Putting up with it

Question:  Should ungodliness be permitted in a Christian home? 

Obviously not.  Or maybe not so obviously.  And maybe not even not.  Obviously Christian conduct should be expected of Christians.  But to what degree should Christian conduct be expected of non-Christians within a Christian home?  You might say that it should not be tolerated at all.  Truly, no Christian in good standing can allow full ticket blatant sin to continue unchallenged – and most especially not in their home. 

But what about UNblatant sin?  What if a family member living with you refuses to seek the forgiveness of Christ and goes out to commit sin on a regular basis?  Every Christian who is married to an unchristian must deal with that till they come to faith.  Every parent with a wayward teenager or adult child living at home struggles with this tension daily.  Many of us with older parents needing care face the same tension if those parents don’t bow the knee to Christ.  Anyone with a non-Christian boarder, and students living in residences with the general population – there are many groups who  could point out that living with others (who continue in sin) is a reality that must be faced.  A knee-jerk dogmatic response is not very helpful in real life.

Christ died for us WHILE we were still sinners, and while our flesh is still unredeemed He places His Spirit (perfectly Holy) in us as a seal of His ownership.  So the Lord – all holy and perfect – lives among and even in those who are NOT YET perfect in holiness. 

We see that in the Old Testament (the Lord being in the temple, even while His people were steeped in unrighteousness) and again in the New Testament (as noted above).  Yet when Jesus Christ comes back and establishes His Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven (thereby answering untold numbers of prayers), He purges the world of ungodly behaviour, and every knee shall bow to Him.   The Scripture exhorts us to purge the evil from among ourselves (Deut 13:5, 17:7, 19:9, 22:21, Jud 20:13, etc).

How do we live out this tension?  On one hand we see the long-suffering and daily extension of mercy to us who, having made a commitment to Christ and having spiritual rebirth, daily live in failing bodies.  Our souls redeemed and made perfect, our bodies not yet, and our minds a daily battleground.   Surely mercy and longsuffering is mandated.  On the other hand we recognize that we only win in that battleground when we’re disengaged from sin (in thought as well as action).  That is true for us as individuals, and it’s true for us as a church (see 1Cor 5).  Should that also be true for us as families?

In the KJV, 2Pet 2:7 says, “And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked”.  Lot lived among the wicked in Sodom and is usually given to us as an example of how NOT to live with ungodliness.  Though he was delivered, he just barely escaped and his wife (arguably half of him – the marriage making one out of the two) was destroyed in the process.  Can we learn anything from Lot’s example?  If so, it is in the verse Peter gives us. 

Tension produces a certain amount of grief.  Proverbs 19:13a says, “A foolish son is destruction to his father.”  That grief, while very hard to deal with on a sustaining basis, has a purpose.  Proverbs 16:6 says, “By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil.”

All (spiritually profitable) things are accomplished by Christ, yet we must align ourselves with His purposes even in dealing with ourselves and our world.  While He atones for our sin by His blood and purifies us by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, we recognize that to purge ourselves from our own sin (our part in sanctification) is - to understate it - difficult.  Anyone who’s enjoined the Holy Spirit in doing so (as I call it, ‘doing business with God’) knows that.  Should it then be a surprise to us that to purge OTHERS from their sins is even MORE difficult?

We cannot jump into their heads and make them understand.  Where it risks harm to others we must take decisive action to remove such people from our midst.  Where it only causes us grief – even great grief – we must constantly demonstrate the mercy of God and speak the truth of God.  That’s hard, folks.  It’s really hard.  It means we mourn over the disobedient every single day, and daily pray God’s mercy to them that they might not be destroyed.  To do that we’ll need His grace poured into us (so we can pour it out to them).  To do that we’ll need His love poured into us so we don’t get embittered. He is ever faithful and ever gracious in so blessing us….and realizing His character so manifested in us, we grow in godliness  - to our own benefit, even as we weep.