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As we read in Ephesians 4 - Raised in the ways leading to Righteousness, how people are raised will effect how open they are to receiving the gospel, and in turn how close they might get to God.  Basically, people who are raised in the ways of God have a foundation for assessing what is happening when God tugs at their heart; those who are raised outside a God-fearing home will have less such foundation.  Though they have the same need for God as the churched, those who grow up unchurched consequently develop hearts that are hard, insensitive, and dark, when it comes to Jesus Christ. They still look for fulfillment in various ways, but because the thing they crave the most is primarily intimacy with the Lord, their cravings quite often manifest as an unhealthy sexuality.  This may not always be the case, but as a society, I look around at our changing mores and I see the truth of it: single parents, more divorce, more pornography, including ads on TV (leading from sexual dysfunction through sexual attraction to sexual satisfaction) that used to only appear in adult magazines.  And the less of God we expose to our children, the more of this we will see.  However, this was never God’s intention.  God has a model for intimacy that models our relationship with Him. It is marriage and our sexual conduct indirectly reflects our sexual health, and in turn the health of our relationship with God.  True, even Christians will suffer from sexual immorality, but at least the Christian has a basis for knowing that, and a basis for healing, or even preventing hardness in their heart.  Paul elaborates to the Ephesians in Eph. 5:

³But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. ⁴Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. ⁵For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. ⁶Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.

Now, a few things to notice about Paul’s choice of words.

In Ephesians 4, Paul distinguished those who raise people in God from those who do not.  Well, in those times, there were markedly few atheists.  Everyone worshipped something, and so if you did not worship God, you worshipped a false god and likely had an idol for that god at home… you were an idolater.  Therefore, because anyone not living upright was lacking a proper relationship with God, the odds were pretty good that they were in fact idolaters.  In our day and age, the idols are not so blatant, but replace God in our lives every bit as much.  This insight provides perspective, so if you are living in sin like that described above, you are living like an idolater.  At the very least, your relationship with God is surely (and sorely) lacking.

It is due to this lack in God-centeredness that ones life might not be one of righteousness.  As we have studied here all year, righteousness is credited to us for believing God, and manifests through our obedience.  Someone who is not obedient either has no righteousness to express (i.e., does not believe God), or has ”buried it in the ground” so to speak (I am alluding to Jesus’ parable of the talents).  Such people are not living righteously; either they do not believe God when He speaks to them, or they were good people turned evil.  In any case, they are not what Paul calls “justified”, and may not be bound for Heaven… in which case they will suffer God’s wrath in the end, if not in this life, then after.

Now remember Paul was writing to believers who were raised to believe in God.  Even still, Paul describes their lives before Christ as follows (we will return to verse 7 further down)…

 ⁸For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light ⁹(for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) ¹⁰and find out what pleases the Lord.

So, even being raised in the church, until you accepted Christ, you too were in the dark.  However, you were not insensitive or hard, which is why you were able to accept Christ as you did… and He then removed even the darkness from your life.  So, are there people living in darkness in the church?  You bet.  You probably sit by them! You see, even unsaved, people raised in the church can be sensitive to Jesus’ presence, but until that commitment is made, and acceptance of Jesus’ one true gift of salvation occurs, they will remain in the darkness, thought somewhat sensitive to the light.  Yet even after accepting Him, people still resist the change, don’t they?  And notice how that plays out: people living in the dark can quench that weak Christian’s light more easily than people living in the light can negate a hardened person’s darkness.  That is why Paul says to…

 ¹¹Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. ¹²For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.

In other words, we might not be able to remove a person’s darkness in our own power, but God does give us the light to expose whether someone is living in light or darkness.  But, mere exposure and good intentions are not enough to turn a person to Christ.  This makes our work as Christians necessary, but makes intimacy ill-advised.  Should we still associate with them?  You bet.  They are your friends, your co-workers, even your family perhaps, and they need your witness to shed light on what it is they need, and for other Christians to see people’s darkness for what it is.  But, intimacy with the dark?  Now that’s a risk. In fact there is a verse we skipped above, but it just goes to show important it is to avoid the darkness.  It does not say to avoid association with those in the dark, but it does say this:

 ⁷Therefore do not be partners with them. 

Don’t marry them.  Don’t go to them for moral council.  Don’t put them before your relationship with God.  This does not make them altogether untrustworthy, or entirely unwise, but it does make them tainted by the world… as are you.  Their advice may even be correct. But here is the difference.  God will let see it for what it is; you have the Holy Spirit to guide you through what is tainted, and discern what is of God… they do not.  Making yourself vulnerable to them is likely to appeal to your flesh in a very tempting way, so that even with the Holy Spirit there to guide you, He is not where your associate will point you, and you could miss something. Your associate may have flawless logic, but you are to have the Holy Spirit, and sometimes logic is just not enough.  So stay in the light.  Consult with people who are also in the light.  And then associate, but not intimately, with those in the dark, for purpose of exposing there darkness… so that other Christians can see it, and perhaps God can use it.  Notice that even if you cannot save someone by shining on their darkness, even though you are not to judge them specifically, even though people tend not to come to God beyond their youth, God will still use the obedient lights of this world in ways that might surprise you.  So be obedient with your light, and then watch it shows.   You just might be surprised.

 ¹³But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, ¹⁴for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said:
   ”Wake up, O sleeper,
      rise from the dead,
   and Christ will shine on you.”

May God shine through you this Christmas season.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 at 8:18 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.