Obviously, from this scripture we could talk about the importance for Christians to take care of widows and orphans, and that is a very important work and much needed in many countries of the world. When I have visited India, I have seen some churches there who are doing an excellent job of caring for these people, and there are a lot of them there to care for. It’s a tremendous need…much more than in the US. But for this message, I felt a need to address the second part of these instructions that the Apostle James left for us to follow. He was saying that while it is very important for us to care for widows and orphans, we need to also be careful as we come closer and closer to the end of the age, that we keep ourselves from becoming “spotted” or contaminated by the things of the world.
Friends, the Bible tells us there will be many in the last days who will leave the faith, many will turn from Jesus to follow the ways of the world, many will compromise their true Christian faith and chase after the sparkle…the flashy lifestyle they see in the world. And we are seeing it happen now right before our eyes as compromise and worldliness has even infiltrated the church. What we see many people following today that they believe is faith in Christ in reality is far from the life that Jesus has called His True Believers to follow. They are following the ways of the world and not the ways of the Lord.
Now in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, Paul the apostle was instructing the Church at Corinth how to deal with a member of their church who was living a sinful and sexually immoral lifestyle. He said in verses 9-11, “I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person.” (1 Corinthians 5:9-11)
So in this text, Paul is specifically talking about Believers who are living sinful lifestyles. He is telling them that they should not separate from Unbelievers who live in sin. The reality is that Sinners are going to sin…it’s what they do and we shouldn’t expect anything different from them. But when it comes to other Believers, we SHOULD hole them to a higher standard, because they have been purchased OUT OF THE WORLD and they have been indwelt with the Holy Spirit so that they should no longer be living a lifestyle of sin. But in dealing with this particular person, He was not telling the Christian brothers and sisters to separate themselves from unbelievers, but in some circles today, you would think that is what God wants us to do. NO! In that case we would need to leave the world. What he said was for the Church to deal with sin in their midst. Stop allowing compromise to infiltrate the Church. Why? In verse 6, Paul wrote, “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?” He was very aware that a little sin would begin to spread and would then begin to affect the whole church. That is what we are to avoid, but sadly many churches today do not deal with sin among their own people. They don’t talk against it, they don’t deal with people who are living in blatant sin in their midst, and so it continues and has already spread throughout many churches. We are to STOP compromising with sin in the church… Christians need to deal with sin and put a stop to it.
Friends,
God has called us to be different. He didn’t call us to act like the world, or
to look like the world or to allow our lifestyles to be affected by the things
of the world. We are not to make the things of the world our priority. We are
only temporary visitors on this planet, on our way to our eternal home. And while
we are here, we are to be a blessing to those who are residents here…but we are
not to become like them. We are to “shine as lights in the world”
(Philippians 2:15) We are to remain “undefiled” while at the same time, we are
supposed to be making a difference in the world. That is our mission! So let’s
keep our own lifestyles clean while we are encouraging others to put their
trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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