Boundaries, Love, and the Secular World (Ep 169)

---

Thank you for listening and welcome to the podcast. I'm your host, Jason McConnell. Picture this. You have a friend. You have known them for years. They are funny, loyal, genuinely fun to be around. But lately, every time you leave a conversation with them, you feel like you've been spiritually deflated, and you can't quite explain it.

You have-- You haven't really done anything wrong, but something feels off. Maybe the conversations have started drifting in a direction that makes you uncomfortable. Maybe they mock your faith in small ways, pass it off as a joke. Maybe you've noticed that the version of yourself you bring to that friendship is quieter, less confident, and a little more willing to let things slide that you used to stand firm on.

And here's the question you've been afraid to ask out loud: Is it time to walk away? That question feels almost too uncomfortable for a Christian to even consider. We are called to love people. We're called to be in the world. We're, we're supposed to be the ones who stay when everyone else leaves. But does love mean unlimited access?

Does faithfulness mean staying in every relationship no matter what it costs your faith? Today, we're gonna sit down with that question and let scripture do some talking. We're gonna look at Second Corinthians six, Proverbs four, and Matthew eighteen, and a few other passages. Now, my goal is not to hand you a permission slip to cut ties with anyone who doesn't share your belief.

My goal is to give you a biblical framework for making one of the hardest relational decisions a Christian may ever face.

[: 00:01:43

---

Let's start with the guilt, because if you're sitting with this question, there's a good chance guilt is sitting right there next to you. Now, most of us may have grew up in a church culture that emphasizes inclusion, grace, and compassion, and those are good things. But somewhere along the way, those values got twisted into the idea that saying no to a relationship is the same as failing the person, and that's really not what the Bible teaches.

There is also this enormous cultural pressure right now to never create distance in a relationship, right? Our culture has decided that the most important virtue is acceptance and that creating any kind of relational boundary is the same as passing judgment. If you step back from someone, you're a bad person.

If you limit your access, you're intolerant. That pressure is real, and it makes this conversation harder for Christians, especially Christians, because we already carry the weight of wanting to reflect Christ to everyone around us. But here is what we often overlook. Jesus himself created distance from people who were harmful or hostile to his mission.

In Luke four verse thirty, he walked right through the crowd that was trying to throw him off a cliff. He didn't stick around for reconciliation and conversation. In Matthew ten fourteen, he told his, his disciples to shake the dust off their feet and move on when a town rejected them. Jesus was not trying to wound these people.

He was protecting the mission and the messengers. Paul, uh, was writing in his second letter to the Corinthians from a very specific context. Corinth was one of the most cosmopolitan and morally permissive cities in the ancient Roman world. It was a port city, a trade hub full of temples to foreign gods and every kind of secular influence you could ever imagine in that time.

The believers there were surrounded daily by people who didn't share their faith, their values, or their worldview. And Paul was not telling them to hide from all of that, but he was telling them to be smart. So the question we're asking today is not, should I love secular people? Because of course you should.

The question is, when does a specific relationship cross the line from holy tension into genuine spiritual harm? And scripture has a great deal to say about that.

[: 00:04:32

---

Now, the verse that almost always comes up first in this conversation seems to be Second Corinthians six fourteen. "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?" Now, I've, I've talked about this before, but just as a reminder, that word yoked comes straight from Deuteronomy twenty-two ten, where God told the Israelites not to plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together.

The two animals are completely different in size, in strength, in gait. And if you force them to walk and work side by side, neither one can do what they were designed to do. The plow will end up crooked, the weaker animal may get hurt, and the work just doesn't get done. Paul takes that agricultural image and applies it to close partnerships between believers and unbelievers.

Now, this is important to get right here. Paul is talking about deep covenantal partnership, marriage, close ministry collaborations, business arrangements where your character and your future are bound with someone else's. He's not saying you can't be friends with secular people.

And he's not saying to cross the street when somebody without a church background walks towards you. That would make you both spiritually elitist and a lot less fun at parties. In fact, Paul makes this exact clarification one chapter earlier. In 1 Corinthians 5, verses 9 through 10, he writes, "I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral or greedy and swindlers or idolaters.

In that case, you would have to leave this world." So in other words, I'm not telling you to build a bunker. This-- the issue is not whether someone is secular. The issue is what the relationship is doing to you. Matthew 18, verses 15 through 17 gives us something else worth paying attention to. Jesus lays out a step-by-step process for addressing conflict and, when necessary, creating distance in a relationship.

Now, you go to the person privately, then you bring a witness, then bring it before the community, and if none of that works, Jesus says to treat them as you would a Gentile or tax collector, which, by the way, does not mean you hate them. Jesus ate with tax collectors, but it, it does mean the posture of the relationship changes.

There's no obligation to keep giving someone unlimited access to your life when they have repeatedly shown that they have no interest in honoring it. Proverbs 4, verse 23 kind of wraps this up with a more direct command, uh, in the scripture. "Above all else," sorry, "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it."

Now, that word "heart" in Hebrew is lev. It is not just your emotions. It is your will, your reasoning, your moral center. Guarding your heart is not some sort of a weakness. It is one of the most important acts of stewardship that a follower of Christ can practice.

[: 00:07:49

---

All right, so we've looked at what scripture says, but how do you know when it's actually ap- applicable to your situation? How do you know when a relationship has crossed the line from, "This is hard, but it's good," into, "This is genuinely hurting my faith"? Start with this diagnostic question: Am I influencing this person towards Christ, or are they shaping me away from him?

Now, this isn't a trick question. It does require real honesty. N- not the kind where you say what sounds spiritual, but the kind where you sit quietly before God and actually look at the evidence in front of you. Now, here are some warning signs that a relationship may have crossed that line. You've started editing what you believe to keep the peace, right?

You leave time with that person feeling spiritually drained rather than challenged or refreshed. You've become less open about your faith around them, and not because you're being wise about timing, but because you're afraid of their reaction. Now, if you find yourself defending or excusing behavior that you know does not line up with what you believe, that's a big warning sign.

Romans sixteen, verse seventeen adds kind of another layer. "I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause division and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned." Now, an obstacle here is not just a philosophical disagreement. It's anything that consistently makes it harder for you to walk faithfully with God.

Now, Henry Cloud and John Townsend, in their foundational book, Boundaries, describes th- they describe personal limits this way. "They are not walls that keep people out. They are fences with gates. You decide who comes in, how close they get, and what they are allowed to bring with them. Healthy boundaries are not about pushing people.

They're about protecting what God has placed inside of you." Good advice right there, if you ask me. A Barna Group research, um, they published in two thousand eighteen, um, they-- A publication found that one of the strongest predictors of whether a young Christian retains their faith is the spiritual quality of their closest relationships.

The people we spend the most time with do not just affect our moods. They can affect our beliefs, our habits, a- and our convictions over time. Now, that's, that's not a small thing to worry about. That's worth taking very seriously. Now, o- one, one more thing to notice is this. Is the relationship one-directional?

Meaning are you the one always giving ground, always softening your convictions, always managing how the other person reacts to your faith? If you've been in a friendship for years and you cannot point to a single moment where your faith genuinely influenced that person, but you can point to plenty of moments where that friendship influenced the way you handle your faith, that's asymmetry, and it's telling you something you need to listen to

[: 00:11:20

---

All right. I have one more topic on this conversation, and this is gonna be a shorter episode, and that's fine. But let's be clear about something before we go any further. Walking away from a relationship is not the same thing as writing someone off. Christians do not get to write people off, but we do get to make wise decisions about how much access someone has to our lives and under what conditions.

So the question is: What does walking away actually look like? Well, Matthew eighteen patterns-- The, the Matthew eighteen pattern is your roadmap here. Uh, do not start by disappearing. Start with an honest conversation. You do not have to turn it into a big theological event. You can simply say, "Look, I care about you, and I, and I have to be honest that this friendship has been pulling me in a direction I don't think is good for me.

I, I may need to take a step back." Now, that's not a rejection. That's genuine integrity. And if that conversation is met with hostility, manipulation, or a renewed push to get you to compromise your faith, you've definitely done your part. You do not owe anyone an indefinite number of tries. I'm gonna say that again.

I want you to listen. You do not owe anyone an indefinite number of tries. Jude one verses twenty-two through twenty-three puts it this way: "Be merciful to those who doubt. Save others by snatching them from the fire. To others, show mercy mixed with fear." Walking away, it's not the same... It's not the absence of mercy.

I-if done correctly, it is mercy itself. It keeps the doors open while protecting what is inside.

Now, I'm gonna try to give you some practical steps to walk away with grace. And understand that you're only one side of this equation. You can only do so much to make this a peaceful interaction. The other person, the more they push back, the more they try to hurt you, should tell you a lot. But here, let's try these first.

Reduce the frequency of contact gradually rather than cutting someone off without explanation. Stop going to that person for counsel, validation, or support on matters of faith because they are not equipped to give you what you need there. You need wise counsel. You need godly counsel. You can pray for them consistently.

That's really important, and that's-- When I say we don't get to write people off, we can have people exit our lives, but we should still pray for them. We should still be concerned about them. We should still hope for their belief in God. Now, this matters more than it might seem. Keeping someone in your prayers protects your own heart from bitterness and keeps your posture towards them grounded in love rather than self-protection.

So that's another part of prayer that's important. And leave, leave the door unlocked. Look, you can close the door, but leave the door unlocked because people change. God works. The fact that you stepped away may be what they need to plant that seed finally. The person who mocked your faith five years ago might be the one texting you at two in the morning asking for a prayer someday.

That has happened probably more than anyone can count. Your job is not to control their outcome. You have to be-- We have to be clear about that. Your job is to make sure that when and if they are ready, they know you are somewhere they can call. Now, I wanna be very clear here. This does not include abusers.

If somebody is genuinely abusing you, you have to push them out of your life. You can pray for them, but I, I would caution you to letting, letting them back in. Now, Galatians six verse one gives us one final reminder here. "But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted." Look, even in the process of saying a careful grace-filled goodbye to a relationship that has become harmful, stay honest about your own values.

Stay own-- honest about your own vulnerabilities. This is not about being better than anyone. It's about being honest about what you can and you cannot sustain

[: 00:15:36

---

So as I mentioned, this is gonna be a pretty short episode, but this was a topic that was weighing on my heart, and I, I really wanted to say a few words. So let's go ahead and bring this together and, and close the loop. Now, we started with the question: When is it time for a Christian to walk away from somebody who is secular?

And the answer is really not simple, but it is clear. It is time when the relationship consistently pulls you away from Christ, and your honest attempts to address that have not changed anything. It is time when staying has become an act of spiritual self-destruction rather than an act of love. Love does not mean unlimited access.

Scripture gives us a clear path here. Guard your heart. Recognize when a partnership is pulling in a fundamentally different direction. Follow a thoughtful and gracious process before stepping back, and always leave the door at least unlocked for God to work. Walking away is not a failure of love. I- if you walked away from somebody, that's not a failure.

That is, that is stewardship. When it's done with prayer and honesty and an open door, it can be one of the more faithful things you do, both for yourself and for the person you are stepping away from. And before you do anything with what you heard today, spend some time in prayer. Ask God to show you whether you are protecting your faith or simply avoiding a difficult discussion.

Those are two different things, and only He can really help you tell them apart. Now, we leave you with the verse that has anchored everything we've talked about today. Proverbs 4:23. I'm gonna read it again. "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." Until next time, keep loving your neighbors, dive into God's Word daily, and may the Lord bless you and keep you and fill you with His peace.

Take care, God bless, and I'll see you in the next episode.

Share Episode

Shownotes

Transcripts

Follow

Links

Chapters

Video

More from YouTube