Encounter the Truth

Jonathan Griffiths: You can respond today. You don't know what tomorrow will bring. You don't know if the door will still be open, but today it is. Now it is. How have you responded? What could possibly hold you back? That's the urgent appeal for you if you don't know Christ, if you haven't received the grace of God. Don't delay. Today is the day. Now is the time.

Steve Hiller: You're listening to Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths. I'm Steve Hiller, and Jonathan, I'm so glad that we have another day to look at this theme of not putting off a decision to come to Christ. If God's spirit is drawing us to him, if we understand that he's extended this invitation to us, we need to say yes to that invitation now.

Jonathan Griffiths: Well, that's right, Steve. We have today, but we don't know if we have tomorrow. I'm very conscious that there could be some listening who have been listening for a while. You've been intrigued by the message of the Bible, by the gospel of Jesus Christ. You've been evaluating it, you've been learning more, but you haven't made a response.

If you're honest, you've been putting off that response. Let me say to you, you need to make your response today. You don't know how many more days you will have, but the door is open and the invitation is there. Please don't delay. The stakes are high. Each of us will stand before God the judge at the end of our lives, and our only hope in the judgment is to have salvation, forgiveness in Jesus Christ and to stand complete in him. The only way to have that salvation is to respond to him in repentance and faith. Let me urge you, make that response today.

Steve Hiller: Well, let's continue to look at this truth as you even respond right now. We're in the book of 2nd Corinthians, chapter six, continuing a message called Living Faithfully When the Time is Short. Here is Jonathan.

Jonathan Griffiths: The other day, I had the unhappy experience of having a flight on my way home canceled, and then of having my backup flight canceled, and then sitting in the airport terminal all night waiting to get on a standby flight. Having sat there all night, I went to the desk about 5:00 a.m., and I asked about a standby seat on the next available flight. The gentleman said to me, "Look, there's one place left on the standby list. I've put your name on it. Get to the gate right now."

When he said that, I didn't stand there for an extra chat and ask about his kids and his grandkids. "You got anything on this weekend? I'd love to hear about it." I didn't stop to check the news. I didn't go for a coffee. You know what I did? I got to the gate. I got to the gate pretty fast, I might add, for someone who had been awake all night and was barely ambulatory at that point. I made it my business to get on that flight.

Behold, now is the favorable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. You can respond today. You don't know what tomorrow will bring. You don't know if the door will still be open. I don't know. But today it is. Now it is. How have you responded? If you haven't responded, why have you not responded? What could possibly hold you back? That's the urgent appeal for you if you don't know Christ, if you haven't received the grace of God. Don't delay. Today is the day. Now is the time.

But what about us who have heard the message before and have received that grace? Notice again what Paul says there in verse one. He appeals to us not to receive that grace in vain. He is concerned that some at the church at Corinth have heard the gospel and perhaps made some kind of response to it, but might step back from it and might not benefit from the grace of God in the end. He's concerned that they might be there in the church making some of the right noises, but not really with him, not really committed to the gospel.

Clearly, some at Corinth were pretty prepared to walk away from Paul and his teaching. Paul knows that. He's pretty acutely aware of it. There are some today, even within churches, who would be prepared to do the very same thing. There are those who will say, without recognizing the apostolic authority that Jesus gave Paul, there will be some who will say, "Look, I like Jesus quite a lot. I like his teaching, love your neighbors yourself and so on, but the apostle Paul, I actually find him a little bit difficult to take, if I'm honest."

And of course, Paul says so many things in the word of God that are pretty unpopular in our society and our culture. He says things about sexuality, about ethics and morality, about the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, things that will not raise our standing in the eyes of the world if we're associated with them. But will we stand with him in the scriptures and in the apostolic truth of the gospel?

Of course, it wasn't just Paul's teaching that caused offense. It was his whole way of life. The fact that he didn't look very impressive. Remember, the Corinthians were deeply concerned about their social standing and what it would do for them to be associated with Paul. Would it bring them up in the world, or would it bring them down in the world? Some of them recognized that standing with someone like Paul would lower their social standing and their credibility in the marketplace. And so, some of them were pulling back a little.

But Paul says, "You need to see that I am an authentic model of what it is to serve Jesus Christ. Yes, I am lowly in the eyes of the world. Yes, there is cost attached to this for me, but please don't close your heart to me." Now, we would love to say, wouldn't we, that we are more mature than all that, that we don't care about being associated with the lowly and those who could embarrass us. But I think we probably know our hearts a little bit better than that if we're being honest.

Where is the temptation for us today to put distance between ourselves and godly believers who are following Paul's model? Who are the people who might look unimpressive in the eyes of the world, who are afflicted and persecuted, who bear cost for the gospel, people who it won't benefit us to be associated with them as far as the world is concerned? Who are the people, the servants of Jesus Christ, the leaders within the church with whom it might not do us any good to stand in the eyes of the world?

Who are the missionaries, the Christian workers, the gospel servants, the persecuted believers who look so unimpressive in the eyes of the world and who we might actually want to keep ourselves at a distance from for the sake of our reputation in the community? Are we willing to stand with them and to open our hearts to them? Paul gives us his personal model here in such fulsome detail because he clearly wants us to recognize that it's authentic and then follow it.

He doesn't only tell us all this because he wants us to associate with him. He wants us to stand with him in a holistic sense. His model here is a pattern for our own lives and for our own Christian service. Paul models what it looks like not to receive the grace of God in vain. And so that's the next question then. Are we willing to stand with Paul in living and in serving as he lived and he served? Are we willing to bear real cost for the sake of the gospel?

Are you and I today willing to bear social cost, material cost, physical cost, and perhaps the possibility of wearing ourselves out in the service of Jesus Christ? Are we willing to bear legal cost, political cost, should the state turn against us? Are we willing to be verse nine, unknown and yet well-known, dying and yet behold we live, as punished and yet not killed, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing everything? Are we willing to be such people?

You see, we can be kind of socially conscious like some of the Corinthians. We can be concerned about how we're going to get ahead in the world, and we can stand aloof from the Lord and his people. I've seen far too many young believers choose to do that out of concern for their reputation and their popularity and their social standing, and I've seen the spiritual wreckage that follows from that. Perhaps you've seen that as well. But here's the other option. We can remember that the Lord will soon return. We can wholeheartedly give ourselves to him and in doing so, we can stand with his people and we can serve in his mission.

Given the shortness of the time, given the urgency, while the time is favorable, stand with the godly, says Paul. Next, while the time is favorable, separate from the ungodly. That's the second aspect here of not receiving God's grace in vain. That's the second element of the urgent response Paul wants the Corinthians to make and that he wants you and me to make today. The time is short. The Lord will soon return. Don't receive his grace in vain. Don't let his grace be powerless in your own life. Separate yourself from the ungodly.

Verse 14, notice it with me. Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial, or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? To make sense of Paul's appeal here, we need to remember a bit what Corinth was like. It was a cosmopolitan place. It was a trade city where east meets west, where cultures collide.

It was deeply pluralistic. It was full of religious beliefs and practices of all different kinds. As a trading and a financial hub, it was a place where people were just jostling to make their mark, to earn their fortune, to gain standing in the city. It was a place where you mixed with anyone and everyone to get ahead and to get along. In that respect, it sounds a lot like 21st-century Ottawa or Vancouver or Los Angeles or New York or you name it.

Paul knows that for the believers to receive the grace of God and to stand in that grace, they need to be clear about what it means to stand apart from the ungodly people around them. Paul wants us to be serious about this and not to be lax about it. We hear him, we sense his tone, we receive that. And yet it may not be immediately clear to us as to the practical implications of it. What do we actually do with this?

I think it's right to say that there's been a fair bit of confusion about this for Christians over time. What does it actually mean to avoid being unequally yoked with unbelievers and not to have partnership or fellowship with them? Does it mean that we should avoid all contact with non-Christians? Does it mean that we should only ever really interact with believers? Does it imply that we should seek to be disengaged from society and uninvolved in the community?

Those are real questions, and I think we need to grapple with them. What does Paul actually mean here? What does he imply? Very often this text is taken to mean that a Christian should not marry a non-Christian. I think that's a good and valid and an important application of the principle, but is that all that this is about? No, I don't think so.

So what are the indications in the text that guide us to understand the nature of the implications here? Does Paul make things any more specific for us? The nature of the contrast begins in quite general terms. You'll see that, setting believers apart from unbelievers in the most broad sense. Righteousness versus lawlessness, light versus darkness. We get that there's a contrast here between the believing and the unbelieving world in general terms.

But then the contrast becomes more specific in nature. Verse 15, "What accord has Christ with Belial?" Okay, now we've got a choice between gods. The Lord Jesus Christ or a false god, Belial, which is just shorthand here for the devil. We continue to think along religious lines when we come to verse 16. "What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God." Here, Paul is zoning in on the question of religious affiliation, fidelity, worship. The unbeliever worships false gods, idols. We worship the Lord Jesus Christ.

Steve Hiller: You're listening to Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths, and a message called Living Faithfully When the Time is Short. It's part of our series, Strength and Weakness, and we'll get back to this look at 2nd Corinthians 4 in just a moment. Encounter the Truth is a listener-supported ministry, and whether you listen on the radio, online, or through the app, it is your generosity that makes Jonathan's teaching possible each day.

So thank you for giving to and supporting this ministry. As you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to send you a book called Weakness is the Way, written by author, theologian, and Bible teacher J.I. Packer. In this book, you're going to see the importance of embracing our own frailty and how we can look to Christ for strength, affirmation, and contentment. This is our thank you for your financial support this month. Give online at encounterthetruth.org or when you call 1-833-99-TRUTH. Again, our website is encounterthetruth.org and our phone number is 1-833-998-7884. Back to the message. Here is Jonathan.

Jonathan Griffiths: Paul is targeting specifically the issue of idolatry here. That's what he sets his sights on. Remember again how polytheistic and multicultural Corinth was in Paul's day. There would have been idols in homes, in public places, and of course, in temples. Back in 1st Corinthians, we remember that Paul had to devote time to teaching on the question of whether it was okay to eat food that had been offered to idols. This was central to Corinthian society, and there would have been lots of opportunity for believers to ingratiate themselves with others by embracing their idols, joining with them in their idolatrous practices.

Corinthians, we remember, they're pretty concerned about their social standing and their place in the world. Ingratiating themselves to non-believers in this way, it must have been a temptation for them. But Paul is saying here, don't do it. Don't do that. Don't join yourself with them in their worship, in their practices, in their idolatry.

Of course, many of us today would not struggle all that much with the temptation to enter into an idol's temple and bow down before it. For most of us, that's not a live issue. For a few, depending on your cultural background and family background, it might be, but not for the majority, I guess. And yet, the temptation toward idolatry is as real today as it was 2,000 years ago in Corinth.

An idol, at the end of the day, is any god alternative that we might be tempted to worship, any false god to which we might give our hearts, our energy, our affection, our life. It may not be set on a shrine or placed on a pedestal, but there are idols all around us. In general terms, idols fall into three categories which are familiar to us: the categories of money, sex, and power. These are the three great idols of our age, the three great pursuits that consume so many around us in our world, in our society.

Whatever it is that you may pursue wholeheartedly and relentlessly other than God himself, that becomes an idol to you. Whether it be the accumulation of wealth, the building of reputation, the cultivation of a career, the devotion to a particular sport or skill or hobby, whether it be the quest to find the perfect partner and the dream relationship, whatever it is, if it is the thing you live for, that you give yourself over to, if it is the thing that you worship, if it has displaced the true and living God on the throne of your heart, it is indeed an idol.

Like the people of Corinth, we live in a community full of idols. People all around us are indeed worshipping and pursuing these idols with all their heart. The question before us, the challenging question, is whether we will join them or not. Make no mistake, you and I will be tempted to do so, and we are tempted to do so. We will be tempted to live for the things that the people all around us live for, to pursue the things that the people all around us pursue, to love the things that the people all around us love.

But Paul says, don't do it. Don't receive the grace of God in vain. Time is short. You can't afford to play around with the idols of the world. You need to make your heart right before the Lord who could return at any time. And of course, this admonition concerns not only our own personal spiritual well-being, it also impacts our witness to the world. We don't want God's grace in our lives to be fruitless.

Time is short. Today is the day of salvation. Now is the time of the Lord's favor. We ought to be concerned to get the good news out to those around us, to commend the gospel to the lost and to the perishing. But if we're running after the same things that our friends and neighbors and colleagues are running after, demonstrating that we value the same things they value in the same way that they value them, then we don't really have any credibility left in pointing them to the Lord Jesus Christ. They won't notice anything different about us. Our opportunity for witness will be undermined and the time, the very precious time, will be wasted.

Paul said he refused to put any stumbling block in anyone's way. That's what he says in verse three. But how easily you and I can put stumbling blocks in the way of others if we slip into idolatry and compromise our witness. Now, some as I mentioned earlier have taken these words to imply that we should have nothing to do with non-Christians, that we should isolate ourselves, but that is not Paul's heart here. That's not his point.

If we know Paul, we know he's always thinking about how to get the gospel out. That's the point of his description of his whole lifestyle. He is zealous for the lost. He's not ignoring them or isolating himself from them. So he's not making a blanket admonition that we should have nothing to do with non-Christians. What he's doing is admonishing us at all costs to avoid joining them in their idolatry. That's a different thing.

We love our non-Christian friends and family members. We pursue friendship and witness, but we don't join them in their worship. That's the point. We are to live as the temple of God, the place in which God lives by his spirit. God promised of old that he would live among his people, verse 16, quoting from Leviticus. And he promised them, recalling Isaiah 52, that he would be a father to those who stand apart from the idolatry of the nations.

Those are wonderful promises of grace, promises not to receive in vain. And so chapter seven and verse one, Paul sums it up. "Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God." God has offered us rich promises of his grace in Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of our sin, a place in his family, a future with him. It's possible for us to hear those promises, to hear the gospel, and for it to do us no good.

And so the choice here is pretty stark. It is stand with the godly, with Paul and with his gospel, with those who follow in his footsteps in the faith, or reject the apostle and his gospel and cast your lot in with the idolatrous people all around us. Time is short. We have to choose. And so as we close, where is your fundamental loyalty and where is mine? Where will you stand and where will I? Will it be with the godly or the godless? Will it be with the God of grace or with the idols of the nations?

Steve Hiller: Jonathan Griffiths wrapping up our message, Living Faithfully When the Time is Short, here on Encounter the Truth. If you ever miss a broadcast in our series, Strength and Weakness, come and listen online at encounterthetruth.org. Encounter the Truth is a listener-supported ministry. We depend on your financial generosity to bring you Jonathan's teaching each day.

As you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to send you a book written by J.I. Packer. It's called Weakness is the Way. Jonathan, who is J.I. Packer and why would he be qualified to write on this?

Jonathan Griffiths: Well, Steve, J.I. Packer's one of the foremost theologians of the Christian church really of the last century. He was British born, but served for many years at Regent College in Vancouver and author of many books which have sold very widely because they've been so helpful. Perhaps his most famous book is one entitled Knowing God that he wrote earlier in his career. Many of our listeners will have read Knowing God, and we've made it available on the program before now.

But this book, Weakness is the Way, is one of J.I. Packer's last books. Within it, he explores actually the theme of weakness in 2nd Corinthians. So it's very relevant to our teaching series this month, but he draws on his own experience as well. Many won't know this, but J.I. Packer suffered a pretty serious head injury when he was a child at school. That impacted really his whole life story and the way he viewed himself and the way he saw God at work in his life.

He writes this book near the end of his life. It's one of his last books, reflecting on physical decline in older age and thinking back to physical weakness in his youth as well. Looking back with the benefit of all those years, he sees how God used his weakness to display his own strength and to use him for ministry and for the encouragement of so many. I think this book is going to be a real encouragement to so many, whether you are facing weakness in your youth or in middle age or in old age. You need to know and I need to know that God can use us in our weakness to display his strength. I think that'll be a real help.

Steve Hiller: Well, we want to send you a copy of this book, Weakness is the Way, as our way of saying thank you for financially supporting Encounter the Truth this month. Give online at encounterthetruth.org or call 1-833-99-TRUTH. That's 1-833-998-7884. Or again, the website is encounterthetruth.org.

You can also write to us at Encounter the Truth, PO Box 5513, Ottawa, Ontario, K2C 3M1. Or in the US, Encounter the Truth, 215 North Arlington Heights Road, Suite 102, Arlington Heights, Illinois, 60004. For producer Mark Bretta and our Bible teacher Jonathan Griffiths, I'm Steve Hiller. Thanks for listening and I hope you'll join us next time.