Guarding Our Partnerships

Sermon Transcript

Well, there is an amazing violin in England that they say is one of the finest violins ever made. It, of course, is a Stradivarius. It was made in 1716 and they say it is so unique, it has the most amazing, exquisite sound that a violin can possibly make. Now, if you want to hear it, you’re going to be disappointed because it’s hermetically sealed in a case in a museum in Oxford, the Ashmolean Museum. And so it sits there in silence and you don’t get a chance to hear it because they say it’s so valuable. It’s so valuable that they’re just going to put it in a case and now you can look at it but you can’t listen to it because it’s not played. And I think to myself, there’s something ironic about that. Here’s something so valuable that was designed by craftsmen who were trying to make a musical instrument, and now it’s just like a piece of art and that’s all it is. You look at it but you don’t get to hear it. And I think to myself that’s kind of sad that something made that way is not being used for what it was intended for.

Now our lives, by the way, are intended according to Christ through his Word in Ephesians Chapter 2 verse 10 is that we’re as Christians are said to be his craftsmanship, we’re the craftsmanship of Christ. He’s made us anew as we learn in Second Corinthians Chapter 5. We’re new creations in Christ. And it says in that text for good works. That’s what we’re created for. We’re created for “good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” So it’s almost like we have God here creating us to do something and there’s this musical score that’s written for us and here’s what we’re supposed to do. And that is our calling. And of course that glorifies God. It does good for our world. And it’s good in our society. It’s good in our families, it’s good in our church. And yet, unfortunately, many of us are not doing what we ought to do.

And by the way, that violin, the reason it sits there in silence is because it fell into the hands not of musicians, but it fell into the hands of instrument repairmen and curators of museums. William Hill had created this instrument repair shop that became renowned in England, and his sons had acquired this violin and they thought it was so valuable because they came in acquisition of it, they said that we’re just going to bequeath it to the Ashmolean Museum and put it on display. And that was the terms, just put it on display. That’s what you do with it. And I thought to myself, that’s really sad because if someone had this exquisite Stradivarius that was made so uniquely and was unique among Stradivarius violins, that you would have a whole different history if you had put that in the hands of musicians and not repairmen and curators. And really, it’s the alliance that silenced the music of that instrument.

And it will be the alliances in your life that are going to keep you from being the kind of Christian who is going to follow in this path of good works that God has set for you. And Paul didn’t want that to happen to the Corinthians, and God doesn’t want that to happen to you. And he saw that happening, Paul did, in Corinth and so he wrote a set of words, eight words. Well, actually seven words in English, but just three verses that I think get right to the heart of it. A lot of it will carry into next week as we continue to study in Second Corinthians 6. But he warns us and gives us really sharp advice here. It’s an exhortation to make sure that we don’t let our alliances silence the good works that God has called you to do. Because I can say from my experience in watching Christians live out the Christian life in the modern era, that’s precisely what happens. It’s the relationships. It’s the partnerships, it’s the connections. It’s the friendships. It’s the alliances that people are in that end up muting their Christian life. And I don’t want that to happen to you.

And so let’s look at a verse that may be quoted a lot to our adolescent children, our teenagers, not to date the wrong people, but it wasn’t written for a youth group. This is written for you and me. And so we want to start with ourselves and then we can apply it to our families. But take a look at it, Second Corinthians Chapter 6 verses 14 through 16. Now I’m going to stop in the middle of verse 16 and we’re going to leave that quote from the Old Testament for next week. But we’re going to deal with just this, I guess, two and a half verses as we talk about something that just is straightforward, we can spend the whole time really on the first seven words in our English text. But he goes on to explain it, and that’s very important that we gather that as well. So follow along as I read it for you. Second Corinthians Chapter 6 starting in verse 14.

Have you found this text printed on your worksheet there? Do you happen to be following that? It says, verse 14, “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.” Now, when I was a kid growing up in church I thought this was about eggs. I wasn’t sure what this meant, but I eventually learned with a good Sunday school teacher at some point what this actually was all about. It goes back to Deuteronomy Chapter 22 and Leviticus Chapter 19, which, by the way, is often quoted to us in arguments these days that maybe we’ll get to if we have time. But the reality of what the Bible says, and it almost seems like a verse that is like the master of the obvious, you don’t need it in the Bible, but it says back there in Deuteronomy 22 and echoed in Leviticus 19 that you’re not supposed to yoke an ox with a donkey. You weren’t supposed to take your animals and have a strong animal like an ox be next to a donkey. And a yoke, of course, if you don’t know, is a big piece of wood that goes over the shoulders, the backs of these animals with usually some iron rings and then some leather straps that go under each, and basically a collar that ties them together. You hook it to your plow, what you’re doing in the field and you’d think, well, okay, an agrarian society should be able to figure that out. Yahweh does not need to reveal to his people that you shouldn’t have an ox and a donkey that are hooked up together because it would take about half an afternoon to figure out this isn’t working very well and we shouldn’t do it.

But there’s a reason for it. There’s a reason for it, not just the application we have here, but it certainly applies to the application we have here, and that is that it all comes back to God’s concern for you and me not to be yoked up with “donkeys.” How about we put it that way? We’re very careful that we have a very different perspective on our lives than nonbelievers. We should see that as he says in the next word here, “For,” and then he goes on to explain these contrasts. He uses a list of words here “partnership,” “fellowship,” “accord,” “portion” and “agreement.” And he says, “What partnership has righteousness with lawlessness?” And of course, righteousness, we think about Paul’s teaching to the Corinthians. So far it’s been imputed to us. We’ve “become,” as we ended in Chapter 5 of Second Corinthians, “the righteousness of God.” And that happened because the righteousness of God in Christ has now been imputed to us, because our trust is in him. We no longer live for ourselves. We live for him who died for us and rose again. And that transference of our trust to Christ by faith in our repentant life of saying we’re going to now be his, that imputed righteousness comes to us.

Now that’s what we call in theology “positional sanctification.” The word sanctification means “set apart,” but it’s a righteousness that we have because we’re no longer like the rest of the world. We are set apart, and God now imputes or credits his righteousness to us so that we’re fully acceptable to the Father. Then we begin as Christians the pathway of what we then call “progressive sanctification.” We’re progressively becoming increasingly holy as we do what the law says. As Jesus said in the Great Commission of the Church, it’s one of the reasons we center on the teaching of the Bible every single week, is that we are supposed to, once we make a disciple, they commit themselves publicly through baptism, now we’re supposed to teach them to observe or to obey all that Christ commanded, which is all the ethical rules of the Old Testament and then all the things that he said in the New Testament.

Now you compare that which I hope is your life and your commitment, I want to know God, and therefore, through faith in Christ I have his righteousness imputed to me. Now I’m seeking every day, every month, every year to increase in my adherence to the righteousness in my behavior. As God is holy, “be holy yourselves also in all your behavior.” That’s how Peter put it. Now God puts it through Peter that we are now supposed to say that’s my goal. My goal is to be increasingly like God and to do all that God asks me to do, to be a godly person. And as we’re doing that, what’s the word that compares the non-Christian, the unbeliever, as it’s put in verse 14? Well, he’s lawless. Now, that doesn’t mean that you live next door to the worst person, you know, in the world, but it does mean this: he really doesn’t care about the law of God. He is, much like in the book of Judges, it’s repeated twice as kind of the theme of the book, that when there is no king “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” And the king, of course, in Judges who was lacking was the kingship of Yahweh. That God was not king in the lives, in the hearts, and the priorities of the people. And we, of course, called Jesus our Lord. Right? And for us there’s one Father, one God, and one Lord Jesus Christ. And by the Spirit’s help we’re seeking to do what God says.

And so we do what God says. And if God says to us, as Christ has commanded, you become a Christian, you repent of your sins, put your trust in Christ. Well, then you should get before people now in your church. It’s an instrument or an ordinance of the church, and you should be dunked in water in front of everyone. Well how embarrassing. My hair is going to be wet. I’m going to be soaking wet and I don’t want to do that. Well, the Bible says to do that. That’s why many of you here can think back to the day that you got baptized. You got baptized in church because you declared to people you’re a follower of Christ. Why did you do that? Because you not only have been imputed the righteousness of God, but now you’re committed to doing what is right before God. So you got baptized. And then we come together, we have church, and we partake in the Lord’s Supper throughout the year. You take a little piece of bread. You take a little fruit of the vine, you drink that and you say, okay, we’re remembering Christ crucified for us. We’re proclaiming his death.

Well, here’s one thing your neighbor doesn’t do. Your neighbor didn’t get baptized. Your neighbor doesn’t practice the Lord’s Supper. That we’re supposed to give to the work of God in our church. Your neighbor isn’t giving to this church, I’m pretty sure of that, right? So here’s what we have. We have people who don’t care about what God says we’re supposed to do. But you do care about what God says. So even at the beginning of this description between you, the Corinthian Christians or us here, the Orange County Christians and unbelievers, well, we’re governed by not only being imputed the righteousness of Christ, but now we’re supposed to live out the righteousness of Christ and they don’t. Now they may do whatever is right in their own eyes. That may mean that they’re more normal than some biker gang in Santa Ana or something, that may be true, but the reality is they’re doing whatever they think is best. We do what we know God says is best.

Look at the next line. “What fellowship has righteousness with darkness?” One of the main motifs throughout the New Testament is that we are now enlightened, let’s just put it that way. As it’s put in John Chapter 9, we have now eyes to see. We can see the truth. We affirm the truth. As a matter of fact, if we want to see the truth like amplified or turned up, or let’s say I have the dimmer switch turned up, we’re supposed to open up the Bible every day, and we’re supposed to see it as “a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” What are you supposed to do in your life, in your ministry, in your marriage, in your parenting? What are you supposed to do? Well, you open up God’s Word and it becomes a lamp to your feet, a light to your path. You’ve been taken out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of his Son, the kingdom of light. You’re now lights in the world and the light of God’s truth that’s what governs you.

But they are just like you were, as it says in John Chapter 9, in darkness, they don’t see the truth. They don’t care about the truth. They don’t understand the truth. They don’t seek the truth. They don’t open up the Bible as God’s source of revealed truth. Now they’re not doing that, they didn’t study the Bible this morning, your non-Christian friends, your coworkers, your neighbors. They didn’t do any of that. They’re not interested in that. You’re here trying to study the Word, taking some notes, opening the Bible. You’re doing that and I trust you’re doing it every single day because you are a believer, you’re a Christian. “What accord has Christ with Belial?” Belial is a word from the Old Testament. It’s a Hebrew word that’s transliterated into Greek here, and it is a word that’s used several times in the Old Testament, over 20 times, and it describes, like the king of chaos. Let’s just put it that way. The king of confusion. It’s kind of like the Lord of the Flies as sometimes people will describe it anachronistically.

But the idea is that there is a sense in which there is a leader among chaos, the one who wants to kill, steal and destroy. And then there’s the Christ, the Messiah, the ultimate one, the ultimate prophet, priest and king. And we say to ourselves, okay, well, how do those go together? I mean, we’re not sitting around thinking about the head of confusion, the enemy of God having a, you know, a copacetic, harmonious relationship with Christ, the king of the Church. They’re the polar opposites. What accord is there between the two? Well, there’s none. “Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?” You should know there’s one word there, “portion” and “share” are translated in two different places in the sentence. But what portion or share does a believer have with an unbeliever? Well, that’s a reiteration of verse 14. Don’t be, that is the implied, you all, right? You believers, don’t be yoked with unbelievers. Don’t be in a partnership, in a connection with unbelievers. Right? You shouldn’t be because look at how different you are and you need to say, well, what portion do I have? That’s an interesting word here. What merit? What part? What share, what connection? You can put all those other words in the list. Accord, fellowship, partnership. What do I have really in common with unbelievers?

And then it says in verse 16 it introduces a new concept, the temple concept, which Paul has said a lot about in the book of First Corinthians to the Corinthian Christians. “What agreement has the temple of God with idols?” Okay. The temple of God he’s talked about in Romans Chapter 3 as us corporately, we are the corporate temple of God. Just like the flock has a shepherd and the body parts have a head. We are the bricks in this building that, according to Ephesians, are being built into this temple of God. It’s the place where God dwells among us corporately. He’s the cornerstone. He’s the foundation. Okay, all of that described in First Corinthians Chapter 3 is describing us corporately. Well, two chapters later he gets very specific and he says even you guys, thinking about your sanctification, “your body itself is a temple of the Holy Spirit.” So this idea of us being connected in some personal way with divinity, the divine nearness is with us. God is in us, as it’s put in Second Corinthians Chapter 5. And that reality is what agreement does the temple of God have with idols? Right?

We wouldn’t put Artemus or Diana or any of the Greek gods, a Roman pantheon of gods, we wouldn’t put them in the temple of the Old Testament, in Solomon’s Temple or Herod’s Temple as it was revised in the first century. You wouldn’t do that because they don’t have anything in common. That’s the whole point. There should be a distinction between the two of you. And then he makes this statement. “We are the temple of the living God.” That’s a great place for us to stop and pause. And that’ll be a great way for us to wrap this whole thing up. But let’s just start with the first verse, which I know you’ve already thrown a flag in your own mind. This is not fair. This is impossible. Who can live this way? We can’t possibly live in this world unequally yoked with unbelievers. Okay.

So let’s take this sentence and let me word it for you in a way that may allow for the reality of First Corinthians 5, we’ll get there in a minute, and let’s just state it like this. Let’s take those seven words, “not be unequally yoked with unbelievers,” And let’s put it this way, number one, we need to end compromising alliances.” Jot that down. “End Compromising Alliances and Corrupting Partnerships.” We need to end things that are going to take your values, your morality, your sanctification, and compromise them because of the relationship, because of the alliance, the partnership. We need to end those. Now he’s putting under the banner of believers and unbelievers and that’s where you throw a flag. How in the world can we live our Christian life out between now and the time we die and meet Christ personally? How in the world are we going to live without partnerships, alliances and associations with non-Christians? Great question.

Let’s go to First Corinthians Chapter 5. We’re not trying to say what is ridiculous to assume that somehow we’re going to live our lives not rubbing shoulders or working next to or living in a neighborhood with non-Christians. Of course we are. Okay? This goes deeper than just kind of walking through life and having lots of people in my maybe extended family or personal family, or in my neighborhood or my workplace who aren’t Christians. Of course that’s going to happen. Now, if you look at First Corinthians 5 just glance through the first ten verses, you can see the problem is an incestuous relationship in the church. And like a lot of modern churches today they were kind of happy about how loving and merciful and inclusive they were by having this person welcomed into their church, and they didn’t care about what he did because they’re all about grace. Well, the problem is the grace of God is calling us to deny ungodliness. And that wasn’t happening in this guy’s life. And they didn’t demand repentance. And Paul says, you have to kick this guy out of the church. If he’s not willing to repent and change his behavior then we’re going to change his status with our church. That’s called church discipline. That’s what this section is about.

Now he goes back to a previous letter that he wrote. Take a look at it in verse 9, First Corinthians Chapter 9. And he says, “I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people.” Verse 10. Not at all. Not at all. “Not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and the swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world,” obviously, right? I’m not saying you have to work at a church or a missions organization or a Bible translation society, where you have to be in some kind of monastery or as the early church started to do, the Desert Fathers. Let’s get out of the cities, let’s go into the desert, let’s start a commune and all we can do now is worship and sing songs and we’ll be away from the world. No, that’s not what God is asking us to do. We’re going to have to associate. That’s very different than what we’re dealing with in Second Corinthians Chapter 6. We’re talking about an alliance. We’re talking about a kind of commitment, a connection, something that goes further than I work at a place with non-Christians. I live in a cul-de-sac surrounded by non-Christians.

Because I guarantee if you work in the average workplace, look at verse 10, are there greedy people there? Oh, man, there are greedy people at your workplace. Swindlers? There probably are. Idolaters? By definition non-Christians are idolaters. Sexually immoral? Probably plenty of those at your workplace too. So I want to begin by saying obviously we’re not looking for the monastic movement or the Desert Father movement, or we’re not looking for kind of isolation, communalism. That’s not what this is calling us to do. What it is saying, though, is be careful about how you give yourselves to particular partnerships, relationships and alliances that end up corrupting you. And they’re going to be, by and large, non-Christian alliances that you connect with non-Christians, just like you wouldn’t yoke together an ox with a donkey. That’s not how this works for you. Okay.

Let’s think about this. Let’s start with your job because I just said, in essence, you may work at a place with a lot of swindlers and idolaters and greedy people and adulterers, every other office or whatever. But maybe that’s true. Okay, but even in your workplace, you’re not indentured, you’re not a slave. Right? You might need to rethink your job because the job itself that you’re contributing your talent to, your effort to, your educated insight to, what you’re doing all week is not doing something like most of the companies that surround us visually here in the parking lot. They’re doing things that I would say because of God’s common grace they’re doing things that even though capitalism, which I think is a good thing, that’s a different sermon, is motivating these things, whether it’s NeoGenomics across the street trying to solve cancer, or RxSight trying to make sure that we have the right lenses in the glaucoma, you know, surgeries or whatever. These are good things. Yeah, there’s money behind it and there’s exchange of money for that service but those services are trying to do something for the common good of society. They’re trying to help human flourishing. They’re trying to help people who are sick.

There are plenty of things surrounding us. There’s probably not a single one, at least in our little business park here, that you’d say I think that is a partnership with an organization that is doing something, you know, detrimental to society. But if so, then you are already hooking your wagon to the wrong horse. And I would say that’s a partnership you need to rethink. And some of you probably listening to my voice right now you work for organizations that you need to sit back and say this organization is not doing anything for the good of society. This actually is providing vice to our society. It’s providing addiction to our society. It’s doing something that is contrary to what God would like to do through the common grace of society to help either justice or right or good or health or whatever it might be. God is in favor of those good things, and I hope you can look at your company and say the bottom line of my company that I give my time to, my effort to, in exchange for money so I can earn my bread. Because the Bible says in First Thessalonians, you have to work to earn your bread, both in Second Thessalonians you have to do that. All of us have to work and we can’t all work for Christian organizations.

So you’re going to work in a secular setting, and you’re going to be next to in your cubicle or your office people who are swindlers and greedy and idolaters, and that’s going to happen. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. But as long as we’re talking about your work, can you make sure that in your work you’re doing something and giving yourself to something that is providing for human flourishing and for good in society? If not, you’re not a servant. You’re not a slave. You need to give up whatever paycheck you think you won’t make somewhere else and say, okay, I’m going to give up this paycheck to go here even though it is going to pay me less or may not be as good on the surface. I’m going to do this for the sake of not being in an alliance that I know ultimately is providing some non-Christian end to the world. And by that, I’m talking about something that is contrary to what God would want for humanity. Does that make sense to you?

So let’s start there. And you’re not nodding very vigorously on that because maybe you’re thinking of people who you know who need to change jobs or maybe you’re feeling the pain of conviction. What is your company doing? What is your business providing, right? And most things, and I mean that, most things thankfully still in our society in Orange County at least we’re still providing some good and that’s good. And almost all businesses, but not every one of them and some of you need to rethink your association there.

I said these compromising alliances usually come up in our minds when we think about our children. And, you know, if they’re post-adolescent and they’re, you know, falling in love, so to speak, we often say, oh, be careful, especially if they’re raised in church, they make a profession of godliness and Christianity in some way. They profess faith in Christ. Then you’re going to say, oh, you know what? Don’t date a non-Christian. And that’s where we often think about this text. And that’s not a bad place to go, although it’s not written to youth groups, it’s written to all of us. And we need to think though as a parent it may be your responsibility. Maybe you already have a ring on your finger and so you’re in this covenant relationship. Maybe you even chose poorly. Don’t say amen. (audience laughing) Maybe you chose poorly. And I would say First Corinthians Chapter 7 says you’re in it. This is a bigger commitment than you just saying, well, I have a non-Christian spouse, I am unequally yoked, so I’m going to get out of it. First Corinthians 7 already addressed that, for the sake of the covenant you need to stay in it, and you need to stay in it in hopes that you might be the means by which God brings salvation to that home. And if nothing else, you’re a sanctifying effect in that home to your children.

So it’s important not to bail on even a non-Christian connection. But even that should feel the way you talk to your post-adolescent children by saying to them, hey, don’t fall in love here with the wrong person. And even if you do it’s time for us to end that corrupting or compromising alliance because that’s the easiest way this happens. It’s as soon as it happens in people. It’s the soonest thing that comes across people’s paths usually, and that is they say I feel this intense feeling, this attraction for someone. And I look at them and, well, they’re not Christian, but they’re a good person. Well, the whole reference of this section is all about how we really need to think about the differences here. And the differences are profound, right? Don’t let your kids, and I mean this, don’t let them, I don’t care if you have to lock them up in the closet. That’s probably not exactly what I mean but metaphorically it’s what I mean. You’re going to have to keep them from saying I say I trust in Christ, but I’m interested in pursuing a romantic relationship with someone who does not.

That is a non-negotiable in the Scripture and clearly one of the most obvious ways to apply this passage and you need to apply it that way, parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts. It needs to be clear coming out of your mouth because you’re speaking the very will of God with the authority of Scripture when you say you cannot date a non-Christian. This is as simple and straightforward as it gets, so let’s be careful with that, okay? The same goes for adults, right? Whatever’s going on in your life, maybe you are single for whatever reason. You have to guard yourself to make sure that you don’t get into an alliance. Because nothing from the beginning of the Bible to the end, let’s just think of the Old Testament narrative, I would even argue from Genesis Chapter 6, which really starts in Genesis Chapter 5, all the way to the end of the historical books of the Old Testament, which are Ezra and Nehemiah, the whole problem has been on romantic alliances that ended up compromising God’s people.

Think about it from the very beginning. It’s not just falling in love with whoever is the most attractive. And I know that really bums out our post-adolescent kids. They moan, “Well, only dating Christians, that really narrows it down. There are only homely girls at church,” or whatever they say to you. (audience laughing) Whatever they say, right? Which you know is not true. But it is going to narrow their band. So here’s the thing. Okay, I would much rather say to you, you’ll have a way better life and a way better marriage, even though you could have married some more attractive person, and how long does that last anyway? A more attractive person. I know I’m scoring no points with you ladies today, (audience laughing) but I’d much rather you share a commitment with someone who loves the Lord Jesus Christ with all their heart, soul, strength and mind. Right? And say, oh, okay, maybe she won’t be on the cover of any magazine but here’s the thing. We share the same commitment to the Lord. Trust me on this. Right? You know, this is going to matter, and you need to teach it. And you need to make sure this happens. (audience applauding)

And by the way, let’s go back to the first one because some of you will not quit your job that you know you’ve hooked up to something that is really not providing for the good of society. Really, it’s becoming a vice for people or whatever it might be. You’re in an industry you should not be in. Right? And the reason you don’t is because, well, you know, I won’t make the same level of pay. Just like your kid has to give up certain high aspirations of the kind of gal that he could land. You need to make sure that you’re willing to give up on the kind of job you could land and the paycheck you could land to say, I’m breaking, corrupting, or compromising alliances. And I’m going to say I’m willing to take a lesser job for the sake of making sure I’m doing something in this job, or this business or this industry that’s providing some good for society. And thankfully there are plenty of jobs still available to do that.

By the way, Balak hated the Israelites and wanted them cursed, so he hired Balaam to go out and do it. Do you remember the story? And remember like Fonzie trying to apologize, Balaam couldn’t spit out the curse out of his mouth. Do you remember that? And God keeps putting blessings in his mouth every time he tries to curse them. Well you think that Israel won in all of that. But they didn’t. Because though he did not get them at a direct assault, do you know how Balaam ends up turning God against Israel in that chapter in the book of Numbers? By getting them to fall in love with the pagan girls? That’s how it happened. Just know from beginning to the end of the Bible the concern, including this passage and all the Old Testament narratives, you’d better watch who your kids, your nieces, your nephews, your grandkids fall in love with. This is a big deal and clearly it’s one of the things we can’t miss.

Let’s go to some other things. How about things that you don’t have to do? You have to get a job. You have to work. You have to exchange your hours for dollars and your talent for money. I get all that. All right. But here’s the thing. Right? There are a lot of things you associate with that you don’t have to. Think about societies or clubs or guilds or associations or your kids going off to college with fraternities or sororities. There are a lot of things you do not have to associate with, but you willingly associate with them and they’re not going to help your Christian life. They’re going to somehow detract from your Christian life. They’re going to be a corrupting or a compromising influence. And you just need to realize, even though you think you’re Superman and Batman and Captain America all rolled into one, and that you’re going to influence them. But here’s what the Bible clearly says. He who walks with fools. Right? He becomes like them. You’re going to compromise yourself. You’re not. You’re not wise to walk with people who don’t share your commitment to Christ.

There are some things you should say I’m not going to be a part of this and you need to step back. There are some things you need to say I can be a part of this for some good reason but there have to be limits to my association, because most associations, most things want you “all in.” And as Christians we can’t be “all in” on anything, including our own patriotism to our country. You cannot be “all in” on anything if you’re a Christian except to the Lord Jesus Christ. So please rethink being “all in” on anything. And let’s talk about your kids as long as I’m offending people this morning. When your kids are in their sports leagues, they’re doing soccer, lacrosse, swim, dive team, baseball, whatever they’re doing, you understand that most of these coaches are trying to relive their college days or whatever, they want to win. And certainly in Orange County we have a lot of competitive organizations out there and they often want your young people to be “all in” on those teams.

But here’s the thing, you’re a Christian and you can’t be “all in” really on anything, except the Lord Jesus Christ. So I can let my kids play baseball as I did in Little League and All Stars and all the rest. But I knew there were lines to draw like for us, thankfully, we have a church that meets multiple times throughout the weekend I could say to them this: oh, your coach might have a practice on a Sunday morning and might have a game on a Saturday night. And if he does on that weekend you’re not going to one of those. You pick but you’re not going to one of those. Why? Because our commitment is to the Lord in our house and, you know, we’re going to serve the Lord in our house. And here’s what he says, don’t forsake the assembling of yourselves together. So you tell your coach, I’ll be the best third baseman, I’ll be the best pitcher that I possibly can for you but here’s the deal. There are limits to my commitment to this thing, whatever it is. And I have to say, my partnership cannot be fully “all in.” I just can’t be.

Because if ever it compromises anything relating to my commitment to Christ then I can’t do it. And I know that you think that your kid can get away with this, but I’ve seen too many people sacrifice the spiritual development of their children on the altar of sports. And I just have to ask you the question is it really worth it? Because here’s the thing. When my kid says no, or I say no for them to travel ball or whatever that might be, I’m not saying all travel ball is wrong, if you can work it in a Christian home with Christian priorities, great. But for our lives it was too much. And we said you can do all that, do all your little league, fine. But at this point we can’t do that because at some point they’re going to demand too much and so we have to say no. And I know they’re going to say well, your kid could be some amazing Major League Baseball player. He’s so good. You know what? Here’s one thing I know about my kid. He won’t be playing baseball in the major leagues when he’s 60. I’m pretty sure of that. Even if you’re right about how amazing and talented the kid is. But here’s one thing I hope he’s still doing at 60, serving the Lord faithfully, not missing church, discipling people, evangelizing people.

So our priorities are much different than yours. I have a much longer view of my kid’s life than you do. So guess what we’re going to say to you, no, we just can’t. Now, you want to take my kid with a compromised commitment to your organization? Okay. Because we have absolutely nothing wrong with competition and physical fitness and all the rest. Go do that. There’s some value in that. But godliness has value for all things in this life and the next to quote more Scripture. So as a parent in particular, you have to be the gatekeeper to your kids’ commitments to things because it can become a compromising alliance. It can become a commitment to something that ends up detracting, because they learn about what you think regarding God’s rules including going to church. They learn about it by what you allow them to do. And trust me, the kids are going to do whatever you allow them to do if it’s in their interests. And so you just have to be super careful about all of that.

Have I offended everyone already? Can I move on to the next thing? There are a million other things and you can spend some time in your small groups thinking about the partnerships, the shared direction, the common goals of a lot of things in this world saying come, we want you to be a part of this. By the way, I promised this. Well, I at least said maybe I would do this, but would you turn with me to Deuteronomy Chapter 22? Leviticus 19. Deuteronomy Chapter 22. Go to Deuteronomy Chapter 22. And I want to show you verse 10 which I quoted in passing, which is really the foundation for what we’re dealing with in First Corinthians Chapter 6 as the analogy. Right? Deuteronomy Chapter 22 verse 10, “You shall not,” Deuteronomy 22:10, “you shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.” Don’t yoke those two animals together. Now, again, I’ve said it, why in the world would you need to tell an agrarian farmer that? Because it wouldn’t take him many hours to figure out that just doesn’t work, right? What’s that about?

This passage, by the way, do you see the next section that starts in verse 13? Laws concerning, what does it say? Sexual morality. That’s what the English Standard Version translators have put above that section just to give you some, you know, references of subjects that are coming up. This is the part the world rejects today. They don’t want any rules concerning their sexual morality. Would you agree with that? So when you’re in an argument with people or you watch them online or whatever, be in arguments with people, they start quoting this passage, not verse 10. They love verse 11. You shall not wear cloth of wool and linen mixed together. Have you seen the debates where people bring that up? They challenge, “Well, what’s your shirt. Let’s see the tag on your shirt. What do you have? Two different materials there. You’re going to tell me homosexuality is wrong? You know what? It’s in the same passage that says homosexuality is wrong in Leviticus 19 and Deuteronomy 22, because, you know, I looked it up online somewhere. And so here’s the thing. You’re stupid because that rule is stupid, and you don’t keep that rule. So why are we keeping the anti-homosexual rule?” That’s the argument.

Or verse 9, “You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seeds, lest the whole yield be forfeited, the crop that you have sown and the yield of the vineyard.” Why is God all about that? This, of course, is the distinction between ceremonial law and moral law. It’s all woven throughout Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Here’s one, kosher eating. Kosher eating, the kosher rules. Now tell me, were those not clearly rescinded in the New Testament? Was it clear in Acts 10? Did Jesus say in Mark 9, was it clear that Jesus declared all foods clean? You want to eat bacon? Eat bacon. It’s pretty tasty. You should try it. It’s good. Okay? But at one point, even in our Daily Bible Reading this week in Isaiah that the connection of the pagans with eating swine’s flesh, which frankly I kind of enjoy, that it was like, oh, you’re not them, they eat swine flesh. And people think that was a moral law. It wasn’t a moral law, nor was it to have two different kinds of wool and linen mixed in your clothing, or two different seeds in your field, or an ox and a donkey? That’s not the point. The point was that it was a ceremonial truth pointing to something far more important. And that was, here’s the word, “holiness.”

Holiness, by the way, what does it mean in two words in English? Holiness means what? “Set apart.” You are set apart. You are, here it is, different. You’re not like everyone else. And here’s one of the ways that God ensured that, a bunch of rules like this. Now, I don’t need the rule in verse 10 because I’m going to figure out I shouldn’t plow with an ox and a donkey, that doesn’t make sense. And then he says, oh, and I even want you down to the clothes you wear. Not to mix wool and linen together. What’s that all about? Is there something wrong with that? No, there’s nothing wrong with that any more than eating a BLT is something wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with that. This was all ceremonial.

For what reason? To point to the holiness including what’s coming next. The moral law. One day they knew in the Roman culture, Nero would be marrying little boys and having homosexual sex with them in the imperial palace. And God is saying, when everyone is saying it’s okay to do that, you have to be different. And the point of these ceremonial laws was to be symbolic of the moral distinctions that we’re to have. Because he’s holy, we should be holy. God has set apart from sinful humanity. You should be set apart from sinful humanity.

So when some guy at Oxford or Cambridge is debating you and mocks, “What about those rolled up, about what kind of shirt do you have? Do you have two different materials?” And he laughs and scoffs at God’s Word because the ceremonial laws say there should be a distinction here. I’m going to ask him if he’s married. I’m going to start with that. Hey, bud, are you married? When you got married did your wife care at all what the bridesmaids wore? How about what went on at the reception? Did she care what kind of flowers? Did she pick out the color of flowers? What did she do when it came down…? Did she let everybody do whatever they wanted? Why? Because it’s immoral to wear jeans? Why? Because you can’t wear a green dress next to a black dress? Why? Well, because the ceremony meant something, did it not? It pointed to something, did it not? And all of that ceremony when it was all done, you went away married and then it didn’t matter what your friends wore to dinner. They could wear their jeans. They could wear black, green, yellow, whatever they wanted to wear, but they couldn’t wear it in the ceremony. Why? Because it meant something.

And it meant something to God to say don’t mix your clothes. Don’t mix your seed. Don’t mix your ox and your donkey together. Don’t even, Leviticus 19 says, let them breed together. Even the kosher laws themselves. One of the going theories about why, it wasn’t healthy. Don’t pass me the book about how eating kosher is healthier. I’m not going to buy any of that. As a matter of fact, the categories of land animals, sea animals and animals that flew in the air, you notice that it’s always these shoulder animals that were in between that all said now go say not those, not those, not those. You eat the ones in the clean, distinctive categories. Why? Because they were going to make you sick. No, they’re not going to make you sick. Could shellfish? Well, sure, I get that. And you can make those arguments. That’s not why we have kosher laws. If that’s so, does God not care about us getting sick in the New Testament where he declares all foods clean? He says, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” God says no longer call unclean what I call clean. Why? Because the ceremonial laws are… Put your wedding dress in the box. We’re done with that.

“The substance is Christ,” to quote Colossians 2:17, the reality is this: you care about symbolism when you want to care about symbolism. You care about ceremony when you want to care about ceremony. And to you it’s egregious if you don’t. It’s much like that parable of coming into the reception when someone’s not dressed in the right clothing, you kick them out. How dare you kick them out? Why? Because you think the right kind of clothes is a moral statement? It’s not a moral statement. But it represents something very important to the people who are engaged in the ceremony. And God said, I want you to keep this ceremony because you are supposed to say homosexuality is wrong when the culture says it’s right. You are supposed to care about all the rules I’m giving you in terms of ethics, even when everyone applauds, everyone, or as it says in Romans Chapter 1, as was going on in the mid-first century in Rome when everyone was giving hearty approval to sexual immorality, he says, you are supposed to say, it doesn’t matter because we’re going to be distinctive.

And so it is in your relationships, right? It is about you saying this all points to us being distinctive. Distinctive, by the way, would be one modern way to define the word “holy.” You’re supposed to be distinctive. And of course, there’s an ethical connection to it. What does God approve, what does he not? He really wants you to be truthful when the rest of your office is going to lie, when people are going to cut corners on timesheets or cards or client lists or whatever, you’re going to say, no, I can’t do that. You’re going to be distinctive and you’re going to take it on the chin when they don’t like it because you were willing to, at least if you’re in the Old Testament, know what it’s like to keep a bunch of rules that really had no moral value, they only had ceremonial value. Just like your wife putting together a reception. There was no moral value involved in that, but she sure got uptight when you broke the rules, right?

So the reality of this has a point and a purpose. Because if you want to sit there with the debater who says, oh, these are dumb rules, they are not dumb rules, any more than your wife’s “dumb” rules were enforced at a wedding. They’re not. They meant a lot to God. They meant something to God not because they were moral or ethical, but because they represented the moral and ethical. And we are supposed to get used to being separate. You could not walk into Canaan and have table fellowship with the Philistines or the Canaanites. You just couldn’t. Why? Because they didn’t care about what they ate, they ate whatever tasted good. Well you can’t. And so it was in the Old Testament ceremony. And now it’s that way with our ethics. And that’s what makes us distinct. That’s why the yoking is a good reminder of what all those ceremonial laws are about. Just like when Paul says about paying your pastors, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain.” Is it about oxen that God is concerned? No. He spoke this for you, that when someone works you should pay them. They work hard. You should pay them well. They do it really well. You should give them “double honor,” double pay. That’s what the Bible teaches. And it was all bound up in not putting a muzzle on your ox while he’s treading out the grain. You have to let him eat. He’s working. Let him eat.

That’s the idea of a lot of the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament. Because putting a muzzle on an ox was really not about moral law, even though there may be a moral implication. And so it is with two kinds of seeds and two kinds of fabrics in your clothing. Does that make any sense? Does that help anybody get past the video you watched on, you know, Instagram? You don’t know what to do with that verse. I’m proud of every verse of the Bible, even the ones that just seem to grate against our sensibilities, because all you have to do is put yourself in the right context to understand why God did these things because they all point to your courage to be able to say I can’t do that. And so it is for us ethically when it comes to the moral law of God.

All right. What do I do? Well, I stop rationalizing and I start dealing with Mark Chapter 9. If I have alliances that are corrupting or compromising, I want you to turn to Mark Chapter 9. With this we’ll move on quickly to points two and three. Mark Chapter 9. Again, the English Standard Version headings are just editorial things that keep us kind of moving through subjects. But what does the heading above verse 42 say interactive 11:00 crowd? What does it say? Temptations to sin. Temptations to sin. Notice in verse 42 the first word, the relative pronoun there is not “whatever” causes someone to sin. What is it? What’s the first word? “Whoever.” We’re talking about people here. Okay? “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin.” We’re not talking about children here. He calls us the little flock. He calls us lambs. Diminutive, affectionate term for Christians, right? Whoever. Not whatever. Even though it could be a whatever. I get that, but that’s really not where most of our problems come. “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it’d be better for him if a great millstone.” And there’s another one I didn’t understand as a kid. But that’s the thing they used to use to crush out the grain. The stick went through it and the ox went around in a circle. It was a big cement donut, a rock donut. And it would be better for him, “were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.”

Now, I’d like a better life preserver than one made of concrete. But that’s exactly what this envisions. Someone getting drowned in the sea. Now it says, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.” Now we don’t have an amputation ministry at our church. (audience laughing) It’s never been suggested. No one’s ever thought about doing it. And no one wants to do it because we understand what this means, right? This is about being ruthless about whoever might be the cause of sin in your life. You need to be willing to end corrupting or compromising relationships, right? Whoever causes, if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. That’s the kind of ruthless nature about saying I have to be done with this. Is it going to hurt feelings? It might. Is it going to cause a misunderstanding? It might. Others might think Christians are mean, it might, whatever. It would be better if I just got rid of this relationship that is an avenue through which I sin, as though your hand were causing you to sin. It may be close to you, maybe personal. I really like my hand. I don’t want to get rid of my hand, just like the person who is causing you to sin. I hope you get that context there.

All right, let’s get back to our passage. Here’s the rationale. I can’t spend much time on this, obviously. “For what partnership is righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship is light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement does the temple of God have with idols?” Clearly there’s no relationship here. Why? At a core level. And I read this with much commentary to try to help you see that. This is who we are. We are the righteousness of God and non-Christians. They do whatever is right in their own eyes. They don’t have a king, right? They can protest about kings, but they don’t have a king. There is no king, right? And they do whatever… they are their own kings.

Verse 14. All these things have to do with our core identity, which, by the way, is the real core identity. Let’s put it this way. If you want to think about cutting these relationships loose here’s where you need to get the motivation, the fuel for it. Number two, “Discern the Clash of Core Identities.” Discern the clash of core identities. They’re darkness. You’re light. You’re the righteousness of God. They are lawlessness, right? Your king is Christ. Well, what are you saying, their king is Satan? I’m glad you said that. Let’s go to Ephesians Chapter 2 real quick. Ephesians Chapter 2. Christians of the first century, think about who you were and then you became this. But really, as he says and even hints at in the middle of all this, it’s the people now who are not Christians who are still in that state.

Take a look at this, verse 1. Ephesians 2:1. “You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.” Let’s just start with that phrase, okay? That means that right now the person you’re being attracted to, the organization you want to lead, the business partner you want to contract with in your LLC or whatever you’re doing, if they do not share their commitment to Christ you just need to know this. They are “dead in the trespasses and sins in which they walk.” It was true of you before you became a Christian, and it’s true of them right now. That’s how different your core identities are. Well, what’s Belial’s stuff, what about Satan? That’s not true. “Following,” keep reading, “the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.” I couldn’t put it more clearly than that. God has made it very clear.

First John Chapter 5, “The whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” Oh, but we are of God. I understand that we’ve been plucked out of that. That’s why we are the “Ekklesia,” the “Church.” We are snatched out of this group. We have been snatched from the fire, to use the words of Jude. We’re out of all of that. Now we’re in this thing called the Church and we have been renewed from the inside out. Heart of stone, now heart of flesh. My spirit is a new man now it says, a new creation in Christ. And the Spirit of God has been placed within me. That is very different than who I was because at one time I was dead in the trespasses and sins of my life. I just lived according to that, I followed, believe it or not, “the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.” That’s who every non-Christian you interface with is. That’s why even if you work in a non-Christian place but are doing something for the benefit of human flourishing in society. Great. You can keep working there, but make sure the people you’re working with do not become your closest confidants and friends. They cannot. They just cannot because they are on a completely different planet than you.

“Among whom,” and it’s not as though we’re being prideful about, “we once lived in the,” same thing, verse 3, “in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath,” objects of God’s wrath, “just like the rest of mankind.” That’s who they are. But hey, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ — grace you’ve been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places,” of grace. So God looks at me and says, Mike Fabarez, you’re now an expat. You now have your residency here in a kingdom that I’m bringing, and the king is going to come back and you are going to be part of that. Everyone who rejects Christ right now in your life, they’re not a part of that. Some say, “Well, shouldn’t I try to hang out with them to try and win them over. Isn’t that the point? That’s what my teenager says when I say don’t date non-Christians. Well, you know I’m going to be an influence on them. I’m going to drag them across the line. I’m going to be that good influence.”

Well, I understand this: when they start quoting to me, well, you know, Jesus hung out with tax collectors, sinners and prostitutes. Dad, you know that, right? When they say that to you, which my kids are smart enough not to pull that line on me, on the pastor, you understand one verb that is not in the Greek text there, “hang out with.” That’s not there. He did not hang out with tax collectors and sinners. Oh, but he ate with them. He did. What did he do when he had dinner with Zacchaeus? What happened when he hung out with guys like, here’s one, Nicodemus in John Chapter 3. What did he do? Here’s what he said he came to do, to “call … sinners to repentance.” So if your teenager says to you, I want to hang out like Jesus did with tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners, right? You say that’s not what he was doing. Do you want to call them to repentance? Great. I’ll go with you. Let’s call your friends to repentance. I’d love to see how you do that. Let’s watch. But that’s not what they mean, it’s an excuse. And I get it, do we want our friends to be verses 4 through 8? Absolutely. I’d like them to be the objects of God’s rich mercy and to become Christians. I’d love that. And I’d like to tell them that. But that doesn’t go very well when it comes to me being in partnership with them. Do you understand that? They don’t want to become business partners with me when my concern is for their souls.

So this doesn’t work the way people think it works. It’s just an excuse. I do want this for them though. I’d like verse 8 for them to be the cry of their heart. Amazing grace. How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. “By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing; It’s a gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Now verse 10 stands in stark contrast and should be seen in relation to verses 1 and 2. At one time “you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world.” Well now, verse 10, “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Do not let an alliance with those dead in their transgressions and sin somehow get in the way between you and that sheet music right there, because that’s what you are called to do. You’re called to live out a pathway of good works, and nothing gets in the way more than partnerships, fellowships, accord, portion, and agreement with people who do not share that commitment.

Psalm 1, I think I turn you there in your small group questions that I wrote. But in verse 1 you see that “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,” because before you know it, he “stands in the way of sinners,” and then eventually he “sits in the seat of scoffers.” The subtlety of you, though you think you’re going to be the influence, you become influenced by them as it says in First Corinthians 15 verse 33, “Bad company corrupts good morals.” It’s just going to happen. So we don’t want to do that. We don’t walk in the counsel of the wicked. We don’t stand in the way of sinners. We don’t sit in the seat of scoffers. We are separate and distinct. Do we want to win them to Christ? Absolutely. And you want to say to the sinner, let Christ shine on you awake for your sins? Great. Do that. But that’s not what Solomon was doing when he was marrying his non-Christian wives, his pagan wives. It’s not what Jehoshaphat was doing when he was making his pagan alliances. It’s not what the post-exilic Israelites were doing when they were marrying, you know, the Babylonians. That’s not what was happening. They were compromising. It started with a common cause, it ended with compromise.

One more thing, and we’ll unpack this next week, verse 16 back in our passage. Once you discern the clash of core identities here’s what I want you to lean into. It says this, “We are the temple of the living God; as God said.” We’re the temple of the living God. And he goes on to quote this passage. We’ll unpack that next time but just let that resonate. We’re the temple of the living God. I already quoted First Corinthians 3, First Corinthians 6. We are corporately. We are individually. But what I want to do is to think individually for a second. Number three, here’s what I want. And I want this to fuel my decision to sever from things I shouldn’t be a part of. Number three, “Honor the Residence of God in You.” There’s something about divine nearness. There’s something about God being in you.

In Deuteronomy 33 verses 14 and 15, here’s what God said. Think back to when they were in Egypt as oppressed slaves. At one point it says, God came down and saw them crying out. Well, what do you mean, God? I thought you were omnipresent. I thought you were omniscient. I thought you knew all that. I understand that, but his focus now went down to address that. So he raises up Moses. He sends Moses to Pharaoh. And because he went out, he had his brother with him. So out there saying, let my people go. Now they go. Here’s what it says in this great section of Exodus 33 when they finally leave. God says, “My presence,” Moses, “will go with you, and I’ll give you rest.” My presence will go with you. Now, there’s something about that intimacy of God’s vocalized relational presence with the people of God corporately and certainly individually with Moses himself. That makes all the difference.

Now, in fact, it goes on to say you should be holy. These passages about being holy as God is holy, they all come from this particular narrative in the season of time, this chronology. And he even says things like, “I will walk among you,” in your camp, I’m walking among you, but you can’t see him. But God is specially focused. He’s the divine nearness is there in some special, focalized way. The next line is great. And Moses says to God, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here.” I’m not going to go without you. And God loves that tenacity of Moses. And I hope that you sense that, God dwells in you. That’s the whole point. We read in our Daily Bible Reading, I think it was yesterday, in Isaiah 66. It starts out in verses 1 and 2, “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool,” God says. It’s a big six septillion-ton rock spinning around here in the cold vacuum of space. And yet God says there’s nothing big enough for me to put my feet on. He says, “what is the house that you would build for me?”

Now was that a surprise to anyone by the time Isaiah was writing this? No. When Solomon dedicated the temple, he said, I know you don’t live in the houses that we make. I know you’re too big for this. I know you’re expansive, you’re omnipresent. I get it, I get it, but this house is in honor of you. And I want your special vocalized presence here. I want you to be here and I want people to look to this building as they look to you. Okay. Fair enough. But God says in that passage, “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house you can build for me?” Well, there is none and they haven’t. Even the highest heavens can’t contain me. But he says, “But this is the one to whom I will look.” That’s a great concept. God hearing the cries of the Israelites, he looks to their suffering. Like God, looking to the temple, he wanted people to look to the temple as God was looking to the temple. Now he says none of that. Ultimately, what I look to. You want to know where my nearness is; my focalized presence is, “To this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.”

God’s laid a very simple word on you today. Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. It couldn’t be clearer. Don’t wiggle out of it. Don’t rationalize, don’t justify. Look positively. Don’t get as close to the line as you can without crossing it. Just try to stay away from this. Don’t be unequally yoked with nonbelievers. Don’t have a compromising alliance. Don’t have some kind of corrupting partnership. Just don’t. If you tremble at his word, here’s what God says, man, I’m there. That’s my man. That’s my gal. That’s my person. And that is so refreshing. Especially when you think about us. Right? How do I get that? Well, I guess in poetic terms, to quote James Chapter 4, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” But the next line is you have to wash your hands. You have to free yourself from the evil. You have to cut the alliances you shouldn’t have.

Do you think Daniel lived in a harder society to be godly in than we do? Back in, speaking of kings, in Nebuchadnezzar’s day, I think so. His friends are getting thrown into the fire for not bowing down to an idol. Daniel is living in some pretty tough times. He wasn’t told to withdraw from Babylon. As a matter of fact, Jeremiah made it clear, “Seek the welfare of the city,” you’re going to, and we should seek the welfare of our city. We should seek the welfare of our country. I’m all for it. We should seek that. We’re salt. We’re light. We should make a difference here. But here’s the thing. Daniel didn’t try to blend in. He refused to blend in. They said, eat this. He said, I’m not going to eat it. They said, bow down. He said, I’m not going to bow down. They said, stop praying. He said, No, I’m going to open my windows now and pray. He did not blend into the godless pagan society, right? He was willing to stand apart. He was willing to be different. That’s what the word holy means. Be holy. And that’s going to affect your relationships. Serve faithfully. Draw the line if ever your loyalty to God is going to be impinged upon by any decision, any sports team, any guild, any alliance, any club, any purchase, any connection. That’s what Paul’s calling for in this passage. Not isolation, not communal living, not monks, not monasteries, but for us to be consecrated. We live in Babylon, there’s no doubt about that. It’s not as bad as the original Babylon, but it’s getting there. Our job is to be entirely devoted to the Lord. Let nothing get in the way of our devotion to him.

Would you stand with me? Let us close with a word of prayer this morning. God, we want to make a prayer of commitment right now as best we can. I hope there would be many hearts that would join with mine and say we just want to end any compromising alliance. Maybe for some people they need to give their two weeks’ notice and they need to quit because their job is in alliance with something that’s filled with vice, or filled with sin, or promoting something that’s anti-you. And they would want to as it says in First John they would want to “not shrink from him in shame at his coming.” I mean, because when you show up, it’s going to be super clear whether or not we were partnered up with the right job and then the things that we are free to partner with, sometimes God we just have to say no, we have to say no, we can’t do it. And I know it’s going to cost us, it may cost us in income, it may cost us approval, it may cost us a lot of things to be separate and distinct. But as we continue this theme next week as we look continually at a text that calls us to be devoted and if we’re devoted, we’ll be useful, ultimately what we want is to walk in those good works that you’ve scored out for us. There they are.

God, we want to do those things. And we don’t want a relationship or an alliance to mute it. We don’t want anything to silence it. We don’t want to become an artifact that sits on a shelf that people say, well, there’s a nice, tidy Christian. We’d like to be someone doing the work you’ve called us to do. So let nothing impede that, please, as we think about these alliances. Help many, many people, even if people who have never been to a small group, may they get on our website this week, get in a small group, a home fellowship group to discuss this sermon to make sure they are held accountable in their life as they discuss it in someone’s home or in one of the rooms on this campus. God, I just pray there would be a time of good discussion that would help us to think through this, maybe even in the discussion in ways we never even thought of. So God bless the communication, the application, all that goes on in response to this sermon.

I pray today in Jesus’ name. Amen.