A Peculiar People (Part 1)

Turn with me in your Bible to the Book of 2 Corinthians.

2 Corinthians 6:11-18

Let’s pray.

In this section of Paul’s Letter, and even more so in the opening verses of chapter 7, Paul is heartbroken and even grieving to a certain extent over the turmoil in the church over some mostly petty issues. But Paul also uses the opportunity to address a few important issues while at somewhat of a loss in even needing to address these other struggles in the church.

We have spent the last two weeks dealing with a principle that I saw in verse 12, when Paul wrote, “You are not restrained by us, but you are restrained in your own affections.” In writing these words, Paul was showing the Corinthians, and us, the grip of legalism in the church and how it is fueled by their own affections, their own desires, and their own comfort of being ruled by law and regulations and tradition.

It was important for Paul to point this evil out because of what he wrote in the following verses about the importance of being separate from the world, which we will dive into a little later.

But on either side of this brief reminder that they are creating their own problems by clinging to their legalistic ways, Paul begins to reveal his heart yet again – something that he has done before in this Letter and something that he will do again in the next chapter. He does this as a father who is admonishing his children about an issue that pains him to even need to address. It is as if Paul is shaking his head in disbelief that his children are engaged in such a ridiculous and unnecessary controversy over what Paul views as minor and inconsequential issues.

So, in verses 11 and 13, Paul speaks as a father to his children, begging them to love him in the same manner and quality that he loves them. It is a tender and almost melancholy scene in which the noble Apostle doesn’t hesitate to beg for love from his most troubled church. Paul does not allow any personal pride to keep him from exposing his vulnerability and let the church see how much he is hurting over the issues they are plagued with. It will be a few sermons from now before we get there, but you can see this more clearly in 7:2 – “Make room for us in your hearts…”

Verse 11, “…our heart is open wide” – verse 13, “…open wide to us also.” Paul lays it all on the line in expressing his deep love for these spiritual children of his and begging for that love to be returned. And he desires a show of this love from his church by applying and expressing grace, and by forsaking legalism, especially in light of what he needs to say and needs them to understand concerning their relationship with the world. Paul knows in much greater measure than virtually all pastors in our time, that the greatest danger for the church comes from within. And you can bet on it that legalism will be front and center when those inside attacks come.

On the other side of legalism, we find licentiousness. While legalism ignores grace, licentiousness abuses grace to the point of not paying any mind to sin. If a church today is not legalistic, they are usually so tolerant of sin that they hardly recognize what the Bible calls sin anymore. And in many, if not most churches today, they are either overrun by legalism or they are gravely ill with an unbiblical measure of tolerance with worldly practices and licentiousness. Paul is essentially asking the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the Corinthian problem.

Who did we listen to instead of the Holy Spirit when simple disputes grow into major divisions? What is really happening when love grows cold in God’s church? When did we stop fixing our eyes on Jesus and instead divert our attention to worldly things and philosophies? Where does this struggle and turmoil come from? Why do we lose focus on the main things that God has given us in His Word? How do people and entire churches get so far off track?

As many of you know, when this nonsense of government overreach and political wickedness began to plague our nation and world beginning in March of 2020, I felt compelled to begin doing Bible teaching online. It began while we had our church shut down for a brief period of time while trying to assess what was really going on but has obviously continued since then even after we reopened.

One of these new avenues of opportunity to teach Scripture is a weekday 10-minute “live” teaching on Facebook. After working through the Books of James, Philippians, and Galatians, I did some lessons that coincided with our annual Prayer Week to start the year. Then on Monday, January 11th, because of a strong sense that I had to fix my eyes on Jesus much more than I had been, I started a study through the Gospel of John to help my focus. Those who watch these video lessons are really just along for the journey that I felt compelled to go on.

I mention all of that because I strongly believe that all of the questions that I just posed can be answered and/or solved if we would all fix our eyes on Jesus – which as I am sure that you well know, comes from that great passage in the Book of Hebrews.

Hold your place in 2 Corinthians and turn with me in your Bible to the Book of Hebrews, so that we can all refresh our memory on this tremendous truth.

Hebrews 12:1-3

The great cloud of witnesses are the saints of old who have lived a life of faith as evidenced by enduring some horrific struggles, physical pain, and even martyrdom. Whether this means that they are witnesses in the sense that they are looking down upon us or this is simply in the sense of being companions in the faith and tremendous examples for us to follow, doesn’t really matter. The point is that our struggles, our afflictions, hardships, and distresses are not unique. Through the ages, evil men, and women under the influence of, and sometimes even under the full control of Satan, have attacked and oppressed the people of God, sometimes without relief.

As the writer of Hebrews admonished and encourages his readers to “lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us”, and as he also tells us to “run with endurance the race that is set before us”, the implication is that this is what allowed these other heroes of the faith to become heroes of the faith. But the more important characteristic of their lives is that they were always “fixing their eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith”.

The saints in Hebrews lived prior to the coming of Christ but their focus was on His coming. Their lives of faith were set on a resolved hope in the Messiah to come who would be the author and perfecter of faith.

Fixing our eyes on Jesus means that we will see and evaluate everything as He would. Which means that we would need to know Jesus so intimately that we even can know how He would view things, how He would speak and act in any given situation. A surface knowledge of Jesus and a surface relationship with Jesus will guarantee that your assessment of how Jesus would respond will be dead wrong.

The “What Would Jesus Do” craze back in the late 1990’s had a faulty premise that led to rampant legalism because virtually no one knew enough about Jesus to have any clue as to what He would do. The bracelets should have said “What do I think Jesus would do” because that is how it was applied almost invariably, sometimes with disastrous and unbiblical results.

Here’s what Jesus did – He looked to the joyous future that awaits and filtered everything through that knowledge. He was not only the One who brough grace to our lives, He lived it perfectly. All of the issues that we make into essential and vitally important issues are rarely viewed through His perfect grace, are more rarely viewed through the future joy that awaits every believer. Jesus was not looking forward to the extreme physical and emotional pain of the cross, He was not relishing the shame of Him as the Son of God being stripped naked, beaten to a bloody pulp, nailed to a cross of wood, watch as His closest friends abandon Him, and then be mocked and ridiculed by wicked and evil men, but the joy set before Him was His focus to endure such.

Fixing our eyes on Jesus keeps our minds and hearts on the main things that we have been called to. Love God, love others, be His witnesses, and make disciples. If our focus is diverted to anything that does not line up with the core four, we have been tricked by Satan into taking our eyes off of Jesus.

And do not miss verse 3 – “For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” Beloved, when our eyes are not fixed on Jesus, when all of the ancillary issues take center stage in our minds, the strong implication here is that we will grow weary, and we will lose heart. Our personal ministries and the ministries of the church will suffer greatly.

It is like the focus of the lesson that I heard bits and pieces of that Cindy taught you ladies at your retreat. The Children of Israel were facing the armies of Amalek – a larger and far superior army than these shepherds and builders who spent generations in Egypt were capable of matching. God instructed Moses to stand on top of a hill that overlooked the battlefield while holding the rod of God over his head. As Moses held up the rod, Israel prevailed in the battle. When Moses lowered the rod because his arms were tired, the Amalekites prevailed. I think Cindy more so used the part of the account where Aaron and Hur helped Moses keep the rod lifted so Israel would win the battle.

The lesson that I want us to see in that account is an application to our passage in Hebrews. As we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus in all that this means, we will win our battles even when we are called to struggle for that victory. When we take our eyes off of Jesus and begin to focus on other issues that have caught our fancy, no matter how much these issues seem to be important and no matter how much we can justify and rationalize their importance, because we have taken our eyes off of Jesus the battle will be lost.

Now, let us return to the Book of 2 Corinthians.

2 Corinthians 6:14a

If you grew on the King James Version of the Bible, like I did, you remember this phrase as “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers”. The KJV rendering is probably more descriptive and also brings to mind a few commands in the Law of Moses that would have registered with the Jewish members of the Corinthian church.

Deuteronomy 22:10 says, “You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.” The reason for this is obvious for anyone who has worked with livestock of any kind, but for the rest of us who only see these animals from a distance, not only will different kinds of animals have a problem working alongside of each other, they are unmatched in strength, in temperament, and in a multitude of other issues. Expecting them to work in harmony and achieve the desired goal is utterly foolish. You will get better results with one ox or one donkey working alone instead of trying to put them together.

And, as Jason reminded me in one of conversations this past week, when you team two of the same animals together, whether it is oxen or plow horses, when paired together they can pull between three to four times the weight a single ox or horse could pull. For example, a single Belgian Draft Horse can typically pull about 8,000 pounds. Put two of those same horses together and they can pull about 32,000 pounds as a team. Try to team up a donkey with a Belgian and you’ll not be pulling anything.

This is the sense of what this opening phrase means. It is not a call to legalistically separate yourself from any dealings with unbelievers or to shun unbelievers or to look down your noses at them. In the primary context of what we have been studying from the beginning in this Book of the Bible is that the Corinthians had a church that was a mix of believers and unbelievers, and the crux of all their trouble was trying to make that work in the church, especially in the doctrine and teaching in the church.

No matter how friendly, how accommodating, how agreeable, or how compatible unbelievers may be in the church at times, the mindset will always be radically different when it comes to interacting with and following the Word of God. This principle was even in place with Israel in the Old Testament.

Exodus 34:12 says, “Watch yourself that you make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land into which you are going, or it will become a snare in your midst.”

Once we go down that road of joining ourselves with unbelievers in matters that Scripture clearly teaches us, we will be running headlong into trouble because we are not a match. So, Paul asks a series of rhetorical questions to drive home his point.

2 Corinthians 6:14b-16a

Each of these questions are asked with the intent of a negative response.

· What partnership have righteousness and lawlessness? – None!

· What fellowship has light with darkness? – None!

· What harmony has Christ with Belial (another word for Satan)? – None!

· What has a believer in common with an unbeliever (spiritually speaking)? – Nothing!

· What agreement has the temple of God with idols? – None!

And again, keep the context where it belongs – all of these questions have a spiritual sense, not any other aspect of life. In the spiritual realm, believers and unbelievers will not be a match in partnership because their goals and mindset will not agree. The influences of the world on the unbeliever and the Holy Spirit on the believer will invariably be in conflict with each other.

And here is why Paul mentioned the legalistic tendencies that the Corinthians were struggling with, when he wrote, “You are not restrained by us, but you are restrained in your own affections”. Our own affections are not lined up with what Jesus demands of us in the church. Our own affections will have us making decisions based solely on what we want, which can mean on the legalism side, running people out of the church who do not agree with us, and on the licentious side, overlooking sin and allowing unbelievers to lead and teach in the church. This can also mean many other things, but these are the primary issues Paul was confronting in the church at Corinth.

Countless churches have crumbled from within when they have ignored or misapplied Paul’s teaching here. Many have unsaved elders and deacons, unsaved teachers, and ministry leaders, and some even have unsaved pastors. The weeds are mixed in with the wheat and the wolves are mixed in with the sheep. Oxen and donkeys are hitched together not pulling the load assigned to them.

We welcome unbelievers into the church with the compassion and love of Christ, but we must at all costs guard our Lord’s church from allowing unbelievers to lead and minister in the church. The goals of the Spirit are the opposite of the goals of Satan, no matter how nice, how talented, or how theologically educated the person is.

There is more to say on these rhetorical questions that Paul has posed, but I’ll save that for next week.

For now, I speak to the believers first. Do you have the proper biblical balance in your relationships and engagements with the world? Have you applied grace to your life in full measure so that legalism nor licentiousness has hold of you? How passionately and consistently are your eyes fixed on Jesus?

To the unbeliever who may be here or may be watching or listening online, do not remain on the outside of Jesus looking in. Repent today, confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord today, believe in your heart that God the Father raised Jesus from the dead, today.

Let’s pray.