Hello, and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast,
where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to
this podcast.
I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen
you in the word of God.
Now, come along.
Let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.
What we're going to talk about here today is the understanding of
how the Corinthian Church.
Okay, remember, these are the people that Paul is directly talking
to here in Second Corinthians.
They loved themselves and the world too much.
If you remember, last week, we talked about how Paul says, hey,
you.
You guys are constrained.
You guys are held together.
You guys are tightened in your love.
You are limited in your love because of your love for yourself
and the love for the world.
You're not able to love the Lord.
You're not able to love others because you are tightened together.
You are, as it says here, straightened in the King James.
But constricted is the word we would use.
You're constricted in your love for God and the world because
of your inappropriate affections.
And so now he's going to address one of those inappropriate
affections, and that is the love for this world, the love for
sin, the love for that worldly influence in our life.
And so we looked at how the church in Corinth had misappropriated
their love.
Instead of loving God with all their hearts, as the Bible calls
us to do, they allowed that love that was supposed to be for
God to flow out to other things.
They were set in their own affections.
Well, what were these affections?
Well, the love for themselves.
And specifically, in the context of these next few verses,
a love for the world.
Because of their love for this world, their lives were being influenced
by the world.
So what you love, what you set your affections on will influence
you.
And so what Paul is going to talk about here is that the fact
that these individuals love the world so much, they were associated
with the world so much that the world began to influence them.
And so they were being influenced to think, believe, and
act like the world.
As Christians, it's important for us to think biblically.
It's important for us to believe in the truths of God, and
it's important for us to act upon those truths in our lives as
focused Christians on the truth of God.
But what we see here is that they started to think about the things
of this world.
Their affections were set on the things of this world.
They Began to believe in the things of this world, and your thinking
and your belief dictates your actions.
So they had worldly outcomes, worldly lifestyles.
And so they were, as the scripture says, not being transformed
by the power of God, but they were being conformed to the image
of this world.
God has a lot to say about a believer's relationship with the
world.
The most popular passage of scripture that we could probably
go to is the passage that I started out a sermon with a service
with this morning.
Romans, chapter 12.
Romans, chapter 12, verses 1 and 2.
Paul says, I beseech you, I beg you, brethren, by the mercies
of God.
This is because of the mercies of God that ye present your bodies,
a living sacrifice.
Present everything to God, not just Sunday mornings, not just your
free time.
He says, present your bodies.
He's talking about everything.
Your spiritual side, your physical side.
And, you know, there were people back at this timeframe that
would have said, and people today that say that it's not about
what you do, it's more about what you believe.
It's theoretical.
It's a very spiritual matter, which, yes, it starts with the spiritual.
But God does care about what we do with our bodies.
He cares about who we associate with.
He cares about what we do.
And so he says here in Romans, chapter 12, present your bodies,
a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your
reasonable service.
That word holy is going to be a theme here today.
A lot of times when we say the word holy, we think about sinlessness.
And with God, that's what it is.
God is perfectly holy.
But in scripture, the Bible calls us to be holy.
Now, does God expect us to be sinless?
Well, that's the expectation.
But of course, he knows that we won't be perfectly holy.
That word holy means to be separated, to be sanctified, to be
set aside for a specific use.
You know, sometimes when we're at our house and we don't want to
do dishes, what do we do?
We do paper plates.
I don't know if any of you guys have ever done that in your
life.
Maybe you guys are just so.
So refined that you would never do that.
But sometimes we're like, oh, paper plates and throw it in the
trash, right?
But if we had a dignitary coming over to our house, someone
really special, we wouldn't go, all right, let's pull out the
paper plates.
We're going to get out the best that we have.
We.
We have things set aside for a specific use.
And as a Christian, what we are called to Be is a people that
are set aside.
God calls us to be set aside for a specific use.
What is that use?
To be messengers of the Gospel, to glorify him.
And so he says there, be holy, acceptable unto God, which is your
reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world.
The idea here is being molded into an image.
Sometimes, like our kids make cookies, and you have the little
cookie cutter presses and you press something in.
That's what the idea is.
The world has this image, this mold, and they want to jam us into
that mold and make us look just like them, just like the ways
of the world, just like the enemy, just like that fleshly, sinful
nature.
But he says, don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed.
That word transformed comes from a Greek word that's similar
to our English word, metamorphosis, a transformation.
Micah likes animals, and one of the things that we like to do
is study them, obviously, together.
And one thing that a caterpillar will do is a caterpillar
will be on the ground, and eventually that caterpillar climbs
up on a branch and makes a chrysalis and over a period of time,
transforms into a butterfly.
Right?
It's that metamorphosis, that change.
As a Christian, we are called to be different from what we used
to be before we were saved.
We're called to be different from the world.
And so what Paul says is, be different by what?
By renewing of your mind.
He says the way that we can understand what it means to be different,
the way that we can be renewed and strengthened, is to think biblically,
to think clearly, to think about the things of God, not the
things of this world that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable
and perfect will of God.
You want to follow the will of God, renew your mind so that you
can live that transformed life, so that you can live separately
from the world, so that you can live away from the association
and the influence and the impact of the sinful ways of this
world.
And so this passage of Scripture here in Second Corinthians,
chapter six, deals with that very issue.
And so let's look at our text here this morning.
Romans, chapter 12 was just a context passage, but we're going
to now look at Second Corinthians, chapter six, and we're
going to start in verse number 14.
Paul is going to teach the Corinthian church what it means to
be separate, to be different.
He says, be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
Now, you might have heard that phrase before, and we're going to
get into the depths of that phrase here this morning.
But he says, don't be yoked up with unbelievers.
The yoke would have been something that would have been used
for putting on two different animals and associating them together.
He says, don't join up with unbelievers.
For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?
And what communion hath light with darkness?
And what concord hath Christ with Belial?
Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel or an unbeliever?
In what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?
And for ye are the temple of the living God, as God hath said,
I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people, wherefore come out from among them
and be separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing,
and I will receive you and will be a father unto you, and ye
shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
The name of the sermon this morning, the title is out of this
World.
Let's go ahead and pray.
And then we're going to jump right into our main thoughts here
this morning.
Lord, I pray that you be with us as we look into your word.
I pray that we can understand what your teaching is here when it
comes to this idea of being separated from the world would help
us to understand the importance of living the transformed
life as a believer, to live differently, to live separate, to
live sanctified.
Lord, help us to understand that you have called us to be different,
that you have called us to be a testimony, that you've called us
to live pure and holy lives so that folks can see that life and
so that folks can understand the goodness of salvation.
To know the goodness of walking with a God who loves them.
And so, Lord, I pray that you help us, challenge us, encourage
us in this walk.
Lord, I pray that there's anyone here today that does not know
you as Savior, that today can be the day in which we can understand
positionally that we can be different, that there's hope in Jesus.
So, Lord, we thank you and we love you.
In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
I want you to see point number one here this morning.
God calls us to not have association with the world.
Number one is the association God is concerned with who we are
associating with.
Verse 14.
Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
Paul speaks of the association of believers and unbelievers.
And he uses an analogy.
He uses the analogy of being unequally yoked.
Paul is speaking to the overly broad affections of the Corinthian
Christians.
Who are you loving?
Who are you associating with?
What are you associating with?
You know, so many times in our life we are challenged with this
and we think, well, what am I supposed to be?
A person who goes and lives in a monastery and never addresses people?
No, that's not what he's talking about here.
He's not talking about being in the world.
In another passage of Scripture in First Corinthians, Paul
says, you can't separate yourself from the world completely.
You got to be there.
You got to be in the world.
But maybe this is a phrase that you've heard before.
You're in the world, but you're not of the world.
Right?
And so as a Christian, we gotta go to work.
We.
We gotta go to the grocery store.
We gotta see people that are not believers.
That's understood.
He's not talking about that.
He's not talking about us moving to an island and creating
a Christian utopia and only having Christians there.
That's not what he's talking about.
He's talking about being associated with unbelievers.
And he says a believer should not be linked to an unbeliever when
it comes to association.
You know, in this case, he's talking about Christians who join
themselves with unbelievers.
And this is difficult because for many of us, we might say, what
does that specifically mean?
Does that mean that I can't talk to an unbeliever?
That's not what he's talking about here.
It's the joining of two things that should not go together.
It's the celebration of the things of this world.
It's associating with an unbeliever and hoping that that unbeliever
will act like a believer.
And the Bible says that should not be so.
Now, in many cases, in most cases, we see this preached when
it comes to the institution of marriage, in which it does apply,
by the way, I believe that God is warning us, as Christians, do
not have unbelievers marrying believers.
Believers should not be associating in the closest biblical
relationship in marriage.
Right?
What does the Bible say about marriage?
The Bible says when we're married, it's one flesh husband,
wife become one.
Bible says an unsaved person and a saved person should not be
associated.
Therefore, we can take by way of context, being unequally yoked
would be that one unsaved person is marrying a saved person.
And we warn against that.
We caution against that.
Jesus says, don't do that.
But what we also have to understand as Christians is that
that means so much more.
It means so much more than just marriage.
Because a lot of times we might think, well, I'm married to
a believer, so I don't have to worry about Second Corinthians, chapter
six.
That's not the full scope of it.
That's one element of it.
But Paul means so much more here than only marrying an unbeliever.
It really applies to the environment where we let the world
influence our thinking.
Because if we let the world influence our thinking, what happens?
Well, then it changes what we begin to believe, and then it changes
how we act.
And so if we want to protect ourselves from acting like the world,
we need to go back about thinking like the world and say,
you know what?
I'm allowing these associations, these partnerships
to infiltrate my mind and allow myself to think about the things
of this world and not think biblically.
And when we're being conformed to this world and we're not being
transformed by the renewing of our mind, we join together with unbelievers
in an ungodly way.
And I've heard it said many times, well, you know what?
I'm going to influence this unbeliever.
The truth is, is that scripture tells us that when we associate
with an unbeliever, when we associate with the things of this
world, when we associate with this way of thinking, eventually
that will bleed into what we do in our own lives.
And so what we can see here is that God warns us over and over again
about the dangers of joining in with this world.
I want you to see another passage of scripture in James, chapter
four.
If you don't think that God is serious about this, I want you to
see a couple passages of scripture where he deals with this
understanding of being too friendly, too loving with the things
of this world.
Now, I've said world a lot today.
What am I meaning by the world?
I'm not talking about the physical world out there.
I'm talking about the ways of the world, the systems of the world.
Ultimately, it's the enemy system, right?
You have Satan who attacks Christians, but Satan has set in
motion a way of the world.
And so we're talking about sinful ways.
The ways of the world is like, hey, get what you can.
It's all about fleshly feeling good about yourself.
It's all about lifting yourself up.
It's all about stepping on another person.
It's all about putting yourself first.
From the very beginning, in the garden, what was the original
lie?
Put yourself first.
Be God.
You're your own God.
Put yourself up.
Humanism.
And that's what the ways of the world is.
It's humanism.
The way of the world is humanism.
So what, what we can see here in James, chapter four, we see God
telling us a very important thing here in this passage.
He says, ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that friendship
of the world is enmity with God.
Meaning, if you're friends with this world, you're enemies of
God.
If you love this world, if you cling to this world, you're not clinging
to God.
Whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is the enemy
of God.
I don't know how much more clear he can be.
The more we love the world, the less we love the Lord.
And the more we attach ourselves to the things of this world,
the more we lose grip on what God wants for us.
Go back to What Romans, chapter 12, verse 2 says, you want
to follow that good, perfect will of God in your life.
Cling after him, go after him, search after him, love him.
If you want to know the ways of the world and be conformed to
this world, love that, go after that.
Over and over again, we're told that we should not love the
world.
First John, chapter two.
First John, chapter two, verses 15 through 17.
First John, chapter two is talking all about Jesus being the
propitiation of our sins and how we should love him and how we
should walk in his truth and how we should obey Him.
And then he goes on to say in verse number 15, Love not the world,
neither the things that are in the world.
So lest you think that, hey, I don't love the world, he says, don't
love the world.
Or the things that are in the world, that the products of the world.
Now, I've heard a lot of sermons where pastors get up and
start picking and choosing what they don't like and telling
you that you shouldn't like that either.
Okay?
That's not my job here today.
My job is not to get up here and give you your biblical preferences
and convictions.
All I'm saying is that when things are very clearly from the
world, we should not love those.
We should not chase after those.
He says here, love not the world, neither the things that are
in the world.
If any man love the world.
Okay, this is not Pastor Josh.
This is.
This is scripture.
If any man love the world.
The love of the Father is not in him, for all that is in the world.
And here, here's what he says.
This is.
If you could summarize the world, this is it.
Okay.
So.
So if you were thinking, well, I don't know if what I love is, is
worldly, well, here it is.
He gives you the definition of what it means to love the world.
He says, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh.
So, so what your flesh wants feel good, right?
What feels good?
The lust of the eyes, what looks good, what's going to bring
you pleasure, what's going to bring you success.
And the pride of life.
Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life.
Those things it says is not of the Father, but of this world, but
is of this world.
And then he gives us the reason why we shouldn't love the
world.
And the world passeth away in the lust thereof.
But he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.
The things of this world are empty.
The things of this world are temporary.
The things of this world are going to vanish.
What he says is the only thing that is going to last is our relationship
with the Lord.
So love him.
And so Paul means so much more than just a believer.
And marrying an unbeliever, that is one of the greatest examples
of being unequally yoked.
But we can be unequally yoked in many different ways in our life,
whether it be in personal relationships outside of marriage,
whether it be through, maybe even some cases, business relationships.
Maybe, maybe it just could be my affections of what I entertain
myself with, what, what we've, what we stream into our households
do matter.
Folks, I'm going to tell you this morning, it matters what we
take in through entertainment.
A lot of times you're going to be taught, hey, you know what?
Just do whatever you want to do because that's fun.
And then go to church and you just cleanse your mind.
That's.
That's not the case.
The world has a system of propaganda that is trying to get
into your minds and get you to think a certain way, whether you
know it or not.
That makes it good propaganda.
You don't know that it's coming to you.
It's not overt.
It's not in your face.
It's under the guise of, hey, this is just fun.
The problem is that can come in and plague our minds, plague our
families.
And the Bible says that's being unequally yoked with the world.
Would you Bring in.
I'm just going to.
I already knew this morning I'm going to step on toes and I love
you.
So just understand that.
Because I'm preaching to myself this morning.
Would I bring in some worldly person who had a filthy mouth who
celebrated immorality and say, hey, come on to my house and just
live out your life in front of my family?
I hope not.
Hope you'd say, get out of my house.
This is our sanctuary.
This is our comfort.
This is our peace in Jesus Christ.
But what happens sometimes is we're not willing to enter through
our front door, but we're allowing them to come in through
our televisions.
We're allowing them to come in through what we take in our cell
phones.
Folks, I'm the first guy to tell you that in and of itself, the
iPhone isn't a bad thing, right?
You can do a lot of great things with it.
But just as much as you can do a lot of great things with this thing,
you can do a lot of bad things that are destructive to yourself,
to your minds, to your families.
And I'm going to tell you, being unequally yoked with the world
would be, hey, I'm taking in content from the world, and that
is where I'm feeding my hunger.
That is where I'm feeding my pleasure.
I'm going to tell you folks, there's danger with that.
There's danger with that.
It's a slippery slope because the more that I take in from the
world and the more I set my affections on the things of this
world, the more that's going to affect what I believe, and it's
going to affect what I believe.
It's actually going to then affect what I do because I'm going
to live the way that I believe.
You know, if I'm going to ask you what you believe, you can tell
me whatever you want.
You can tell me whatever you want.
But what you believe is how you act.
Really.
That's, at the end of the day, what's all about what you believe.
So if you believe that this is something that's good, eventually
that's something that's going to bleed into your life.
We cannot compartmentalize these things.
And so what we can see here in this case is that Jesus says, don't
be yoked with this world.
Where should we be yoked?
Well, Matthew chapter 11 tells us where our yoke should be.
Matthew, chapter 11 tells us that our yoke should not be with
this world, but it should be with Jesus Christ yoke.
Up with him a lot of times.
I was always taught growing up, just stop doing bad things.
Turn off the TV.
Maybe you've seen this guy on YouTube, he got an ax out and he
smashed the TV on stage.
Right?
Folks, we all know that we can try to stop doing things, but that's
not what the Bible says is the complete model of living a godly
holy life.
You can cut out a bunch of bad stuff in your life, but ultimately
that bad stuff is just gonna come back in different forms.
And so there's a replacement for the bad.
Matthew, chapter 11, verse 28.
Jesus says, Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke.
So we don't yoke up with the world, what do we do?
We yoke up with Christ.
Take my yoke upon you and learn of me.
So it's that Christ like attitude, it's that humility, it's
that sacrifice, it's that grace, it's that mercy.
He says, take up my yoke.
Let me tell you, when you yoke up with Jesus Christ, it's not lust
of the eyes, it's not lust of the flesh, it's not pride of life,
it's the complete opposite.
He says, for I am meek and lowly, completely different.
For I am meek and lowly in heart.
And ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Jesus says, come, you know, you know what's a real big burden
is being yoked up with this world and trying to keep up with
all that.
Because ultimately it all falls on us.
And it all falls on our strength.
And we are flawed human beings that will fall.
But what we see here is that Jesus says, yoke up with me instead
of the world.
And so we see that there's this idea of association.
And that association comes to point number two, influence.
We're going to go back to second Corinthians, chapter six.
So go back there with me.
We'll spend some time in 2 Corinthians, chapter 6.
Now, Paul says, be careful of your associations, because your associations
will influence you.
They will influence the way that you act, the way that you think,
the way that you believe.
Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
For what fellowship we see that word fellowship?
For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?
These are true questions.
He wants you to think about this.
What association does righteousness have with unrighteousness?
And what communion hath light with darkness?
These are all thoughts that we have to think about.
Cause sometimes when we frame it this way, it makes more sense
when we frame it for what it really is.
Dark and light, righteousness, unrighteousness.
So many times we try to blur the lines.
And that's what the world tries to do, blur the lines, make
definitions unclear.
God is not the author of confusion.
God is clear in how he deals with things.
But what we see here in this case is that sometimes we can allow
the influence to come into our lives when we blur the lines.
And so what Paul is doing here is he's saying, look, it's really
this fellowship with righteousness or unrighteousness,
fellowship with darkness or light, communion.
He's talking about that walk that we have.
And so this passage here speaks especially to the issue of
influence.
Paul is not suggesting that Christians should never associate
with unbelievers, because there's a.
There's a point to associate with unbelievers.
Like the gospel.
Be salt and light.
We should reach out to those that are around us.
We should influence those that are around us.
So instead of us being influenced by the world, we should
influence the world for the cause of the gospel.
And so there's a difference there.
It's in the world, but not of the world.
And he makes it very clear in First Corinthians, chapter 5.
We don't have the time to go there.
But Paul says, you can't just leave this world.
You got to be around other people that are unbelievers, but
it's how you associate with them.
And so the principle is that we are to be in the world, but not
of the world.
It's like this.
I heard a commentator say it this way.
Like a ship should be in the water, but the water shouldn't be
in the ship.
Right?
Right.
So when we're in a boat, we expect there's water outside.
We're in that water.
But when that water starts coming in, hopefully that water starts
coming into the boat, into the ship.
There's a big problem.
That's the problem.
It's the influence of that outside into our own family, our
own life, our own hearts.
And so we're there.
But the problem is, if the world is influencing us, it's clear
that we are unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
So where's the test?
The test is this.
Is my life mirroring Christ and Christ likeness?
Or is my life looking more and more like the world?
If you could take me and put me up to a person who has no faith.
And if my life looks the same as his, except I go to church on
Sunday mornings and I give to the church.
There's a big issue there.
Right?
Let's think about that.
You know reality shows, right?
They have reality shows and they follow people around.
Some of you might like those.
Some of you might like.
You ever seen that?
Undercover Boss?
That's interesting, right?
Those guys come in and these guys are yelling at them, and like,
you know, I'm the CEO of the company, and they end up firing them,
and they give a million dollars to this guy who was nice.
It's all.
I don't know how much of it scripted or not, probably most of
it's scripted, but either way, it's entertaining, right?
Speaking of that, we got to be careful about our entertainment,
but I think that's okay to watch sometimes.
So the idea would be this.
If we followed around, you know, Middletown Baptist Joe here,
okay, he's going out into the world and he's gonna.
We're gonna follow him.
And then we go follow an atheist guy who doesn't believe in
Jesus Christ.
And we follow him everywhere he goes.
And if we didn't show what he did on Sunday morning, and we didn't
show what he did when he had his ministry that Saturday, but now
we just show what he does in his life all those other times, and
the life of the unsaved person and the life of the saved person
looks exactly the same.
There's a big issue there, because what's happened is we know
that an atheist is not going to live like Christ.
We know that that unsaved person is going to live the way that
unsaved people do.
But then if the saved person doesn't live like a saved person,
he's influenced by the world.
And so there's that understanding that that influence
matters.
And so that's the test.
The test is, who am I living like?
Whose yoke is driving me forward?
And so we have this understanding of influence in your
life.
Who is influencing you?
What are you taking in?
What content are you taking in on your daily walk?
John 15.
John 15, verse 19.
We see this.
I believe, as you know, I don't like proof texting.
Proof texting is.
I'm going to come up with one verse to try to prove a thought.
But if you were to say, okay, where do you get that phrase in the
world, but not of the world, I think this would be a great passage
of scripture to take somebody in.
John 15, you got to know context, right?
What has Jesus been doing he's been teaching his disciples what
it means to abide in him, to live in Him.
You know, he says, you are not the vine.
Okay, I am the vine, you are the branches.
You can't live without me.
You're nothing without me.
And then in John 15, verse 19, he says, if ye were of the world,
the world would love his own.
But because ye are not of the world.
So there's a good phrase.
You're not of the world because you're not of the world.
But I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth
you.
Remember the word that I said unto you.
The servant is not greater than his Lord.
If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.
If they have kept.
If they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.
What does Jesus say?
He says, you're not of this world.
You should be away from this world.
You should not be associated, and you should not allow it to influence
you.
Another passage of Scripture that talks about this is in John
17.
John 17, he reads.
He's.
He's praying.
Here.
In this case, Jesus is.
This is his high priestly prayer.
In John 17, verse 16, he says, they are not of the world, talking
to His Father about us, talking to His Father about those
that follow Him.
And he says, they are not of this world, even as I am not of this
world.
Sanctify them through thy truth.
Thy word is truth.
Are you starting to see that there is a theme here?
The theme is, if we want to live separate from the world, we
must be grounded in the truth of the word.
Can't go off of our feelings now.
Feelings do matter, and we don't discredit feelings.
But what we do say is this.
Jesus says, hey, they're not of this world.
Believers, Christians, followers of me are not of this world,
even as I am not of this world.
So therefore, sanctify them through thy truth.
Thy word is truth.
And so the Bible tells us over and over again the importance of
grounding ourselves in the word of God so that when things come
at us, we can decide and discern according to the Spirit what
is truth and what is not truth.
All the more reason today to be a discerning Christian when we
get bombarded with content.
What's a lie and what's not a lie?
That's what the world is.
You know, we don't know what to believe anymore.
My parents.
Well, I should be careful.
I don't want to use myself here.
Okay.
Maybe some people in this room used to Tell your children, don't
believe what you read on the Internet.
You ever heard that?
When you were some people that are in my age group, they said, son,
don't believe that person on the Internet.
You can't trust that.
I had teachers that told me, you can't go to the Internet for
resources.
You got to go to an encyclopedia.
And now the same people that were saying that read his article
on Facebook, that was forged.
And they go, do you know that they're doing this?
And it's like, do you understand, guys, that the lines
have been so blurred for a reason?
So that none of us can really know what the truth is in this world?
That's what the whole agenda is from this world, to blur the lines,
to make us think that something is true or not true.
We don't know.
Guess who does that?
The author of confusion, the father of lies, the deceiver.
The deceiver wants us all to be deceived.
That's his character.
That's Satan's character, the accuser of the brethren.
And so the opposite of that is clarity.
The opposite of that is knowing a standard, objective truth.
Now you say, what's that standard, objective truth?
Well, God is the God of all truth, the God of all.
And therefore, you know what?
It's this amazing thing that he gave us.
And that's his word.
And he says, hey, this is what I give you to know, to be sanctified
by thy truth.
Thy word is truth, meaning this God's word is truth.
And so we check it to this.
If it isn't in this, it doesn't matter.
And that's what we have to see in our own lives.
And so Second Corinthians, chapter 6, verse 14.
He says light and darkness.
And then he says something very interesting.
And what concord hath Christ with Belial, you might say, what
is he talking about here?
He's talking about compromise.
And so, so far we've seen association, influence, compromise.
That's the spiral of digression that happens.
We associate with the world, we're influenced by the world, and
then we're compromised by the world.
Compromise means I give up my values for something else that I
think is more important.
I've now compromised.
Now it's okay to compromise when it comes to certain things in
business, right?
You're negotiating on a car and, you know, you compromise on
the middle ground, that's totally fine.
But one thing that we cannot compromise on is the truth of the
word of God.
And so the Corinthian Christians were so much love they
were loving the world so much and they were so affectionate in
the sense that they thought that it was accepting of them to
allow lawlessness with unrighteousness, to accept darkness
and light, to associate, to admit to following Christ along with,
as it says here, belial.
Now what is belial?
That's a word that we don't use quite frequently.
It's the Hebrew word meaning worthlessness or wickedness.
But here it's used as a synonym for Satan.
So he says, what is he doing here?
He's saying, how can you associate with Jesus and Satan?
How?
You can't.
How can you associate with good and evil?
You can't.
It's a rhetorical question.
We know the answer.
You can't, you shouldn't.
And the book of James mentions this double minded man.
Double minded man is unstable in all of his ways.
This is, I believe that this is a definition of many people in
this world today that are in church in America today and sitting
in a good Bible believing church in America today.
You know what?
I want a little bit of Jesus, but then I want a little.
And they might not say Satan, but they want a little bit of this
world.
They want a taste of that forbidden fruit.
They want to have a little bit of that foot in the world because
hey, this is my little bit of a backup plan here.
It makes sense every time we saw that in scripture, every type
of compromise found in scripture comes to a place of destruction,
light and darkness, good and evil, Jesus for Satan.
That's what it is.
And he says, and what part hath he that believeth with an unbeliever,
an infidel?
He just, he ties that all back together.
And so the true question that Paul is asking here is what are we
going to allow to fill our hearts?
And what are we going to allow to fill our minds?
Essentially it's the challenge of are we going to follow Jesus?
Are we going to follow the ways of this world?
So we have the association, who are we associated with?
We have the influence.
Who are we influenced by?
We have the compromise.
Are we going to compromise?
But there is hope.
There is hope.
There is something called biblical separation.
Now I gotta take a few moments to explain this because if you came
from a background that I came from, biblical separation means something
totally different than what biblical separation really is.
Biblical separation in some cases, in some churches, looks like
this.
If that church doesn't look exactly like us, talk exactly like
us, you know, listen to the exact same music as us, go to the
same colleges we go to, we can't talk with them.
They're just as bad as an unbeliever.
Problem with that is that's not what biblical separation is.
Biblical separation makes a clear distinction between sin and
not sinning, good versus evil.
We have to separate ourselves from the ways of this world.
We do have to separate ourselves from false teaching.
I gave an example in my Sunday school class this morning.
You know, if there's a church across town that meets at a different
time or does a different music or maybe, you know, has a different
way of meeting, I'm not going to preach against that.
That's not my problem.
And that's the way that they worship, and we have to respect that.
But there is a church across town that preaches that there's a
different way to get to heaven.
If there is a church across town that's preaching a different
scripture, that's when we can say, yeah, that is a time and a place
for biblical separation.
We don't treat them like one of our own.
We don't treat them like someone who's walking in the same
stride as we are.
That's confusing, because if someone sees that as Christianity
and they see what we preach as Christianity, and they see what other
person over here preaches as Christianity, all three different
messages, well, who's really true?
Right?
That's what Satan's trying to do, blur the lines.
And so there is so.
So go with me to Second Corinthians, chapter six.
There is this idea of biblical separation.
And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?
Now, at this point in time, okay, the temple is not the building
that's standing in Jerusalem.
He's talking about.
If you guys know this in context, he's talking about you.
We are the temple of the Holy Ghost.
And so he says, what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?
For ye are the temple of the living God.
As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will
be their God and they shall be my people.
He says, think about it from the biblical perspective.
You are the temple of the living God.
Now, now, that doesn't.
That doesn't mean that I get inflated and I go, wow, look at me.
I'm a temple.
Look at me.
No, that's not what it's talking about.
It's talking about you having the responsibility to live a life
separate from the ways of this world.
He says there in verse 17, this is that biblical separation
wherefore come out from among them.
This is where I got that phrase out of this World, come out
of the world, leave your associations, leave the influence,
leave the compromise.
He says, come out from among them and be ye separate, be holy,
be different, be distinct, don't be different for the sake of
being different, okay?
Some people just like to do that.
They're like, you know, okay, we don't have to dress like puritans
to be separate from this world, okay?
God's not asking us to be weird, he's asking us to be like
him so that it will look weird to the world.
You understand that, right?
There are some Christians that say, like, how obscure can we be
so that we can just fulfill this.
No, he's not saying that.
He says, be able to reach the people in your community.
Right?
He's not calling us to live out and not, you know, if you say,
well, it's my conviction not to have technology in my house, that's
okay, but you're not sinning if you have technology, okay?
God has given us tools to reach people for Christ.
That's not what he's talking about.
He's talking about separating from the influence of this world.
So we redeem the things that we have in this world for the cause
of the gospel and we don't join in with the way that the world
uses those things.
Whether therefore, you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all
the glory of God.
So the way that I read that is this.
I can eat and drink to the glory of myself.
I can do anything to the glory of myself, or I could do something
for the glory of God.
And so in this case here we see that there is a command to be
biblically separate, he says, and touch not the unclean thing.
And I will receive you and will be a father unto you.
Meaning you want to be my child, act like my child and ye shall
be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
Do we love him?
Do we love him enough to say, I want to honor you, Abba Father,
I want to honor you.
And therefore, if you're asking me to stay away from this,
I'm going to stay away from this.
If you're asking me to separate, See, there's some people
that will say, well, I don't care what God says, I'm not giving
that up in my life.
Folks, that is a dangerous place to be.
That's hard hearted pride that we have to get taken care of right
now.
If God comes and tells us to get rid of something, step away from
something, we need to say, that is something that I have to
separate from, that I have to cut out of my life because my association
with him matters more than any other association that I have in
my life.
Oh, God is never going to call you to do something according, or
I should say opposite of his scripture.
He's always going to call you to do something according to scripture.
So someone says, well, you know what?
I feel like my spouse is really a bad influence on me right
now, so I'm just going to cut them off.
God does not want you to do that, okay?
I don't think that that's what God wants you to do.
He wants you to strive.
Now you say, well, are there times and places for different things
like that?
That's another conversation.
But what I will say is this.
God is.
Cause I've heard a lot of people argue the fact that, well,
you know what?
God told me to just lose my cool with that person, okay?
He wouldn't have made me feel that way if he didn't want me to
go out and just tear up into that person and just yell at them
and scream at them.
You know what?
It's not God's will that we lose our cool.
It's not God's cool that we get angry in our own flesh.
There is a time and a place to be angry and sin not.
But the Bible doesn't say that we have justification to do whatever
we feel because God's allowed that.
No, the Bible says that everything that God wants us to do,
he's going to align that with his Word.
And so it's that true Test.
Is it lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and dare I say, the pride
of life, that's the one that gets us sometimes.
It's that pride.
It's that pride to say, you know what?
I'm not willing to separate.
I'm not willing to get rid of that in my life because it's fun.
What's the harm in this?
And I can tell you, as Christians, if you come on our Sunday
night services, for the last few weeks, we've been talking about
that there are certain things that we can differ on and we can
be okay with, right?
There's biblical preferences that are not essential doctrines
that we can say, okay, you have liberty.
But ultimately, at the end of the day, as a believer, I have to
really inspect the why.
The major word that I want you to think about here this morning
before we close is this.
Why?
Why am I associated with this?
What is this bringing to my life in the way of influence is this.
Paul talks about this.
He says, all things are lawful, but not all things are expedient
and not all things are edifying decisions that we make in
our life.
We have to say, is this building my faith, is this growing
my faith, or is this influencing me to start thinking
more and more like the world?
There's things that we have to do within our own home that I say,
you know what, I can't necessarily take you to chapter and
verse and say, thou shalt not have this in your house.
But I can tell you that that is influencing my family to the way
of the world.
And I say, guys, we gotta stop this.
Unless you think that my children are just angels sitting
there going, okay, Father, perfect.
My children press back on me too, okay, can we be transparent?
This morning my kids go, dad, why can't we do that?
And I have a point to tell them, because dad doesn't want you
to do that.
And that makes me mad.
No, it says, you know what?
As a Christian, we have to say that this is something that is not
pulling us more and more close to the Lord.
It's pulling us away from God and making us more and more like
the world.
And we're called to be.
If you're going to air, be on err on the side of being distinct
from this world, okay, be safe, be safe.
Now you would say, well, come on, you're going to be legalistic.
Have you heard me be legalistic this morning?
I've not sat down and said, do this, do this.
But what I am saying is be so very cautious about what you are
pulling into your life because what you pull into your life matters.
And that's what Paul is saying here.
Do not love the world.
Because the more that you love the world, the more your affections
are stolen from God.
And so what we can see is this, okay, so what's the remedy?
Doesn't mean no contact.
It's the balance of the gospel testimony and ridding ourselves of
the sinful influence of the world.
We'll never be sinless on this side of heaven.
But what the Bible does say is that we should strive to sin space
less.
Okay, so we can't be sinless, but we can strive to sin less in
our lives.
And this is not a message to say that, hey, this Christian is
better than this Christian because they sin less than this Christian.
It's the heart of the matter.
It's the why behind it.
So what I would tell you here this morning is this.
It's not about separating yourselves and saying, okay, we're
against this, so we're going to stop this we're against this,
and we're going to stop this, because at the end of the day, you're
going to end up being against everything, and then you're not going
to be for anything.
And so the remedy is what we talked about at the very beginning.
Don't yoke up with the world.
But who do you yoke up with?
You yoke up with Jesus Christ.
And the more that you know him and the more that you grow in his
love, and the more that you understand him, the more you will
say, you know what?
I'm not missing out by cutting out, because this is natural inclination
of a Christian.
The more I love him, the less I will love this world.
The more I cling to him, the less I will cling to the things of
this world.
And so what I would say for you here today, it's not about missing
out.
I used to think and still sometimes struggle with, the more
I love God, and the more I serve God, the less I do things in
this world.
Maybe sometimes, just maybe, I'll miss out on what the world has
to offer.
Folks, the world has nothing to offer.
Some of you can give testimonies to say, it is not worth
it, and I would encourage you to do so.
Okay, this.
Okay, I'm not on script here, but if you lived a life and you.
And you lived through things and you said, man, that was not worth
it.
God got a hold of my life.
I know sometimes the temptation is to say, well, I don't
want anyone to know about that, but biblically speaking, I
think it would be wise for you not to proclaim it against the whole
masses, but to take time and opportunity to give testimonies of
why you could explain that this is not worth it.
I wish we could all say that we were all, you know, free from
the harm of sin and evil in our life.
But I guarantee you, if we started talking about your story,
you could say, man, I can tell you that this was a pitfall in my
life and it was not worth it.
And you know what?
There might be a young Christian or another Christian in
this room that needs to hear that from somebody else.
Because a lot of times if you hear the message from a pastor, you
go, well, of course a pastor is going to say that he grew up in
a sheltered home.
He grew up here.
He never, you know, he went to Bible school.
He never did anything.
Okay, I concede that to you, if that's the place you want to take.
But there are people in this room that can tell you story after
story about the blessings of following Jesus Christ and the peace
of following Jesus Christ and the dangers and the pain and the
suffering of following the ways of this world.
And so I'm going to tell you here this morning, Jesus does not
want us to go through that pain.
He wants us to submit to him.
He wants us to follow Him.
He wants us to be different.
He wants us to be distinct.
And so we conclude that passage there with this.
He says, and I will be a father unto you, and ye shall be
my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
Folks, it ends with that beautiful relationship of walking
in fellowship with our Heavenly Father.
True test this morning is this.
Are you walking in the truth of Jesus Christ?
Are you walking in a relationship with Jesus Christ?
Where are your associations?
Where's your yoke?
Are you yoked to the world?
Are you yoked to Jesus Christ?
Are you allowing your associations if they are negative
associations with the world?
First of all, you got to recognize that that's kind of the
first step of understanding this change is where are my associations?
But number two, how much has it influenced me already?
How much has it influenced my family life?
How much has it influenced my marriage?
How much has it influenced my children?
How much has it influenced my workplace?
How much has it influenced the church?
Folks worldly ways have influenced the church so much today
and we don't even see it.
How do we find that standard, standard of truth, standard of His
Word.
And so the influence, but then the compromise, you could be influenced
but still kind of be on the fence.
But there is that point where we say, you know what, I'm just going
to compromise to the ways of this world.
The Bible says, don't do that.
The Bible says in First Peter, hey, be separate, be holy, for I
am holy.
God says, be like me, follow me.
And it's the balance of the gospel.
And so ultimately, after the compromise, there is hope.
And that hope is to separate yourself from this world.
Cling to Christ, follow him.
And he is your heavenly Father.
He will protect you.
He will guide you.
He will walk you through that path of danger in this world.
Psalm 23.
Yea, though I walk to the valley of shadow of death, I will
fear no evil.
Why?
Because God is with me.
He's comforting me.
He's protecting me, he's providing for me.
So here this morning, hey, you know what?
You might say, I've been a Christian for a long time, but I
have allowed the ways of the world to seep into my life here and
there.
Hey, folks, it just takes one time for that seed to get planted.
And as that seed's planted, that can lead us to a place of danger
in our lives.
But then you might say, hey, you know what?
I don't even have a relationship with Jesus Christ.
I've been trying my own thing.
The Bible says that you can never try enough.
You're never gonna be good enough.
You're never gonna be holy enough.
Can I tell you this morning, in and of yourself, you and I can
never be holy enough.
Because God is perfectly holy.
His defining character attribute is his holiness.
He's perfect in every way.
And that is the only way that we could obtain heaven.
But the Bible says that even in our failure and in his holiness,
he offered us a way.
And that is the message of the gospel.
Jesus died on the cross for your sins.
And his death on the cross means something because he sinned.
Nothing.
Zero.
He sinned in no way.
He fulfilled the law.
And because of his love for you, he says, my sacrifice is in
your place.
And when you trust in me and through your faith in me, you will
have everlasting life.
Now, how could he offer us everlasting life?
Because three days later, he conquered death through resurrection.
He's the only one that did that, and he's the only one that
can offer that.
So I would encourage you here this morning if you want to get on
that path of knowing him and yoking with him and being together
with him and having him walk.
Because he says, my yoke is easy, My burden is light.
You want to know that freedom.
You want to know that victory?
Trust in Jesus Christ today.
Put your faith in him and him alone for your salvation.
And that's just the beginning, the beginning of a walk with Jesus
Christ.
I'm going to ask everyone to stand with me this morning.
If everyone can bow their heads, close their eyes as the music
plays this morning, there's no pressure in this.
It's just a time of inspection.
For us, at least.
For me, it's a time of inspection.
And if I'm honest, I will be honest with you today.
Sometimes it's difficult to be honest when you're standing up in
front of people.
But I'm going to be honest with you.
There have been times in my life where the worldly associations
have taken over, not necessarily in an egregious way where
I'm rebelling against God.
But that seed of influence has gotten into my mind and gotten into
my heart.
And I haven't renewed my mind and I haven't renewed that walk with
Christ today.
And I haven't stuck in his word and I haven't followed his word,
and therefore I'm allowing myself just to act like a person
who has no hope.
And therefore I would challenge you this morning to inspect
your life.
It's possible, I would even say that it's probable that many
of us in this room have allowed the associations and the
influence lead us to compromise and lead us away from
biblical separation and lead us to a worldly association that
we have to be cautious of in our life.
And so I would encourage you this morning, if you need to get
things right with the Lord, if you need to come back and say, lord,
I've associated with the wrong things.
I've.
I've been influenced by the wrong things.
I've been.
I've been compromising in my life.
Come forward, give that over to him.
He's a loving, forgiving father that will accept you and say,
you know what?
I hear you and I hear your repentance.
God gives grace to the humble.
He resists the proud.
He resists the pride of life.
But he gives grace and forgiveness to those who humble themselves
before him.
So I challenge you this morning to humble yourselves before
Christ.
Think of the contrast.
Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life.
What did Jesus say?
Meek, lowly, humble, Love, sacrifice.
That's the difference.
And so this morning, if you need to respond to that this morning,
if you need to commit yourself to him in humility, do so.
But if you need Jesus Christ as your Savior, we've got some folks
standing up here that can show you in the word of God what it means
to trust in Jesus as your Savior, to be on that path of walking
that different, transformed life.
Lord, I pray that you be in this time of invitation, working
hearts and lives.
Pray that you challenge our hearts, convict us, and comfort us
in ways that only you can do.
In Jesus name, Amen.
As the music plays, follow as the Lord leads here this morning.
Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church
podcast.
I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.
If you would like to find out more information about our church
or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org
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Thank you so much.
God bless.
Have a wonderful day.