As many of you know, my wife and I went on a cruise for our twentieth anniversary. It was my first cruise, and I was a little uneasy being on boat for seven days, but it wasn’t that bad. The shows were pretty good, the activities aboard the ship were varied enough for seven days, and our stop in one of the ports was really enjoyable. And like I’ve heard for the last several months, the food was pretty good. We had a lasagna and spaghetti that reminded me of a restaurant my mom used to manage called Angelina’s. They have a meat based sauce instead of a tomato base, which I love. Overall I enjoyed the unrestricted feel of the whole thing. Want to catch a show, they have two, one at 7 and one at 10. Want to eat, they have restaurants, buffets or little cafés. Need a drink, we got the refreshment package, go almost anywhere and get one. It was the first vacation in a long time, where I didn’t feel restricted to certain things I had to do, even though, I was restricted to this four thousand plus passenger boat in the middle of the ocean.
And it’s this idea of being unrestricted that brings us back to our summer series where we’re coming back to the last letter Paul writes to the Corinthians, in chapter 6, verse 11. As we open up to 2 Corinthians 6:11, let’s reawaken our memories from the two weeks that we took off.
In our first five weeks of our summer series, we saw Paul’s love for the Corinthians as he confronted a painful situation with them, through measured harshness, with the purpose to restore them. And when they did repent, Paul wrote the letter we’re reading through, from a position of joy. As followers of Jesus, we are to follow Paul’s love in confronting painful situations with measured harshness, and with the purpose to restore others, rejoicing at their repentance.
Following that, Paul called the Corinthians to move forward in their faith with a focus on pleasing Jesus, by handling God’s word correctly and acknowledging how they were useful to God, yet still breakable. As Jesus’ disciples we to are to move forward in our faith, pleasing Jesus as useful breakable jars, as we handle of God’s word correctly.
Then in our last week, we talked about God’s call to every believer. How God calls us to new creation living, where we begin to realize that, the power of sin has no control over us, as we yield ever greater to the work of the Holy Spirit. God also calls us to remove obstacles we have placed in our lives that stifle others responding to the Gospel. Finally, God calls us to live as a possessor of Christ; that we have all that we need because we have Jesus.
With this in mind, Paul continues his moving of the Corinthians forward in their faith. And as we have seen this movement forward, we talked about how this section is one long thought of Paul. In that long thought we are looking at these smaller points of connection he makes along the lines of this thinking. This week and next week we are going to look at one of those connections, by separating it out. S let’s read together, starting in chapter 6 verse 11, and we’ll explain more from there.
“6:11-18 - 11
We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide open. 12 You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. 13 In return (I speak as to children) widen your hearts also.
“14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? 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. 17 Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, 18 and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.’
“7:1
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."
In verses 11-13, Paul begins this connected point by talking about how he is open to the Corinthians. When he says he speaks freely, in the Greek that means his mouth is wide open. So in verse 11, both his mouth and his heart are wide open to the Corinthians. In other words, he is unrestricted. And that unrestrictedness is what Paul wants the Corinthians to experience. Because if we are possessors of Christ, possessing all things because of him, as Paul ends with in verse 10 of chapter 6, then we are unrestricted.
But in what sense are we unrestricted? It’s our affections. Paul is unrestricted in his love for the Corinthians, and because of that unrestrictedness, as expressed by his wide open mouth and heart, he can do everything he has told them to do. He can confront with the purpose of restoration. He can move forward as a breakable jar that’s useful to Christ as he handles God’s word correctly. He can live as a new creation, removing obstacles he has placed in front of the Gospel.
Paul is unrestricted because he has and knows the affection of God to him. He writes things to the Colossians like, “all things were created through him and for him (Colossians 1:16e).” We were created to be with God for the pleasure of God. To the Roman Church, Paul wrote, “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).” Jesus loved us while we were sinners, and died in our place that we might live by trusting in him as Savior. Paul understands the deep love that sets the captives free, and so he stands and writes to the Corinthians that he lives a life of unrestrictedness, and calls them to live in the same way. But what holds them restricted is their affections? What are those affections?
Paul starts it off in verse 14 with addressing being unequally yoked between the believer and the unbeliever. Usually when I hear this phrase used, its used about marriage, but the only time it appears in the Scriptures, it isn’t about marriage but by comparing the Living God’s temple with idols. Paul uses several comparisons to drive home his point. Righteousness to lawlessness, light and dark, Christ and Belial.
These comparisons give us the affections that are holding back the Corinthians. The yoke imagery of being hooked up to something, the lawless wording, and the connection to Belial, all point us back to the era of the Judges, a book that we went over last summer. The wording Paul uses shows that he thought of the affections of the Corinthians as the same as what was happening in the Judges’ era. The use of lawlessness and and specifically Belial, are terms used in the book of Judges to describe the depravity and sinfulness of the Israelites as they moved further away from their covenant with God. Last summer we talked about how, as the sinfulness of the Israelites grew, horrific things happened. One of those things was the raping and killing of the Levite’s concubine. In that story we read, “As they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, worthless fellows, surrounded the house, beating on the door. And they said to the old man, the master of the house, ‘Bring out the man who came into your house, that we may know him (Judges 19:22).’”
Where is states worthless fellows, we would read a variation of Belial in the Hebrew. It was a word that became synonymous with Satan, and in Paul’s eyes, its what was holding the Corinthians back. The last line of book of Judges reads, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes (Judges 21:25).” But for Paul, the Corinthians and us, the King lives! And so there should be no connection to Belial, to Satan’s work, for the believer.
The Corinthians were trying to hold to the things of the world and to Christ, but as a believer you can’t do that.
Why? Because the believer is the very temple of God. Paul draws a direct connection between the temple of God that was in Jerusalem to the believer when he quotes from Isaiah 52. No idols, no corruptible things of the world are to be in the temple of God. And so Paul calls to the Corinthians to be separate from those things that are unclean. Why does Paul say this? Because of Jesus’ own words to the woman at the well in John 4:21-24. Jesus said, “21 Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
If we are to worship God in spirit and in truth, to be God’s holy temple where his presence resides, we must be separate from the Belial of the world. The lawlessness, the unrighteousness, the idols, and corruptible things. We must be yoked to Christ and Christ alone.
And we have that promise that God will separate us from these things by the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit’s job to call out sin and to deal with it in our lives. Paul would write to the Galatians, “…walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh (Galatians 5:16).” The Corinthians have the Spirit in them, that promise of salvation (Ephesians 1:3), so, as Paul states in verse 7, they can cleanse themselves from “every defilement of body and spirit.” Why? Because they have the Holy Spirit who’s job it is to do just that.
And what is the role of the Corinthians in that cleansing? It’s living in the fear of God. It’s living with a submitted will to the Father. It’s his will in all things.
This is what God is calling us to as well. The submission of our will to his. Do we struggle with Belial, the lawlessness of this world? Do we keep idols in our lives, in the temple of God? Are we feeling restricted by religion or by the cares of this world? Do we continue to struggle day after day in the same old sins, trying to fix them but coming up short? Do we even know we are stuck?
If we have not placed our trust in Jesus as Savior, then there’s no beginning to break free. Every time we try, we’ll just replacing one idol, one restriction, with another. And we might think, “I’m not restricted, I can do what I want.” You’re restricted to your desire. Why is it hard to quit addictions? Drugs, sex, alcohol, gambling? It’s because our desires have us caged. Right now the world is celebrating Pride month, a month that shows how desires cage people.
But Christ sets us free from our sin and desire that hold us in bondage. By accepting Jesus, sin is put to death, it’s shackles are broken, and we are called to live in the Spirit who was given to us that we might live now in the unshackled, unrestricted life that is in Jesus.
That’s achieved through the submission of our will to the Father. It always has been, it always will be. Jesus taught us to pray to the Father, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10).” Jesus spoke to the Father in Gethsemane, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done (Matthew 26:42d).” And Paul would tell us that we are to have the same mindset as Christ does (Philippians 2:5).
My challenge then for you is that this week, that you begin your day with the words, “Father I submit my will to yours.” Then throughout the day, when the desires of life come to you, the temptations pop up, when the sins that want to shackle you, or the idols that call to you, that you would place them in the temple of the Lord, that you respond by speaking in the power of the Spirit, “Father, I submit my will to yours.” Then when you lay down in your bed, speak it one more time, “Father, I submit my will to yours.”
Let us people people who’s will is submitted to the Father. That this building would not be looked at as the house of God, but that are lives would show he lives in us. That the temple is on the move, and like Paul, we are unrestricted to do the work of the Lord. Amen.
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