STUDY THEME: WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE? “MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD.”
2 Cor. 6: 14-7: 1; 1 Cor. 1: 26-31; Matt. 5: 13-16:
Many Christians today wonder how God can use them. They feel too ordinary to have any lasting influence on non-Christians or on the culture in which they live. Yet just as an artist rather than the brushes he or she used gets credit for painting a masterpiece. God gets the credit for accomplishing extraordinary things through ordinary people. Believers must thus make themselves available for God’s use.
Early 19th century British politician William Wilberforce changed the course of history and has been credited with ending slavery in the British Empire.
Wilberforce was influenced early in life by the great preacher John Wesley, founder of Methodism. Wilberforce worked tirelessly and withstood great opposition in his efforts to make slavery illegal. He died one month before his efforts were vindicated with the Slavery Abolition Act. Wilberforce is an example of how one dedicated Christian can make a difference in the world.
You have read before, “I am but one person. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. That which I can do I should do. That which I should do I will do, so help me God.”
Your and my influence as Christians may not be on the scale of Wilberforce’s, but we can and should make a difference in our world.
Impacting our world for Christ is what Jesus meant when He referred to His disciples as “the salt of the earth” and the “light of the world” in Matt. 5: 13-16.
Wherever we are and however we can, we should bring our biblical convictions to bear on our culture.
In our lesson passages this week, we will study how God calls believers to be different from the world and to make a difference in the world through the power of the gospel.
Jim Elliot was an ordinary man who believed God could make a difference through him. Seeking to reach the Acua Indians of South America, he and four other missionaries gave their lives as martyrs for Christ. Before his death, Jim made a statement that still inspires believers. He said, “He is no fool who gives that which he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”
Jim lived out that motto in the jungle of South America: he gave his life (which he couldn’t keep forever) to gain a martyr’s crown (which he’ll never lose.)”
Sometimes we may think because we aren’t famous or rich or gifted that God can’t use us. This lesson reminds us that God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things for His glory.
An artist, rather than the artist’s brush, gets credit for painting a master-piece. In a similar way, the Lord receives praise for accomplishing things through those who are available for Him to transform their culture. What can God accomplish through you?
The thrust of today’s lesson is the statement made by Jim Elliott: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot kept to gain what he cannot lose.”
Our Scripture search for today includes three background passages. These are from two letters of Paul and a portion of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel.
In 2 Corinthians 6: 14-7: 1 Paul urged believes to beware of relationships with unbelievers that could negatively impact their commitment to Jesus Christ.
In 1st Corinthians 1: 18-31 Paul reminded the Christians at Corinth that God uses ordinary people to do supernatural things.
In matt. 5: 1-16 Jesus described the characteristics of those who are transformed by His grace and power. He declared that faithful believers will be His agents to make a difference in a sinful world.
PLEASE READ 2 CORINTHIANS 6: 14- 7: 1.
Second Corinthians is a personal letter from Paul to the believers in Christ who lived in the city of Corinth. Through the first six chapters, Paul poured out his heart and spoke freely about his apostleship and his love for the Corinthian believers, despite how they at times had saddened him.
In 2 Corinthians 6: 14--7: 1 Paul abruptly changed his subject and resumed it in 7: 2. Beginning in vs. 14, he admonished the believers to separate themselves from the sin around them and to be holy. Paul’s instruction divides into two sections: the believers’ relationship with unbelievers and Paul’s call to holiness. These focal verses are a unit of though in which Paul said the Corinthian believers must change their attitudes toward worldly relationships.
The structure of vs. 14-16a is simple: Paul issued a command in vs. 14a; and then he stated a glorious truth in vs. 16b. Paul commanded the church to not be mismatched with unbelievers.
The warning is not that they should disassociate entirely from unbelievers. Rather, the believers must shun relationships that would turn their hearts away from their calling to Christ. Mismatched is from a Greek word that refers to different kinds of yokes such as cattle wore when pulling together.
Paul spoke about the believer’s relationship to the world in his First letter to the Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians 5: 9-10 Paul said that Christians should not withdraw from the world, as some today do who live in monasteries or convents and have no contact at all with non-Christians.
While separating themselves from the world means many things, it does not mean disassociating ourselves entirely from unbelievers. Otherwise, we could not be agents of salt and light for Christ in our spheres of influence.
It is just as urgent today as it was in Paul’s day that Christian believers make up their minds about the importance of purity. Too often we abandon passion for holy living merely to become popular in a sinful world.
But in 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1 Paul reminded us that believers in Christ are incompatible with the world and its values. In a series of five rhetorical questions Paul showed how differently God wants believers to live from the world of unbelievers.
Paul asked what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Can righteousness and lawlessness ever develop into close partnership and intimate sharing? Of course not. They are inherently opposed to each other. This means all believers must maintain a careful balance between avoidance of contractual emotional, legal “yokes” with unbelievers yet retain interaction with lost people to build bridges for witnessing.
Or what fellowship does light have with darkness? With this question, Paul proved his point about spiritual mismatches. Those who live in darkness of sin have no appreciation for the values Christians cherish. Jesus is the “true light” of the world.
The opposite of Him is darkness, so how can the two join to each other? Paul‘s third question “What agreement does Christ have with Belial? States the point a bit more forcefully.
Agreement translates the Greek word for “symphony.” How can Christ have any accord with Belial, a name meaning “worthless” and used in Jewish writings for the Devil, the prince of darkness and lawlessness? The answer is obvious, “He cannot.”
The fourth rhetorical question Paul asked was, what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? The question’s intent is not to raise doubt whether a believer can, for example, share a job or an office or a carpool with an unbeliever. Paul’s implied answer is that believers and unbelievers do not share spiritual values. Every believer should realize the spiritual and eternal difference between him or her and an unbeliever. Why even try such an impossible yoke?
Paul’s final question is what agreement does God’s sanctuary have with idols? The word translated agreement is a different Greek word from the Greek word translated agreement in vs. 15. There the word refers to harmony. Here the word refers to approval or union. Unbelievers in the first century who worshiped many gods had no problem adding Jesus to their pantheon of gods.
But for believers, joining the living God with lifeless idols is heinous. Sanctuary does not refer to the Jewish temple complex with its buildings and courts. It refers to the innermost sanctuary of a temple where God dwells. Paul used the word to refer to God’s presence in believers’ lives.
Paul wrote in 1 Cor. 6: 19 that each believer is the sanctuary of God’s Spirit Whether as individual Christians or as a united body of believers, we dare not synthesize ourselves with the false gods of this world.
In this second letter to the Corinthian believers, Paul followed up his warning against their having partnering relationships with unbelievers with five rhetorical questions. He stated a glorious truth: As believers in Christ we are the sanctuary of the living God. We is emphatic, and the word includes not only Paul and the Corinthians, but all believers in Christ.
Idols are lifeless creations of spiritually dead people. In contrast, we are the sanctuary of the living God! Paul used this simile with the Corinthians in his first letter to the whole church, and in 6: 19 he applied the word sanctuary to individual believers.
To back up the point that believers’ separation from unbelievers was God’s plan all along, Paul drew from O.T. passages. 2 Cor. 6: 16-18 contains quotes from Leviticus, 2 Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. Though these words were written by O.T. prophets, Paul knew God had said these words.
According to these O.T. Scriptures, separation is essential to consecration. Israel had to come out of Egypt before they cold be separate from the Egyptians. In Paul’s thinking Israel’s experience emphasizes the importance of Christians being morally alert and consciously aware that certain social relations with the world are not wise.
In 7: 1 Paul repeated his appeal for the Corinthian believes to separate from worldly influences. Because of God’s covenant promises, we should wash ourselves clean from every impurity of the flesh and spirit and make our sanctification complete.
By flesh and spirit, Paul probably meant any and all defilement---external and internal, seen and unseen, public and private. Our sanctification involves our ridding ourselves of impurity and our striving after holiness. Through the Holy Spirit, the life of Christ inside us makes our lives like Jesus Christ on the outside.
Let’s sum up Paul’s teachings in these verses. Believers should exercise godly wisdom in drawing the line between separating themselves from the world and engaging the world in order to influence it.
Believes must take seriously both Christ’s commission to preach the gospel to the world and the biblical command to separate from the world. They must distinguish themselves as God’s agents, even as they interact with the unbelievers and seek to influence in godly ways the culture in which they live.
What relationships with unbelievers are forbidden to Christians? An obvious example would be marriage of a believer with an unbeliever. Successful marriages are intended to create an intimacy based on a love for one another and superior love for God.
This is not possible when one of the marriage partners is an unbeliever. Christians who knowingly marry an unbeliever in the hope their spouse will be saved are often disappointed.
The most important issue of compatibility for a Christian single looking for a mate is spirituality. A Christian husband and wife who are both growing closer to the Lord will at the same time draw closer to one another.
An example of another forbidden relationship would be a business partnership with an unbeliever. Christians who unwisely bind themselves legally to an unbeliever will often find themselves pressured by the unbelievers to do things that would violate biblical ethics. Christians should enter into agreements with other committed believers who share their love for God and the same purpose in life.
These two examples do not cover the many forbidden and unwise relationships Christians should avoid. Christians should be wise as they consider employment, club memberships, investment opportunities, roommates, and many other relationships that could create tensions and temptations. We should be careful to avoid any hindrance to our spiritual growth and service to God—our sanctification.
PLEASE TURN TO 1 CORINTHIANS 1. Paul addressed a turbulent and disobedient church in Corinth.
1, Please read 1 Corinthians 1: 26-31.
The basic problem in the Corinthian church was selfish pride. We encounter this early in the letter. The members were arguing in 1: 12. In championing their own choice for best leader, each person was actually championing him self. Paul referred to selfish pride as the wisdom of the world. He set over against this worldly wisdom the kinds of wisdom in vs. 18-25. Such humble self-giving as Jesus taught and practiced is the opposite of the selfish pride of the world. Christians are to live and die by the way of the cross.
The thought of the contradiction God’s method offers to the wisdom of men is illustrated by the kind of people He has called to be His own.
He might have put the gospel in a form, which would have appealed primarily to the intelligentsia. Human wisdom would concentrate on outstanding men. But God has no need of human wisdom. Rather He chooses those who have little to commend them from the worldly standpoint.
The world worships worldly wisdom, power, and prestige. But Paul reminded his readers that when they considered themselves not many were wise men after the flesh, not many were mighty or influential, not many were noble (of noble birth). Paul did not say that there were none, but they were few. Among the members of the early churches were such as Lydia and Philemon, but many were uneducated, poor, and enslaved.
The critics of Christianity made much of this poor status of believers. A man named Celsus said this about Christians: “Their injunctions are like this, ‘Let no one educated, no one wise, no one sensible draw near. For these abilities are thought
by us to be evils.
But as for anyone ignorant, anyone stupid, anyone uneducated, anyone who is a child, let him come boldly. By the fact that they themselves admit that these people are worthy of their God, they show that they want and are able to convince only the foolish, dishonorable and stupid, and only slaves, women and little children.
Celsus ridiculed both Christians and their God. He was a worshiper of wisdom, power and prestige. The idea of a God who allowed Him self to be humiliated and crucified was not his idea of a powerful god. And the poverty and powerlessness of Christians only added to his contempt. But Paul saw things differently. He saw the cross as the way of salvation and the pattern and power for genuine living.
In vs. 27-28 Paul states his view that the cross and its way in the lives of Christians is the way of true wisdom, power and meaning. He wrote, “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty or to shame the strong.”
Foolish here does not mean God thought the believers at Corinth were foolish but rather the world did. People in today’s culture will consider you a fool too if you take your stand for Jesus. Family members of many students at the seminary do not support their decision to serve the Lord in vocational ministry.
Some of these students testify that loved ones have spoken their objection in words like, “You’re just wasting your life.” But when we are foolish or weak in the world’s eyes God can use us to shame the wise and strong. Unbelievers cannot comprehend how God changes sinners into saints. They are powerless to do so themselves, even with their wealth, prestige, and influence.
God has chosen the world’s insignificant and despised things---the things viewed as nothing---so He might bring to nothing the things that are viewed as something. In the opinion of Celsus and others like him, Christians were “nobodies.” But God in Christ has made these “nobodies” into “some bodies.”
In vs. 29 Paul clearly applied this to the problem in the Corinthian church---selfish pride. Boasting is out of place and wrong. “No one can boast in His presence.” In the presence of the crucified, risen Lord, there is no place for pride but rather for humble praise of Him.
In vs.30 Paul used one of his favorite ways of describing Christians. We are in Christ Jesus. Paul used four words to describe what Jesus Christ means to believers. In Him is the only true wisdom. Only in Him do we have righteousness. This refers to being made right with God through faith in Christ.
The word sanctification points beyond the initial stage of salvation to its continuation in a life set apart to God. Christ in us makes that possible. Redemption refers to liberation from sin and death. The final redemption is a matter of confident hope. All of this is found in Christ and in Him alone.
In vs. 31 Paul summed up the issue by quoting Jeremiah 9: 24. We should not exalt ourselves, but we should praise the Lord Jesus: “He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.”
Regardless of what we are or what we do for the Lord, we never merit His grace. Only He receives glory for a saved and changed life. Isaac Watts captured he spirit of Christian gratitude when he wrote these familiar words:
“When I survey the wondrous cross, on which the prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride.”
The purpose for including this passage in this lesson is to show that God uses ordinary people. Abraham Lincoln said, “The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is why He makes so many of them.”
The members of the early church were rank-and-file people, not the movers and shakers of their day.
A leader in a rich and powerful church showed a friend the trapping of the church. As he did he used the words of Peter to the lame man in Acts 3:6. The proud churchman said, “You can see that the church can no longer say, “Silver and gold have I none.” His companion countered by saying, “Neither can you say, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.” “The church loses the power of Christ when it becomes like the world.”
PLEASE TURN TO MATTHEW 5.
PLEASE READ MATTHEW 5: 13-16.
We focus on our final section of this lesson in a portion of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Imagine the scene. Jesus was surrounded by His disciples with the crowd looking over their shoulders. Jesus had shocked the disciples with the ‘Beatitudes’. Then He delivered another shock. He looked at this small group of followers and said that they were the hope of the world. The words He used were the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
We just studied a passage that shows that God uses ordinary people. The disciples were such people. Remember that Jesus was talking to four commercial fishermen, a tax collector, a zealot, and other everyday people. Yet Jesus said that they would be the preserving force in a corrupting earth and the light in a dark world. Probably no one was more surprised than Peter, Andrew, James, John, Matthew, Simon and the others. Modern disciples are equally shocked by this audacious statement, especially when we to are to be salt and light in a corrupt world.
Many people despair that no one can make a difference in our world. Certainly we don’t expect to make much of a difference ourselves.
Jesus used two common items that were in every home in His day to make His shocking statements in Matt. 5: 13-14. Salt and lamps were indispensable commodities. Salt was used to flavor food, but its primary use was as a preservative. This made salt essential in a society before refrigeration, and oil lamps provided light in days before electric lights.
Jesus’ saying says something about the earth as well as something about the disciples. The earth is subject to corruption and disciples are called to help preserve it. Other ancient sources show that Paul’s description of the first-century world in Romans 1: 18-32 was not an exaggeration.
People had turned from God to the folly of idolatry. This in turn led to sexual immorality, perversion, and all kinds of antisocial vices. Our world is little different today.
The form of the Greek in Matt. 5: 13-14 stresses “you” when Jesus said, “Ye are the salt of the earth.” The same is true for “ye are the light of the world.” This was like saying, “You and only you.” Greek moral teachers urged people to become what they should be, but Jesus calls His followers to be what they are in Him. Salt creates thirst, and God’s people should live in ways that make unbelievers desire the joy, peace, and power that only the living Christ can give.
Jesus did warn that salt can lose its saltiness, its savor. Most salt came from the Dead Sea and had many impurities in it. This salt left a white powder residue that had so many impurities that it failed to do what pure salt can do.
Impure salt was good for nothing because it failed to fulfill its purpose. Jesus was saying that His followers must remain pure if they are to fulfill their purpose in the world. At the same time they must have contact with the world in order to preserve it.
We cannot imagine how dark nights were before the age of electricity. In those days lamps and torches provided the only light on moonless nights. By calling His disciples the light of the world, Jesus was saying something about the world and about His disciples. As the world is subject to corruption and needs disciples to be saving and preserving forces, so the world is covered in the darkness of sin and death and needs believers to reflect the saving light of Christ.
Light and darkness are familiar images throughout the Bible. John 8: 12 says, Jesus is “the light of the world.” He is the source of saving and guiding life. We are lights when we reflect His light.
As the light of the sun is reflected by the Moon, so the light of the Son is reflected by His followers. We do not generate light on our own: we reflect the light of our Lord.
The purpose of the light is to shine. Evan a small light in a city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. We must not hide our lights, for Jesus calls us to shine, as lights should. No one lights a lamp and then hides its illumination. This is comparable to losing one’s saltiness.
As we can fail to be salt by failing to be a preserving influence in a corrupt world, so we can fail to be the light of the world by hiding our spiritual influence.
Jesus spelled out the positive command in vs. 16. Instead of hiding our light we should let our light….shine before men. Jesus wanted His followers to shine the light of truth into the world not only through their words but also through their good works. Christians not only stand for truth but also show their compassion for the hopeless and helpless through caring ministries.
However, the purpose is not that they may praise us but that they may glorify our Father, which is in heaven. This assuredly calls for a verbal testimony to Jesus Christ. Otherwise people might give us credit for living a good life.
Being salt and light has many practical implications. Salt is a preservative, but it also stings. Light reveals what darkness seeks to hide. Light illumines and guides us.
Hundreds of millions of people have no spiritual light because they do not know Jesus. Jesus has sent us into that darkness to live for Him and to tell people that He is the Light of the world.
Being the salt and light includes not only our primary mission of telling the good news of salvation in Christ but it also includes having a Christian influence in every way possible.
The Baptist Faith and Message says, “Every Christian should seek to bring industry, government, and society as a whole under the sway of the principles of righteousness, truth, and brotherly love. In order to promote these ends, Christians should be ready to work with all men of good will in any good cause, always being careful to act in the spirit of love without compromising their loyalty to Christ and His truth.”
Having Jesus dwelling within us makes all the difference in the world; and believers who demonstrate Jesus’ power to forgive, to change, to transform, make an eternal difference in the world.
NEXT SUNDAY FROM ACTS 19 WE LEARN HOW TO SHARPEN THE EFFECTIVENESS OF OUR MINISTRY FOR CHRIST AS WE READ OF THE APOSTLE PAUL’S MINISTRY IN EPHESUS. A.V. DAUGHERTY
<altav@swbell.net>