Sermon Tone Analysis

Since We Have These Promises

A Pocket Paper \\ from \\ The Donelson Fellowship \\ *______________*

*Robert J. Morgan \\ *April 1, 2007

 

\\ Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God (2 Corinthians 7:1).

~*~*~*

Recently there have been a lot of newspaper reports about dog food that somehow became contaminated with rat poison, and as a result people across the United States unwittingly poisoned their pets when feeding them.

The word contamination means that a poisonous element has crept into something that would otherwise be wholesome or healthy.

It’s a word we hear a lot in today’s world.

We read about contaminated water, contaminated soil, contaminated lettuce, and contaminated beef.

We worry about nuclear contamination, and about chemical and biological contamination.

It’s a word that means to become impure, corrupted, or infected by a dangerous or hazardous element, to become unfit for use by the introduction of unhealthy or undesirable elements.

This verse says that can happen to the human soul.

This is one of the strongest verses in the Bible on the subject of purity, holiness, and temptation.

And the question in today sermon is – Has any impure or unhealthy element seeped into your body or spirit?

Is there any contamination in your own life?

Let’s read the verse again: Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.

Biblical Background

You can tell immediately that even though this verse is the first verse of the chapter, it is the last verse of the paragraph.

It’s one of those times when the chapter division falls at a bad spot.

The very first word of the verse – Since – links verse 1 with the preceding verses and shows that it is concluding the logical thought that flows from the end of chapter 6.

Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.

Since we have what promises?

Well, let’s back up and survey the context.

Paul begins in verse 14 says: Do not be yoked together with unbelievers.

In context, Paul seems to be concerned about the Corinthian Church developing close and comfortable relationships with false teachers and false prophets.

He’s going to bring this up again later in the book, especially in chapters 10 and 11.

So the context is talking about a church environment.

Paul had brought the true Gospel to the city of Corinth, as we read about in Acts 18.

He had come to this great city, preached Jesus, and established the church in the power of the Holy Spirit.

He had nurtured the church like a father nurturing a child.

He had written to them from the soundness of his own theology and from the love of his own heart.

But during his absences, other so-called teachers had visited the church; and some in the congregation had rejected Paul’s authority and were advocating these false apostles.

Later in chapter 11 he’s going to say that they are preaching another Jesus than the one he preached, and the church should not link up with or be yoked together in the same harness as these false teachers.

We’re facing that in the church of Jesus Christ today.

Let me read you just one article that appeared the other day in the newspaper.

Two leaders of The Falls Church, one of the largest Episcopal parishes in Virginia that voted to sever ties with the Episcopal Church, said they left the denomination because the American Episcopal Church “no longer believes in the historic, orthodox Christian faith common to all believers.”

\\ \\ “The core issue in why we left is not women’s leadership...

It is not a ‘leftward’ drift in the church.

It is not even primarily ethical -- though the ordination of a practicing homosexual as bishop was the flash point that showed how far the repudiation of Christian orthodoxy had gone.”

\\ \\ “The core issue for us is theological: the intellectual integrity of faith in the modern world.

It is thus a matter of faithfulness to the lordship of Jesus, whom we worship and follow,” the pair wrote, noting that some leaders within the Episcopal Church “expressly deny the central articles of the faith.”

\\ \\ “The ‘sola scriptura’ (‘by the scriptures alone’) doctrine of the Reformation church has been abandoned for the ‘sola cultura’ (by the culture alone) way of the modern church,” they wrote.

“(It has so destroyed) the credibility of faith that there is hardly anything left in their theology that is distinctively Christian.”

\\ \\ \\

So on the one hand we have the mainline Protestant movment in the United States that has been drifting from the integrity of the faith for a hundred years, and on the other hand you have scores of television preachers and evangelists, some of whom are propagating all kinds of strange doctrines.

Well, the apostle Paul was acutely concerned about the purity and integrity of the doctrine of the church; and so he told them not to be yoked together with those who were preaching another Jesus.

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers.

We can only be yoked together with Him who said, “Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavily laden, and I will give you rest.

Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me.”

Now, to drive home his point, Paul asks five rhetorical questions.

Ø For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common?

Ø What fellowship can light have with darkness?

Ø What harmony is there between Christ and Belial (a lawless person, Satan)?

Ø What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?

Ø What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols?

Then Paul makes this dramatic statement: For we are the temple of the living God.

In the Old Testament, God had set aside the Jewish people to be His chosen vessel for bringing the Messiah into the world.

They became His channel of redemption, and therefore He had a special relationship with them.

He gave them certain promises.

He dwelled in their midst in the Temple and lived among them.

Those Old Testament promises have application now to us as New Testament Christians.

His Old Testament presence now dwells in His church.

We are His temple.

And now, Paul repeats four Old Testament promises and applies them to you and me.

You can locate the promises here by the words: I Will.

The Lord promises what He will do for His people.

For we are the temple of the living God.

AS God has said: “I will live with them and walk with them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

“Therefore come out from them and be separate,” says the Lord.

Touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you.

I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”

Ø I will live with you and walk with you.

Ø I will be your God.

Ø I will receive you.

Ø I will be a Father to you.

Those were God’s promises to His holy people, Israel, in the Old Testament, and they are His promises to us now.

As Christians, we are His people.

We are His temple.

We are His set-apart ones.

We represent His holy presence in this world, and we are heirs of these remarkable promises.

He has promised to live with us and to walk among us.

He is our God.

He receives us and embraces us and He is a Father to us.

Those Old Testament promises, according to 2 Corinthians 6, are available to be appropriated by you and me for ourselves.

The Lord Himself is here in this room, walking among us, and when you leave here He will walk out to your car with you, drive home with you, go into your house with you, and live with you all this week.

He surrounds His people He draws near.

The unseen presence of the Lord Jesus Christ is the single greatest blessing in our lives.

Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.

Since we have these promises and since the Lord Himself lives with us and walks among us and walks with us and is constantly at hand, make sure that you live a pure life.

Make sure that your television viewing, your movies, your computer screens, your motivations, your love, your joy, your daily attitudes, your integrity are pure.

Now we live in a toxic world, and it’s hard to keep our lives free from contamination.

Some time ago, I spoke on the subject of pornography, and that’s perhaps the most obvious illustration of that.

If we really had an accurate number, how many people in this room logged onto internet pornography this very week?

Was it two or three, or twenty, or fifty, or what?

I have no way of knowing, but the statistics I read in the newspapers and journals is alarming.

As I said a few weeks ago, surveys tell us that the average age in which a child is exposed to internet pornography is age eleven.

So in a world such as ours, how can we keep our minds and our lives and our homes pure?

This verse gives us three ways to withstand the pressures of temptation.

Claim His Word

First, claim His Word and focus your life and your mental image on the promises and the presence of God in your life.

The verse says, Since we have these promises…, indicating that the promises of God are a reason and a resource in withstanding temptation.

The most powerful tool we have in fighting personal contamination is the Word of God.