This is an entirely hypothetical story, but imagine the Apostle Peter gets a letter from his good old friend Thaddeus (or Simon the Zealot, or one of the other original disciples). It's been so long! He excitedly opens the letter, to receive a message that this close friend, with whom Peter learned under Jesus, and served mightily, and witnessed the greatest miracles in history, is no longer following Christ. History records that all the disciples besides John died for the faith, so we know this isn't a true scenario, but supposing this happened, how would Peter feel to receive such a letter from such a dear friend with whom he'd shard so much? He would be devastated. His heart would be ripped out of his chest. His mind would go back to those precious days when they sat under Jesus, learning from Him, only coming to know Him for real after the Resurrection. After that, they were even more resolved! They shared precious memories, probably inside jokes between them, and maybe some petty exchanges everyone would rather forget. They were true Christian friends, with a bond nothing short of Heaven could improve on. How would Peter suddenly feel to have one of these dear friends confide that he no longer serves Christ?
This year, I have had two very dear friends (I'll call them Shari* and Lisa*) I have served the Lord with in the past confide that they no longer follow Christ or believe in Christianity. I just think of all the spiritual victories these friends and I won together. I think of a time Shari and I were doing evangelism in a large Midwestern city, a rough part of town. While I shared the Gospel with some boys, Shari prayed silently, keeping distractions at bay. About halfway through my sharing, something like gunshots sounded, scaring me to death. Shari pleaded with the Almighty to stop the noise, and keep it from distracting from the Gospel presentation. It turned out someone was playing with firecrackers, and God answered Shari's prayer, because it stopped before I got to the invitation. After these boys came to the Lord, Shari and I embraced, feeling we had fought a real battle. I think of Lisa and me serving together as teenagers, and becoming ministry leaders as young women. I think of all the wise and encouraging things she has said to me over the years. I think of the times both of these friends have prayed with me, and served with me. We encountered Jesus in real, deep ways together. Ways that were so real I could never deny it was Him. We experienced joy--real joy--prelude to Heaven joy. And yet...somehow, they walked away from that. Lisa even confessed to me that she had been avoiding me because she didn't want to talk about it with me, and said we don't have anything in common now. Uncertain what to say, I told her that I was open to hearing about all she had been through, but no pressure. After that, I told her, "You know who I am, and where I stand, so I'll leave it in your court if you choose to keep in touch, but know I'll always care about you and value you." I didn't know what else to say. Afterwards, I was left wondering if I said too much, or too little, or if I had left the door wide-enough open, or too widely-open.
Shari's confession was a few months ago, and saddened me. Lisa's was just this week, and now both of them are hitting me. How do we deal with dear Christian friends who leave the faith? Does the Bible address this?
Theologically, there are a few positions. Some Christians, whom I love and respect very much, but disagree with, site Hebrews 6:4-6 as evidence that a believer can forfeit his salvation and become unsaved again. I have addressed this a lot more in-depth in other posts, and this isn't my main point today, but I believe in the eternal security of the Christian, as I see it as much more consistent with the entirety of scripture. A verse we teach the children in our ministry is Hebrews 13:5b, ....I will never leave you nor forsake you. We are sealed with the Spirit (Ephesians 1:3). No one can pluck us out of Jesus hand, or the Father's hand (John 10:28-29). Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ (Romans 8:38-39). If we are faithless, He remains faithful (Second Timothy 2:13). He will continue the good work He began in us (Philippians 1:6). He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). Jesus is interceding for us (Romans 8:34). We also know there are saved individuals who will be in Heaven, but won't have any rewards, because they didn't follow Christ fully (First Corinthians 3:10-15). There are also those who were never saved to begin with (Matthew 7:23). It's a lot to wade through theologically. We don't always know where our friends are at when they claim to no longer believe.
So, aside from the theological aspect of our backsliding friends' eternal salvation, how are we supposed to feel about these kinds of losses? To be honest, I feel almost a sense of rejection. But even as this feeling comes to me, I am reminded of what God said to Samuel in First Samuel 8:7, when the people demanded a king, because they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me. This isn't personal toward me, and I never thought it was. It is toward the Lord, and that is why it hurts so much. Psalm 42:4 comes to mind, When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday. That is how I feel about friends like Shari and Lisa (and others as well). We went to God's house together. We worshipped the Lord together. We did battle together. We saw victories together. We laughed and cried together, and made very precious memories that are part of my spiritual journey, and very special to me. Particularly with Lisa, all I could think was, "I never thought it would be you!"
I started with the hypothetical question of how Peter would feel if one of his fellow disciples walked away. Well, one of them did. Judas. I wonder if they grieved that loss? Since Judas never saw the real reason for Christ coming, and didn't serve after the resurrection with them, it might not have been as hard, but I'm sure there was a sense of betrayal (not just for Jesus, but for the other disciples). We don't know how Peter reacted to this, or how he would have reacted to one of the other disciples in the imagined (and thankfully untrue) scenario I began with, but we do know how the Apostle Paul would address it, because he did.
In Colossians 4:14, Paul mentions Demas, and merely says that he sends greetings. We don't know a whole lot about this Demas, except that he was part of the early church. He served with Paul in some way. Demas is also mentioned in the closing of Philemon, listing Demas as one sending greetings (among some others). Later, in Second Timothy 4:10, shortly before Paul's death, he tells Timothy, For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica... This verse always makes me want to weep, and more so after these two friends' confessions to me. I'm sure Paul was grieved. If he discipled Demas, he may have asked himself, "What did I do wrong?" even if he didn't do anything wrong. If he was more of an "equal" with Demas, like I was with Shari and Lisa, maybe he replayed again and again in his mind all the times they served together, the victories they won, how real it all seemed to Demas then, and wondered how it all changed for him? Maybe Demas' love of this world was shallow and materialistic. Or maybe he struggled deeply with the persecution and difficulties of ministry, and just broke down and left for a while. Maybe he had a real crisis. We just don't know. I hope he came back to a close walk with Christ before his death, and started storing up treasures in Heaven again. One commentary I read suggested that Philemon may have been written after Second Timothy, and the reference to him there means that Demas was restored. This does not gel with most commentators on the Pauline epistles, who firmly say Second Timothy was Paul's final letter, but it would be encouraging to think this.
What about our own personal Demases? I know many more than just Shari and Lisa, though those two are some of the most intense relationships that this happened with. What do we do for them? We pray! We fight for them on our knees as fervently as we fought with them in the spiritual battles of the past. We are to love our fellow laborers to the end, just as Jesus did (John 13:1). We should never give up. We should never underestimate the power of the Holy Spirit. While chasing them down probably isn't the most effective way to bring them back, being available can go a long way. If these friends want to talk and share, listen to them. Show compassion. Validate their experiences without validating the conclusions they have drawn. Whatever they've been through is very real, even if the choices they made as a result were wrong. Try to understand, but never compromise on the truth. God's word is the truth we stand on, and we can let our friends know that's where we stand, even as we love and listen.
Finally, we keep on running our own race. I love Shari and Lisa, but their troubles can't stop me from doing as I've been called to do. I can grieve. I can cry out to God on their behalf. But I can't stop running my own race. We keep running! That's what Paul did. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. All that joy I experienced serving Christ and winning spiritual battles wasn't from Shari, Lisa or any other mortal. It was Christ in His glory, and we will see that infinity-fold in Heaven. That's why we do what we do! Keep running your race today! But pray for Demas as you do.
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