NO COMPROMISE: PART 7 - IN OUR WITNESS

As a church we have been thinking about the theme of no compromise for that last number of weeks. We’ve examined how God calls us not to compromise our faith or Scriptural values. He calls us to live lives of holiness.

This has brought us to the question – what about the grey areas of life? How do we know when we are compromising, because what may be a compromise for me may not be a compromise for you? How are we to know? And to look for some answers we started a study of 1 Corinthians 8,9 and 10.

This morning I want to continue our study and think about some important questions about compromise and evangelism. When are we in danger from being so like the world that no one can tell the difference between us and the world. How separate are we to be from the rest of the world? And how involved are we to be with the world.

The church has wrestled with this question for a long, long time. And as you look at church history you see two ends of the spectrum – the cloistered life over here. And the life that is so involved in the world that you can’t tell the difference between the church and the world.

When we look to Scriptures we have Jesus saying: “You are the light of the world. A city on the hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.” (Matthew 5:14-15).

And we have the words of Paul, “I have become all things to all people that I might by all means save some.” (1 Corinthians 9:22).

And on the other hand we have Scriptures like: “Have nothing to do with fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.” (Ephesians 5:11)

“If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.” (John 15:19-20)

“Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world – the cravings of the sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does – comes not from the Father but from the world.” (1 John 2:15-16)

So we have this pull. Which is it? Of course we know the pat answer – the answer for us evangelical Christians is that we are to be in the world but we are not to be of the world.

But again, how do we know when we are being of the world? Is it okay for a Christian go into a Bar in order to witness? Or is it okay for a Christian to be part of Gay Pride week in order to bring the love of Christ to that community?

It’s hard to know how to answer. But I think this whole issue, that Paul is speaking about here in 1 Corinthians helps us.

Those of you who were here a couple of weeks ago remember that the Christ follower, Paul is talking about eating food offered to idols. It was a grey area of morality for the early Christians. Some Christians thought they shouldn’t eat food offered to idols because if they did, it may look like they were agreeing with the whole sacrificial idol system. Other Christians had no problem with the whole eating meat offered to idols because they knew they were free in Christ and idols didn’t mean anything anyway.

And in our study of Chapter 8 we discovered the Corinthians have the question wrong. Scripture says the question is not whether or not we should eat meat offered to idols – we are free – the question is, do I love my fellow Christian enough that I will not do something that will make him or her stumble in their faith?

At issue here is love for another. It’s not about freedoms, rights – it’s about our love for others. Can I love others enough that I die to self and not participate in an activity for the sake of others around us? It’s not that we should be controlled by what others think – we live to glorify God alone. No, it is out of our love for others that we die to self and refuse to participate in some activities or behaviour in order that other Christians may be strengthened in their faith – and we do not cause others to stumble in their faith.

And we discovered that Scripture is calling us to take a step back and examine ourselves and see if there is anything in our lifestyle that may be causing another to stumble. We are free in Christ, but let us not use this freedom unthinkingly.

Then in the first part of chapter 9 Paul holds himself up as an example. We don’t have time to go through this verse by verse, but Paul essentially says that he is free, but he will not use his freedom to hinder the proclamation of the gospel. The climax of his argument is verse 12b where he says, “We put with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ.”

And then at verse 19, I believe he switches gears a bit and says, but when it comes to preaching the gospel I pick up my freedom and use it to my advantage. I have chosen to use my freedom in Christ in order to win others for the gospel.

Let me just explain that phrase “freedom in Christ” for a moment. That means that now you are a Christian, you are free from trying to win God’s favour through doing all the right things. We are free from all the laws, and all the rules of pleasing God – Jesus Christ is the perfect sacrifice for us and His sacrifice pleased God, and so we are now free from the laws.

We are now in a love relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ. Now of course that means that we will obey God’s laws and rules, but now it’s not because we want to win His favour, but it’s because we have His favour and it is out of love that we want to follow Him and obey His commands.

So this is what it means to be free in Christ. And this is what Paul means when he says in verse 19 of our text, “For though I am free with respect to all,” - he is free in Christ. “I have made myself a slave to all.” I have used my freedom in Christ to identify with all people.

And we say, “Why Paul?” “So that I might win more of them.”

“Who is that specifically, Paul?”

Verse 20 – the Jews. “I became like a Jew in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law.”

And we know he did that very thing. Read Acts 21 and you will see how Paul submitted to the law in order to demonstrate his commitment to the holiness of the law and demonstrate his obedience to the law.

Then he says in brackets at verse 20 – “though I myself am not under the law.”

“Why did you do this then?”

“So that I might win those under the law.”

But Paul isn’t just focused on the Jew – he says at verse 21, “To those outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law – that means he didn’t take on their way of life) – so that I might win those outside the law.” Then verse 22, “To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people that I might by all means save some.”

Do you see? He uses his freedom in Christ in order to win others for the Gospel.

So what principles can we take from this as we wrestle with the difficult question – how much am I to identify with the world and how much am I to be separate from the world?

I think the first principle we need to realize is that we are indeed free in Christ. Let me say again, there are moral absolutes that we are to follow. But there are often in the church so-called laws that we impose on ourselves and others that we really should not. We are free in Christ.

I think we are very slow to realize this, and Scripture teaches us that it is the immature, the weak, that believe they have to keep the rules. Read Romans 14 and you will see that it is the weak that always want to keep the rules. But it is the mature who realize that they are free in Christ. Again, let me be clear - we cannot use our freedom to act in any sinful way we please, but we are free in Christ from external, often culturally-prescribed rules.

Throughout this passage Paul is saying there is are greater regulators to our behaviour than rules. In chapter 8, it is love for our brothers and sisters in Christ. Here in chapter 9 it is allowing the gospel to be heard.

Charles Price compares living by rules to painting by numbers. Do you know when you were a child you received a paint kit – with a picture of a horse or some other such thing and the picture was divided by lines and inside each of the lines was a number? The numbers corresponded with paints in those little plastic containers. So #1 was red. # 2 was white. #3 was green. And so on.

And after you filled in all the colours and finished the painting you would bring it to your parents and they would say, “That is wonderful! Did you do that all by yourself? We didn’t help you! What a clever child you are.” Then they would put it on your fridge. And then grandma would come over and you would show her your picture and she would ask you – “Did you do that all by yourself? Your parents didn’t help you? What a clever child you are.”¹

Painting by numbers is okay. But if you are 20 years old and are still painting by numbers, well, you’ve got a problem.

You see, keeping rules can be useful. Some rules are good. When we become a Christian we ask, how am I supposed to live and we look for some rules. But as you get going in your Christian walk, as you mature, you need to realize that you are free from the rules. You are in Christ. Paul will write in his next letter to the Corinthians (3:17) “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom.”

We use training wheels when we are young. They can be helpful to guide us but if you are still using training wheels when you are 30 you have a problem. And if when you have been in the faith for 30 plus years and you are still trying to keep the laws, and make everyone else around you keep the laws, then you have a problem.

We need to realize that we have a freedom in Christ. Again, not to break the laws that are plain and clear, but in those grey areas we are free and we can use our freedom to reach those who do not know Christ.

There is another principle here that we can learn and that is when it comes to being involved in the world and being separate from the world we need to remember that we are all in need of grace.

Hans Peeter Royer is principal of Capernwray Bible School in Austria. He says that because he is part of a small village, everyone in town knows him and they keep their distance from him. So once in a while he goes to the bar and he says that when people are drunk, they don’t keep their distance but rather, they sit beside him and talk with him. He tells of how often people will sit beside him and say, “You are so good and I am so bad.”

One woman in particular said this very thing to him – and Hans Peeter said her, “You know what? I’m not any better than you. We’re both equally bad. We may have different starting points but we’re both equally bad and both just need the Lord.”

And she said, “What should I do?”

And Hans Peeter said, “You need to give him your life.”

She said, “Well, he can have my life, that’s fine. And then he would follow up with her the next day and start the conversation all over again when she was sober. But Hans Peeter says, “She felt that I was the holy one and she was the rotten one. It’s just not true. We’re both rotten and we both need Christ. There is no better or worse. I wonder if this is part of what Paul is saying here – To the Jew I became a jew. To the weak I become weak – I identify with people. I realize that I am just as much in need of grace as they are.”²

I think this helps when we think about the grey areas of life. We have all these rules – you have to dress this way, you have to believe this way, and you have to behave this way – and if someone doesn’t behave this way, or dress this way, then they are out. No, it’s not about rules, and just because you are able to keep the rules does not make you spiritually superior to those who don’t keep your rules.

Every one of us is equally in need of God’s grace. When we realize that we are free from the rules that we often set up and that helps in the spreading of the gospel.

The third principle is closely connected to this. When trying to figure out our boundaries with the grey areas, Look to the heart and not at externals. All through this passage Paul is holding up for us his own character. He’s saying, “Look at who I am – examine my character, my ambitions – I want only to proclaim Christ. Look at my relationships.” It’s clear that he loves the Corinthians – Christian and non-Christian. “Look at my commitment – I would rather die than not preach the gospel. Look at my sincerity.”

And so with us. We need to take it in that Christianity is not about the externals, but it is about our hearts being cleansed by the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. It is about our heart, our attitudes being transformed by the Spirit of God living in us. It is about our heart, our wills being in line with the will of God. It is about our character demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

We get mixed up and think it’s about the rules. It’s not. Christianity is about a heart relationship with Christ. Not the rules. When we remember that, boy, our ability to share the truth of Christ is so much more powerful.

I recently read of a woman who cared deeply for a non-Christian woman who had experienced every variety of sexual experience. One day the non-Christian woman said to the Christian, “It’s funny, my non-Christian friends accept me. They say it doesn’t matter what I do. I’m free. But it’s only with you that I feel loved, that I know I could always come to you. But it’s also only with you that that I feel shame and remorse for what I’m doing.”³

That’s holding the tension right, isn’t it? That’s being in the world but not being of the world. That’s living without compromise in the grey areas of life – it’s expressing our freedom in Christ so that we are able to love people, not abandoning people because they don’t adhere to the rules. But it’s also bringing the reality of God’s presence and purity into a situation.

May God grant us the wisdom and the ability to that very thing for the sake of the gospel.

ENDNOTES:

As told by Charles Price in his sermon entitled, “Legalism and Liberty” c. 2003.
Hans Peter Royer, in his sermon “Love Your Neighbour”. January 15, 2007 at the Greater Toronto Spiritual Life Convention.
Rebecca Manley Pippert, Out of the Salt Shaker & into the World, (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1979), 90.