This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) This is day four of our look together through 2 Corinthians
chapter six. We're going to look at verses 14 to 16 today. The last few days we've
talked about how to commend Christ, recommend faith to those that are around
you.

You don't put stumbling blocks in the way, instead you commend Christ in every
way. Today, Paul turns from that to a warning about being involved in the wrong
way with those who don't share your faith in Jesus. You want to commend faith to
everybody, but you have to be careful as you do that, not to be involved in the
wrong way with those who don't have faith, or it's going to destroy your faith.

Paul says in verses 14 to 16, first part of 16, do not be yoked together with
unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what
fellowship can light have with darkness?

What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in
common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and
idols?

Now as Paul talks here in these verses, he's talking about something we all have
to be careful of, and that's the erosion of our faith. One of the major reasons
we fail as servants is the fact that we allow things into our lives that ought
not to be there. All of us do this, and when we do this, our faith starts to
erode.

Impurity, he's telling us here, leads to an erosion of purpose, while purity
leads to an explosion of purpose. Whenever I talk about impurity, it's easy for
me, it's easy for you to think about other people's impurity. Let's just admit
it, we all have problems, and we all need Jesus Christ to challenge us,
encourage us, change us, purify us.

Paul challenged the Corinthians here, a challenge that was needed in a very
pagan city, city that was filled with sin. We're surrounded by temptation today,
no doubt about it in our world. We need this challenge also.

And he talks about being unequally yoked as one of the greatest dangers for
erosion of your faith. Don't be yoked unequally, he says. What does that mean?

We don't often see two ox in a yoke pulling a plow today, so what does that
mean? To be yoked doesn't mean spending time with someone. He just talked in the
previous verses, and he talks in many other verses about being ambassadors for
Christ, sharing your faith in Christ.

Jesus's example is spending time with those who were not believers. So he's not
talking about spending time with someone. To be yoked doesn't mean to be near
someone, it means to be committed to someone.

You're in the same yoke. You're committed to each other, you're tied together by
some kind of bond. The picture in farming is an ox and a donkey trying to work
together.

In fact, the Bible talks about this. Deuteronomy 22, 10 says, "You shall not
plow with the ox and the donkey together. " Why?

One's stronger, one's weaker, one's taller, one's shorter. It won't work. It's
only going to lead to frustration and failure.

Now Paul talks and teaches us about this in five specific questions. He says,
"Don't be yoked together with unbelievers. " And then he asks five questions,
and each of those questions talk to us about why unequal yokes hinder our
service, keep us from being all that Christ wants us to be.

Let's just walk through these questions. What's the danger of being unyoked?
First danger he talks about is the danger of disconnection.

He says, "What do righteousness and wickedness have in common? " The word common
there is the Greek word metoke. It means partnership.

It means to have a share in, to participate with. So he's not talking about
being with someone, having a relationship with someone. He's talking about
having a partnership, a bond with someone.

And he's saying when somebody who has faith and somebody who doesn't have faith
tries to make that kind of bond, it just doesn't work. It's like the halting
donkey and the strong ox once again. It doesn't work together.

Or you imagine an eagle and an elephant trying to become partners in a shipping
business. They'd have very different ways of doing it, very different things
they'd want to carry. It just doesn't work.

And Paul says the reason it doesn't work is it's righteousness and wickedness.
It's a matter of nature. When you come to Christ, you get a new nature, a
righteous nature.

Before you came to Christ, you have a wicked nature. It's not just preference.
It's not just ideology.

It's your very nature. It says participation, partnership is impossible. It's
this disconnection at the core of who you are that's going to create an impurity
in you and a frustration by the way in the person who's not yet a believer.

So watch out for it, Paul says. You have to watch out because in the temptation
of this, it's your desire to sell out to the way the other person wants to live,
the direction the other person wants to take. It's easy sometimes to float or to
skid downhill.

So Paul says watch out. You got to be aware enough of yourself not to create
partnerships that hurt you in your daily life. He says one of the dangers is
disconnection.

A second danger is discontentment. It's in the second question. He says what
fellowship can light have with darkness?

The word fellowship, the word koinonia. There's nothing quite so joyous as good
relationships between brothers and sisters in Christ. And there's nothing quite
so discouraging as a bad relationship.

And Paul is saying here, if you try to find fellowship, a true depth of
relationship with unequal yokes, you're in for some solid discontentment. And by
the way, discontented servants don't serve very well. Well, why won't it work?

Paul says it's light and darkness. Now, by the way, with light and darkness, not
only is fellowship inadvisable, it's impossible. You can't have light and
darkness in the same room.

You're going to have either one or the other. And if you try to have fellowship
between the two, by their very nature, one's going to try to push the other out.
That's where the frustration comes.

So either, as a believer, if you put too much of a partnership with an
unbeliever, you're going to push them away from Christ because your partnership
over a business or over a relationship is not the right kind of partnership. Or,
and this is more often what happens, they're going to draw you into the ways of
the world. Now, once again, this is not about how much time we spend with
unbelievers.

This is about the type of relationship you have with an unbeliever. Paul spent
most of his time with those who were in darkness, but his fellowship was with
those who were in the light. So it creates discontentment.

That's the problem with an unequal yoke. It also creates, number three,
disharmony. In verse 15, he says, "What harmony is there between Christ and
Belial?

" The harmony of music is what he's talking about here. The Greek word for
harmony is symphonia. I don't have to say any more.

You get the picture. It's like a symphony. And harmony is a beautiful thing when
it's working together, when it's living together.

You might be in even different places doing different things, but when you're in
harmony with somebody in a business partnership, in a marriage, in a
relationship, the theme of God's love, the beat of God's spirit works its way
into your life in a beautiful symphony. But can you imagine a symphony where the
players are playing different music, following different conductors? And Paul
says, this is how serious this is.

It's Christ and Belial. And Belial is a Hebrew word that means worthlessness.
It's used here for Satan, the worthless one.

And he says, obviously, harmony is impossible. And yet, unequal yokes, if I
become unequally yoked, I'll be constantly tempted to compromise to accept the
view of the world rather than the will of God in order to try to harmonize what
cannot be harmonized, Paul is saying. Number four, he talks about
dissatisfaction.

What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? The word common here is
different than the one earlier. The word common here is meris.

It's the sharing of the burden of a job with someone. It's truly being partners
in a job and a task. And he's saying here that true partnership brings
satisfaction to life.

The partnership of marriage brings fulfillment. The best legal partnerships in a
business bring achievement. But partnerships that fail, and you may have been in
one, you know exactly what I'm talking about, they drain all the satisfaction,
all the joy out of life, even out of a success, what should be a success.

And Paul says, you have a believer, you have an unbeliever, where's the
partnership? He's just getting very practical here. Partnerships between
believers and unbelievers are unequal yokes.

They hinder service, he says. They drain the life right out of you. Now, what's
a partnership?

It's a permanent and purposeful relationship. Partnerships between believers and
unbelievers will hinder service. Now, I know what we think.

We think, but I love him, I love her. I should marry him because I love them.
Paul's going through this list of five things saying, just because you love
doesn't mean you're not going to experience all five of these.

Oh, but they'll become a Christian someday, I know what's going to happen. Paul's
going through this list saying, this is what you're going to experience in life.
Your service will be hindered, your heart will be hurt.

Their heart will be hurt. Or if you think about this in terms of a business
partnership, you think, they'd be good for my business. This person is, they're
not a believer, but they're smarter than any other believers I know, so they're
the better decision.

Your service is going to be hindered. You're not going to have the same spirit about
that business and how it's to be used and how it's to be prayed for. Now, I know
there's a big question here.

Some people say, well, wait, wait, I'm already partnered in an unequal yoke.
Well, the advice of scriptures is very clear about this. You read the book of
Proverbs, and Proverbs tells us, if you're in a business relationship as an
unequal yoke, get out of it as quickly as you possibly can.

When it comes to a marriage, a relationship, 1 Corinthians chapter seven, the
advice and command of scripture is very clear. You stay in that marriage and you
pray in that marriage. Paul's talking here just very honestly to us about
unequal yokes, and he has a fifth question to ask and fifth point to make.

He says the fifth problem with unequal yokes is disagreement. You're not going to
see things the same. What agreement is there between the temple of God and
idols?

The temple of God is us. We are now the temple of God. An idol is a false god
that's being worshiped often in a temple, it certainly was in Corinth.

The word agreement here comes from the root meaning of, it means a little stone,
stones that were used in casting votes, and it means basically to cast the same
stone or to give the same vote as somebody else. People who have opposite
philosophies of life are inevitably going to disagree at the core of life. We all
disagree, even when we have the same philosophy of life, there's plenty of
disagreement.

But when you have opposite philosophies, you're going to disagree at the core of
life. How to raise our kids, how to worship God, what to do with my life, where
we should live, what we should do. Unequal yokes lead to lives of disagreement
and turmoil.

I know for some of you this is hard to hear, because there's a relationship that
you want to see happen. There's a partnership that you want to see happen. But I
just want to remind you, it's not me talking to you about this.

This is God's word. This is God's word to us because he knows us, he created us,
and because he loves us. So instead of hearing this today as some pastor talking
to you about your life, who doesn't understand your life, realize this is God's
spirit.

It's your moment with God's spirit to take a hard look at your life and the
partnerships that are in your life. And to say, Lord, what do you want me to do
about this? How do you want me to hear your word?

And how can you change my heart, change my direction, and save me, save them,
save us from a lot of pain? Jesus give us wisdom. Our desire to make things
work, our desires that grow out of our love, they can drive us in the wrong
direction sometimes.

We have to be honest about that. So give us wisdom. In places where we're trying
to be yoked with someone unequally help us to realize your word is so clear
about it.

Because you love us, because you care about us. Help us to sense that care you
have for us today, we pray. And act on that.

Help us to begin by sharing with some trusted believer in our lives what we need
to do. And out of that, Lord, give us the courage to begin to act in new ways.
We ask this in your name, amen.