as a problem.
00:03:36.280 | The language they use, they don't think it's a big deal.
00:03:39.800 | The way they spend their time, that's the way they'd like to spend their time, which
00:03:42.720 | really shows that they're not loving these people with a Christlike love that's ready
00:03:49.080 | to die to change their behavior and change their patterns.
00:03:53.600 | They're just conforming to them and calling it love.
00:03:57.320 | So those are the two questions that I think help us navigate between bad company corrupts
00:04:04.600 | good morals on the one hand, and Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners on the other
00:04:10.200 | hand.
00:04:11.200 | Yes.
00:04:12.200 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:04:13.200 | And thank you for listening to this podcast.
00:04:14.200 | Email your questions to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.
00:04:17.360 | You can visit us online at DesiringGod.org to find thousands of books and articles, sermons,
00:04:20.880 | and other resources from John Piper, all free of charge.
00:04:23.840 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.
00:04:24.840 | Thanks for listening.
00:04:24.840 | [End of Audio]
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