Fellowship With Darkness
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Introduction
Introduction
Greetings…
v
Engaging In This Old Wicked World
Engaging In This Old Wicked World
Loving This Sinful World
Loving This Sinful World
For young Christians, and sometimes mature Christians, doing every thing one can to not engage in the wickedness of the world can be a struggle.
We know intellectually that loving this sinful world makes us an enemy of God.
4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
24 No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
However, it is easy to get caught up in such as past history bears out.
Abraham lied about his wife so he wouldn’t “potentially get killed” not just once, but twice (Genesis 12:10-20; Genesis 20).
David committed adultery and murder to cover up the adultery (2 Samuel 11-12).
Solomon was led astray by his many wives into idolatry (1 Kings 11:1-13).
Peter was led astray by the Judaizing teachers in front of the Gentile Christians (Galatians 2).
The point is we must guard ourselves and thus protect ourselves from engaging with this sinful world.
Now I am not talking about living in this world, but engaging with this sinful world.
We are not to be conformed to this world.
2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
We are not to love this world world.
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
We are not to have even a friendship with this world.
4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Summary
Summary
Fellowship with darkness takes place when we engage in and with this old sinful world.
We are not to be conformed to this world, love this world, or even be friends with this world as Solomon wrote to his son in Proverbs 1:10-16…
10 My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. 11 If they say, “Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood; let us ambush the innocent without reason;
12 like Sheol let us swallow them alive, and whole, like those who go down to the pit; 13 we shall find all precious goods, we shall fill our houses with plunder;
14 throw in your lot among us; we will all have one purse”— 15 my son, do not walk in the way with them; hold back your foot from their paths,
16 for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood.
Fellowship with darkness can also take place when we…
Encouraging Engagement With The World
Encouraging Engagement With The World
Influence Others Into Worldliness
Influence Others Into Worldliness
Fellowship with darkness isn’t just us actively seeking to live abhorrent lives, from a moral point of view.
Fellowship with darkness can be as seemingly innocent as encouraging engagement with the world through our influence.
Charles Barkly once stated, when ask how kids would think of his unruly behavior, I’m no one’s role-model.
He has since changed his toon as he has seen how much influence he does actually have and the responsibility that can come from that.
What are some ways Christians can inadvertently encourage engagement with the world?
When Christians miss the worship service or invite their non-Christian friends to participate with them on worldly things “instead of taking them to worship God” we inadvertently encourage worldly engagement.
25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.
When Christians, who should the the model example of what a hardworking Christian should look like, is slothful at a particular project for their job or school, they can inadvertently encourage worldly engagement.
23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
10 For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.
When Christians allow their children to “sow their wild oats” in any number of ways, they end up inadvertently encouraging worldly engagement.
6 Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.
4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Summary
Summary
As Christians influence others to engage in worldliness they are not in fellowship with God but world.
And as we said this can be inadvertent as well, so to guard ourselves against being in fellowship with the world or encouraging it in others lives, we must guard our influence.
Lastly, to help us stay clear of being in fellowship with darkness we must not…
Surrounding Ourselves With Sinful People
Surrounding Ourselves With Sinful People
Be Unequally Yoked
Be Unequally Yoked
There is a great danger in being around people that are sinful.
Obviously, we live in this world, but we are most certainly not to be in fellowship with sinners.
Unfortunately, many Christians don’t want to be a sinner they just want to play with the sinners.
33 Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.”
14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
17 Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, 18 and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”
20 Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.
Summary
Summary
Fellowship with darkness often comes to Christians because they end up dancing too close to the fire of sinners and get caught up with them.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Fellowship God means no fellowship with darkness.
We must guard ourselves against engaging in worldliness, encourage worldliness in others, and walking with sinners in fellowship.
Instead of flirting with darkness let us rather expose it so as to identify it and stay as far away from it as possible.
11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.
Invitation
1 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; 2 but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.
6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent
33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
32 Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. 33 But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.
8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures
3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
