Audio Transcript:

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Good morning. And welcome again to Mosaic. If you're new, my name is Shane, I'm one of the pastors here at Mosaic, and we're so glad to have you with us this morning. We would love to connect with you. And if you would like to connect with us, we mentioned this earlier, we do that through a little connection card in your worship guide, you can fill that out and just drop it in the little white box back there at the back of the room. We have a little gift we'd love to send you in the mail. Or if you turn it in at the welcome center out front, we have another gift that we'd love to give to you just to thank you for being our guest here this morning. We can get you some more information about the church there if you're interested in that as well.

Last weekend, my family did the stereotypical New England fall drive. We went out across Massachusetts, up to Vermont and around and saw all the colors and that. And really the highlight of the trip though was along the way we came across some sky divers. And they were actually pretty low, they were kind of coming in for a landing and we're all looking, watching out the window as they're coming in. All of a sudden I hear my daughter Nora, from the back set just scream out, "Why on earth would anybody do that? That's so dangerous." And I'm like, "Okay, that's fair enough." I don't know, what's the most dangerous situation that you've ever been in? Have you ever been in a situation where the distance between you and death was thin, thin like the string attached to your parachute, thin like the foothold that you take when you're peering over the edge of a cliff and you get that kind of uneasy feeling in your stomach?

My friends and I in college, we were kind of thrill seekers. We liked to go snow boarding and rock climbing. But one of the things that we really got into early in college was spelunking. You know what spelunking is? You put on helmets and knee pads and headlamps, and then you crawl and you climb and you sometimes even swim to go through exploring these underground cave systems. And really, normally, usually in order to explore an actual wild cave, a cave that hasn't been commercialized for the public, you're supposed to belong to an official caving organization. And you have to oftentimes go downtown to the city hall and they'll have a key that lets you get access to the property that the caves are on. We weren't in one of those. But my friend somehow this one mythical place in Southern Indiana that was completely off the grid, under the radar.

So we made this trek from Northwest Illinois to Southern Indiana. And we get there and you're going down this country road, all of a sudden you hit this T intersection and there's just some woods and a small little opening in the trees, just big enough to drive your car through. And so we drive it down this old dirt road until we get to this rusty metal gate and next to the gate, there's a box and a sign and the sign says basically, "Drop $20 in the box, sign this piece of paper and enter at your own risk. If you die, you die." And as college students, this sounded amazing. This was the adventure that we were looking for.

And so we go, we set up a little campsite and we spend a couple days exploring these caves. And some of them had these big, big, beautiful openings, like stereotypical caves. I've got a picture of one of them. Most of them were really just a hole in the ground. If you weren't looking for it, you could easily walk right past it and not even know that they were there. You'd come across this hole just barely big enough to shimmy your way down inside and then you'd army crawl for 10, 20, 30 yards. But then eventually they would open up into these big cavernous rooms and literally inside there would be miles of tunnels to explore.

And so what's the point? The point is, I remember a moment when we were probably over a mile deep into one of these caves and it really finally hit me. I knew it going in, but it hit me in a real way, that if for some reason the batteries on our headlamps were to die, then we were to die. The only light that we had was the light that we had brought in with us. And if we were to lose that light, we would be lost. We would be left to grope through the darkness, never knowing if we were getting any closer to where we were going or only further and further into the darkness. It's a dreadful feeling, which is why we brought extra headlamps, extra batteries, extra everything just to be safe. But the danger was real.

We have been going through a sermon series on 2 Corinthians. And Paul has been repeatedly pleading with this church to remember the darkness that they were saved out of, that they were lost, dead in their sins, lost in the darkness and pleading with them not to go back into that darkness. A couple weeks ago in chapter four, he told them this, he said, "Listen, the God of this world...", 2 Corinthians 4:4, "... has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness.', has shown our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

"Corinthians, remember you were in that darkness, you had no light. You had no life. You had no hope. And you got yourself into that darkness with no way of getting yourself back out. But while you were lost, while you were dead in your sins, blinded by the false God of this world, the true God of this world, because of the great love with which he loved you, he sent us to you with the light of the gospel to save you out of darkness. Now, whatever you do, don't go back." This is his plea. Why? Because some of them were. What we see is that false teachers, unbelievers were creeping into the church, gaining influence over people's hearts and minds and like wolves in sheeps' clothing, they were leading them away from their savior, away from the safety of the flock and ravaging the church.

If you have your Bibles, open up to 2 Corinthians, chapter six, we're going to be looking at 2 Corinthians 6:14 through to 7:1 And what we're going to see is that Paul is again, he's giving us a warning to not return from where we came. He's giving us a reminder of who we are and he's giving us a vision of where we're going. So if you have your Bibles, you can open up. If not, the words will be up here on the screen, but would you please look at our text with me this morning? This is 2 Corinthians chapter six, beginning in verse 14.

"Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an believer? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of living God. As God said, 'I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you and I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me.', says the Lord almighty.' Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion and the fear of God."

This is the reading of God's word for us this morning. Would you please join me in prayer for our sermon today? God, we thank you for your word. Your word is holy. It is an errand. It is infallible. It is authoritative. It is a light for our path. It is a lamp for our feet. I pray that you would write the truth of your word upon our hearts to know it, to understand it, to believe it, to love it and to apply it to our lives in obedience and faith. My father, I pray that you would give me grace now and the power of your spirit to speak as I ought to faithfully preach, and to teach your word to your people this morning. I ask this in Christ's name, amen.

Three points today. Point number one, completely cast off the yoke of slavery. Point two, completely take up the yoke of salvation. Point three, get completely yoked with your savior. Arm pump emojis all around, we're going to talk about what that means in point three. But point number one, Paul begins right off the bat, verse 14, "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers." Four, what partnership has righteousness with lawness or what fellowship has light with darkness? What a court has Christ with Belial, with the worthless one, with Satan? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of with idols?"

This metaphor of being yoked, it's used in a few places throughout scripture, but there's only two other places in the New Testament where it's used in this negative sense. The New Testament uses it a few times literally. Jesus uses it one time as a positive metaphor. And we're going to talk about that later. But it's only used three times in this negative sense. It's used here and it's used in Acts 15 and it's used in Galatians 5. And we're going to take a look at these two other passages because they help us to understand what Paul is talking about and give us a good commentary on what this means. But in summary, both of these passages, they're addressing two things.

On the one hand, both of these other passages, they are warning the church to not be yoked to false teachers and to false teachings that were telling them that in order for you, Gentile Christians to be saved, you first need to be circumcised and to keep the Mosaic Law. Not just the moral law, but the ceremonial law and the civic law as well. And it's warning them that that you don't need to earn your righteousness through works of the law. And it's warning them there on the one hand. But on the other side, both of these passages also come with a warning against being slaves to the flesh, of living in immorality and sexual immorality and idolatry, as you did in your former lives as pagans. And so Acts 15, this is what we see.

We see in Acts 15:1 that some men came down from Judea and they were teaching the brothers unless, "You are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." And so verse six, the apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and he said to them, "Brothers, you know that in the early days, God made a choice among you that by my mouth the Gentile should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us. And he made no distinction between us and them having cleansed their hearts by what? By works of the law? No, by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither are fathers, nor we have been able to bear, but we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus just as they will." And so, in response to this at the end of the chapter, the apostles decide they're going to send a letter to this church to clarify their stance on the issue.

And this is the letter in Acts 15:23, it says this, "To the brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourself from these things, you will do well. Farewell."

So he's saying, "You don't need to earn your righteousness through these works of the law. You don't need to be circumcised to be saved. But this is also not giving you a license to continue to live in your former pagan lifestyle." These things at the end, they're describing practices of idolatry and sexual immorality. We see the same thing in Galatians, chapter five and Galatians 5 is just such a great commentary on this issue that I'm actually going to read this entire chapter, because it really helps us to grasp the fullness of what Paul is talking about.

And this is how he begins Galatians chapter five. He says this, "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law." If you think that that is going to save you, you need to keep the entire law perfectly. He says, "You were severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law. You have fallen way from grace. For through the spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision or uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

"You were running so well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and that the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed. I wish those who unsettled you would emasculate themselves." That's a Bible verse.

"For you are called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one in word, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh, for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. These opposed to each other to keep you from doing the thing you want to do. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law.

"Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires."

You see, both. On the one hand, you can't save yourself through the law. And the other hand, this grace that we have in Christ does not give us a license to continue living an unchanged life in the flesh, continue practicing the idolatry and the immorality of our former lives. He's saying, "You once lived in that darkness." But then the gospel came and the light of the gospel revealed that salvation comes by grace alone, through faith alone, in the work of Jesus Christ alone, to the glory of God the Father alone. So therefore do not be yoked to anyone who teaches you that you need to add anything to the work of Jesus in order to be saved. And do not be yoked to anyone who says that your freedom in Christ is a license to sin and to live an unchanged life as a slave to your flesh. And do not be yoked to anyone who practices or promotes permits idolatry in any form. That's who we are not to be yoked to.

Now, what does that mean? What does it mean to be unequally yoked to these things? Well, Paul gives us five descriptors in the text. And he frames them in these five rhetorical questions. "What partnership has righteousness with lawlessness?" It's a rhetorical question. There is none. "What fellowship has light and darkness?" They can't exist in the same place at the same time. "What accord has Christ with Belial??" It means the worthless one. He's talking about Satan, the devil. "What portion has the believer with the unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of God."

James 4:4 says this, "You adulterous people. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." What's going on here? What does this mean? Does this mean that we as Christians need to completely separate ourselves, cut off every we have with every unbeliever in our life? That we need to just completely isolate ourselves from the world? Does this mean that Mosaic needs to go buy some property in rural Pennsylvania and build a homestead with a lake and a garden? And the longer I live in Boston, the more I think I'd be a really great monk. I'd be a married monk, but still. Is that what he's talking about?

No, if that's what he was talking about, James would be contradicting Jesus. Paul would be contradicting himself. Jesus says this in his high priestly prayer. He's praying to the father in John 17. He says, "I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake, I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in the truth.

Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians addressed this issue as well. 1 Corinthians 5:9, he says this, "I wrote to you in my letter..." His former letter, 1 Corinthians is actually kind of 2 Corinthians, but we don't... The first letter was not part of scripture, it was not part of canon. We don't have that. But he's referring to a previous letter that he'd written the church. "I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. Not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and the swindler or the idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler, not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church who you are to judge? God judges those outside. Purge the evil person from among you."

And so it is not commanding us to leave the world. He's not telling us that we need to cut off all relationships with unbelievers. We need to reach them with the gospel. But he is saying that Christians need to remain sanctified, set apart and utterly distinct from the world around us. The church needs to be in the world, but the church can't allow the waves of the world to creep into the church, into the lives of believers. We talked about this a few weeks ago. This is not our home. We don't belong here. We are ambassadors here for Christ's kingdom. Our citizenship is in heaven. God has placed us here and called us here to change the world, not for the world to change us.

And so what that means is that as we carry out this ministry, we can't build the kingdom of light using the tools of darkness. We can't fight the good fight using the enemy's weapons. We can't ,arch into battle allied with the enemy's soldiers. It's not that we're fighting against them, we're fighting for them. We want them to be saved, delivered from that darkness. But we're not on the same team. We can't partner in the gospel with those who have yet to repent and receive that gospel. And I believe that is primarily what Paul has in mind here when he says, "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers."

Now, most of you, if you have heard this passage before, if you're familiar with it, you've heard it used in what context? In the context of marriage, right? This is why a believer can't pursue marriage to an unbeliever. Now, is that what Paul is talking about here? And when you read the text, this text has nothing to do with marriage on the surface, but it has everything to do with marriage when you properly understand it. Because what Paul is talking about here is a partnership in ministry and marriage is ministry. If you don't understand that, you don't understand marriage. Marriage, Christian marriage, is a missional covenant between one man and one woman in submission to one God. It is two people coming together to say that from this day forward, we until, death do us part, are going to be partners in gospel ministry together. Marriage is a commitment to work together toward the shared goal, of building a relationship, building a family, building a home that glorifies God, and that intentionally reflects the gospel out into the world around us.

And we see this very clearly in Ephesians chapter five. And read this chapter with this in mind, and look at this, Ephesians 5:22, "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands." Why? To give the world a glimpse of the gospel, to reflect the truth of the gospel to the world around us. Likewise, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that, she might be holy and without blemish.

"In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes, it just as Christ does the church, because we're members of his body." Husbands cherish your wives, lay your lives down for the sake of your wives. Why? To give the world a glimpse of the gospel. He roots this in the gospel. He also roots this in creation, that this is how it was meant to be from the beginning, verse 31, this is quoting Genesis, "Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband."

And then he continues, "Children...", in chapter six, "... obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, this is the first commandment with a promise, that it may go well with you and you may live long in the land. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." This is God's purpose, this is God's vision for marriage and family. And so therefore, before you yoke yourself to someone for the rest of your life, the most important question that you need to be asking and answering is, "Is this person going to help me plow in that direction?" If not, you need to take off that yoke. You need to break off that relationship.

Now, one caveat here, does this mean that if a Christian is for some reason already married to an unbeliever that they need to seek a divorce? No. Paul made that clear in 1 Corinthians, you can look up instructions for that. It's 1 Corinthians 7:12-16. But the big idea is that going into marriage, that this is God's desire, this is God's vision, it should be ours as well that marriage is ministry, ministry to one another, ministry to our children, and ministry to the world around us. So while the text is not talking about that, it is a proper application of the text. What are some other ways that this principle of being unequally yoked applies to us? The most direct application of this, that Paul is talking about primarily in the text, has to do with ministry in the church.

He says, "You are the temple of God. And what agreement has the temple of God with idols?" Paul's writing to a church that had been deceived. They'd begun yoking themselves to false teachers and false ideas. And he wants them to see that behind these false teachers, these false ideas were false gods, were false idols. And so some of them were embracing legalism, a self righteous works righteousness. Others were tolerating paganism. Most of them were probably mixing the two together. And Paul wants them to see. As good as these teachers might look on the surface, they come to you and say, "Oh no, we're just trying to help people be more holy, or we're trying to make sure that people are really committed, and that's why we're demanding these works of the law. Or we're trying to be more tolerant, we're trying to make things more palatable so that more people will come."

He says, "However good. It might look on the outside, inside these teachers and these teachers aren't just different, they aren't just bad, they're demonic." And he gets to this later on, we'll get here eventually in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, but just to give us a glimpse of where he's going, this is what he says. He says, "Such men are false apostles." An apostle is someone who's sent, so if these are false apostles who sent these apostles? They're, "Deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it's no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds."

The New Testament warns us over and over and over against the deadliness of false teaching and false teachers. Because they so often come to us in disguise. They don't always appear as these hideous demonic forces on the surface. They come and it almost seems good if you don't have discerning eye, if you aren't looking through the eyes of faith. But it warns us because we need to keep these false teachings, these false teachers out of the church. Don't give them a platform, don't give them influence, don't give them any kind of foothold. This means we need to know God's word and understand where it is that Jesus, our good shepherd, is leading us.

We need to avoid partnering with these false teachers, but we also need to understand the positive side of this as well, what the application is there for, what you should be doing is you should be partnering yourself. You should be yoking yourself with other believers who you know are going to pull strong and straight and steady after the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is why church membership is so important. This is why we take church membership very seriously here at Mosaic. It's people coming together and committing and saying, "We are committing together to pull strong and straight and steady after our Lord Jesus Christ. And if one of us wanders to the right or one of us wanders to the left, we're there to encourage and to correct and hold each other accountable to staying on this straight and narrow path." If you're interested in a membership, we're actually having a membership class next week, you can get signed up for that. But that's how this applies inside the church. There needs to be purity inside the church.

But where else does this apply? Because obviously ministry happens in the church, but ministry happens in all areas of our lives as well. And so we read this passage, we begin to think, "What are some of the other ways that this is fleshed out in our lives?" And this is where things get a little more dicey. This is where you got to really rely on the Holy Spirit and have a discerning mind. And there's so many variables involved that it's hard to give a one size fits all response to, "How do we apply this in all the other areas of our life?"

I'm going to give a few examples, but before we do just, we need to start by just asking ourselves honestly, in your friendships, in your relationships and in your partnerships at work, at school, wherever life takes you outside of the church, is there something there that is pulling you away from Christ? Are you there as an ambassador, bringing the values of Christ's kingdom into the world? Or if you're honest, is the world winning? Is the world instilling its values in you?

So college students, many of you are paying a lot of money to sit through courses. And some of these courses are education. Some of these courses are indoctrination. Are you discerning enough to know the difference? And are you strong enough to stand firm in what you believe? If you're going to a school, if you're sitting in a class where you are always being told what to think and never being taught how to think, if you're going to a class, to a school where it's not safe to ask questions about God, about origins, about purpose, about destiny, about morality, where everyone is expected to hold this same opinion and terrified to speak their mind, you're not in a classroom. You're in a cult. A very expensive cult.

Now be honest. How is your soul? Are you there as a light in the darkness? Or are you becoming one with the darkness? If you are yoked to an institution, a person, idea, anything that is pulling you away from Christ, you either need to be strong enough to pull back and stand your ground against that at force or you need to be wise enough and humble enough to cut your losses to cast off that yoke before it drags you away. Parents, you need to ask questions of your kids. What are they hearing? What are they seeing? What are they feeling? What are they reading? What are they being told in the books that they read and the TV shows and the movies that they watch? Even at school.

Our son was four years old the first time he had to stand his ground against a teacher at school. He was in a classroom of 19 boys and they were told it was time to play dress up. And Owen said, "I don't want to play dress up." The teacher said, "Why?" "Because all of the costumes are for girls, and boys shouldn't wear dresses." And his teacher scolded him. Now, if you know Owen, he's a very thoughtful and sensitive kid. He took this really hard. He felt ashamed. He thought he had done something wrong. So we talked about it that night at dinner. We assured him that he did the right thing, and we talked about why.

We talked about why boys need to present themselves as boys and girls need to present themselves as girls, because God made us different, that those differences matter. And that as a son of God, God calls his sons to stand up to defend and to make sacrifices for his daughters, just like his son, Jesus Christ, did for his church. It matters. And so we told him, "The next time that this comes up, you look at your teacher and you say, 'Miss teacher, the facts don't care about your feelings.' And then take a long drink out of your mug of leftist tears." No, we said, "You tell this teacher, 'I love you, but we don't agree.'"

Within a week, it came up again and he did exactly what we taught him. And you know what he found out? His teacher didn't get mad this time. He found out that actually I think he caught her totally off guard and we noticed a change in her, that from that day forward, she looked at him with a new respect. And she actually voiced that to us at some of our conferences. But when he said, "Teacher, I love you." He meant it. And when he said, "I don't agree." He meant that as well. But as it turned out, she turned out to be one of his favorite teachers. But the point is your kids need to know what they believe and they need to know why they believe it. And they also need to know how to lovingly, but firmly stand their ground. And so as parents, you need to ask questions, you need to debrief and you need to disciple your kids. You need to shepherd their hearts and you need to sharpen their minds or the world will do it for you.

What about the workplace? When I read this passage, that's one of the things that comes to mind, because there's partnerships that are formed in work, in career. And how does this play out? Well, there are some occupations and some organizations that are so at odds with Christ's kingdom, that a Christian cannot patronize, cannot partner with them in any way at all, period. But by God's grace, most work can be done to the glory of God as it contributes to the common good under God's common grace. And so assuming that that's the case, if you're the boss, praise God, I hope you're tithing. I know you are. I don't even need to say it.

But your goal as the boss, hopefully, is you're trying to build a business and an organization and a culture that honors Christ. And so therefore you need to be careful about who you hire, who you partner with, who you yoke yourself to, who you give leadership and influence to. Because if you want to build a business that honors Christ, you need to be yoked with people who are going to help you pull in that direction and not pull things off course.

Most of you aren't the boss, and maybe you don't have much say or sway at work. Some of you might be asked in the workplace to push forward to support agenda, immoral, unethical agendas that conflict with the agenda of Christ. Are you going to be able to stand up in those moments and speak for what is right, even if that means risking your position, your promotion, even your presence in the workplace? What does it profit a person if they rise to the top organizational hierarchy and yet forfeit their soul? We need to be careful about what we attach our hearts and our goals and ourselves to in this world, to make sure that we are pulling after Christ and that these things aren't pulling us off course.

So we need to completely cast off the old yoke of slavery, that's point number one. But in order to do that, we need to completely take up the yoke of salvation. Now, verse 16, "What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God said, 'I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them and I will be their God and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord almighty.'" To completely take up the yoke of salvation is to completely understand God as a father, a father who loves you, has loved you, has loved you to such an extent that he paid a price. He sent his son to redeem you out of slavery and to adopt you into his family. When you understand this, it changes everything in your life.

We called this series Prodigal Church, because the Corinthians had so much in common with the two brothers from The Parable of the Prodigal Sons. I say prodigal sons, because the point of Jesus' parable is really that both sons were lost. Both sons had recklessly abandoned the love of the father. The younger brother abandoned the father to pursue sex and drugs and pagan parties. The older brother abandoned the father, he didn't abandon the father physically, but he abandoned the father in his heart. He honored the father with his actions, he was a slave to the father's laws, but his heart was far from him. And both sons were miserable. Both sons were yoked to a false understanding of God. They knew him only as a force to either be avoided or to be appeased. And they failed to see him for who he was, which was a father to be loved and embraced.

Now, Jesus calls out in Matthew 11:28, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yo upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." To completely take off the old yoke, you need to yoke yourself to Christ. In Christ, you are no longer a slave to sin. You are no longer a slave to the law. You are a son, a daughter adopted into the family of God. And so you need to take up that new yoke, take up that new identity.

And then Jesus says, "And learn from me. Learn to follow my lead. Learn to pull in the direction that I am going in every area of your life." So whether you're more like the younger brother or more like the older brother, Jesus is the better brother. Jesus is the brother who was sent to find us, to save us and to bring us back home to find a father who was waiting, not to scold us, not to cast us away, but to embrace us and to welcome us home with open arms. So completely cast off the yoke of slavery, completely take up the yoke of salvation.

Point number three, get completely yoked with your savior, arm pump emoji. This is chapter seven, verse one. "Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God." People cringe at this idea of holiness. But deep down, everybody wants it. Everybody wants holiness. Everybody wants people to treat them that they would want to be treated. Nobody wants people to lie or to cheat or to steal or to sin against them. Deep down, everyone wants holiness for others. Just not so much for themselves.

Now as Christians, this cannot be the case. We desire holiness and we desire holiness because holiness is our destiny. As Christians, we look forward to an eternity without sin, no selfishness, no pride, everyone is working in the best interest of others. People are humble, selfless, they're full of peace, full of joy, no rivalry, no jealousy, just happiness for one another and the Lord. We look forward to that, that is our destiny, and therefore that holiness is our desire. To take that glorious future that we are waiting for and to do what we can to make it a reality right now. And so read that verse again, "Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion and the fear of God." Bring holiness to completion. In other words, we all are going to be completely holy. We're going to be spiritually yoked in eternity. Therefore, start working out right now.

What do I mean? I mean if holiness had muscle, if holiness had mass, then God's desire would be for all of his children to be completely yoked like professional baseball players. Not like today's professional baseball players, like the players of the 1990s when steroids were still mandatory, that's what we're talking about. When people look at your spiritual gains, they should say, "There's no way that's natural." Because it's not. You're not natural. You're supernatural. You are a new creation in Christ. The Holy Spirit of God lives in you. Therefore, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of the body and spirit, not just the outside, but the inside as well, and bring holiness to completion in the fear of God.

The reason that Jesus could say that his yoke was easy and that his burden was light was not because there wasn't a heavy burden to bear. There was. But he took that burden alone. What was the yoke that Jesus took? What was the burden placed on his back? It was the cross of salvation for sinners to be saved. Long before Christ was born, the prophet Isaiah looking forward to that day, he wrote an Isaiah 53, "Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our inequities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed."

We all like sheep have gone astray/ we've turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Jesus took the soul crushing weight of our sin upon himself. And he carried that to the cross. He did that for us. And now he invites us to come, to take his yoke, to take up our crosses daily and to follow after him. Not because we need to bear the burden of our salvation again, not because there's more atonement yet to be made for our sin, but in order to bring holiness to completion and to carry this good news of his cross to the ends of the earth.

If you are a Christian, you're here this morning, are you yoked fully to your savior Jesus Christ? And if you're not, if you've been trying to carry this burden, if you've been trying to prove yourself through your own righteousness or run from God into slavery, to sin, come and lay that burden at the foot of the cross. Take the yoke of Christ upon you and know that he loves you. He died for you so that you could be saved. You can do that today. Just repent, put your faith in him. Let's pray.

Jesus, you are the light of the world. You are the light that will never grow dim, the light that will never go out. Your words says that you shine in the darkness and that the darkness will not overcome you. And you've also told us, you have called us the light of this world, a city on a hill that cannot be hidden. God give us the grace and the power to shine this light without compromise, without fear. God give us the grace to be the holiness that we long to see in the world. Fill us as beacons of light, the beacons of your hope to a world that is run by darkness.

God, I pray that you just help us to grasp the gravity of what is at stake, so that we're never tempted to run from this responsibility or to try to push forward in the works of our own flesh, but to rely fully on you, on your spirit, every step in submission to your word. God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for your spirit. We thank you for your son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, our savior. It is in his name that we stand before you and pray. Amen.