Boundaries for Non-Christian Friendships
00:00:00.000 | Pastor John, what balance or boundaries should we have regarding our friendships with non-Christians?
00:00:11.760 | We have to find the line between ignoring two seemingly opposite commands.
00:00:24.820 | One is, "Do not be deceived.
00:00:29.000 | Bad company ruins good morals."
00:00:32.160 | 1 Corinthians 15.33.
00:00:35.280 | Or "Your boasting is not good.
00:00:40.620 | Do you not know a little leaven leavens the whole lump?"
00:00:44.960 | Paul is talking about tolerating people in the church that you should excommunicate.
00:00:54.440 | Now on the other side, "Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of
00:01:03.660 | fools will suffer harm."
00:01:05.160 | Proverbs 13.
00:01:06.160 | "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, stands not in the way of sinners,
00:01:11.480 | sits not in the seats of scoffers."
00:01:12.960 | So you've got all these commands and wisdom proverbs on the one side that say, "Watch
00:01:20.400 | out, hanging out with corrupt people can lead to your corruption."
00:01:26.840 | Now on the other side, of course, you've got Jesus, who not only ate with tax collectors
00:01:31.840 | and sinners, but he was called the friend of tax collectors and sinners because that's
00:01:37.200 | in fact what he did so often.
00:01:39.760 | And you've got Paul saying, "If you take me as me—when I say don't hang out or separate
00:01:46.800 | yourself from sexually immoral people—if you think I mean the world, then that won't
00:01:51.760 | work because then you'd have to go out of the world."
00:01:53.840 | 1 Corinthians 5.
00:01:54.840 | He doesn't mean don't associate with greedy swindlers, idolaters, since then you would
00:01:59.760 | need to go out of the world, he says in 1 Corinthians 5.
00:02:03.000 | So Paul is with Jesus in saying, "No, you're going to be thrown together with these people.
00:02:07.520 | You should take opportunities.
00:02:08.520 | You should become all things to all people in a biblical way."
00:02:12.280 | So we've got these two sets of admonitions, and we have to discern which ones apply when.
00:02:21.200 | And I would say, ask these two questions.
00:02:26.040 | Which way is the transforming influence flowing?
00:02:30.600 | When you're with someone, are they being transformed?
00:02:34.700 | Are you being transformed?
00:02:36.380 | Are you being drawn to minimize the value of holiness?
00:02:41.120 | Are your standards being compromised?
00:02:43.280 | Are you being made callous and hard towards things in movies, say, or on television, or
00:02:49.280 | in language that you weren't once hard to, but sensitive to?
00:02:54.400 | So that's the first question.
00:02:56.040 | And the second question is, are we loving these people for their sake—that is, that
00:03:03.240 | they would come to faith and they would become godly—or do we really love them because
00:03:08.960 | we love what they enjoy and really just like being with them in their worldliness?
00:03:17.560 | I think a lot of people justify hanging out with worldly people because they are worldly
00:03:24.580 | Christians and they feel at home with those worldly Christians.
00:03:29.880 | And the things they laugh at, they don't regard as offensive.
00:03:33.240 | The things they watch in movies, they don't regard as a problem.
00:03:36.860 | The language they use, they don't think it's a big deal.
00:03:40.380 | The way they spend their time, that's the way they'd like to spend their time, which
00:03:43.300 | really shows that they're not loving these people with a Christ-like love that's ready
00:03:49.640 | to die to change their behavior and change their patterns.
00:03:54.200 | They're just conforming to them and calling it love.
00:03:57.880 | So those are the two questions that I think help us navigate between bad company corrupts
00:04:05.160 | good morals on the one hand, and Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners on the other
00:04:10.760 | hand.
00:04:11.760 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast.
00:04:14.080 | Please email your questions to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.
00:04:18.000 | At DesiringGod.org you'll find thousands of other free resources from John Piper.
00:04:21.400 | I'm your host, Tony Ranke.
00:04:22.760 | Thanks for listening.
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