Pals
2Co 6:14-15
(14) Don’t become partners with those who reject God. How can you make a partnership out of right and wrong? That’s not partnership; that’s war. Is light best friends with dark?
(15) Does Christ go strolling with the Devil? Do trust and mistrust hold hands?
Possibly one of the most difficult challenges of ‘the walk’ is the whole who-to-hang-out-with thing. There can be a tendency, which this passage from 2Corinthians would seem to support, to avoid anyone who doesn’t believe exactly like you as if they are somehow on a lower or unacceptable level. Separating oneself from the world is such a necessary part of joining up with the heavenly kingdom, and to do so requires severing any ties to those former or potential pals who are in it.
Then, though, you look at what Jesus did and how He instructed. He chose fishermen and tax collectors as his closest companions and hung out with publicans and sinners. Then He told the disciples that He would make them fishers of men, which would imply getting close to the fish and maybe even in the water. So what was different about His approach to relationships that made it possible for Him to be in the world and yet not of it? He seemed to have this passion for those that he came to save that compelled Him to go be with them rather than just hang out in the temple with all the ‘holy’ dudes. Jesus was able to be friends with those who didn’t appear to reflect a holy lifestyle, and He didn’t appear to have a distaste for anyone other than those who were errantly proclaiming to be religious. He didn’t exactly remove Himself from any association that might taint His reputation.
There was something about Jesus’ relationships, though, that distinguished them from others that might attempt the same. When He entered into fellowship with anyone it wasn’t a partnership with who they were or what they were about. It wasn’t an unequal yoke where they were the ones influencing Him. You didn’t ever see Jesus compromising His own holiness to be ‘accepted’ or liked. He never chose to impress anyone by becoming like them, but it was in fact the opposite- they were changed by knowing Him. Those who were transformed the most by Jesus were not the temple goers, but rather the ‘lost sheep of the house of Israel’. (Mat. 15:24) For His light to shine the brightest it needed to go to the darkness.
While Jesus was ‘taking it to the streets’, however, He maintained another relationship that was never compromised in the least- His relationship with His Father. There was never a yoke or a commitment to a worldly association that could ever come close to the priority of His Father’s nearness, counsel and fellowship. Wherever He went to be with those who were living an unholy life, He took His Father with Him, and going there itself was actually the Father’s idea, as Jesus disclosed that He didn’t do anything without first seeing His Father do it. When He arrived, it wasn’t to have a little ‘mutual bonding’ where He could somehow come to understand them by being one of them; He arrived to be the light of the gospel of His Father’s goodness. He arrived not to condemn, but to show the way for them to turn towards salvation and wholeness. To know Jesus wasn’t to influence Him, but it was to be influenced by Him and His Father. To know Jesus was to know His Father. If there were to be any yoking, it would be the laying down of the heavy worldly yoke for the easy one that Jesus offered.
How will they hear unless someone communicates to them, and how will this take place unless someone is actually with them, you know, getting in the water? The difference might be who is going for who’s bait. The separation must always be from the world and it’s darkness, but there still must be a contact of influence, where we with our ever present Father are being guided into uncompromising relationships of gospel imparting opportunity, where light is dispelling darkness and never being consumed by it in the least. Going into the world is a directive, while separation is an essential necessity. They can merge in a life that is given to full time worship, where any dominating influence is that of the Father.
Php 2:15 That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;
