Introduction:
A. Have you ever gotten all cleaned up and dressed up and then found it hard to stay that way?
1. There was a very funny commercial that aired during a recent Super Bowl.
a. The commercial showed a young man who was in at a job interview with a stain on his shirt.
b. As he tried to talk to the person interviewing him, the stain was talking louder than he was.
2. It is so easy to end up with a stain.
a. It may be coffee on our shirt.
b. It may be grass stains on our knees.
c. It may be spaghetti sauce on our face.
3. What is true of the physical world, is also true of the spiritual world.
4. If stains on our clothes are not a laughing matter, how much more serious are stains on our souls?
B. In today’s text from 2 Corinthians, we find Paul addressing one of the great challenges we face.
1. How do we maintain a level of holiness in a very unholy world?
2. How do we live in the world, yet not be of the world?
3. How do we have a relationship with unbelievers without becoming unequally yoked to them?
C. Paul has some answers for us to those questions.
1. So let’s work our way through the text, and then work on making the proper application to our lives.
I. Understanding the Word
A. When many commentators come to this section in 2 Corinthians, they look at it as a major digression.
1. They conclude that either Paul got distracted from his train of thought and chased a rabbit, or they conclude that this section was added later, perhaps as a section from one of Paul’s lost letters.
2. It’s easy to come to that kind of conclusion when you see that verse 13 of chapter 6 ends with Paul asking them to open wide their hearts, and then verse 2 of chapter 7 picks right up where he left off with: “Make room for us in your hearts.”
3. In between these two verses, you have this long section that seems out of place.
B. There are a few commentators, however, who think differently, and I have to agree with them.
1. Rather than seeing this as a digression, they see this section as a very carefully structured and closely argued conclusion to the second major unit of Paul’s letter.
2. So far from being a digression, these verses play a strategic role in Paul’s ongoing apologetic of his gospel and his ministry.
C. Look again at verses 14-16a: Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols?
1. This text raises a number of questions.
a. What does it mean to be yoked together with unbelievers?
b. And who are the unbelievers that Paul has in mind?
2. Paul employs an agricultural metaphor that might be a bit hard for us city folk to understand.
a. Back in the day before there were John Deere tractors, farmers used animals to pull their plows.
b. When they employed two animals to pull the plow, they put them in a yoke that tied them together and allowed them to work together.
c. On a practical level, farmers understood the importance of pairing the animals in a way that they worked best together.
d. You would pair animals of similar size, strength and temperament.
3. Interestingly, in addition to the practical considerations, God had given some instructions in the Jewish law about yoking animals.
a. Deuteronomy 22:10 says: Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together.
b. We know from the law that the ox was a “clean” animal, and the donkey was not.
c. Furthermore, they have two opposite natures, were very different in size and strength, and therefore, would not even work well together.
D. The principle Paul was communicating here is that there are certain things which are fundamentally incompatible, and are never meant to be brought together.
1. So after Paul stated the command “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers,” he gave a series of five rhetorical questions, each of which presupposes a negative response?
2. Each of them serve to stress in incompatibility of Christian righteousness and worldly wickedness.
3. What kind of fellowship can light have with darkness? None.
4. What harmony is there between Christ and Belial (which is another name for Satan)? None.
5. What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? Not much in a spiritual sense.
6. What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? No agreement whatsoever!
E. Paul’s mention of the temple of God became the launching pad for the next point in his argument.
1. Look at verses 16b: For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
2. We are the temple of the living God – How awesome is that!
a. No longer is the temple of God a building made of bricks and mortar.
b. God’s people are the bricks and mortar. God is making us into a spiritual structure in which He lives.
3. Look at how Paul expressed this idea in Ephesians 2:19-22: Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, 20built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
4. Paul then reasoned from this truth – If God is with us and in us, then we must strive to be holy.
a. Look at verses 17 and 18: “Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” 18"I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”
b. We must come out from them and be separate.
c. We must touch no unclean thing.
6. These promises of God ought to compel us to clean up our temple.
a. God promises to live with us and in us.
b. God promises that we will be his people – He will be our Father and we will be His sons and daughters.
7. What should people who value such promises do?
a. Look at Chapter 7, verse 1: Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.
b. People who value such promises should strive for holiness.
c. They should remove everything that contaminates body and spirit.
d. They should strive for perfection.
e. Why? Because of their reverence for God.
8. How challenging is all of that!!!
F. Let’s talk about that second question I mentioned a few minutes ago – Who are the unbelievers Paul has in mind?
1. Many commentators take them to be non-Christians in general.
2. Other commentators see them more specifically to be those Gentile pagans in Corinth with whom some of the Corinthians had earlier fellowshipped with at idol feasts (1 Cor. 8 and 10).
3. Both of these interpretations work, but only if this section is removed from its current context in which Paul had been fighting for the legitimacy of his apostolic ministry.
4. Given this section’s place in this letter, addressing these problems, I believe the “unbelievers” Paul had in mind were his opponents at Corinth.
5. If Paul encouraged the Corinthians to “open up” to him, it then required them to close themselves off from those who opposed Paul, whom he now labeled “unbelievers.”
6. This statement is shocking, because “unbelievers” is not a word Paul ever used to describe erring Christians.
7. Nevertheless, in order to make it clear, in no uncertain terms, precisely what was at stake in supporting his opponents, Paul employed the same terminology he used to describe the necessity of breaking free from idolatry.
8. Paul was trying to paint the picture of the absolute incompatibility between those who believe (and hence support his ministry) and those who didn’t believe (and hence were calling Paul’s apostleship into question).
9. In the final analysis, the believers in Corinth must recognize his opponents as “unbelievers” and separate from them.
10. And whomever refused to obey his command, would also be considered an unbeliever.
G. Now that we’ve discovered how this section functions in this letter, and what Paul meant for the application of those verses for the Corinthians at that time, let’s spend a few minutes discussing the application of these principles for us in our time.
II. Applying the Word
A. Let’s ask and try to answer a three important questions about holiness.
B. First, Why Should We Strive for Holiness?
1. One excellent answer to that question is because God is Holy.
a. In Revelation 4, John was given a glimpse into heaven and this is what he saw: “In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back…Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings. Day and night they never stop saying: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.” (Rev. 4:6,8)
b. Holiness is the essence of God’s nature.
c. John tells us that God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. (1 Jn. 1:5)
d. Out of the holiness of God, everything else flows.
e. We should strive to be holy, because God is holy.
2. A second excellent answer to the question of why be holy, is because we are called to be holy.
a. 1 Peter 1:15 and 16 says: But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”
b. Today’s passage from 2 Corinthians challenges us to be holy, saying: “Let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.
3. So there shouldn’t be any doubt in our minds about the “why” of holiness.
4. God is holy and he calls us to be holy like He is holy.
C. Second, What is Holiness?
1. The Merriam – Webster dictionary defines holiness as “the quality or state of being holy; sanctification.”
2. What is sanctification? “An act of sanctifying; the state of being sanctified. The state of growing in divine grace as a result of Christian commitment after baptism or conversion.”
3. To sanctify is “to set apart to a sacred purpose or to religious use; to free from sin, purify.
4. So, what is holiness? Let’s talk, first of all, about what it is not.
5. Holiness is not an attempt to be isolated from unholy people.
a. We are not to hide from the world, living behind cold, tall walls of isolation.
b. In Paul’s letter called 1 Corinthians, he made it clear that we need to be in association with unbelievers: I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. 11But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat. (1 Cor. 5:9-11)
c. In chapter 9 of that same letter, Paul talked about how he tried hard to reach out to the lost and bridge the gap between them: I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. 23I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. (1 Cor. 9:22-23)
d. In order to have an influence on those in the world, we have to have some contact with them.
e. We must be in the world, but not of the world.
f. Just like the ship is in the water, but the water shouldn’t be in the ship.
g. Or the submarine is in the water, but you don’t want any water in the sub!
h. Holiness is not isolation.
6. Holiness is an attempt to be separate from that which is unholy and evil, and to be set apart for God.
a. Jeff Bridges in his book “The Pursuit of Holiness” includes this quote from John Brown, a 19th century Scottish theologian: “Holiness does not consist in mystic speculations, enthusiastic fervors, or un-commanded austerities; it consists in thinking as God thinks, and willing as God wills.” And I would add – acting as God acts.
b. Swindoll wrote: “Holiness sounds scary. It need not be, but to the average American it is. Our tendency is to say that holiness is something for the cloistered halls of a monastery. It needs organ music, long prayers, and religious-sounding chants. It hardly seems appropriate for those in the real world of the twentieth century” (now 21st).
c. In the book Loving God, Chuck Colson had this to say about holiness: “Holiness is the everyday business of every Christian. It evidences itself in the decisions we make and the things we do, hour by hour, day by day.”
d. Holiness, therefore, is an attempt to be set apart for God and separate from evil; free of sin.
D. The final important question that we need to wrestle with is – How Can We Strive for Holiness?
1. The first thing we need to come to grips with is the fact that it takes effort.
a. Bible scholar D. A. Carson said this: “People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord.”
b. Holiness is not something we stumble upon accidentally. I wish it were that easy!
c. Holiness takes concentrated effort.
d. That’s why Paul described the goal as “perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.”
2. A second thing we realize is that it is a process.
a. Holiness isn’t something that happens all at once or in a day.
b. We should never give up our pursuit of holiness, even if it isn’t going as quickly as we would like, or even if we fail or at times take steps backward.
c. I know that I’ve still got a ways to go to be as holy as God wants me to be, but I will not give up; I will keep striving for holiness.
3. A third thing that comes into play when striving for holiness is separation.
a. There are some things that we will have to forgo and avoid if we want to be holy.
1. Paul included that OT quote: “Touch no unclean thing and I will receive you.”
2. Our world is full of “unclean” or filthy things that we believers should avoid.
3. Just think of the way that the media (TV, Movies, Music, internet) is saturated with sensuality, violence and rebellion.
4. We must choose carefully the kinds of things we allow into our minds and hearts.
5. There are all kinds of alternate philosophies and world views that we need to guard against in our thinking.
6. We have to take seriously the kind of message we are sending about our appearance – even though our appearance is external, it may be reflecting something that is lacking about our internal holiness.
7. Are we obsessing about our looks? Are we dressing too provocatively? Are we dressing in a way that detracts from the life we are trying to live for Christ?
8. What about tattoos? What about piercings? That gives new meaning to being “holy.”
9. These are decisions we must make with an eye toward holiness.
b. There are some places that are completely off-limits for us as Christians.
1. There are other places that we may have to avoid if we find that we are especially weak in a specific area of temptation.
c. There are some people and associations that we may have to insolate ourselves from to move toward holiness.
d. When Paul charged us to apply the principle of not being unequally yoked with unbelievers he challenged us not to enter into formal relationships that might jeopardize our spiritual life.
1. That kind of formal relationship certainly could include the marriage relationship a business relationship, or a teacher/student relationship.
2. This is certainly not a call to abandon your mate if you are married to an unbeliever – you might remember that in 1 Cor. 7, Paul instructed them not to abandon their unbelieving mate, if the person is willing to continue the marriage.
3. Paul said, “How do you know wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?” (1 Cor. 7:16)
4. Later in the same chapter, Paul counseled the widows that if they decide to marry again, then be sure to marry someone who belongs to the Lord.
5. Our closest and most significant relationships must be with believers.
4. Let me conclude by saying that holiness has to be one of our highest priorities.
a. In the forests of northern Europe and Asia lives little animal called the ermine (err – min).
b. It is known for his snow-white fur in winter.
c. It instinctively protects his white coat against anything that would soil it.
d. Fur hunters take advantage of this unusual trait of the ermine.
e. They don't set a snare to catch him, but instead they find his home, which is usually a cleft in a rock or a hollow in an old tree, and they smear the entrance and interior with grime.
f. Then the hunters set their dogs loose to find and chase the ermine.
g. The frightened animal flees toward home but doesn't enter because of the filth.
h. Rather than soil its white coat, the ermine is trapped by the dogs and captured while preserving his purity.
i. For the ermine, purity is more precious than life, how about us?
E. I know that this is a lesson I need to be reminded about regularly.
1. Our God is holy and He calls us to strive for holiness.
2. How wonderful that God forgives all our iniquities, and makes us whiter than snow!
3. How wonderful that God can enable us to overcome temptation, and lead a holy life.
4. May God bless each of us with a renewed passion to strive for holiness out of reverence for God.
Resources:
Paul for Everyone, 2 Corinthians, Tom Wright, Westminster John Knox Press, 2003
2 Corinthians, The NIV Application Commentary, Scott J. Hafemann, Zondervan, 2000
2 Corinthians, John MacArthur, Nelson Impact, 2007
The Letters to the Corinthians, William Barclay, The Westminster Press, 1975
Be Encouraged, The Bible Exposition Commentary, Warren Wiersbe, Victor Books, 1989
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Murray J. Harris, Edited by Frank E. Gaebelein, Zondervan, 1976
“What About Holiness?” Sermon by Dr. David White, SermonCentral.com
“How To Stay Clean Living In A Pig Pen” Sermon by Steve Malone, SermonCentral.com
