We are in the book of Two Corinthians preaching through it
and we are we are in chapter 6 today.
So I'm going to read chapter, I'm going to read chapter 6 to
us. I'm reading from the New
International Version, so it might be different to what
you've got and it is going to come up on the screen for us.
So here we go, he says. We put no stumbling block in
anyone's path so that our ministry will not be
discredited. Rather, as servants of God, we
commend ourselves in every way, in great endurance, in troubles,
hardships and distress, in beatings, imprisonments and
riots, and in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger, In
impurity, understanding, patience and kindness, in the
Holy Spirit and in sincere love, in truthful speech and in the
power of God, with weapons of righteousness in the right hand
and in the left. Though glory and dishonour, bad
report and good report, genuine, yet regarded as imposters,
known, yet regarded as unknown, dying and yet we live on, beaten
and yet killed, sorrowful yet always rejoicing, poor yet
making many rich, having nothing and yet possessing everything.
We have spoken freely to Ukrainians the and opened wide
our hearts to you. We are not without withholding
our affections for you, but you are withholding yours from us.
As a fair exchange. I speak as my I speak as my
children. Open wide your hearts also.
Do not be yoked with unbelievers.
For what does what do righteousness and wickedness
have in common? Or what does fellowship?
What fellowship can light have with darkness?
What harmony is between Christ and Belial?
Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?
What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols?
For we are the temple of the living gods, as God has said, I
will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their
gods, and they will be my people.
Therefore come out from them and be separated, says the Lord.
Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you, and I will be
a father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the
Lord God Almighty. Therefore, since we have this,
these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from
everything that's contaminate, that contaminates body and
spirit, purifying holiness out of the reverence for God.
Lord Jesus, we want to ask you this morning to come and
continue to meet with us, Lord Jesus, as as we as that song
that we sung. Lord Jesus, we recognise that
you are here. Lord God, we declare that you
are here. And we want Lord Gods with one
heart. We declare we want no other God
but you. Lord Jesus, we pray that you
would be the first love in our lives.
Lord God, you would be our #1 Lord God.
And if there's anything in our lives that are competing with
you for top status, Lord Jesus, I pray, Lord God, you reveal
that to us as I speak, Lord God, and as you reveal it to us, we
would humbly repent of that and turn back to you.
Amen. Amen.
So I don't know if anyone else likes to use AI on their, on
their phones or whatever, but I thought I'd give it a go this
week. And so I've got, I've got a
Samsung phone, I've got Gemini. And so looking at this passage,
I said to Gem and I Gem and I please give me, I don't know why
I'm so polite. But anyway, I, it's, it's a
machine. Give me, give me 5 things that
do not go together. So this is what Gem and I said
when I said give me 5 things. And maybe you want to think of
things that you know in your head, do not go together.
It said first thing. The first thing it gave me, it
said socks and sandals do not go together.
And I would agree, socks and sandals do not go together.
Now what I don't understand, and maybe Zach, you can explain this
to me on the way home. Why if socks and sandals don't
go together, why do sliders and sandals socks go together?
Because they're just, they're just the same.
Well, they, they will wear sliders and sliders and socks.
I don't understand why, why they go together.
Anyway, second one, it said things that do not go together.
Pineapple on pizza? Anyone agree or disagree with
that? I'm personally not offended by
it, but I think why when you could have another meat on it,
why would you have another fruit?
I don't really get it. Third one was less fun and kind
of just more practical. It said oil does not mix with
water. Just not really anything else to
say about it. It's the fourth one.
I, I, I hope, well, I hope no one's ever tried this, but
apparently someone might have done the 4th one.
It said ketchup does not go on ice cream.
I mean, I, I, maybe someone did that by accident.
You know, you're going for the Raspberry sauce and you pick up
the wrong thing. Like that does not go and, and
it's, and the fifth thing was mustard does not go.
I mean, some of you might say mustard doesn't go with
anything, but mustard does not go with chocolate.
Well, you know, I mean, if you, if you don't know where we went,
we went on a holiday to, to, to Mexico before we had kids.
And the Central American, the Americans, they love chilli and
chocolate. And I thought I was, that was
great. So, you know, Mustard's hot, but
apparently Gemini says that mustard does not go with
chocolate. Well, I'm not, I'm not, I'm, I'm
not, you know, I get to eat so little chocolate, I'm not
wasting it with putting it with mustard.
So, but we all know, and there's probably things that you can all
imagine that if you were to write a list of your top five
things that do not go together and what they might be.
And what we see here in in the scripture that Paul is writing,
Paul writes of some other things that do not go together.
Now, he doesn't say they do not go together.
He says they are not to be yoked together.
It's a kind of a, an old fashion farming term, which was a yoke
was a piece of wood that went over an animal's neck.
So it could do a job and you would quite often you'd yoke
together two horses or in biblical times 2 oxen, big, big
cows to strap a plough to them so they could do the work of
ploughing the fields. And that two were better than
1/2 were able to do that. And Paul says here do not be
joined, do not be yoked to an unbeliever.
Now what he's not saying here, he's not saying don't mix with
people who don't believe in Jesus.
I mean, that would have that would just completely ruin
everything he's been saying for the last several chapters
because he's just, he's been talking about that we are to be
the aroma of Christ, which means we go into the world stinking of
Christ so that they can fall in love with him through us.
We talked about that we are to be ambassadors that we are to go
into the world and speak Jesus. And it's the, you know, the
Father wants the people, as I said last week, that Jesus made
that possible, but it's through our mouths that the world can
come and see and know. And so he's not saying don't be
completely separate. You're not saying separate
yourself from the world. Like don't be like the Amish or
or the monks. Also, what he's not talking
about, he's actually not talking about marriage here.
Now. I'm sure I have as well.
I'm sure many of us, if you've been in church at any length of
time, you've probably heard of don't be.
Don't be unequally yoked in your marriage.
Anyone heard that? Yeah.
Yeah, I've used that. I've I've said that.
But actually that's not what he's talking about here.
Actually what he's talking about is far greater than that.
And actually really helpfully not, they're not always that
helpful, but in in my NIV, they have little headings and all
your Bibles will probably have little, little headings.
Now, they're not Scripture. They're things that the people
who translated the text into English, they thought these
would be helpful things for us to to see.
Actually in our in my NIV here, it says as a title for this, it
says warning against idolatry. And that is exactly what this is
about. It's about being yoked to
worldly thoughts, choked, joined to worldly ways of thinking.
Yes, being married to an unbeliever is is, is an
outworking of that, but it's not the whole story.
And we could talk all morning about marriage and I'm not going
to. But what I will say is that if
you're not married, you are not less than the goal of a
Christian is not to be married. It's a great thing to be
married, but you are not. Yes.
And if you aren't, and if you are not married and you choose
to get married, biblical wisdom is that you should marry someone
who's first love isn't you. Yeah.
Their first love is Jesus, that they run after Jesus.
And for those of us who are married, we should be praying
and longing and doing what we can so that our partner, our
husband or wife, is loving Jesus as much as possible.
Because the more each of you love Jesus, the better your
marriage will be. Like I said, Paul isn't just
talking about marriage he's talking about, he's talking
about idolatry. He's talking about more, he's
talking about not being yoked to not being joined to worldly ways
of thinking. And the way that he, he goes
about the illustration that Paul uses in this section is he takes
an illustration from the Old Testament, from the book of
Deuteronomy, and he quotes this from Deuteronomy 22.
It says do not plant two kinds of seeds in your vineyards.
If you do, not only the crop you plant, but also the fruit of
your vineyard will be defiled. Do not plough with an ox and a
donkey yoked together. Do not wear clothes of wool and
linen to get woven together. He, he picks out these things.
He's, he's quoting from the Old Testament where in the law of
Moses it takes three things and it says you are to keep them
separate. You see, sowing seeds, keeping
them separate, it wasn't about being a good farmer.
It wasn't actually, we know and actually farming science teaches
us that actually it can be very good, very, very beneficial to
plant certain types of plants together.
One of the, the, the main ones is if you watch Clarkson's Farm,
they, they did this, they, they planted beans with corn because
corn needs a lot of nitrogen from the air and beans rather
than spending a fortune on putting artificial nitrogen
fertilisers over the ground, beans naturally draw nitrogen
out of the air and put it in the soil.
So therefore the corn can grow well.
But also the corn provides A trellis for the beans so the
beans can grow off the ground, so they can be more productive.
So not mixing seeds isn't about good farming.
It was about when the Israelites, which most of them
in ancient times would have been farmers as they were dividing up
their fields, as they were saying this field is for this
seed and this field is for that seed.
It was so they were to remember, just as we are separating seeds,
we have been pulled out of, we are separate from the world's.
It's the same sort of thing with with clothes.
You know, many of us will have, I have no idea what this is made
of. I should have looked.
But many of us will have mixed fabrics as we are that we are
wearing. And so, but, and they did that
in ancient times as well. We know that the ancient
Babylonians, the Egyptians, that the Greeks, they mixed silks and
cottons and linens for durability, the colour ability
that different fabrics gave. It wasn't about textiles.
It was about that when they were making a rug or making clothes
or making curtains or making a a sheet, is it?
They were being reminded that they were to live lives that
weren't compromised, lives that didn't weave in other beliefs
from other systems, other gods. But no, they were to be one.
They would be to be unified, and that's what what he's talking
about when he says about not being yoked.
Don't yoke a donkey and an oxen together.
You see, if you look at this picture of a donkey, an oxen,
you might just think, well, it's quite obvious why you wouldn't
yoke them together. Firstly, they're different
sizes. But actually, if you've ever
been on a farm or you've seen these animals, you know that an
oxen, a cow, it pulls forward and it keeps going.
They're amazing animals. Donkeys, they pull back.
So they'd be fighting against one another, you see.
But as well as being one pulling forward, one pulling back, we
are told in Scripture that an oxen is a clean animal.
It has split hoofs and it chews the cuds, which means it is a
clean animal according to the Law of Moses.
Donkeys, on the other hand, they were great animals, but they
were unclean animals. Now they were, they feature
prominently in Scripture, wonderful animals.
You know, they, they have a starring role.
They are, they transport Mary, however many 100 miles from from
Galilee to to Jerusalem to to Bethlehem.
They, they transport Jesus into into Jerusalem the week before
he's killed. They even God uses a donkey to
speak and correct a rogue prophecy.
Profit in Numbers 22. They have a great role in the
Bible, but God says that they are unclean animals and
therefore they were to be not yoked together with an ox.
Just like socks are not meant to be worn with sandals, pineapple
is not meant to be put on pizza, ketchup is not meant to be on
ice cream, donkeys were not meant to be yoked to oxen.
And I see, here's the big picture.
And this is where I might lose some of you.
So I so hopefully forgive me if, if, if this goes over your head
or kind of you think where on earth is he going there?
But here's the big picture. This is what I think Paul is
saying. If you're a believer, if you're
a Christian, if you love Jesus, you're an ox, you'll like an ox.
But Once Upon a time you didn't believe.
Once Upon a time you were stubborn.
Once Upon a time you didn't put your trust in Jesus and you were
just like a donkey. OK, donkeys, like I said, are
amazing animals, but they are stubborn.
I mean, you know, cows, oxen, the big cow, you know, they,
they are amazing and they will just keep going.
They will just keep going and going and going.
And even if they stop, can you give them a little tap on the
backside? They keep going.
Again, brilliant donkeys. If they decide they're not doing
something, they ain't doing it. They are not doing it, they
will. They will dig their hooves in.
They will even sit down. We two years ago we had a family
holiday to a place called the Illinois de Rey, which is an
island just off La Rochelle on the French West Coast.
And we hadn't been for years, but all our children and we were
with without, with, with family. And every child at some point
has gone on a donkey ride on the island.
And Elsie Grace, because it'd been quite a few years.
She was, she wasn't, she wasn't a little baby when she so she
when we went there, so she didn't have her turn.
So I took her on a donkey ride or attempted to two years ago.
And and so her and one of her, her baby cousins, one of my
nephews was on a was on a donkey.
And so she gets on the donkey. You know, you pay the man so you
can take this donkey on this walk sort of like like two or
three times the size of this hole.
Just do this circuit and I, I, I can take the reins.
She's on. I start to walk a donkey doesn't
I'm there for ages trying to put I could not physically.
I'm not, I'm not, you know this and it's not a massive animal,
but it would not move that until the the owner, I think he
smacked up the bum or something. Eventually it it started
walking. But I kid you not, it walked
like 2 paces and stopped again. It did it three or four time.
Were you there? You see that though?
It was so embarrassing, so embarrassing.
I could not make this donkey do this walk around and everyone's
just laughing at me and I couldn't do anything.
But that is the picture of us as an unbeliever, that we are
stubborn, that the Father has done everything he can for us to
come into a relationship with him, but we stubbornly refuse to
walk forward and grasp what He has given us.
You see, he says that. He says that donkeys, they are
unclean animals, and oxen are clean animals.
And we talked about this a bit when we went through the book of
Leviticus. I mean, why are oxen clean?
Why are donkeys unclean? What makes an ox a clean animal?
And you know, many people have come up with many different
suggestions of what makes a clean animal and what makes an
unclean animal. But basically it boils down to
this. God said an ox is clean.
There's no, there doesn't seem
to be any other rhyme or rhythm. Why?
But God said an ox is clean and Christian, you are clean.
You have been declared clean. Not because you've worked hard,
Not because you will work really hard.
Not because of anything you've done, said or thought or will
do, say or thought. Not because you've worked really
hard to work off all the, all the bad things that you've ever
done. Not because you, you, you've,
you've lived a decent life. No, you are good.
You are pure because God has declared it, and through Jesus
Christ, through faith in him, we accept it and we walk forward
into it. You see, because you are a
Christian, what that means is that you have now a new Lord, a
new Saviour. Here you are a citizen of a new
Kingdom that you now belong to King Jesus.
And Paul writes to the to the Roman Church in chapter 12.
He says, therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of
God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and
pleasing to God. This is your true and proper
worship. Do not conform to the pattern of
this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,
and then you will be able to be to.
Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is,
His good and pleasant, perfect will You see an ox because it
was a clean animal. You could sacrifice an ox.
Now we are not to be sacrificed, but God tells us that we are to
be living sacrifices, that as we live in obedience to Christ, we
as we lay down our own rights for Christ, say you are my king
and I'm going to live for you. The Bible teaches that we are
being, we are behaving as living sacrifices.
So that moment you repented of your sin, you said, no, I don't
want to live for myself anymore, but I'm, I'm sorry, Jesus.
And you turned around and went the other way and said, I'm
going to live for you. Jesus Christ.
You became alive to him. You had a new king, a new
saviour and actually you are now completely different.
You are now completely different.
Hear this if you've had children or you have had the pleasure of
reading a children's book to a toddler before they even can
talk. Children know the difference
between farm animals, don't they?
We all. I don't.
I don't Everyone else do this. You have these farm animal
books, and you turn the page and it's like there's a cow.
What does a cow make? He goes moo.
Yeah, Well done. I wasn't going to do that, but.
OK. OK, let's do that.
You know, what does a horse make?
Well, yeah, That's brilliant. I'm going to keep on doing.
What does a chicken make? I love this.
OK, we'll leave it there. But.
But I really did not see that happening at all.
But a child knows the difference.
If you wish to show a child a picture of a donkey and a
picture of a cow, they'd know what was what and they'd be able
to give you a good sound of what that animal made.
Church, we need to know the difference.
You are no longer who you once were.
You are as different to your old self as a donkey is to an ox.
That is how different you now are.
You once thought, you once believed, you once had values,
you once had morals, you had perspective and views that are
now completely different because you are in Christ Jesus.
You are different and therefore Paul says, he says you are
clean, you are pure, you have been made righteous.
He says, therefore, what does righteousness have to do with
wickedness? What do they have in common?
Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?
What harmony is there between Christ and Belial?
Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?
What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols?
He said you are now different. You are as different as
righteousness is to unrighteousness, as wickedness.
You are as different as light is to dark, he says Belial.
Belial is a is is a name for a for for for a unclean spiritual
being, which means worthless. And what could be more opposite
to worthless, the worthless one than Jesus, who's the ultimate
treasure. That is how different you are.
You are poles apart to the old you you will have.
We have an enemy who loves to tell us you're no different,
you're just the same. But the truth is you are now
clothed in Christ and you are completely different.
Whether you feel like it or not. You are completely different to
who you once were. Now that doesn't mean that as a
Christian you have to agree with everything.
Can other Christians believe doesn't mean we're all exactly
the same doesn't mean that we all hold the same beliefs we you
know, that'd be naive to say that we know that we all have
different beliefs. We all have different things
that we hold dear. But now as a Christian, see as
as Christians, there are things that theologians will call there
are the non compromising values of being a Christian.
There are the there there are things that are convictions
about being a Christian. And there are things that are
just they're just opinions. Opinions are things like what
type of music you like. Opinions are things like what
how you dress. Opinions are things like when
you come on a Sunday morning, I like coffee, I like tea.
We like to have a tea break at the beginning and in the middle
and one day at the end as well. Some churches have at the
beginning, some churches have at the end, some churches don't
have it at all. It's an opinion if it's
different, if you wear like to wear different clothes, if you
like to listen to different music, it's nothing to fall out
about, which is different and it doesn't matter.
But we also have things that are slightly stronger convictions,
things that that different Christians will disagree on.
But in grace we can love one another Despite that.
These are things like how we how we govern a church.
The things like baptism, the things like using the gifts of
the spirits, the spirit we hold, we hold strong to these.
And the truth is that if you disagree with a number of them,
then you probably wouldn't be that happy in that in this
church. And we have strong, we have
strong opinions and convictions on leadership on, on spiritual
gifts, on baptism. And if, if you, if you disagree
on one or two of them, that's fine.
If you disagree with all of them, you're probably going to
think, actually, this isn't the church for me.
I'm not going to be happy here. And that's fine.
We can have grace and we need to have grace and understanding
that people see people read scripture and interpret it
differently. But there are certain things
that are non negotiables. These are things that come down
to whose scripture says Jesus is.
This is things that whose scripture says that you are see
that Jesus is the second member of the Trinity.
He became a man. He was always God.
He was there before time, but he came into human history, became
a man lived the perfect life, died on the cross and was raised
to life three days later and ascended on high and now is
seated in heaven, ruling and reigning interceding on the
Father's right hand side. See exactly.
See if you, if you don't believe that, if you don't believe what
the Bible says about you, what the Bible says about us and what
the Bible says about who Jesus is, who God the Father is, who
the Holy Spirit is, or we can love you.
That's we, we, we love you, but we don't treat you as a
Christian. It's like Mormons or Jehovah
Witnesses. They Mormons will spend a lot of
effort trying to convince you that they are a Christian, but
they don't believe that God is. They don't believe that Jesus is
God. So therefore we love them, but
we treat them as an unbeliever praying that God would save
them. You see, and this is what is
going on in the in the church in Corinth.
You see, what they were doing is, is they were taking things
that were non negotiable things in the faith that we need to
stand on. And they were saying, well,
we're going to we can argue about that stuff.
We can swap that in, swap that out.
And they were placing things in the non negotiable section,
things that really are just opinions They had.
They had closed hand things. See, we have closed hand things,
things that we fight for and open hand things, which if you
disagree, it's fine. And they were mixing it up.
And unfortunately, we have a nation full of churches that
have done the same thing, have a nation of churches that have
done the same thing. They want to argue about things
they don't matter, but they want to take out stuff that does
matter and water down the gospel to make it seem more appealing.
You see, I don't know what the the exact issues were in the
Corinthian church, but we do know that there was two big
problems in the 1st century church which we can very easy
assume were making its way into the Corinthian church.
The first one was it was brought in by the Jewish Christians and
they had the wonderful name for themselves as the circumcision
party. You know, they were going for a
lot of votes. I'm, I'm not sure they knew how
to publicise themselves, but that's what they went for the
circumcision party. And they said it's great that
you love Jesus, but loving Jesus alone isn't enough.
Following Jesus alone isn't enough.
You need to obey the law completely.
You need to become a Jew. You need to, as the party name
would suggest that's and we have people now you think of the, the
Catholic Church, it will say Jesus is great.
It's a good stepping stool. But if you want to get into
heaven, you're going to have to do some stuff about that as
well. You're going to have to work in
it as well. No, no, but the other side, you
had a group which came in from the Gnostic called Gnostics,
which where people said it doesn't matter how you live, do
what you want with your body, get drunk, sleep with whoever
you want. It's about things of the spirit.
It's praying tongues pray to God.
That's what he wants. That's good.
But what anything to do with your body, Don't worry about it.
And the church needs to stand against both sides preaching
that God cares about what you do with your body.
He cares how you live. He cares who you spend your time
with. He cares about who you marry,
who you spent what what you do with your life.
But actually also we are not saved because we do good things.
We are saved because of faith in Christ alone.
Now faith in Christ produces fruit which leads us to do good
things, but we are not saved because of those good things.
We are saved through accepting Him and him alone.
He says to the Galatians. He says the acts of the flesh
are obvious. Sexual immorality, impurity and
debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, hatred,
discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions,
factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies and the like.
I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this
will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
You see now you are a believer. If you are a believer, if Jesus
is your your king, your Lords, he is who you follow.
You are now a new creation. You are different to who you
once were as, as the Apostle Peter would say, you are now a
stranger. You are now an alien to this
world. Once this world, once the ways
of this world was your home, but then you met Jesus and you'd
become an alien, a stranger and heaven.
Now heaven is your new home. You see, we show grace to all
those who disagree with us, whether that's closed handed
issues on Jesus and who God says we are or whether it's open
handed issue, we show grace. But actually God warns us
through Scripture when we start to say what Jesus says is true.
Isn't how Jesus tells us to live our lives doesn't matter?
Scripture gives us a very clear warning.
In Ezekiel 10, we have this image of Ezekiel sees in his
mind's eye the temple of God and he sees the presence of the Lord
move, exit the temple, the temple where God's presence was
meant to be. It exits the temple and leaves.
It leaves because the people have given themselves over.
The people are are worshipping other gods.
They're sleeping around. They're not caring for the poor.
They're not living how God has asked them to live.
So God eventually just says, OK, well, I'm removing my presence
from you. And if you think that's just an
Old Testament thing, in Revelation chapter 2, John sees
the Church of Ephesus and he says, Jesus says to you that I
am going to remove my lampstand. I'm going to remove my presence.
You are no longer going to be a true church because you do not
have me in your presence. Why?
You've done lots of great stuff, he says.
But you do no, you no longer love me as your first love.
I'm not your first love. He says church, we are not to
compromise on truth. That's what he's talking about
here. So let's get real.
Where are you compromising? Where are you compromising?
Jesus said very clearly you cannot serve 2 masters.
You will either love the one and hate the other.
See, living for Jesus doesn't mean that you need to be
perfect. I think of King David.
He is one of the biggest heroes of the Old Testament.
But you read his life, you see he's a murderer, he's an
adulterer, and he's probably one of the worst fathers in the
whole book. He is not a great guy, but every
time he fails, he doesn't run away.
He comes back to God. He repents, he falls on his
knees. He says I'm sorry, I want to
follow you. And therefore the Bible
characterises him as a man after God's own hearts.
He is known as a worshipper. So church, where are you
compromising? What gods are you worshipping?
What masters are you bowing down to?
What are you giving your time, your money, your effort?
What are you pointing your life towards?
Money, lust, fame, power, job security, friendships, family,
your marriage, children. The Bible says that when we
point our lives to something, it is as though we are being yoked
to it. And if that thing that we are
pointing to our lives towards is anything but Jesus, He says it
will destroy us. It's even good things when we
make them ultimate things will ruin us.
They will ruin us, he says. He says when you are a
Christian, when you, when you, when God called you out of the
world, when God separated you from the world, he called you to
have a relationship with him, to live in his presence, to go into
the world and have the privilege of leading men and women to
Christ. It is the greatest job ever.
You, each of you have been given to spend every day with Christ
and to lead others into his presence.
And Paul says here, why would you sacrifice that?
Why would you jeopardise that by being yoked to a donkey?
Why would you stop? Why would you jeopardise what
God has called you to be all that Christ has called you to be
by yoking yourself to something that is going to stick its heels
in and pull the opposite way to you?
See, Jesus is our ultimate treasure.
Jesus is our ultimate treasure. But we can so easily be
distracted by things that actually are quite good.
You know, I'll run for Jesus. I'll give when I've got more
money, I'll serve when I can, when my, when my kids, when my
wife, when my husband are at a certain level, you see the we
have an enemy who wants to distract us.
And he doesn't just throw evil things in our way.
He will throw things that are good in our way to try and
distract us from them. But if we yoke ourselves to
anything but him, we will be destroyed, he says.
I say, here's the truth. I'm sure many of you you
wouldn't say I'm necessarily yoked to a something that's bad.
But if you if, if things like family, if things like
relationships, if things like work are things that you're
going well, I need to get that right first.
The truth is, is that when we put Jesus as God in our lives,
when we remove good things, put them down there, we put Jesus as
Lord as our life, we become a better worker, we become a
better employee, a better boss, a better husband, a better wife,
a better dad. You see, don't hear what I'm not
saying because I will get in trouble if you hear what I'm not
saying, OK? I love my kids, I love my wife,
I love my family, I love this church.
But if any of those things become my ultimate goal, then
they become a donkey wrapped around my neck.
They prevent me from being all I can be for Christ and therefore
I am not able to be the best I can be for this church, my
family, my wife. You see, when we yoke ourselves,
when we de yoke ourselves from the worldly things, from worldly
passions and place Jesus at the centre, we become the best.
We become who Christ has instructed us to be, who he
desires, who he dreamed you to be.
Because Paul says this, he says as God has said, I, that's the
Lord will live among them, will will live with them and walk
among them, and I will be their God and they will be my people.
Therefore come out from them and be separated, says the Lord
touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you and I will be a
father to you, and you will be sons and daughters as the Lord
God Almighty. You see, when we de yoke
ourselves from the passions from our old passions, from the
things that our old self that our that our non saved self
loved and lived, or when we de yoke ourselves from those
things, we get to be all Christ has one has dreamed us to be.
Because he doesn't just let us off into the world alone.
No, as it says here he comes alongside us.
He comes alongside us, He picks up that piece of wood around our
neck and he straps it to himself.
And he says, come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I
will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and lean.
Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you
will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my
burden is light. Let's be real, being a Christian
doesn't mean that life is easy. Letting go of the donkeys
doesn't mean that all of a sudden ploughing in the field
that God has given you becomes easy.
Life throws at us all sorts of troubles as you.
Paul starts off this chapter by talking about sleepless nights
and hunger and all kinds of things that are just part of
life. But what Christ says is you
don't need to carry those things on your own.
Christ says you do not need to carry those things on your own.
Actually, in fact, I think Paul is saying stop carrying those
things on your own. Stop carrying things that you
don't need to carry. See, we, we as a family, we
moved to Blackpool in 2016 with the vision of planting this
church. And God laid that on our hearts.
And I had great visions of all the stuff I'd be able to do, of
all the preachers I'd be able to preach, of all the people that
would come through our house, all the people we'd be able to
disciple, all the superhuman effort that I would be able to
put in. And do you know what?
You know, I got ill. I can't do that.
I can't do everything I dreamed of, but Jesus says and, and I
can, you know, and I can, I can sometimes get down and think,
come on, if only I could do more, we'd be better.
If only I could do more, this church will be better off.
My family would be better off. And Jesus doesn't say that.
Jesus says, I hear you. I feel your frustration.
I called you, but I called you not to carry it on your own.
Give it to me, Ben. Give it to me, Church.
What is he asking you to give to him?
What are you carrying that you do not need to carry?
So send on this. What yokes?
What things are you putting in the God slot of your life that
you need to repent of? They're being a stubborn donkey
and preventing you from running for Jesus.
They're preventing you from being the husband, the mum, the
dad, the wife, the child, the employee, the whatever that God
has called you to be. What things are you placing
there that even as I've been speaking this morning, the Holy
Spirit's been prompting you, saying you need to stop that.
You need to stop putting that above me and what I'm going to
give you an opportunity in a second to repent, which just
means to say God, I'm sorry and I'm going to change what I do.
I'm going to head for you. I'm going to recognise that you
are King of my life. And then secondly, what things
are you carrying? What care, what longing, what
the things are you putting on yourself that Jesus saying trust
me, you need to trust me. You are not the hope of the
world. Some of us need to hear that you
are not the hope of the world that Jesus is.
Jesus is the hope of the world and he wants to partner with
you. So what things do you need to
give to him? So I'm going to pray and if any
of those things are yours as I'm praying, just give them to gods,
Give them to gods. So Lord Jesus, God, I just want
to admit that there are times in my life when I put things above
you, God. I put, I put family, I put work,
I put church, I put them above you, Lord Jesus and God,
sometimes I can tell myself, well, it's, it's for you, God,
but it's not. I'm putting it above you, Lord
God. And I pray, Lord Jesus, if
there's anything here, any sinful desires, any good desires
that my brothers and sisters in this church are putting above
you, Lord God, we together, we say now we repent of those
things and we ask that in your strength we would turn from them
and live for you and we would place you as our Lord and
Saviour. You would be the only king.
You'd be the only one that we are pointed to, Lord God.
And if there's burdens, if there's worries, if there's
things that we are carrying that we're trying to hold on our own,
that we're being weighed down with, we're not able to live for
you because we're so weighed down with what we're carrying.
Go. I pray that you'd give us a
strength to give them to you though Jesus, naturally, even
now, you would show us in your grace and mercy what it looks
like to have the loads of worry, of guilt, of shame, of
responsibility lifted from us, and that we could follow you,
that we would lean on you, Christ Jesus.
Amen. Amen.