The Church | A Distinct People - 2 Cor 6:14-7:1 (Sept 17) Myles Holmes

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

Father, as we consider the great news, Lord, of the gospel, that our sin was taken.

God, every sin, every sin past, every sin present, every sin future, it was taken from us by faith and placed on the shoulders of Jesus.

And God, in such an undeserving way, and showing your steadfast love and your great mercy, Lord, you gave us the righteousness of Christ.

And God, each of us here who have placed our faith in you can declare, Lord, we don't deserve it at all.

God, there is nothing in us, in our own righteousness, that makes it so that we deserve all that you've done for us in Christ.

And so there's great reason to praise you for all of eternity and to exalt you above all other things.

God, that's what we want our lives to proclaim.

Lord, that there's nothing as worthy as you.

And yet, even, Lord, as I speak those words, I'm so aware in my own life of the many things that I pursue that are unworthy, God.

That aren't even, they don't even come close to the exaltation that your name deserves.

And so, God, this morning, by the power of your Holy Spirit, would you speak to each of us, Lord, to call us away from the things of this world?

Lord, to call us towards the things that are of you.

Lord, to call us to your open arms, where you receive us in all of our sinfulness and brokenness and unworthiness, God.

And so, Lord, we thank you.

We give you all the praise for this morning.

We pray this all in the name of your son.

Amen.

Amen.

You guys can grab your seat.

As you grab your seat, uh, we we are, I want to let you know that the elders of this church are very excited about a lot of the things that we uh see happening in our midst.

And one of those is just the way that the Lord is working in the women of this church, and particularly in anticipation of an event that we are hosting, uh, our women's retreat called Gather and Grow.

And so I just want to invite up Christina for a second.

You can grab uh Joel's microphone, maybe wipe it off.

He was a little excited there, so might be some spit.

And I just want her to uh let us know what's going on with women's retreats.

Good morning.

Um, so we're really excited.

We are like two weeks away from our women's uh retreat, our first one kind of really since all everything has happened.

We will leave that all of the everything as the background.

So excited.

We have a really good number of women already coming.

We have a few spots left.

If you don't know, it's September 29th, a Friday to the Saturday.

It will be a casual, really good time to get to know one another.

That is my heart's desire is that as a church, we cannot grow if we don't have a relationship.

And so um, we would love to get to know each other better so that we can serve, so that we can be disciples, so that we can be vulnerable and grow as a church.

And I have a strong feeling that that is often in the heart of our women.

If we are not connected, then a lot of growth doesn't happen in the rest of the church.

So um, if you have not gotten a spot yet and you still want to come, please, please, please come.

We want you to be there.

Uh, we are gonna carpool up together in different small groups, um, and then we will come back by about Saturday evening.

Um so yeah, please, please join us.

Awesome.

Thank you, Christina.

Awesome.

Um we're very excited about that.

I also want to just tell you how excited we are about uh what's happening this afternoon.

Step one, I was talking to um Melanie before who organizes step one, and she told me we're gonna have 24 adults checking out our church at step one this afternoon.

And yeah, we can clap for that, just what the Lord is doing in our midst.

And uh maybe you're new here this morning and you'd love to come check that out too, and we'd love to have you.

I don't know how we're gonna fit everyone in the Mackenzie's house, but we're gonna do it.

We're just gonna cram everyone in there because you know our church, if there's 24 adults, that's like a billion kids that are coming too.

But we're gonna make it happen, and we're so excited about everything that the Lord is doing here in our midst.

It's very exciting.

If you have your Bibles, and I hope that you do, you can open them up to 2 Corinthians chapter 6.

2 Corinthians 6 · chapter mention

And if you don't have a copy of God's word, uh the ushers are coming to the front right now.

You can slip your hand in the air and they're gonna put a copy of God's word into your hand.

Maybe you forgot that your Bible, you can just leave it at the back of the worship center.

But if you don't own a copy of God's word, we would love for you to keep this.

It would bless our heart if you would take it home and read it.

You're gonna be in 2 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 14 to 7.1 this morning.

And as we begin, I want to share a quote with you.

I've shared it here before, actually, and it's perhaps I would I would think maybe if I were to rank the most influential quotes that I've you know read and thought about in my life.

I think this was is probably number one.

It was written by a pastor whose name was Robert Murray McShane.

And he died at the young age of 29, and yet hundreds of years after his death, church historians are still talking about him because he was used so mightily by God.

He he really was an instrument in God's hands for a revival that happened in Scotland.

And I was reading quickly over his biography this week in preparation for this morning, and I was struck by what one biographer wrote about McShane.

He said, he said, more was wrought by him that will last for eternity than most accomplish in a lifetime.

And as I consider our church series that we're in the midst of right now, that's really my heart.

My heart is that this church takes so seriously the eternal things of God that we take away all the fluff and we focus on what's important, and that we do that to such an effective degree that more is accomplished in our midst for eternity than we could possibly even imagine.

And as we ask that question, even of Robert Murray McShane's life, of what was it that led to that level of effectiveness, I think that he would point us to this quote.

He said this of pastoral ministry.

He said, My people's greatest need is my personal holiness.

My people's greatest need is my personal holiness.

And he would write for the encouragement of another pastor friend.

He would write these words.

He said, Above all things, cultivate your own spirit.

He said, Your own soul is your first and greatest care.

Seek advance of personal holiness.

It's not great talents, God blesses, so much as great likeness to Jesus.

And let me just read those words again because these words are so relevant for your life this morning.

It's not great talents, God blesses, so much as great likeness to Jesus.

And he closed with these words, a holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God.

And I believe what McShane is doing here is really, in his own words, echoing this biblical sentiment that to strive for holiness is the most important thing that we could possibly do.

This is actually what the writer of Hebrews says.

He says that without holiness, nobody will see the Lord.

So listen, you know what that means for our church?

You know what that means for your life?

It means you can do a whole lot of things that are like really exciting and really awesome.

But at the end of the day, you can miss the most important thing: seeing the Lord.

And there is one thing that will separate those who see the Lord and those who don't.

There's one thing that will separate those who regularly see the Lord working in their churches and those churches who don't, and it is this it is holiness.

Well, that's really instructive for us, isn't it?

As we think about what the church is, what is the most essential element of this body of believers, of this gathering, of this group of Christians that God is calling together here at Redemption Newmarket?

Well, here's the answer: it's holiness.

Without holiness, this church will never see the Lord.

What about for our city?

What's the most important thing that we can do for Newmarket and for the surrounding region in order to win them for Christ?

And again, here we see the answer is holiness.

What about for your family?

What about for your sphere of influence?

What's the most important thing that you can have in order that you might bless them?

And the answer is right here: it is holiness.

It's holiness.

See, apart from devotion to the Lord, apart from separation from sin, we have no power in this church to accomplish anything of eternal significance.

And yet, when the church, both individually and corporately, when we turn to God in seeking holiness and seeking devotion to Him and seeking separation from our sin, what happens is great power is then funneled into the church.

And this is what Paul wants us to understand in 2 Corinthians chapter 6 that a holy church, that redemption new market, when it is holy and devoted to the Lord, it is an awful weapon in the hands of God.

2 Corinthians 6 · chapter mention

This is what the church needs.

Church needs to be distinct from the world in holiness, devoted to the Lord.

So let's read this together.

2 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 14 to chapter 7, verse 1.

2 Corinthians 6:14

I hope you'll follow along with me in your copy of God's word.

Paul says, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.

For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness?

What fellowship has light with darkness?

What accord has Christ with belial?

What portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?

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.

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.

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 then 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.

Church, this is what we need for power and effectiveness.

We need distinctiveness.

We need to be we need a distinct holiness.

And so the first thing I want you to understand is that if this is going to happen in our church, you and I must beware of worldliness.

Now notice here in verse 14 the command, this is really the main command that Paul has for us.

He says, Do not be unequally yoked with believers.

He looks at the Christian life and he says, This your effectiveness is that you are distinct from the world.

You're separated from the world.

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers, is a call to be distinct and fully separated from the lives of unbelievers.

And so he really employs a picture here.

It's a picture of that of a yoke.

A yoke, you likely know this.

It was a wooden cross beam that they would attach to two animals.

And by doing that, if you had two ox, instead of one ox having the power of one ox pulling your farm equipment, by yoking them together, you could have the power of two animals.

You would harness them together.

And that might be maybe a more of a modern-day equivalent of what it means to be yoked together.

It means that you're harnessed to that individual.

Now, I imagine that in a room with this many people in it, there are some crazy people who love skydiving here.

I don't know why you would love that, but my wife is one of those people too.

And I don't have any care for skydiving because I just love life.

I love my own life, and I don't want to put that in danger.

And yet there are some people who want to climb into a plane and go really high up, and they want to strap themselves to a stranger, and they want that stranger to jump out of the plane with them, and there is something appealing to this whole process.

And you get the sense there of what it means to be yoked.

It means when you're strapped to that skydive instructor, like there, you have no choice.

As you're flying out of that plane, you have no choice but to go the direction that they go.

And this is Paul's warning.

He says, be careful, because if you yoke yourself to unbelievers, if you live in the way that unbelievers live, you will have no choice but to be pulled in their direction and to live in their likeness.

Now, some have looked at these verses, this verse story, and they have said that what Paul's talking about here is marriage.

And certainly I want you to understand that marriage, a believer being married to an unbeliever, is a principle of this verse.

That's why Paul says in his instructions for remarrying in 1 Corinthians, he says that believers are only to be married in the Lord.

And you understand how you get that principle from this verse.

Because if you are to uh yoke yourself to an unbeliever in the most significant way in marriage, well, you can cannot help but go that direction.

Others have looked at this and thought that, well, maybe this is talking about business relationships, that believers are not to enter into close business partnerships with unbelievers.

And while certainly both of those are great applications here, Paul is really speaking more generally.

What Paul's speaking about here is not relationships, but realities.

What Paul is saying is that as a Christian, if your faith has been placed in Christ, you have a new reality.

You are a completely new transformation.

It's like you live in a whole different universe.

In fact, your universe, what Paul is saying, we could really say this: it orbits around a new reality, and that reality is God.

Everything in your life now orbits around God.

So what Paul is saying is don't start orbiting around the things of the world.

Don't start pursuing materialism.

Don't start pursuing the praise of people.

To do these things is to yoke yourself to the lives of unbelievers.

What Paul is saying is here, now that now that you are a Christian, everything revolves around Christ.

This is why it's really interesting, isn't it?

As we talk about yokes, there are two places in the New Testament where yokes are talked about.

One is about here where Paul commands us not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers, but there's another yoke that's talked about in Matthew chapter 11, and that is the yoke of Jesus.

Matthew 11 · chapter mention

He's calling us to be yoked to him.

And he promises us that when we yoke ourselves to him, that our burden will be light because we are his.

That's what Christianity is, isn't it?

It's looking at Jesus and saying, Jesus, it's your command is my command.

Your wish is my wish.

Your way is my way.

And so here's the picture that we get is that our call is to yoke ourselves to Christ.

And yet what continually what you and I do as believers is we yoke ourselves to the same way that unbelievers live.

And I love what one commentator says.

The danger of living, sorry, exposing for us the danger of living like this.

He says, those who harness themselves together with unbelievers will soon find themselves plowing Satan's fields.

This is the problem.

There's a great danger for us.

There's a great need for us to beware of worldliness.

There's a great need for us to be careful that we are yoking ourselves to Christ and not yoking ourselves to the things of the world to ensure that our life, everything about it, whether it's work, whether it's family, whether it's church, whether it's our hobbies, every moment of every single day orbits around this reality of who we are now in Christ.

And that therefore separates us from who the world is.

Now, Paul's gonna go on to show us what these new realities are that we possess as believers now.

And I want you to notice the first one here.

Notice he says, for what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness?

Paul looks at your life if you're you're a believer and he says this that as a believer you have this reality of a distinct disposition.

You're called to have a distinct and new disposition.

Paul here is really comparing two different realities.

One is the reality of those who are righteous, the other is the reality of those who are lawless.

And Paul in his gospel already has laid out this gospel reality of how you can become a person who is righteous.

He talks about it in 2 Corinthians 5.21.

He says in 2 Corinthians 5.21 that he who knew no sin, speaking of Jesus, became sin in order that you might become the righteousness of God.

You know what that means?

There's been this great exchange of righteousness that's happened in your life if you that the moment that you place your faith in Jesus Christ.

See, before faith, what happens is you're standing in your filthy robes, so to say.

Your robes are stained from all your sin, all your wickedness, filthy with your sin and lawlessness.

And salvation happens when you place your faith in all the work that Christ has done for you.

What happens, God says, is Jesus, who never knew any sin, he takes your robes off.

Those dirty robes stained by all the lawlessness that you had pursued and will pursue in your life, and he puts them on himself.

And then Jesus takes his own robes of righteousness off and he puts you puts them on you.

Now you need to understand this, believer, that if you are in Christ, you bear Christ's righteousness.

So you know, when God looks at you, do you know what he thinks of you?

Some of us in this room that feel like such a failure, we need to hear this this morning.

When God, if we're in Christ, when God looks at us, he sees the righteousness of his own son.

And it was a perfect righteousness.

And if that's you in Christ, what Paul's saying is, what what what partnership, what fellowship does the life that has been given this righteousness now have with this life that is pursuing lawlessness?

If by faith you have said, I want the righteousness of Jesus, then how could you in your life be inclined in your very heart constantly to lawlessness?

Your inclination then is entirely new.

Your disposition is towards righteousness.

You want in your heart, not that you're always perfectly righteous, but you want righteousness.

I want you to understand too, though, that as believers we have a distinct desire.

Look down at me at the end of verse 14.

Look what Paul says.

He says, What fellowship has light with darkness.

Again, this is a reality of what happens in your transformation.

You now have new desires.

And so as we look through the New Testament and we look at that word darkness, what we understand is that it's really referring to morality.

It's referring to the works of darkness.

As unbelievers, we love the darkness.

We did the things that displeased the Lord and we loved it.

You know, if you've been here for any amount of time, you know that I'm a fan of the Lord of the Rings, but I am reading through it right now, which is why you've had so many, you've just been inundated with Lord of the Rings illustrations, but here we go again.

And if you're really a Lord of the Rings fan, you're gonna figure out where I am in the series right now, okay?

That's what you're gonna be doing.

Well, Smeagol, you all know Smeagol.

I don't have an impression of him, but it would be great if I did really make this sermon a 10 out of 10.

But when Smeagol's in possession of the ring, he loves darkness.

He retreats into the depths of the deepest cave.

He starts to grow this physical sensitivity to the light, because in the darkness it's just him and the ring.

In the darkness, he's he's hidden from the rest of the world that might want to take the ring from him.

In the darkness, he could allow the ring to exert its full influence over him so that he would never be convicted about how ugly it was turning him.

And in the darkness, he couldn't see really what was happening to him.

And that's where you and I were.

It's a perfect illustration of where you and I were in our darkness.

We loved the things that opposed the Lord.

And now Paul looks at us and he says, You need to have a new desire.

Your desire is now for light.

This is why Jesus said, as he looked at his followers, he said, You are a light on a hill.

A city on a hill cannot be hidden.

He said, You're the light of the world.

Your desire now is to live in a way that shines light on who Jesus Christ is.

And listen, this should bring such comfort to you.

You know, some of us, as we think about our own faith, we we lack the assurance of salvation.

We feel like God could never love us because we're not perfect.

And I'm sure that some in this room have even cried tears over the fact that they are not righteous enough, and yet God wants you to hear this morning that even that desire, even that desire to live for the Lord is all the assurance you need.

Because that's not a desire that's natural to those who are not believers who have been given this reality.

See, as believers, we have a new desire, even though we're not perfect, we desire to walk in the light.

But I want you to understand also that the Christian has a distinct domain.

And so Christ said, so Paul says, What accord then has Christ with Belail?

Paul here is talking about ownership.

He's talking about mastership.

Who's the master of your life?

Look at your life.

Are you mastered by anything that is not Christ?

And this becomes a really good, you know, kind of rubric to assess our life with.

Is there anything in your life that you can't?

You cannot control yourself in the presence of what about food?

In the presence of food, do you have the self-control to be able to say that food is not your master?

What about money?

You know, in the pursuit of money?

Does money dictate your schedule?

Does money dictate the time that you spend with your family versus at work?

Maybe money is your master.

What about your pursuit of sexual pleasure?

Does that dictate your time?

Is that your master?

Do you have control over it?

Who is your master?

And the Christian says, I've been brought into a new domain.

My master is Jesus.

Notice a fourth reality here.

Paul here is stacking illustration upon illustration to show us this reality that we are a distinct people.

We are a new people, and it should be obvious as you look at us.

So he says, What portion then does a believer share with an unbeliever?

See the difference between an unbeliever, what makes us distinct from believers, is that we work for a different reward, Paul says.

The believer obviously has their minds set on eternity.

Doesn't this just make sense?

Like if you believe what you believe about God, if you believe what you believe about salvation, that if you place your faith in Jesus Christ, you'll be saved for all of eternity, then why on earth, if you really believe that, would you ever live for this speck that we call life?

It's a whole eternity at stake here.

Of course, if you really believe that in your heart of hearts, you'll be working for a different portion, for a different reward.

Sad thing is, you know what is often the reality for especially believers, so-called believers in the North American church, is that they want to say that Jesus is their new master.

They want to say that they desire Jesus.

They want to say all these things, but at the same time, they really want to work for an earthly portion.

See, they say they want Jesus so that they can partake in eternal life because they're certainly scared of the opposite.

But everything in their life isn't is working for an earthly reward.

And they're so willing time and time again to push off Christ in order to work for a were earthly reward instead of living for a heavenly reward, instead of working for a heavenly portion.

And so they're constantly making earthly investments.

Do they believe this notion that if you just believe in Jesus, this kind of easy believism, it doesn't really matter how what your life looks like, doesn't really matter what you do, you've made it, you're gonna make it to heaven.

Yeah, the problem is, the problem is that if your reality on earth is that you don't really love God and you don't really want to be around him, you don't want to really live a life that causes you to draw nearer and nearer to God, like this life of holiness that we're talking about.

If that's not your reality on earth, that that's your desire to live a holy life, my question then is why would you ever think that heaven would be a place that you enjoy?

I love what JC Rile says about this.

I'm gonna read this for you.

He says, if you dislike a holy God now, why would you want to be with him forever?

If worship doesn't capture your attention at present, what makes you think it will thrill you in some heavenly future?

If ungodliness is your delight here on earth, what will please you in heaven where all is clean and pure?

You would not be happy there if you are not holy here.

And you see, the Christian has a distinct destination that shapes the way that they live now.

Their eyes are set on eternity.

Lastly, I want you to see this church, that as believers, we have a distinct deity.

You see that in verse 16?

He says, What agreement has the temple of God with idols?

You know, this is part of what we talked about last week as Peter made a confession.

He said, You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

What he was declaring in that moment was that every other God is a dead God, that he's pursuing Jesus against the dead gods of this world.

This was an issue of worship.

Paul's saying this, that you have a distinct worship.

You now worship the one and true living God.

Christian, can you see that?

Can you see the application here?

The application in all of this, Paul's stacking illustration on illustration to say this.

You are different.

If you came with someone this morning, can you turn to them, just nudge them, say, hey, you're different.

You're different.

Tell them you're different.

Preach to them right now.

Can't do this myself.

You gotta preach to them.

I see some of like the wives and the girlfriends in the room, they're like really preaching it hard.

Like, you really are different, okay?

You are you're a special person.

You're different.

That's who you are in Christ.

You're distinct, you have a new disposition, you have a new desire, a new domain, a new destiny, a new deity.

And Paul's admonition here is that we do not unequally yoke ourselves with the world, but live according to our new reality.

And so listen, my question for you this morning is this Is there any area in your life where you are not living according to this new reality that has been purchased for you in Christ?

Let's just make this really practical right now.

Do you do your priorities in life right now, do your priorities show that this new reality is yours?

Do your priorities show that God is the highest priority in your life?

Again, let's get really practical, okay?

Let's look at your schedule over this last week.

Has your schedule revolved around God?

Or has God been fit into your schedule?

You know, this is gonna get really practical.

Look at your time, look at your calendar.

Has it revolved around God so that you say, God, I want to use my time this week to honor and serve you?

Or have you just kind of fit God in?

Okay, God, I got I can schedule in for Sunday morning.

I can schedule in on Wednesday morning, I'll do some devotions, but I got a busy week this week, God.

See, I I truly believe that the weakness, generally speaking, here, the weakness of the North American Church is the unwillingness to prioritize the ultimate thing over things that are good.

Isn't it true?

Like, I don't think anyone in this room is like, yeah, you know what, I couldn't, I couldn't give my Wednesday night to God because I was just out murdering people, right?

I don't think, I mean, maybe someone is, and in which case there's probably like a big clearance around them, and sitting here in the you know, worship center, no one wants to sit by them.

But my guess is that your week was filled with things that as you look with them, they're like probably pretty good things.

I'm guessing there's few of us this this week that really lived this life of like blatant immorality, and yet many of us, what we did was instead of exalting what is ultimate in our life, we exalted something that's just good.

And that's where our greatest weakness comes.

Instead of devoting ourselves to the ultimate thing that is God, we devote ourselves to these lesser things that are idols.

And so we need to beware of worldliness.

But the second thing that Paul is pointing us to here is that we need to believe in godliness.

We need to believe in godliness.

By this I mean this.

You need to believe that your greatest source of effectiveness is to live a godly life.

That needs to be like a conviction of yours that the best thing that you can do today for your family, the best thing that you can do today for your work, the best thing that you can do today for your finances, the best thing that you can do today for your church, for your personal happiness, for all these things is to pursue the Lord.

Listen, church, none of us, none of us have this belief deeply rooted into our heart because we live in a world where you're laughed at for holiness.

We live in a world where it's it's mocked.

Like you're gonna live a life to try to pursue devotion to the Lord?

Like, what kind of life is that?

And instead, the this kind of life of worldliness is glamorized, where it's like, you know, every weekend's at the cottage and there's all these luxurious and extravagant vacations, and life is about the money that you make and the things that you can possess or whatever your idol is.

Holiness is mocked, worldliness is exalted.

And here my question for you is this if we were to x-ray your heart, if we could see what is really there, do you believe that godliness is your greatest source for effectiveness?

And so as I be as we begin to see this in Paul, I just want to start by asking you this question like, do you really believe that?

Is there in your life right now, like, this holy dissatisfaction with where you are?

You see where you need to be, and you recognize the gap that is between you and who Jesus Christ is calling you to be, and like there's this dissatisfaction, this discontent.

I'm not where I need to be, I want to be holier.

Paul's gonna really push us towards holiness here by laying out the reward.

And so look what he says in the second half of verse 16 there.

He says this really important word.

For.

For.

When you're reading scripture, especially in the New Testament, you've got to stop on these little words.

These are big deals.

What Paul is telling us here is that this is the motivation for us to beware of worldliness.

Here's why you need to do this.

He says, for, here's the reason.

We are the temple of the living God.

We're the temple of the living God.

That phrase right there is rich with theological meaning.

In fact, you guys, if you've been with us for a year now, you guys are all masters in the book of Genesis, right?

Had some people come up to me last week and said, hey, you took way too short of a time in Genesis.

We needed like a few more years, and I agree.

We could have done that.

There weren't many people, I promise you, but there was at least one.

It was my mom.

I'm just kidding.

And yet we saw this in Genesis.

Where was the first temple?

Well, we saw this in Genesis.

The first temple was the garden.

The garden of Eden was the first temple of God.

The temple was all about the presence of God.

If you wanted to know where God's presence was, it was always in the temple.

And so in the garden, we saw these some amazing realities.

This is where God walked, just like he'd walk in the temple.

He walked in the garden.

And you know, the temple was really modeled after the garden.

If Adam and Eve were to go into the temple, they would say, hey, this looks kind of like home to me, because the temple was modeled in the dark after the garden.

There was a candle in the middle that looked like a tree of life.

The walls of the Holy of Holies were uh carved with palm trees, branches that would remind you of the Garden of Eden on the curtain that hung in front of the door that faced east, just like the door of the Garden of Eden did, was this cherubim that was placed in the front of the Garden of Eden.

So that everyone who saw the temple saw, hey, this is like a mock-up.

This is a version of the first temple that was the Garden of Eden.

And you know the story of what happened.

God created his temple, he called his priests, Adam and Eve, to work and keep the temple, and yet they failed.

Instead of keeping worldliness out and godliness in, they invited worldliness in and kept God out.

And because of that, they were cast out of the presence of God.

And yet you and I hold this Bible, and from Genesis 4 to Revelation chapter 19, every verse of this Bible is about how God is after you to get you back into his presence.

Revelation 19 · chapter mention

In fact, you know what one of the toughest things for me as a pastor here at this church has been refraining from jumping right from Genesis into Exodus.

Like there is part of me that's like we should have just gone right to Exodus in September, because I love Exodus.

Because Exodus paints this picture that like God is serious about redeeming his people and bringing them back into his presence.

And so you know, if you know the story of Exodus, you know this, right?

You read through Exodus, the first 20 chapters are like some of the most action-packed material in all of Scripture.

It's like the ten plagues.

Our kids love this stuff.

Being delivered through the Red Sea, the manna, the water from the rock, that Moses going up Mount Sinai and God speaking to him there.

Because you get the sense that God is serious about bringing his people back to him.

You remember what Moses said to Pharaoh?

He said, Pharaoh, let my people go in order that they may worship me.

God is the heavenly hound who is after the worship of his people, who is after his people to bring them back into his presence.

I mean, if you've ever read through Exodus, you've noticed this, isn't it?

Haven't you?

The first 20 chapters of Exodus, like action-packed.

They're amazing.

But then you get to Exodus 21, and it's all these laws.

And you get to Exodus 24, and it's like the most detailed blueprint you've ever read about the tabernacle.

And then there's like a little bit of action in Genesis 30, but then in Genesis 31, you know what happens again?

You get all those laws again.

And then you get all the details about the tabernacle again.

And it's another 20 chapters until Genesis 40 that's just like this.

Like it's it's so hard.

This is where a lot of people like they start to run dry in their in their chronological Bible reading plan because it's like all these little details about the tabernacle, about this place where God is going to dwell.

Why?

Because God is serious about his presence being in the midst of his people.

He's serious about it.

And so he gives to his people the tabernacle, the very place where he would be present in the Holy of Holies, and the tabernacle would eventually become the temple, the place where his presence dwelt.

And it's so significant here that in Genesis, that then in 2 Corinthians chapter 16, he says, We are the temple.

Listen, if you have a low view of the church, you need to look at this verse right here.

You know what he's saying to Newmarket?

He's saying to this city and the surrounding region, he's saying, hey, if you want to know God's presence, look to Redemption Newmarket.

That's the temple.

This is the place where I'm present with my people.

This is the place where you will meet me.

Paul says, You, church, are the temple.

Now it's interesting because there's two senses in the New Testament.

In one sense, individuals are the temple.

Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, 19.

1 Corinthians 6 · chapter mention

Some of you are familiar with this verse.

He says, Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?

And so, yes, in one sense, you are like this is a phenomenal reality.

You're a temple for the Holy Spirit.

If your faith is in Christ, the Holy Spirit dwells inside of you.

And yet, in even a more significant way, what the New Testament teaches us is that the church is God's temple, so that Paul says in Ephesians 2, verses 19 to 22, he says, so then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens, he says, together with the saints and members of the household of God, you're built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure being joined together, listen to this, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

Ephesians 2:19–22

In him, you also, speaking in plural, you the church, also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Where will unbelievers in Newmarket encounter the presence of God?

Paul's answer is through the ministry of the church.

This is God's temple.

Let me illustrate what God's maybe doing in this church.

Hopefully this is helpful for you.

I've grown up my whole life not understanding why there are people in the world who love just to go around the world and look at birds.

They call them bird watchers.

Does anyone don't put your hand up if you're in this room and you're a bird watcher, okay?

Because I've spent most of my life like trying to make fun of these people as much as I can.

I spend time saying, I'm gonna really offend some bird watchers here, probably.

But I can't think of a group that's like less scary to offend than a group of bird watchers with like their fanny packs and binoculars.

Not super scared about it.

But I say, you know, bird watching is kind of like the equivalent of adult Pokemon.

You're trying to catch them all, you're trying to see all these different birds.

Anyways, when we moved, one of the first things that my father-in-law did was put a bird feeder in the ground.

Now I don't hate birds, I just don't get the you know the fascination around them.

But something has happened.

I can't really go into my kitchen without someone telling me about some bird they saw, and I just don't care about it.

There's always a hummingbird outside the kitchen window, and someone's always screaming, hummingbird, and I'm saying, I don't care.

And I looked out the window the other day and I said, Oh, look, you know, I'm trying to, you know, I'm trying to just condescend to my kids and the things that they're interested in.

And I said, Oh, look, it's a chickadee.

My oldest daughter came to the window and she said, That's a goldfinch.

And I said, You're a nerd then, if you know that.

Now, I don't care about birds.

I try my best to ignore them.

I'm excited that in a few weeks the hummingbirds are gonna fly away and I don't have to hear about them for a whole winter.

And yet something happened last week.

I walk walked out my front door, and there was this deafening sound from across the street.

Like I'm talking like deafening.

And I looked over and I looked up in the trees, and there were hundreds, if not like thousands, of these black birds.

And I don't know what they were, but someone in here wants to stand up right now and tell me what they were, I'm sure, of it.

But I could not not see them.

It was deafeningly loud, how loud these birds were.

And then at the same moment, all of them flew, and the sky was like dark with these birds, and you could not do anything but help and notice these birds in all of their beauty and all of their unity.

And this is kind of like what God's saying about the church.

When the church gathers and the church grows, what happens is the watching world sees God's presence in a way that they might not otherwise see.

So, yes, can you preach the gospel alone?

Sure.

But when the church does it together, then it cannot be ignored.

When the church puts God on display, the voice of unity preaches loudly.

This is why we're gonna look at this passage next week, actually, but in Matthew 18, Jesus defines the church and he says, where two or three are gathered, he's speaking about the church here.

He says, There I am in their midst.

Because the church is the place where God is present.

That's why in the Great Commission, when Jesus commissions the church, what does he say?

And I will be with you to the end of the ages.

The very nature of the church is that it is a temple.

Now, what does this holiness look like?

This is really important because some of us, as we're thinking about holiness, we we think about holiness like this, like kind of like stuck up like morality.

Like I'm better than you, my life is perfect, I never do anything wrong.

That's actually a fake holiness.

That's not the holiness that's described in scripture at all.

That's morality without heart.

A holiness without the love of God is not holiness at all.

Paul tells us here exactly what this holiness should look like.

He says, if we're a temple, he says in verse 16, then we we dwell in the midst of these realities.

He says, I will, 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.

We ask this question: what is what does holiness look like?

Well, I want you to see here first, it looks like an intimacy.

When people walk in the doors of this room, you know what they should see?

They should see a group of people who are pursuing intimacy with the Lord.

A group of people who are just obsessed with God, a group of people who are singing like we sung.

God, I just want to exalt you.

I'm here to give you praise because you're so worthy about like the hearts that are overflowing with love for God.

When people come in, this is what they should see that these people have something that I don't.

They have an intimacy with God, like this real this relationship with a God who is real that I don't.

In fact, I was just sitting with someone this week, and you know, God is really pursuing this guy.

And you know what he said?

He said, one of the things that made him realize that maybe he's not taking his faith seriously is that he's in the presence of these people who are all pursuing this real relationship with the Lord, and he's looking at them, he's saying, I have something they don't have.

And in fact, if you've followed Christ for any given amount of time, other people have seen this in you.

They realize like there's there's an assurance there, there's like a peace in the midst of things that should make them anxious.

There's like that when they suffer, they're still okay, and there's something they have, there's something they understand that I don't have.

And this is what it is, Paul says, it's it's intimacy.

It's intimacy.

And you know, this is the greatest aim of our church.

Our greatest aim is not that you come to this church and think, oh wow, this pastor's amazing, or you think, oh wow, this the worship was incredible.

Because eventually, I'll promise you, I promise you, you can ask my wife, I will let you down.

I will always do it.

Joel will sing a wrong note sometime someday.

The words will not be quick enough.

Something will let you down.

You know what we're trying to do?

We're trying to show you how great God is.

We want you to leave this place and say, God, that whoever that their God is, He is so good.

It's an intimacy, but notice it's also our identity.

So let's

Look what Paul says in verse 18.

He says, I'll be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me.

See, when we're pursuing holiness, we are proclaiming that our identity is rooted in who we are as children of God.

He's our father, so he's the one who we are obedient to.

This is, I think, really helpful for us.

The church's identity is that we are the children of God.

God is our father.

You know, there are many religions that they even call God their father, but God's not really a father to many.

To many, God is more like a taskmaster.

God has like all these rules.

You gotta follow the rules.

And if you do well with the rules, then you'll be good.

You know, I I I truly believe it.

There are probably some here this morning.

You're here because you know, you you know it's a good thing.

Like, I gotta go to church.

And you're here to add to like your righteousness resume.

You're here to say, like, I can't not go to church.

I should just go, and that would make God happy.

And it's kind of like this righteous like God is a taskmaster, He sets the rules, I need to follow.

And this is every religion in the world apart from true Christianity.

It's a religion that says God could never be intimate like a father to you.

Your identity could never be as a child.

All you are is a slave to religion.

And all God is to you is a taskmaster.

And I know this is the temptation of every Christian constantly to treat God, not like he's a father who loves us no matter what, but to treat God like he's this taskmaster, like he's this brutal taskmaster.

I know a lot of fathers in this church.

One thing I know about every father in this church is they're trying their hardest.

Like they're trying their hardest to be a good dad, they're trying their hardest to love their kids.

No one's perfect, and you know, I think probably often a father could tell you that more quickly than anyone else, how imperfect they are and how they feel like they're doing a bad job.

They can't really balance it all very well.

And they just feel like their, you know, imperfection is so clear in their fathering.

They haven't balanced things right, they haven't made the right priorities for their kids, they haven't taught their kids the gospel yet.

But you know what I do know about most fathers in this room is that they love their kids with such an intensity that nothing could ever shake that love.

Like there's nothing their kid could ever do that could stop them from loving that kid.

And in preparation, even for this week, as I was thinking about, you know, God's love for us, I took each of my kids aside and I just held their face and I said, you know, like you know, there's nothing that you can ever do that would ever make me stop loving you.

I will always love you.

You know, I did it with my oldest, and she was just really confused.

Like she just knows, she just knows this love.

My middle, I did it with, I did it with my youngest.

It was actually really hard because she's tried my love at times, but I was still able to say, no matter what you do, we've been through it all in these two short years of your life.

But I will always love you.

And my love is not dependent on anything other than the fact that you are my child.

And listen, the father's in this room, me, I'm so I'm I'm so imperfect.

How much more is God's love for you like that?

He loves you no matter what.

And he's given you the righteousness of his own son, so that no matter what you do, no matter what you do, his love is for you.

Listen, when the church comes in, if God is a taskmaster to us, then the weight of church is crushing.

If people come into this church, they think, oh man, all these people, they they really got their life together.

They're perfect.

It's crushing because they can't do it.

You know what they need to see?

They need to they need to come in and see people who who are rejoicing in their identity as a child of God.

I am a child of God, and nothing can shake the love of God from me.

Our holiness comes from our identity.

We're children of God.

And so I come back to my original question.

Do you believe in godliness?

Do you believe that this is the most effective thing that you can do?

Well, if you do, I want you to see this really quickly.

You need to behave with holiness.

You need to behave with holiness.

Paul says these words, since then we have these promises.

He's just laid out the promises in verses 15 to 18, sorry, 16 to 18.

It's the promises of God's presence, the promises of God's paternity as our Father.

He says, Since we have these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit.

You want to know what holiness is?

Holiness is cleansing.

It's cutting the things out of your life that are not God.

You cleanse yourself from that which separates you from God.

It's this constant work that you'll be doing for the rest of your life.

Right now, you likely know the things that you need to cleanse from your life that are not honoring to God.

You know what's going to happen when you finally do cleanse those things?

Until Christ returns, you'll you'll be shown more stains.

More things from your life that need cleansing.

This is this is what sanctification and holiness is.

It's the work of cleansing that which is in us that is sinful, that remains.

I was reminded of this work of cleansing.

I I uh left a stain or I was making waffles for my kids yesterday and I spilled some canola oil on the counter.

I thought it was safe, but then I leaned against the counter, and you know it gets you.

And so I had a giant canola oil stain, and I said, This is one of my preaching shirts, so I gotta deal with this.

There's only so many shirts I have, so I gotta like work to fix this one.

So I asked my wife, I said, like, you know, in desperation, I was like, what do I do?

And she said, just Google it.

And I was like, I'm on my own here.

Okay, I gotta figure this out.

And so I Googled it.

How do you get canola out of stains?

And it's always it's always the same answer baking powder and Don dish detergent.

So I did it.

I'm I'm working on getting this stain out, and I'll keep you guys updated next week.

I know you're on the edge of your seat.

What's gonna happen?

In fact, you'll know, I'll wear the shirt next week if there's a giant canola oil stain.

Hasn't been cleansed yet.

That's the that's the Christian life.

These areas of our life that are defiled, that are not living in honor of the Lord, we cleanse them.

Well, how much?

Well, look what Paul says.

We cleanse ourselves of every defilement.

See, our our aim is full transformation, so that Paul says that our aim is to bring holiness to completion in the fear of God.

We're going to the end.

My uh my wife she found on in our front yard a caterpillar the other day.

It was like on milkweed, so it was I don't even know how she figured it is out.

This is what homeschoolers figure out, but it was a uh caterpillar that's gonna turn into a monarch.

So she quickly brought it in, she put it in a jar, within a day it turned into this cocoon.

And as of this morning, this thing is like, it is like ready to burst.

The little chrysalis is like black.

We're all like, you know, I'm trying to cut things out of my sermon so that we can get home quicker to see this thing hopefully come out of the chrysalis.

You guys are all saying, you obviously cut nothing out of your sermon this morning, and so we're probably gonna miss it.

But this thing is like ready to pop, it's been in there for like 10 days, it's ready to turn into a butterfly.

And I jokingly said to my wife this morning, I said, we should just like before we go to church, just grab a little knife and just like try to like just cut it open a little bit to like I want to see it happen.

And it was like the worst thing I could have said.

No way, you cannot do that.

Because you know you gotta let the chrysalis come to full completion, and the butterfly will come when it's ready.

And Christian, this is what God is saying of you.

You right now in your pursuit of holiness are in the chrysalis.

You are waiting until Christ returns for your full transformation.

So do everything while you are inside of this cocoon that is called the earth.

Do everything to bring holiness to completion, cut out every defilement, and someday Christ is going to return.

And you will never look back and regret what you did not cleanse.

This butterfly, when we go home, probably is gonna be in that net, and there's gonna be nothing about him that misses being a caterpillar.

Every sense that he transformed into a caterpillar will be so worth it.

And this is what Paul is saying to us every way that we cleanse ourselves of every defilement, cleanse ourselves of every sin, will be so worth it when holiness is brought to completion in the fear of God.

Church, this is where effectiveness comes from.

It comes from our holiness, and so I want to make this really practical this morning, and we have the joy of being able to celebrate communion together, but I invite the worship team up.

And I want to just suggest three things.

Three really practical things are gonna come up on the screen right now.

Three things that I want you to do in the silence of your heart right now.

And the first thing is that you find the first thing you need to do in this moment as we celebrate communion is fine, find what what sin is there in your life?

I'm sure even in this moment the Holy Spirit is bringing it to mind, the thing that you need to put away, to put on, the sin that you need to cleanse from yourself.

And yet, if not, just in the humility of your space right now, maybe we can bow our heads and close our eyes right now, actually.

Reveal it to me, help me to find the sin.

And then the second thing you do after you find what needs cleansing, what defilement there is, is that you forsake it.

You forsake it.

And this is part of what we do at the Lord's table.

We come and we take the blood and the body of Christ to say, I am separating myself from sin, and I I've found cleansing at the cross.

This sin can be forsaken, so that finally after I've found sin, after I've forsook sin, I can follow.

I can follow Christ.

And so we're gonna do something a little different as we celebrate communion this morning.

I'm gonna give you a moment just to find, forsake, and follow in your own heart to dedicate your prayers to the Lord.

And then I'm gonna ask as Joel sings this song over you, and maybe you join in and sing it along with the worship team here this morning.

I'm gonna ask that at some point in the song, you if you are ready to receive communion, you've dealt with your sin, you're a believer in Christ, you come up.

We're gonna do this, got a little bit of explaining to do, do this clockwise.

So you're gonna come up on the left side of the aisle here.

You can open your eyes and see where I'm pointing, that might be helpful.

We're gonna do this clockwise.

So if you're on this side, go around the back, come up the left side here, grab communion, and go back to your seat.

And we're doing it differently because I really want this to be a statement that you're making.

A statement that you're making.

I am distinct, I'm leaving my spot to say this.

I'm standing up to say that as I take the Lord's table, I am following Christ.

I'm distinct from the world, I'm leaving my spot, I'm following Christ.

And so you can come around the left side, grab your communion cup, the cracker and the bread are together there.

You can take it back.

We're gonna sing this song together, and at the end of the song, I'm gonna come up and lead us in the taking of communion.

Let's reflect on this together and come up when you're ready.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you.

1 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

The Lord Jesus, on the night that he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and he said, This is my body, which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

And in the same way, he also took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this in remembrance of me.

Let's pray together, church.

God, thank you for this reality that we just got to partake in.

Lord, the Lord's table, a symbol of a reality that is now ours through faith in Jesus Christ, that his blood was shed, that his body was pierced, so that salvation would be wholly ours, Lord.

So that the promises that we just read of, Lord, the promises of your presence, the promise of you being our Father, the promise that you will bring holiness to completion, Lord, they are all true.

And so, God, we give you praise for this reality.

And I pray that it would stir us up as a church, both individually and corporately as a church, Lord, to be holy.

For without holiness, Lord, no one will see you.

And God, this is the cry of our heart.

We want to see you.

And so help us, we pray, Lord.

We cannot do it.

We need you.

God, we pray all of this in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Before you leave, there's a few things I want to let you know about.

A little QR code on the front of your chair, or you can go to rcn.church.

There's a number of ways we want to serve you this week.

You can find all the information about our events, like gather and grow, like our uh about our important vision and prayer night this Wednesday.

You can find all the information you need for that at rcn.church.

Um, there's also a place there you can give as you continue to worship the Lord and give to his work here.

And there's also there a place that we we would love for you to fill out uh a prayer request.

And the staff of our church and the elders here pray over every one of those requests every week.

And so we'd encourage you to do that.

We also want to serve you this morning.

Maybe the Lord's moving in you.

Maybe this is the first time you've heard of what it means to be a Christian.

You've really understood it.

I would encourage you, just don't leave without talking to somebody.

We're gonna have some elders here at the front of the church who'd love to pray with you and love to serve you in that way.

Church, have an amazing week.

Know that you are loved ones.