Why Choose Holiness?

[00:00:00] You, Lord, we ask that your light would shine upon us now through your word and spirit, that we might believe and find comfort and rest and holiness and courage and the will to act in even difficult situations. We ask that you would strengthen us, Lord, for moments of trial and discouragement, that you would calm our hearts as we remember your grace to us. [00:00:35] Lord, we thank you for the calling into which we have been called. We ask that you would be at work now in us, that you would continue your work in us and one day bring it to completion. We pray this now as we come to the reading and preaching of your word, and we pray it in Jesus name. Amen. [00:00:56] Let's turn to two corinthians now. Chapter six. [00:01:02] Remain standing if you're able, as we hear God's word now from two corinthians, chapter six. I'll be reading verse 14 through seven. One says the word of God. Let's give our attention to it. [00:01:32] Two Corinthians 614. [00:01:36] Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. [00:01:40] For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with belial? [00:01:52] Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? [00:02:00] For we are the temple of the living God. As God said, I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. [00:02:11] Therefore, go out from their midst and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing. Then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty. [00:02:28] Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God. [00:02:39] Amen. Please be seated. [00:03:08] It at various times in our lives, we find ourselves in situations where we realize we're in over our heads. We are over involved in something. [00:03:23] Maybe it's a club or some sort of hobby, or maybe it's a relationship or a project at work. [00:03:33] Life is a series of adjustments, making decisions of constantly calibrating and trying to figure out what is the proper amount of involvement with our time, our money, our emotions, all of these things. [00:03:50] It's also proper or not proper. It's also possible to be under involved in things as well, right? We can not be engaged enough. [00:04:00] We cannot be plugged in, as we say, properly. [00:04:05] Again, life is a lot about calibrating. Now, that doesn't mean we can be overly fixated on calibrating too, right? We can apply this to all kinds of things, but there is this sense of wisdom that we need right? Of discernment. [00:04:24] And this is true with our relationships. [00:04:29] With our relationships. The Lord speaks to us here and says, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. There is a danger, Paul says, in being over involved and not prioritizing our friendship and fellowship with God, which ultimately is marked by holiness. [00:04:54] Now, to clarify a few things. Paul is not saying here that we are to have no connections with unbelievers. He doesn't say that. He says, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. [00:05:08] If you turn back to one corinthians chapter five, you'll see Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians, saying something in a similar vein. In one Corinthians five, nine through ten, Paul writes this I wrote to you in my letter, referring to yet another letter, not to associate with sexually immoral people. And then he clarifies not at all, meaning the sexually immoral of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters. Since then, you would need to go out of the world. [00:05:43] But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he's guilty of sexual immorality or greed or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindlerd, not even to eat with such a one. [00:05:56] So you see his point there. His point in one Corinthians five is twofold. His main one is to say, when it comes to somebody that you are supposed to be aligned with as a brother. [00:06:09] Right? If that person is not acting as a brother, don't engage in brotherly kinds of relationships with them. Right? Not a good idea, Paul says. And then he clarifies. I'm not talking about not associating with anyone who does these things, because then you'd need to be totally out of the world. The world is full of sexually immoral people and idolaters and revilers and drunkards, and this is what marks our world. And so Paul clarifies, I'm not saying that you should totally separate yourself from any person who's committing sin or even serious sin, but you should not be doing these kind of brotherly things. Do not associate with a brother. We can say as a brother who is not acting as a brother. [00:07:00] Paul's saying a similar thing here, but coming at it in a different way and in a different context. [00:07:07] He's saying, don't be unequally yoked with unbelievers. [00:07:13] Calvin talks about the general things that we share with unbelievers, things that God has called us to share with unbelievers. Food, clothing, estates, sun and air. [00:07:26] These are all things Calvin points to as things that we have in common and in many ways must have it in common. [00:07:33] Believers don't have one son and unbelievers another son. Right? The rain fell on our city for the just and the unjust today and last night. [00:07:46] God intentionally does this. He creates and puts us in common environments. He leaves us intentionally in the world. God does not accidentally put us in these situations where we must be with unbelievers. [00:08:04] He puts us in a world intentionally for different reasons. One is to be light to the world. It is through us that he spreads his light, his word, his message, and brings salvation to sinners like us. [00:08:19] He also brings us sanctification as we interact with the world and as we learn to trust him beyond the things of this world. [00:08:28] So Paul is not saying here that we are to totally separate ourselves, to go live by ourselves out in the wilderness, to set up our own societies or countries that are just for believers. [00:08:47] But he is saying that in certain areas, in areas that we might call yoked, where there is a pairing involved for a close pairing involved for close work and similar aims, in places like that, we ought not to be yoked with unbelievers. There is an inequality in it that is not good. [00:09:12] And so while we are called to be in this world, it is God's design and intention. This is not an excuse, Paul says, or the scriptures say, for participating in deeds of darkness. Paul says in Ephesians 511, take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. [00:09:36] There is a way in which Christians at various times are tempted. We are tempted to engage in what I think Calvin calls it outward idolatry, in the sense that, hey, as long as I'm not doing things sort of internally, I can do and participate in sinful things externally. [00:09:59] That's not right. [00:10:01] We're not to take part in unfruitful works in darkness, but instead, by the light of Christ, expose them and call people to faith and to repentance, most especially ourselves. [00:10:17] So this means we have choices to make in our lives. [00:10:21] We have choices to make about the connections and the relationships and the people that we spend time with. [00:10:28] And one of the things Paul is saying here is we need to pay attention to this, and we need to watch out for areas in which we would be unequally yoked. [00:10:40] Now, this is often applied to marriage. If you've been in the church for a while, you've probably heard that. But notice that Paul doesn't limit it to marriage. It's right to apply this to marriage. But it's not limited to that here. In fact, he doesn't give us a list, does he, of all the places where you need to apply this, and another list that says it doesn't matter in these other places. So what does that mean? It means that you and I have to exercise wisdom. It means that, as he concludes in verse one of chapter seven, we need to bring holiness to completion in the fear of the Lord. In the fear of God. It is in the fear of God that the proverbs tell us that we have the beginning of wisdom. Wisdom comes from there. It comes from seeing ourselves in right relation to him and to his world, particularly through faith in Christ, that we come to see and understand things rightly. [00:11:39] We are told in the scriptures to pray for wisdom, to seek discernment, and that God promises to give it. So what that means is that the Lord takes away an excuse from us. We can't look at a passage like this and say, well, how am I supposed to do this? [00:11:58] Where's the list? Where are the things? Where are the relationships and the names of people that I can engage with and those that I can't? It's not there. Not because it's not important, not because that we don't have real decisions to make, but because the Lord calls us to put our faith, to put our fear in him, and then to act accordingly. [00:12:25] Which means that in some areas of life, we may have to distance ourselves from people in certain relationships and tasks, but unbelievers in particular, as he's focused on where others might be surprised. [00:12:42] We might be engaged in a certain business that, from the outsider's perspective, looks like just normal kind of common activity, no particular problem. But you know that there's a problem outside. Someone outside of your situation, in your context, may not see that a certain friendship or a certain business partnership or a certain activity that you're involved in is a problem. But if you see it, if you know it, you should act wisely and act accordingly. [00:13:16] But there are some things, some areas that we can say that are commonly common to us all and very important to pay attention to. And I'll mention three, three areas in which we ought to pay special attention to, because it's very easily to be unequally yoked. If you are yoked or with an unbeliever in these relationships. And so three things. One, close friendships. Two, marriage, and three, worship. [00:13:48] Close friendships, marriage, and worship. [00:13:55] If this was a Venn diagram where you have those overlapping circles, what's at the center of those three circles? [00:14:02] I think it has to do with that. In all of these different relationships, in worship, worshipping with others, in close friendships and in marriage, they all have aspects in which they are touching on the soul, all ways in which we're getting very close, closer and closer to core things about who we are, what we believe, our priorities, and things that affect various aspects of our lives. [00:14:32] In our close friendships, we share with people, with our close friends, our deepest feelings, our concerns, our longings, our wants, and they share those things with us, and we influence each other. It's kind of the whole point of a friendship is to support and be moved and changed by this other person. [00:14:57] If that other person, though, has significantly different priorities than you do, doesn't understand holiness and fellowship with the Lord as you do, if their number one is not your number one, it drastically changes things. It changes the nature of the relationship. [00:15:16] What is a close friend? [00:15:18] That's for you to determine. How close can you get? [00:15:23] It's a question of wisdom. It's not easy always to say, but it's something we must take into account and think very carefully through. [00:15:32] One of the ways that we can judge our friendships is by the fruit that is produced and something we ought to think very carefully about. [00:15:41] The second of these three that I mentioned, areas in which we ought to be pay particular attention to being unequally yoked with, is unbelievers, is marriage. [00:15:53] Basically, we can just take friendship and turn the dial up even more. Right. When it comes to marriage, here we have intimacy, closeness, fellowship, communion. But at a level the scriptures describe as one flesh. [00:16:07] Right? Is it possible for a believer and an unbeliever to be married? Yes. [00:16:13] Happens all the time. The apostle Paul describes relationships in one corinthians, where believers find themselves in positions where imagine two people who are unbelievers, and one comes to faith in Christ. [00:16:31] Now, what Paul says, continue on as you are, continue on in your marriage. Don't separate, don't divorce. But to finish his thought there, he says, if the unbelieving spouse does separate, then the believer is free to remarry. But his main point is, you don't have to remarry now. It is possible, but it's hard. [00:16:55] And talk to believers who are married to unbelievers, and you will learn very quickly how difficult it is. It is not something, while it is something we might remain in, while it is something that the Lord can bless and use, it is not something we should enter into. [00:17:17] And we'll get to some reasons why in a moment. [00:17:21] In marriage, there is intimacy and closeness. There's core decisions about how we raise our children, where we worship, which we'll get to in a moment, our priorities in life regarding time and money and other friendships and things like that. It's important that we are not inequally yoked. Finally, in worship. [00:17:43] Worship here we get to maybe even a deeper core towards our souls in worship. How can we, with unbelievers, adjoin in the worship of other gods, other priorities? [00:18:04] We cannot now, of course. Again, believers and unbelievers worship together all the time. [00:18:11] The scriptures tell us that the church is a mixed body. [00:18:15] It has both wheat and tears, sheep and goats, in the midst of the visible church. [00:18:24] But it is not something we should desire. It is not something we should aim after in the worship of God. We should be aiming for holiness. We should be aiming to serve him. [00:18:37] And it's as important. [00:18:42] What are some of the reasons? Why is it important? [00:18:46] I'll mention three disorder, dishonor and danger. [00:18:53] There's a certain absurdity and disorderliness and kind of craziness, we might say, about certain things going together at the same time. And this is something of what Paul gets at what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness. What accord has Christ with belial, named for Satan or the sons of the evil one, demons or something like that. [00:19:27] This sort of mismatch and absurdity is picked up in various ways in the early church. They'll talk about in the life of the Christian, for example, not necessarily in relationships, but in the life of a Christian, somebody who acts, who professes one way and acts another, is sort of like these mythical creatures, right? Like having the head of a human and the body of a horse. This is crazy, right? It's absurd. It's not fitting, it's disorderly. These things don't go together. [00:20:00] That's something of what is of concern here. [00:20:06] The fellowship of these things, they simply don't go together. Light and darkness is a good one to think about. [00:20:15] Do light and darkness go together? [00:20:18] No, they're the opposite of each other. Righteousness and lawlessness. There are things in this world that just don't mix. [00:20:29] Yes, maybe you can have them in the same place, but there isn't a joining, a one fleshy kind of thing happening. Communion, fellowship, closeness. And that's the goal of being equally yoked, isn't it? The goal of being equally yoked is having the images of two animals that are the same animal and of similar sizes moving together in lockstep. Right, I'm going the same way. [00:21:00] Sometimes diversity is really nice, and it's great. Sometimes it's not. How many of you this morning are wearing two different shoes? [00:21:10] None of us, I hope. [00:21:12] Right? Why? [00:21:15] Some of you are like, why would we not wear two different shoes, even if they might be great shoes, the one and the other? [00:21:24] Because it's bad. [00:21:28] You could point to disorderliness and aesthetics and stuff if you want, but let's just go for the easy one. If you've got one heel that's a little higher than the other, unless your legs are not equal and you're compensating for that, it's a danger to trip, to fall, to kind of hurt your back, put you in all kinds of misery, even with small differences. Right? It's why we wear matching shoes. It's a similar kind of thing. Some things need to go together. They need to be equally yoked, and that's important in our close relationships. [00:22:06] There's a sort of a dishonor that happens when some things mix. [00:22:14] This is probably one of the greatest examples which the Lord speaks about here in terms of the temple and thinking about idols. What agreement has the temple of God with idols? This is one of the reasons Israel got kicked out of the land, is because they had taken a temple which had been designed by God, dedicated by God, for the purpose of him dwelling with his people, and then filled it with detestable, abominable images, awful, dishonorable, disgraceful, sinful, unrighteous. The Lord compares it to adultery, to sexual immorality. [00:23:02] This would be like bringing another person into your bedroom and saying to your spouse, this will be fine. [00:23:15] What? [00:23:17] It's not fine. [00:23:23] What agreement has the temple of God with idols? [00:23:29] There is a danger to all of this as well. [00:23:34] The scriptures testify that when we entertain and draw close to immorality, we get harmed, we fall into sin. The proverbs say, who can carry fire close to his chest and not get burned? That's what happens, right? It's an aspect of wisdom. It's dangerous to us. And when we fall into sin, it's no small thing, even for the believer. [00:24:06] As believers, yes, we are justified not by our works, but by Christ's righteousness alone. [00:24:13] But does that mean that when we fall into sin, that the Lord will not discipline us. [00:24:18] No, it means that the Lord will discipline us because he loves us, because we are his. We're his children. We belong to him. [00:24:33] How many of you want to fall under the discipline of the Lord? [00:24:37] My guess is as many of you as are wearing different shoes. [00:24:42] It's bad to have the face of the Lord turn away from you to have the discipline of the Lord. He uses it for good, obviously, but it's not pleasant. [00:24:54] He used Jonah right, when he disciplined Jonah. But was it pleasant? It was so unpleasant that Jonah wanted to commit suicide. Throw me overboard. Just take my life. [00:25:10] When the face of the Lord turns away from us in his discipline, we can find ourselves in dark places, in hard places. [00:25:24] And of course, for the unbeliever, this is not discipline in the sense that God's the way that God disciplines his children, but it's just storing up more wrath for yourself, piling up the record of debt that you have with God, a record, a list, an account that must be paid and will be paid in hell. [00:26:01] We can think of it from a positive way as well. [00:26:06] What is the Lord's goal? [00:26:09] What is his desire from us? Is his desire for us that we would have difficulty in this life because we have to make hard decisions sometimes about who we associate with and who we don't, who we draw close to and who we don't. Is he just trying to be mean? [00:26:28] Make us mad? [00:26:31] Is he trying to make our lives just difficult? [00:26:35] No, of course not. [00:26:39] Since we have these promises in verse seven or chapter seven, verse one, Paul writes, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of the Lord. [00:26:56] One of the goals that the Lord has for us is holiness and communion and fellowship with him. Those are the promises that Paul is referencing when he quotes these various passages from the Old Testament. I will make my dwelling among them and walk with them. I will be their God and they shall be my people. [00:27:18] In the shorter catechism, the first question right. What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy him forever. [00:27:27] To glorify God and enjoy him forever. That's our chief end. That's what we were designed for. That was what we were made for. When God says, don't do this, he is offering to us himself as the replacement he is offering. And what does it mean to have the Lord? To have communion and fellowship with him? It means to have rest, peace, fulfillment, fellowship, beauty, meaning eternal life. [00:28:01] To walk with God as our first and our closest friend, to prioritize him above all things, to make him our first love, our chief end, our highest delight. The scriptures promise us that the Lord will not disappoint in him and in his life. The psalms say our pleasures forevermore. [00:28:28] Here's the thing that Satan always tempts us with. [00:28:32] He tempts us with these lesser goods to get us away from the greater good of God. [00:28:42] And when you say in your own heart, even as I say that, but is it really a greater good? [00:28:50] That's exactly what I'm talking about. [00:28:53] This doubt that we have, that God is our chief end, and that we can find perfect and fullness of joy in, in him forevermore. That doubt is unbelief. That doubt comes in part from the evil one and from our own flesh. [00:29:14] And it's foolish. [00:29:17] How can I prove it to you? [00:29:19] There's all kinds of ways, all kinds of arguments the scriptures give. One is to look at the things of this world and see where they get you. Just draw the line. [00:29:32] Moths eat rust, destroy thieves take away, you can't take your toys with you, all of these kinds of things, right? [00:29:41] Or we can look at people like the preacher in ecclesiastes, who says, and not just him, but even outside of the scriptures, people who will testify that they have endeavored after finding hope and joy in life and all the things under the sun, and they'll give proof of that, right? The things that they've built, the wealth that they've accumulated, the amount that they've learned. And they say it all comes up short. [00:30:11] So we can look at authorities, we can look at nature, we can look at our own lives. [00:30:18] How often have the things, the earthly things of this world that we've sought brought us full and perfect contentment? [00:30:25] Never. [00:30:28] And which next time is it going to finally start working? [00:30:33] Never. [00:30:36] We can go on and on. We can pile up example after example after example. When we look at the inadequacy and the insufficiency of even the good things in this world, the best things of this world, and how much worse, the sinful, rotten, horrible things of this world, like sexual immorality and idolatry and swindling and all of these kinds of things, where do those get us? [00:31:02] Not anywhere better. [00:31:07] And then we reflect on who the Lord is. [00:31:12] When we think about Jesus, our savior, who comes into the world, what kinds of things do we see him doing? [00:31:22] Healing, restoring, bringing some things out of nothings, life out of death. [00:31:37] He doesn't just take things and make them good and lasting. He glorifies things. He takes stuff out of nothing and turns them into things that are forever and full of blessing and health and joy and peace. He takes sinners like us, and he forgives their sins. And then not only does he forgive their sins, but then he gives to them his own righteousness. [00:32:11] He promises us eternal life in the kingdom of God. He gives us pictures of this kingdom and revelation, where he himself is the light, so that we wouldn't even need the sun, so that things are so beautiful and so glorious, that the apostle says things like, it looked like this, it seemed like that, it sounded like this. [00:32:39] We are promised bodies that are so glorious and wonderful. [00:32:47] That's the hope that we have, a hope that is lasting, a hope that is sure, a hope that is guaranteed for us in Christ, and a hope of not just a bunch of nice things, but, brothers and sisters, fellowship with God. [00:33:04] I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. There is no life apart from God. There is no goodness apart from God. There's no rest or peace or beauty apart from him. But in him we have all of those things, and more, better than you know, better than we can even imagine or ask for. [00:33:32] And the wonderful news of the scriptures, and we'll close with this, is that the way that we have those things is through him. [00:33:46] How do we come to have this communion with God that Adam lost in the garden? [00:33:52] Because God acts I, he says, will make my dwelling among them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And that happens through our savior, Jesus, the perfectly holy one who comes into this world. John tells us that the word of God became flesh and tabernacled among us. [00:34:17] He lived among us. He dwelt among us like the temple of God. [00:34:23] And indeed, he makes us into the temple of God. He joins us to himself through his work on our behalf. So that the scriptures would say that the Holy Spirit dwells in us, that we are a part of the body of Christ. [00:34:46] When we begin to understand ourselves and think of ourselves in relationship to him in this way, in relationship to our communion, in union with him in such an intimate way, because of what he has done. [00:35:00] Wisdom becomes a lot easier when you see yourself and know yourself to be the temple of God, the body of Christ, when you see the sweetness and the glory and the grace of God that has been extended to you in changing you, to bring you out of death and make you alive, then going back to dead things doesn't make a lot of sense. [00:35:26] It becomes less attractive. It becomes yucky, gross, something we don't want to be near. [00:35:35] We begin to see sin more clearly. We begin to see light more clearly. Our eyes are opened. [00:35:47] So in one sense, to be unequally yoked with an unbeliever can feel like a really difficult thing to do when we really want to be yoked with them, when we really want to be in step and in close fellowship with them. [00:36:04] But discernment and wisdom become easier when we remember the work that God has done, when we remember the good news of his gospel, when we remember his transforming power and who he has made us to be, when we remember that he is our chief end, then these decisions begin to make more sense, and they become easier, too. [00:36:30] Paul talks not necessarily or specifically about relationships with unbelievers, but about everything in life. And he says, I'll give up everything and anything for the sake of knowing Christ, for the sake of living in him and loving him. [00:36:49] Because of the Lord Jesus, because of the work that he has begun in us and will bring to completion, we are then called to act accordingly, to live lives in accord with the work that Jesus has done for us. [00:37:07] And so, brothers and sisters, let us hear the word of God and take it seriously. [00:37:12] And where we have failed in this regard, the scriptures tell us that we can look to Jesus in faith. [00:37:19] We can trust him and ask him to help us to make things right in our lives, to forgive our sins and bring people around us that we can join with. [00:37:33] He doesn't leave us alone. He fills our lives in his proper timing and in his proper ways with brothers and sisters that we can unite with and be encouraged with and fellowship with and worship with. [00:37:52] Let's ask the Lord to do these things, and let's trust in the gospel that he will do them for us. [00:38:00] Our heavenly Father, we thank you for sending your son into this world for living and dying so that we might live and die or die and then live in him. [00:38:12] We thank you for your Holy Spirit who lives and dwells in us and is producing the fruit of righteousness in us, who gives us a desire for holiness. [00:38:23] Lord, we confess right now before you that we do not always desire holiness as you desire it. This puts us in situations that are dangerous, that bring us misery and bring us a chastisement. [00:38:41] Lord, when we put ourselves in these situations, we recognize and confess to you that these also dishonor the name of Christ. [00:38:51] Lord, we ask that you would forgive us of these things and that you would give us wisdom that we might know a when and how and on what levels to join with other people. [00:39:06] None of us, Lord, are as holy as we ought to be. All of us must join with people that are struggling in holiness, that are on the road and in need of your grace. [00:39:22] Lord, we ask that you would help us not to be proud and arrogant as we think about these things, but in Lord, help us to see our own sinfulness and our need for you. [00:39:34] Let our lives be light unto others, that they might not stumble because of us, but that they might be drawn even more unto Christ. [00:39:47] Lord, we ask for holiness not only in our individual lives, but also in your church. That holiness that is marked by the fruit of the spirit, by true christian fellowship, by peace, love and, of course, forgiveness. [00:40:05] Lord, it is through your grace and your grace alone that we are separated unto you, that we are separated unto eternal life. [00:40:13] Lord, it is because of you that we can dwell on Zion. It is because of the Lord Jesus Christ that we are close to you, that we have fellowship with you. [00:40:26] And so, Lord, let us cling to him above all relationships in this life, all things of this world. Let us see him as our greatest love and then order our lives accordingly. [00:40:43] Lord, we ask that we would help, that you would instill in us that fear of you, that mixes love and reverence, that puts all of our faith and longings in you and in you alone. [00:40:59] Our hearts are resistant to these things. [00:41:03] Soften them. Lord, our minds are clouded, and we find difficulty in knowing how to do the right thing. [00:41:14] Help us to see our wills are weak. Lord, we ask that you would strengthen us and that as you do these things, Lord, we ask that you in your fatherly care would turn your face toward us and help us to see the blessings, to experience the joy in knowing you bring us fellowship and peace and rest in you. We pray this in Jesus name, our only savior and our only hope. Amen.