One of my memorable pets growing up was a Chameleon. I loved the idea that it would change colors to adapt to the environment that it was in. It eventually died but the concept of changing colors for the sake of adapting is unfortunately the trend of modern Christianity.
• Paul was writing to a church that had a numerous amount of challenges similar to those that the church in America is dealing with today. We are trying to live for Christ in a very carnal culture.
Some common words you hear today are “tolerance, acceptance, openness, seeker friendly, inclusive.” The idea behind all of these terms is togetherness. There is a concerted push in the world today to bring everyone together under the same umbrella, one world, one society, one church. This is the heartbeat of the world and has in many areas become the heartbeat of the church.
Many newer members and even leaders of the modern church have been reared in a world where this ‘politically correct’ message has been the mantra of both entertainment and education. To do or be anything else has become a huge social sin.
THE QUESTION we should ask is HAS GOD CALLED HIS CHURCH TO BE ONE WITH THE SOCIETY OR CULTURE IT EXISTS IN?
This is the question Paul addresses with the church in the Corinthian culture.
Corinth has a population of around 700, 000 and was also a wealthy city.
Corinth was a Resort type of city that attracted those seeking pleasure from all over the region.
It was a Port city which made Corinth a convenient & popular stopping place for sailors looking to get drunk & indulge in whatever they could find. New Orleans during Marti Gras
Corinth was also filled w/ shrines & pagan temples the most popular was the Temple of Aphrodite " Goddess of love"
1000 temple prostitutes who went out every night soliciting business in the name of worship
Rome at the time had a saying to describe those whose lives were characterized by immorality & drunkenness They said you are behaving like a Corinthian.
Of all the churches mentioned in the NT the church in Corinth was the most worldly. If the church in Philippi was known for its compassion, and the church in Ephesus was known for its commitment, the church in Corinth was known for its carnality!
In this passage Paul addressed the CONDITION that happens when a church adapts to a carnal society. He then addresses the spiritual CONCERNS that we should have.
Finally Paul suggests the CURE for breaking free of where the church might find itself in just such a situation.
THE CONDITION OF A CARNAL CHURCH:
11Our mouth has spoken freely to you, O Corinthians, our heart is opened wide.
12 You are not restrained by us, but you are restrained in your own affections.
13 Now in a like exchange - I speak as to children - open wide to us also.
The Hollywood branch of the American Cancer Society decided to hold a benefit night in conjunction with a professional tennis tournament. It turned out to be embarrassing for them, however, when they learned that a major tobacco company was sponsoring the competition. Officials of the society found out too late that they had committed themselves to selling 500 tickets to an event that was named after a well-known brand of cigarettes. The publicity sent out by the Hollywood chapter portrayed a young woman with a tennis racket in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
You are not restrained by us, but you are restrained in your own affections.
Paul first addresses the spiritual wandering that comes with being a Carnal church.
They were trapped in the continual limitations of their flesh and not able to spiritually benefit by Paul’s ministry.
What if Paul came to most any church in America 2012: How much could he accomplish with us in our present condition? How much resistance would he face because people are so invested in wrong thinking which had developed out of a constant exposure to their cultural surroundings?
How much have you been influenced by your entertainment choices, your education, your friendships or work relationships, your lack of a passion for God in areas like God’s Word or prayer or the right choice of fellowship?
Paul praised the Bereans for questioning him because they did it by looking at the Scriptures but today we would see modern ‘Christians’ questioning him because they are looking at the culture.
I speak as to children - open wide to us also.
Paul then addresses the barriers to understanding spiritual truths that come in a carnal church atmosphere. Church members are permeated with the ideas and concepts of the lost world around them. Their world view is primarily driven by the teachings of the prevailing wind of the world they exist in instead of by God’s Word and the Holy Spirit’s working in their lives. Spiritual concepts are foreign to them at first glance.
How many arguments would you get from church members today about issues like: homosexuality, living together before marriage, authority of Scripture, existence of Hell, creation verses evolution…ect.
Paul has to treat this church different from many of the others that he has and was ministering to. Much of the letters he writes to the Corinthian church are about fixing problems and doctrine. The cookies are on the bottom shelf.
1997: Went to a church and had a concern about many who were not able to handle some deeper truths so I made one of the worst decisions in my ministry life. I decided I would try to dumb down my messages so that I might be able to reach them better. The SEEKER SENSITIVE APPROACH that we see happening today was still pretty new then:
TWO THINGS I FOUND:
#1 was that my more mature members did not benefit at all from everything being lowered to the common level of present spiritual conditions of more carnal members. Nobody could move forward spiritually. The church just hovered in immaturity. #2 I personally began to dry up spiritually. I was not being personally challenged and my own walk with God was beginning to suffer.
I can’t even begin to imagine the frustration Paul experienced with not being able to teach the church in Corinth the deeper truths because they had allowed their connection to their carnal culture to become for them a SPIRITUAL ANCHOR keeping them from going forward spiritually.
What I have noticed is that what we used to do 20-25 years ago to reach teenagers and children we are now doing to try to reach adults under 40.
Amp up the high energy music and lower the confrontive nature of God’s Word.
2 TIMOTHY 3:16 ‘All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching and REPROOF and CORRECTION for TRAINING in righteousness
Ravi Zacharias just put out a new book called ‘Why Jesus’. I got it on CD’s and listened while I drove to see my Mom at the hospital in Tulsa a month or so ago. One of the things he talked about was how many of his friends who are mature believers are having horrible problems finding a church to be fed in. He said that often they have to be given ‘ear plugs’ to endure the deafening music that is now called worship and that when they do get to the actual message there is virtually nothing of spiritual depth to it.
About 5 years ago while on vacation in Tulsa I went to one of the larger churches in town which had just gotten a new pastor. He was around 30ish and seemed to have a nice family. He got up to preach and had a nice voice and delivery. He read a passage of Scripture and then spent the next 30 minutes ignoring it. I don’t think I have every felt so spiritually starved by a church experience.
It actually reminded me of the Summer of 1983 when I was in training with the Sunday School Board to do Centrifuge camps on a traveling team in the Western United States. We were in the Salt Lake city area and went to the Morman Tabernacle to visit. It was when their Choir was broadcasting on a Sunday morning and after the choir sang a speaker got up. He had an amazing voice and delivery but said nothing of real spiritual benefit even for their twisted doctrines. It was all for show.
I have actually asked myself a question for quite a while now: If this trend is not broken where would I go to church when I retire in 15 to 20 years?
Paul told them their choosing to blend with or to be sensitive to the prevailing culture they existing in had cost them in the areas of their spiritual maturity and the ability to understand God’s truths.
THE CONCERNS OF A CARNAL CHURCH:
More than just their present condition Paul wanted the church in Corinth to understand what they were supposed to be as God’s people.
Time magazine(1/22/95) earthquake in Kobe, Japan, occurred when two plates on a fault line 15 miles offshore suddenly shifted against each other, violently lurching 6 to 10 ft in opposite directions. Thousands died. More than 46,000 buildings in ruins. 1/5th of the city's population was instantly homeless. Two people committed to each other but going in different directions can only lead to trouble.”
14 Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? 16 Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols?
14 Do not be bound together with unbelievers
Bound together: Unequally yoked - comes from Deuteronomy 22:10, “You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.” Military term ‘stay within your own ranks’
The ox was a clean animal but the donkey was not. They have two opposite natures and wouldn’t work well together.
There will be differences in lifestyles, differences in philosophies, differences in morals & values.
A yoke is a wooden frame or bar with loops at either end, fitted around the necks of two animals which tied them together and forced them to function as one.
Yokes have three characteristics
1st - a close relationship with each other with a common goal and master
2nd - it is not easily broken. It is a kind of permanent relationship.
This is why the church has always taken this passage to apply to marriage.
Dating/ friendship/ or even Business partnership
3rd - it constrains someone; it does not permit independent action.
The two animals had to work as one! Under the control of one master!
So to not be yoked together with an unbeliever would mean/ not put ourselves in a close relationship or a permanent relationship that is not easily broken or a relationship that would restrict us or constrain us in our actions
Should Christians then ISOLATE themselves from the rest of society?
Jesus told us in John 15-17 that we are to be ‘IN the world but not OF the world’ Great Commission commands us to ‘Go into all the world and…. Paul in 1 Cor.5:9,10 “I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.”
Jesus also said: I send you out as lambs among wolves
Paul asks them to make what should be obvious assessments: righteousness and lawlessness…..light with darkness?..... Christ with Belial,,,,a believer in common with an unbeliever…the temple of God with idols?
How can you go into the world enough to impact the lost for Christ but to not find yourself dragged down by the darkness you are trying to bring your light into?
Paul uses words of connection such as: partnership…..fellowship….harmony ,,,,in common……agreement Each of these words speaks of having something in common.
The word harmony gives us our English word “symphony,” and it speaks of beautiful music that comes when the players are reading the same music and following the same leader. We should never be singing the same song as the world. LITERALLY
Music is a reflection of a person’s soul. You can tell the condition of America’s soul by looking at the music the citizens are choosing. Scottish politician Andrew Fletcher said, “Let me write the songs of a nation: I don’t care who writes its laws.” One of the first and most dramatic things that changed in my life when I came to Christ was the music I wanted to listen to.
My generation has gone from the Monkees to Bare Naked Ladies, from Neil Diamond to Eminem, and from Olivia Newton John to Lady Gag Gag.
The question we might ask ourselves is ‘What is the condition of my own personal ‘righteousness….my light or witness…my relationship with Christ as a believer….and my living as the temple of God before others?’
Am I living in HARMONY with the world or God?
THE CURE FOR A CARNAL CHURCH:
For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, "I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM; AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE. 17 "Therefore, COME OUT FROM THEIR MIDST AND BE SEPARATE," says the Lord. "AND DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN; And 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.
The cure Paul gives happens when we understand three important truths.
First we should know WHO WE ARE: we are the temple of the living God
Webster defines temple as “a place devoted to a special purpose”.
WHO AM I SUPPOSED TO BE YOKED TO?
Matt 11:28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."
Yoke is easy = Well fitting God has a plan for each of us to in relationship with Him
Yoking with an unbeliever should not be ‘well fitting’.
The Believers goal & priority is going to be to Honor the Lord in all things / to seek the Lord / to be led by the Lord
SECOND we should know WHAT THAT MEANS: Therefore, COME OUT FROM THEIR MIDST AND BE SEPARATE
COME OUT…BE SEPARATE: One of the points Paul made was that the Temple of God has nothing to do with idols. The thought is that the Corinthians were trying to be Christians and still participate in the idolism of their culture.
IDOLS are not all wood, stone or metal but can be defined by whatever we give our worship to(time, resources and affections)
America’s #1 idol is SELF which is seen in the symptoms of materialism, overindulgence, hording of resources and unwillingness to give our time to God. The Great Commission for America is to ‘Go into all the world and make yourself as comfortable as possible, pampering yourself and building all of life around your own self interests. Give little or no thought to God other than what He can do for you.’
It is not just seen in the obvious theology that God wants me healthy and wealthy but also in that ‘God wants me happy at the cost of being holy, comfortable at the cost of being committed and served at the cost of being a servant’.
Andrew Murray wrote, 'Self is the great curse, whether in its relation to God, or to our fellow-men in general, or to fellow-Christians, thinking of ourselves and seeking our own. Self is our greatest curse.' Absolute Surrender
THIRD we should know WHO GOD WANTS TO BE for us: I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me
Satan’s lie from the beginning has always been that God is holding out on us. The world has something you need and God is trying to keep us from that.
But from God’s perspective it is always about relationship and our being close to him Not separation from but more separation unto
Marriage ceremony vow: Forsaking all others keep only unto ____. Vow is not about being separate from everyone else but being given to the special one.
COME OUT that you might COME IN and have the relationship with God that He desires for us to have. It is not about what we are giving up but WHO we are missing out on if we don’t.
We need to:
#1 Be willing to admit our CONDITION regarding carnal spirituality
#2 Understand the CONCERN that being carnal brings to us spiritually
#3 Have a passion to seek and accept God’s CURE that we might be set free.
