Keeping the Tension

Introduction

One of the great paradigms through which we view the Christian life is that it is a life lived in dynamic tension. Naturally, tension is an uncomfortable reality. We tend to resist tension. Like water, which tends to flow in the path of least resistance, our human tendency is to try, if at all possible, to release these tensions.

There are a number of these tensions in Scripture:

· “Who wrote Scripture? Is it a work of man or God?” Well, both! The documents we know as the Old and New Testament books were composed by men. But at the same time, God was superintending the process, ensuring that every word they wrote was exactly what he wanted them to write. Yet all this occurred without God hijacking the process and overriding their minds and their wills. There’s tension in that reality!

· “Who is responsible for a person’s salvation? Does man get saved because God chose him and gives him faith? Or is man responsible to believe the gospel?” Once again, both! We recognize that all over the Bible there are genuine calls for sinners to repent and believe. Men and women spend eternity in hell because they refuse to believe. And yet there’s no getting around the fact that man, left to himself, will never believe, does not want to believe, is incapable of believing without God intervening. There’s tension.

· “Who is responsible for my sanctification? Is it God who sanctifies me, or am I responsible to do it?” Once again, the answer is, BOTH! “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling…for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil 2:12-13). There’s tension.

Another tension exists which deserves far more thought than we tend to give it. It’s a tension that’s expressed, among other places, in John 17:14-16 – “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.”

One of the great tensions of the Christian life is the reality that we do not belong to this world. It’s a thought that seems absolutely counterintuitive. We are born here. We grow up here. We live our lives in this world. We eat, breathe, work, play in this world. We engage with this world. Yet we are not of it. We don’t belong to it.

And that reality produces a tension, because every day we are surrounded by those who are of this world. And the very fact that we are not, means that there is a dynamic tension that exists in our relationships with unbelievers. You will have relationships with unbelievers. You will work alongside them at your jobs. You will sit next to them and talk with them and even befriend them at your kid’s little league games. You will see them at your family reunions. You may even live with them because you’re married to them or because they are your own children. If you’re a college student, they may be your roommate. You may study with them. You may sit under their instruction in their classes.

Nevertheless, we are not of this world, and because of that, there is a tension that we feel in this life. We live in this world, but we do not belong to this world. We belong to another world—a world to come. And while we wait for that world, we live as ambassadors for that world—we call this world to renounce its current citizenship and pledge allegiance to the king of the world that is coming.

Part of living the Christian life is feeling that tension—of belonging and yet not belonging, of being here and yet feeling totally out of place. We have these relationships—family, friends, colleagues—and it’s hard to know sometimes how to relate to them because they are of a different world.

But here’s the great challenge. Like we already noted, we don’t like to live in tension. And because of that, we are constantly tempted to relieve that tension in one of two ways:

1. Retreat and disengage – we keep away.

2. Bridge the gap – to live like the world, to blur the distinction between them and us.

Neither of these are an options for Christians. We’re not allowed to relieve this tension. So it could be said, then, that when it comes to living our lives as Christians in this world, we live in a dynamic tension—a tension that we have to feel.

Background

There’s probably no group of Christians in the NT who wrestled with this tension more than the church in Corinth. They felt the tension. They lived in a city that was dripping with the pollution of the world. It was, for one, a center for pagan idolatry. The city was home to the temple of Aphrodite, an enormous complex which served as the economic and religious center for the city. And as part of its cultic system, it employed as much as 1,000 prostitutes who would descend upon the city each night. The city had such a reputation for materialism and sexual immorality that Plato in his work Republic referred to a prostitute as a “Corinthian girl,” and Aristophanes coined the term to corinthianize as a euphemism for fornication.

Naturally, most of the believers in Corinth had come out of that system—idolatry and fornication. And it’s pretty apparent as we look back at his letters to them that these Christians struggled to live in the tension that we’re talking about. They had a deep propensity to blur the lines—to bridge the gap between believer and unbeliever, between this world and the world they now belonged to.

So when a group of men entered the church calling themselves “apostles,” and bearing “letters of recommendation,” the church received them without a second thought. And when these men began to criticize Paul, to denounce his apostleship, condemn his ministry and his gospel, the Corinthians began to align themselves with them.

Of course, they weren’t apostles. They were “false apostles,” as Paul calls them, “deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ” just like Satan disguises himself as an angel of light (2 Cor 11:13-14).

And so Paul’s command to them is this, and we looked at it last week: “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers” (2 Cor 6:14). You remember that statement, taken from Deuteronomy 22:10, pictures someone attempting to work a field with two different kinds of animals. And Paul is using that OT command just as it was originally intended: there are certain things that do not belong together in common enterprise.

TRANSITION & PROPOSITION

We looked at that passage last time, and particularly at its implications in the realm of friendships and marriages with unbelievers. But what I want to do this morning is help you understand how this passage guides us to live in the tension of the Christian life.

That really is the guiding principle of Paul’s command. Believers and unbelievers are fundamentally different—don’t destroy the difference. Maintain the tension—so as you…

· Spend time with people at work

· Have that Mormon couple down the street over for dinner

· Talk to uncle Joe at that family reunion in October

· Hang out with your roommate on Friday night

…it’s very clear to YOU and to THEM that you are a Christian and they are not.

Now, to help us do that, I want to give you some questions to think about as you enter into these kinds of circumstances. They’re going to happen. You are going to have conversations and relationships where the tension is real, and you have to make decisions about what you’re going to say, what you’re going to do, how far you’re going to go, and when you’re going to have to say, “no,” in order to maintain the tension of living in this world while not belonging to it.

Some of these decisions are not going to be easy. It’s going to take a great amount of wisdom to discern what to do. But here are a few questions that can guide us.

1. Will it obscure the gospel?

The first question you can ask yourself is whether the relationship you have this person or the decision you’re about to make is something that is going to cause the gospel to become unclear.

There is only one thing that has the power to save a person—the gospel. IT is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Rom 1:16). My life is about the gospel. And I reject any message or any notion that a person can find hope through any other way.

If there’s one thing I never want to do as a Christian, it’s communicate something that makes it unclear what I believe about Christ and his work on the cross. And I never want to communicate to someone who isn’t a Christian, that I somehow affirm something false that they believe.

Mormon Service

So let’s say you’ve befriended that Mormon couple down the street. Maybe they came to your door one day and rather than dismissing them as an annoyance, you decided to invite them into for coffee—or water. There’s nothing wrong with that. How else will they hear the gospel unless someone engages them with the gospel. There’s some who are afraid to do this because of 2 John 10, where it says, “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting.”

But the point of that verse is not to never interact with those in false religion. The point is, in the process of engaging them, don’t help them propagate false teaching. So if someone comes to you asking for money to help their ministry and you know they don’t represent the true gospel, or a missionary comes who doesn’t hold to a clear gospel, then the warning is not to engage them in that because, as verse 11 makes clear, “whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.”

But you’ve engaged that Mormon couple, you have a relationship with them. But then they invite you to come with them to their temple service. What do you do? Will you walk into a Mormon temple? On the one hand, you might be thinking, “This could gain me some ground in my relationship with them.”

But on the other hand, you have to think about the costs. Will doing this in any way lead to confusion over the gospel? Because make no mistake—Mormonism is a hideous religion. It damns just as much as atheism damns. They adulterate the person of Christ, and the purity of the Trinity. They teach a system of works righteousness that leads its followers to hell. And what you don’t want to do is make a decision that could in any way make it look like you’re giving some kind of affirmation to what they believe.

But what’s more, remember what worship is. When you enter into a Mormon temple, you’re entering into a system controlled and operated by Satan. They don’t worship God there, they worship demons. Paul even said, when pagans sacrifice to idols, they’re sacrificing to demons. You don’t want to enter into that—that doesn’t clarify the gospel, it confuses it. It destroys the tension of being a Christian in this world.

Interfaith Fellowship

Or consider a broader scenario. On September 23, 2001, less than two weeks after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Oprah Winfrey hosted a gathering in Yankee Stadium called “Prayer for America.” It was simulcast on television screens in stadiums in Staten Island and Brooklyn, was televised on four national networks, and attended by New Yorkers of all different faiths.

Invited to participate in this event were the Roman Catholic archbishop, a number of rabbis, the priest of a Sikh Temple, a Muslim imam, a Hindu leader, an archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Church, and as many as six Protestant clergymen.

Now, let’s transport ourselves back to that time for a moment. The nation is hurting. The city is in shock. You live there. You may have friends who were affected by the attacks. And someone from work, or one of your friends invites you to join them at that event. What do you do? Are you feeling the tension?

On the one hand, you believe prayer matters. You also know it would mean a lot to this person if you attended. You know they won’t understand why you wouldn’t. After all, you’re a Christian, you believe in prayer. Is it okay? What would be at stake?

There are a number of interfaith fellowships that meet around town. The celebrating factor of these kinds of groups is the acknowledgement that we’re different and yet the same. We may have different beliefs, but we can still pray together. But the problem is that I think you end up giving up more ground than you gain.

Like a said earlier, I NEVER want to communicate to someone that I affirm something false about what they believe. And if I’m going to an event like that, my presence there and my participation in that is going to make it look like I affirm that, despite our immense differences, we can all pray to God together in harmony.

But here’s the reality—God doesn’t hear their prayers. We’re not praying together.

2. Will it damage my testimony?

Another question to consider as we try to live in the tension of the Christian life is whether this relationship or decision will enhance or damage the testimony I have with unbelievers. This is closely related to the first question, but it’s a little different also.

You can’t always control the witness that you have to unbelievers. At any point, someone can bring a false accusation against you. They can malign your character, degrade you and ruin your credibility. That’s all part of being “not of this world.” “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account”(Matt 4:11). That’s a reality that we face and we don’t have any control over it.

That’s why, when Paul faced accusations against him, he appealed to the only place he could—his conscience. “Our proud confidence is this: the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and godly sincerity, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you” (2 Cor 1:12). Sometimes, the only appeal you can make is to the testimony of your conscience.

But all this isn’t to say that we have NO control over our testimony. When people know you’re a Christian, they watch what you do. If you’re an employee at BP, people in your office are watching. And they are coming to conclusions about the sincerity of your faith—either rightly or wrongly—based on what you say, what you do, and what you don’t say and do.

And as we interact with unbelievers in our lives, one of the questions we have to ask is whether the decisions I’m making—about where to go with them and what to do with them, and what to talk about with them—those decisions can have a definitive impact on your testimony.

Freemasonry

One of the questions that someone asked had to do with whether a Christian could be a part of Freemasonry. Now, I’m not an expert on this, and there’s a lot of mystery to this organization. It has its roots that, according to some accounts, goes back centuries to the fraternities of stonemasons that developed around the 14th century. It’s a difficult organization to understand because, for one, there’s no real consistency. There’s no overarching governing board. Each lodge has the freedom to operate as it wants, so there’s a lot of expressions of it.

But I came across an article on CBS News which was an attempt to demystify masonry. And while most all freemasons adamantly insist that it is not a religion, the description they gave of the lodge meeting is rather eye opening.

For one, at the center of any lodge, there is an altar—a religious piece of furniture. All lodge activities take place around this altar. The ceremonies that occur are highly ritualized and full of symbolism. There is teaching that occurs. These lessons are moral in nature. As one mason put it who was interviewed,

“When a candidate comes in through the door, he’s blindfolded because, symbolically, he is in a state of darkness, because Masonry is all about moving from darkness into Masonic light.”

So, already, alarms should be raised in your head. The tension should be palpable. You should already be thinking in terms of the question we already asked—will my participation in this obscure the gospel? You know where what’s light and what’s darkness—“Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path,” says the psalmist. And any claim that a teaching can lead someone into “light” outside of Christ and his Word is the epitome of false religion.

But, there’s another factor to consider. Because, as religious as this fraternity appears to be, religion is one thing you cannot discuss in the lodge. And I have a real problem with that. Because that means that for me to be a part of this thing, I have to effectively check my faith at the door. And that’s not something I can do as a Christian.

That puts a big question mark on my testimony. Why? Because it tells everyone in the room that there’s one thing more important than my faith in Christ and that’s my participation in the masonic lodge. That’s what I agreed to, after all, when I entered that room.

As a Christian you have to be aware of how decisions can impact your testimony. And sometimes, discerning what to do or not do is far from easy.

Chilkoots

Let’s say you’re a college student, and you’re living in the dorms as I did when I went to school.

Talk about conversion during college and change in relationship

And your roommate isn’t a Christian, but you get along okay, and you’re building that relationship. You look for ways to share Christ with him, and one Friday night he invites you to come along with him to Chilkoot’s. If you’re not familiar with that place, it’s a local bar that carries a rather seedy reputation.

You have to ask yourself:

· How will this impact my testimony?

· Will it enhance my reputation as a Christian or hinder it?

· Will it lead to better credibility or take away from it?

· Will I LOSE anything by engaging with unbelievers this way?

These aren’t easy questions—but you can’t afford not to ask them.

Luke 5 – Jesus eating and drinking with “sinners”

Contextualization – 1 Corinthians 10 – becoming all things to all men

Point: don’t put up unnecessary stumbling blocks for evangelism

Not going to Chilkoot’s isn’t going to be a stumbling block

But sometimes saying “no” can actually OPEN doors for evangelism – show you have convictions

Barrick – Qurbani experience

3. Will it endanger my faith?

All that leads to a final question, and one that helps to clarify anything that might not be as clear in the first two: will this relationship or decision put my faith in danger? Will it put me into a position to compromise doctrinally or morally.

This is the question we have to be the most careful about because it means we have to be VERY honest with ourselves. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of spiritual over-confidence. We know theology, we know the truth, and so nothing can hurt me. I’m impervious to any kind of doctrinal shift. I’m strong enough to resist the world’s temptations.

We all know the passage in 1 Corinthians 10:13 – “No temptation has overcome that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may endure it.” But it’s the verse before it that sets the stage for that promise—“Therefore let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.”

That’s an admonition to be on guard—you’re not as strong as you think you are. So you have to ask that question.

· Would attending a Mormon service put me in spiritual danger?

· Would joining the Masons put me in spiritual danger?

· Would going to Chilkoot’s with my unbelieving friends my me in spiritual danger?

Cause here’s the deal. If you fall morally—there goes your testimony. If you fall doctrinally, there goes the clarity of the gospel. That’s a heavy price to pay to try to relieve the tension.

That’s why in the book of Jude, as he unfurls his strategy for “contending for the faith,” before he even gets to the part of rescuing the lost and the confused, he writes this:

But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life (Jude 20-21)

The command in all of that is this: keep yourselves in the God’s love. That’s the same thing as when Jesus said to his disciples, “Remain in me.” Stay in God’s love.

He says all that because he’s about to call them to rescue the victims of the apostates, and there’s a very real danger that some of them will apostatize, either doctrinally or morally. So he tells them, “STAY IN GOD’S LOVE!” How? Build yourself up in your faith—that’s your study and devotion to the Word—and pray in the Holy Spirit—that’s your dependency on Christ.

Those two things will keep you safe. You show me a Christian who’s regularly in the word and in prayer, and I’ll show you a strong Christian. They know the Word, and they depend on Christ, and they know when they need to say, “No, that’s not good for me.”

Now, on the other hand, you show me a Christian who studies the word but doesn’t have a prayer life and I’ll show you a Christian whose overly confident and ready for a fall. Because they know the Word, they think their knowledge is enough to sustain them, but they forget that the Christian life is lived in dependency, and the greatest expression of that is in prayer!

And you show me a Christian who prays often but isn’t in the word, and I’ll show you someone whose ripe for doctrinal corruption. Sure, they pray. But they have no discernment. They have no way to judge truth and error.