2 Corinthians 6:14-18 ESV
Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or 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,
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,
and I will be a father to you,
and you shall be sons and daughters to me,
says the Lord Almighty.”
One day in the life of Jesus, he spoke with a Samaritan woman at a well. And he spoke with her about living water, which has to do with our salvation, with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and with eternal life with God, i.e. he shared with her the gospel, in essence. Then she spoke with him about how her ancestors worshiped on a particular mountain, and how the Jews were saying that Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship. And then Jesus said this to her:
“Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 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. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:21-24 ESV
So, what was the essence of what Jesus was saying to her? Well, for one he was letting her know that the time was approaching (which was the time after Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension back to heaven, and after the sending of the Holy Spirit to indwell his followers) when the worship of the Lord will no longer require a specific location or physical place. But we will worship the Lord in spirit and in truth.
And then we read this in Acts 17:24-25 ESV:
“The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”
So, what we can learn from this is that we do not have to go to a particular physical location to worship the Lord. But now that the Holy Spirit lives within those of us who are followers of Jesus Christ, we can worship the Lord any time of hour or day wherever we are. For wherever we are God is if truly we are his by genuine faith in Jesus Christ. And we can also learn that the “house of God” is not a building called “church.” The house of God is us, his body, wherever we are, and so he is, which is inside of us. So the church is not a building or a place we go. We the people of God are his church.
And when the Apostle Paul “planted churches,” how did he do that? Did he use marketing books and schemes in order to “draw in large crowds of people from the world”? No! Did he have to go to “church planting training seminars” to learn how to market his “church” to the world? No! So, how did he grow his church to where there were thousands of people? He preached to them the truth of God (the whole counsel of God), i.e. the gospel of Jesus Christ, in its fulness. And they believed in Jesus, and they died with him to sin, and they were raised with him to walk in newness of life in him. And now they were “the church”.
And where did they meet? And how often? They met daily from house to house and in the temple courts and wherever they could find a place to meet. For they were “the church,” not the building, and not a church denomination. And God dwelt within them, not in a building. And they served God’s purposes, not the purposes of human beings marketing “the church” to the people of the world.
Now the Lord Jesus had me write the other day about what it means to be “in Christ” and he had me talk about how “in Christ” was not just some status we claim, but it is a relationship with Jesus Christ which is evidenced by what we do and how we live. And who we are in Christ is largely defined by how we live and what we do, not by what we profess. And I talked about how a fish could call itself a donkey but that would not mean the fish was a donkey. And the same applies to this subject. For just because you call it “church,” it doesn’t at all mean that it is “the church,” the body of Christ, comprised of all those of genuine faith and fellowship with Jesus Christ.
Now I read this meme on social media the other day which said:
"McDonald's can mess your order up 101 times and you still keep going back... One thing goes wrong at Church and you Quit. People just aren't hungry enough!"
So, what is the intended message here? It is to guilt trip you into attending a physical location called “church,” and that if you do not attend a building called “church,” it means that you are not hungry enough for God, as though one naturally equals the other, but it does not. For I have known people who went to buildings called “church” most all of their lives (or all of their lives) and they never genuinely surrendered their lives to Jesus Christ. But they continued in deliberate and habitual sin, some of them until the day they died. So going to a building never made them more hungry for God.
And so you can go to a building called “church” every day of your life, and you can go through all the motions of religious practice and still be out of fellowship with God, and still end up in hell when you leave this earth. And you can indeed be displeasing to God because you are literally acting out of the will of God by your attendance to some of these buildings called “church.” For much of what is called “church” these days is not the true church, the body of true believers in Christ who are following the Lord Jesus in obedience to his ways and who are sharing the gospel with the world.
So, what does this all have to do with being unequally yoked together with unbelievers? Everything! For many are being “guilt tripped” into going to buildings called “church” and are being convinced that they are now obeying the Lord and that they are doing his will. But much of what is called “church” today is not the body of Christ, but it is businesses of men being led by marketing books and schemes in order to attract the world to their gatherings. And so they are diluting the gospel message, and they are entertaining the world, and they are thus not operating as the true church.
So, we are not to join in with any group of people just because they call their gatherings “church.” For remember in the book of Revelation where we read about “the synagogue of Satan”? That is what many of these “churches” are, for they are serving Satan’s purposes, not the will of God, and they are being led by the ungodly and not by the true saints of God, and their purpose and goals are of men, not of God. For going to a building called “church” does not mean you are obeying the Lord. You could be doing the exact opposite, in fact. For you could be unequally yoking together with the ungodly, out of God’s will.
And so the Lord is saying, with regard to these false “churches,” that we are to “Go out from their midst, and be separate, and touch no unclean thing, and then you will be my sons and daughters, and I will be a father to you.”
My Sheep
An Original Work / June 24, 2012
Based off John 10:1-18 NIV
My sheep hear me. They know me.
They listen to my voice and obey.
I call them and lead them.
They know my voice, so they follow me.
They will never follow strangers.
They will run away from them.
The voice of a stranger they know not;
They do not follow him.
So, I tell you the truth that
I am the gate, so you enter in.
Whoever does enter
Will find forgiveness and will be saved.
Nonetheless whoever enters
Not by the gate; other way,
He is the thief and a robber.
Listen not, the sheep to him.
Oh, I am the Good Shepherd,
Who laid his own life down for the sheep.
I know them. They know me.
They will live with me eternally.
The thief only comes to steal and
Kill and to destroy the church.
I have come to give you life that
You may have it to the full…
They know my voice, so they follow me.
https://vimeo.com/114938263
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