5 - Since When? Since Now! Series

So? So what? Paul answers that in 2 Cor 7:1

“Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us (1) purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, (2) perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.

Confession time. When I was in high school, I played football my senior year. I wasn’t a party animal by any means, but a couple times I went with some friends and had a couple alcoholic drinks. Legally this was wrong because in 1984 it became a national law to be 21 to drink and it was wrong by conscience because you made a commitment when you were on the football team to not drink. It didn’t take me long to form an understanding and a renewed commitment because during our workout I wasn’t first in any of the races anymore. I was sluggish and lagged behind.

I remember the following sensation very distinctly: We were running a mile on our cinder track with just shoulder pads and I am pretty sure it was during the third lap I was huffing and puffing and sweating more than usual. Then around the final bend I felt something within me physically “break” or “snap”–and I knew exactly what it was.

Immediately I had a second wind come over me, and my breathing relaxed and was no longer labored. I could run like normal.

Something else happened to me at that moment. I made a fresh commitment within myself to not go through that again. I stayed in great shape. That experience I had in football comes to mind when I hear the word “defiled.” Closely related to INSTANT MASHED POTATOES!

Have you ever given up anything in your life? A bad habit perhaps? It doesn’t have to be something bad at all. Maybe for lent you just wanted to give up something you felt like was becoming more important to you than your spiritual relationship with God and for 40-days you fasted from it.

Another word for “defiled” is “contamination” and boy did we get our share of experiences of contamination going through COVID.

Hand wash stations here, sanitizing squirt bottles there, masks over there, and questions after questions that really began to threaten not just your sanitary conditions but your very sanity itself.

How well did you go through that time being on alert about the possibility of contamination? I made the statement that my mom would be proud of me for how much I was washing my hands. I NEVER washed my hands that much. And I learned about coughing into my elbow. I am shocked we didn’t see more elbows get Covid.

All of us have opinions about all of what happened and how things were handled during COVID, but it would be hard to think that NOT one of us were NOT concerned either about ourselves or a friend to the point that we gave up praying for one another. Did you have people you prayed for during Covid?

So listen, I want to BORROW from that experience and sanctify it today and bring it into this conversation on 2 Cor 7:1 and I want you to come along with me. I want to look at spiritual contaminations today like it was COVID back in 2020-21.

DO YOU WANT TO EXPERIENCE EVEN MORE in 2024 –AND have MORE OF YOUR LIFE RESTORED? REDEEMED? RENEWED by God and for God? Then you need to come to HIM undefiled.

2 Cor 7:1, Paul says to those churchgoing, Jesus believing, Holy Spirit-filled lovers of Christ and one another,

Therefore since we have these (emphasis) promises (not commands), beloved (agape ones), let us cleanse ourselves (not you must = invitation), from all defilements (things that stain, make filthy, look immoral both to the flesh and the spirit–that is, cleanse both outwardly or inwardly–and both to be clean with God and with other people; NIV = perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.

TWO CUPS: , I used this illustration with my youth group years ago, but if I had TWO cups up here, and told you this ONE was 99.9% water and a drop of urine in it, would you drink it? And this one was 100% water. Which would you choose? WHY?!

The Corinthians had become defiled, by

- the occasional sharing meals at idol-shrines

- continuing to attend festivals or ceremonies in pagan temples

- maintaining their membership in some local pagan cults.

Paul is inviting them to make a clean break - to be rid of the things that tie them to their past behaviors and memberships of all of the things that kept them from honoring God with their lives and from His promises: Paul listed them as reasons to NOT be “yoked” with them ? YOU don’t have in common