♪ Before me destruction threatens at their hands ♪ ♪ But I, in spite of all the threats ♪ ♪ Will still consider your commands ♪ ♪ Perfection limits I have found ♪ ♪ But your commandments have been broken ♪ People of God, we now come to the hearing of God's word. 2 Corinthians 6, begin reading at verse 14 and we'll read through 7 verse 1, the first verse of the next chapter. It's around page 1229 in most of the pew Bibles. I think it's most likely to be a little bit different page if you're sitting towards the back. Even then, it should be close. And 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, the second and third longest letters of Paul. Just before Galatians, 2 Corinthians 6. Let us hear the Word of God, beginning with verse 14. 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. Since we have these promises beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God. So far the reading of God's holy word. Dear congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, the word old can be used in a positive or in a negative sense, can it not? We can imagine someone using the word old in a sentence and being very excited about using that word. We might picture an archaeologist, this isn't exactly how archaeological digs usually work, but you might picture an archaeologist, right, finding something and proclaiming with great excitement, this is old, this is what I'm looking for, this is what we want to study, this is exciting. Or we might imagine a child speaking a sentence such as this. Well, I don't want to play with that. That's just my old toy. That was for when I was younger or whatever. That's old news. Give me something new. It's a word that can be used in positive and negative ways. And so if we think of the story, the good news, which is sometimes called the old story, or even the old, old story. How do we use the word old when we think about this? Do we think of it in a positive way, in a negative way, in a contrasting way? It's just different from the new. People of God this morning will look at passage which combines many promises of God from the Old Testament and kind of puts them together in a paraphrased combination. And so this morning we're looking at old promises. But whether we hear them for the first time or for the thousandth time, let's be struck by both the beauty and the relevance of these beautifully old promises. These promises, the exclusive gospel promises of God which change the lives of God's children. And that's our theme. And we'll be considering that with our three points this morning printed in the bulletin and the outline. First, the yes of the promises. Second, the keeper of the promises. And third, the heirs. The heirs of the promises along with their demands. The heirs by the work of the Spirit. So first, let's think about the yes. of the promise. And we could say it this way, congregation in whom is your help? Because the yes is not a what, but a whom. And we can think of the broader context. This isn't a series through 2 Corinthians. So let's think about the broader context and really, in a way, take our first point from the first chapter if you turn back just a couple pages 2nd Corinthians 1 verses 18 to 20 was what is the yes of the promises 1st Corinthians 1 verses 18 to 20 as surely as God is faithful Our word to you has not been yes and no. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Sylvanius and Timothy and I, was not yes and no, but in Him, in Christ, it is always yes. for all the promises of God find their yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our amen to God for his glory. Amen, amen not meaning, you know, just the end. When we say amen at the end of the prayer, that doesn't just mean, you know, amen, the prayer's ended. That's not essentially what it means. Amen means truly, yes, certainly yes, So let it be, and so all the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ. The catechism says it this way, we might think of And question answer 26 is that it begins working through the Apostles' Creed, who is God, my Father. And then in the middle of that question answer, it says, you know, it's really answering the question, why is he my God and my Father? And then there in the middle of answer 26, it says, because of Christ, his son. The Corinthian church has drifted away from this teaching. They've drifted away from the centrality of Jesus Christ, from the teaching of the true apostles of Christ. And so this is one of those times when Paul emphasizes his authority and the authority of pastors who he has even ordained, such as Timothy. You know, the apostle who sometimes speaks in very humble terms and has no reason to emphasize his authority, the apostle who at other times emphasizes, you know, I, as the agent of Christ, speak the truth concerning Christ, and you are drifting away from this truth. That's kind of a very quick summary of the context of 2 Corinthians. The Corinthian church is sometimes described as as the wandering church, a church with problems, we might say, of various degrees. And we might say it this way, they're forgetting that Christ is the yes. Now, young boys and girls, what do we sometimes call the Sunday school answer? We sometimes call The Sunday school answer, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the answer, right? The answer is Jesus. And we were even reminded in high school catechism last week, right? Sometimes the question's not that difficult. The answer is Jesus. And that's sometimes the answer to the questions in the high school catechism book too. Well, we might say it this way. The Corinthian church had started to think that there was a different Sunday school answer. They had started to think that Jesus was not central, that He is not the yes and amen of the promises. They had drifted away from that which is most central and basic and elemental to the Christian faith. They had begun to reject the Sunday school answer. but all the promises of God find their yes in Christ. And as that's said in our text, which we read, there in verse 15, what accord has Christ with Belial? One of the names for Satan, Satan personified. What accord is there between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent? What accord is there between Christ himself and Satan himself? There is no accord. There is no mixing of yes with no. There is, to use the language of Genesis 3, there is enmity. There is enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. There is clashing. There is a disharmony. Harmony is another way this word could be translated in 2 Corinthians 6.15. What harmony has Christ with Balliol? There is no harmony. It's like two notes on the musical scale, and they have no harmony. They sound ugly the first time you hear them, and they sound ugly when you hear them for the hundredth time. It's always an ugly combination. It's a combination of disharmony. There is no beauty in putting them together. And of course, that's only an illustration. We must press it farther. There is no association. Christ Is that enmity with the seed of the serpent? It is a clash. It is a battle. It's what we sometimes call the antithesis. Yes has no harmony with no. There is a right answer. There is one right answer. Jesus. Christ is the yes now, and Christ has always been the yes, all the promises of God. So as we think about those promises, the promises in the Old Testament which point to Christ, Christ who is necessary, Christ who is exclusive from Baleal, as we have just said. Now let's think about who the keeper of those promises is. The middle of verse 16, I will be their God. You know, we have here in verses 16 to 18, Sometimes we read the New Testament and we come across a quote from the Old Testament and it's taken directly from the Old Testament. Sometimes it looks to be a very direct translation of the Hebrew. Sometimes they're taking from the Old Testament Greek, which they had, which we call the Septuagint, and it's word for word taken from this verse or that verse. And sometimes we look and we say, where is this from? It's putting things together. And so these three verses, It's kind of direct quotations, but also direct allusions from at least Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, 2 Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, maybe more depending on who's looking at it. This is promises of God pulled together and summarized in a paraphrased way in a threefold way. It's a threefold summary. And so let's look at the threefolds of this promise. The first one is, I will be their God and they shall be my people. I will be their God and they shall be my people, the end of verse 16. And we might say that this is a direct quote from Leviticus, but certainly, Leviticus 26, 11-13, but certainly Genesis 17 is directly in mind and kind of part of the summary that's going on there. Genesis 17, beginning at verse 7, and I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you and throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession." An everlasting possession. Didn't they lose the land? Well, yes, but there's an everlasting sense of the promises. The old promises are still the promises which are yes and amen in Christ, the promises which are summarized here in 2 Corinthians 6. Leviticus 26 says it this way, Leviticus 26, verses 11 to 13. I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you, and I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people." The promises originally given to Abraham, the promises repeated to those delivered from Egypt, the promises repeated here to the church at Corinth. that is the first fold of these promises, I will be their God and they shall be my people. The second one, and because this is such a kind of overlapping summary, it could be counted, you could maybe say there's four folds, but I'd say there's three basic three basic unfoldings of the promises seen here. And the second one is, I will welcome you, in the end of verse 17. You will be separated from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing, and I will welcome you. That's a promise. That's a promise especially found in Isaiah, It's a promise first given in the context of the return of the exiles from Babylon, but it's a promise of deliverance rooted in the covenant promise to Abraham, and it's a promise repeated here in 2 Corinthians 6. I will welcome you. And then third, we might say the third, I will. Verse 18, I will be a father to you. And you shall be sons and daughters to me. Well, it almost becomes, as we walk through verse 16, 17, 18, more and more difficult to identify where something might be coming from in any particular way. This could be alluding to all kinds of verses in the Old Testament. I will be a father to you. I, who am the father of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, I will be your father and you will be my sons and daughters. Language found throughout the Old Testament. Promise-like language. I will be a father to you. Found here in 2 Corinthians chapter 6. Promises of God are not one-dimensional. There's a couple different illustrations which we can use. Sometimes we think about how it's given in seed form, and that's almost a play on words if we think of Genesis 3. It's given in seed form. and then we start to see the plant mature, and we see the promise more clearly. It's always been the same thing. A mustard seed gives rise to a mustard tree, right? It's always been essentially the same plant, but what was once in seed form, it comes to fuller and fuller bloom throughout the Old Testament so that what is said in Isaiah is more seen in more blossom and bloom than that which is said in the law, and now it's seen even more clearly now, and we'll see it in its final and full and complete beauty when Christ comes again. It's the same promise of God. It has different It has different layers to it. So then sometimes the illustration of an onion is used. It's like we're seeing the promises of God unfold. And it's like looking at one layer of the onion after the next, but it's still the same onion. It's still the same plant, the same flower. These are the promises of God. These are the old promises of God. Old is a good thing. And they are the promises of God, which are yes and amen in Christ. And they are the promises of God, which are repeated here. repeated by the Apostle in 2 Corinthians 6. It is God who keeps the promises, who gives the promises. It is the promises which are still ours today. What does this mean for us? Yes, we have to read in context, but this means read the Old Testament. That's one of the things it means. Read the Old Testament. Those are the promises. Yes, seen in context, all of those things, but those promises are yours. They're summarized here. Many of them from Genesis to Malachi summarized here. Since we have these promises, seven verse one. And how is the church at Corinth described? We're thinking about how there's connections between the Old Testament people of God and the New Testament people of God. What is the church described as? What does it say in the beginning of verse 16? For we are the temple of the living God. Why does it not say we are the church of the living God? It uses the temple word. We have the word Grace United Reformed Church on our sign outside. Could we say Grace United Reformed Temple? Sounds very strange, but that's how the apostle addresses the church at Corinth. He says, you are the temple of the living God. Certainly the word temple in the New Testament can refer to the temple and the rites and the things associated with the Old Testament, and it can refer to how we as the New Testament people of God are to worship. We are the temple of the living God. Many missionaries you know, begin with the Gospel of John. There's nothing wrong with that. You know, you're translating, there's a lot of work to translate the Bible from one language to another, and they'll often begin with John. There's nothing wrong with that, but you could also start in Genesis. And, you know, there's a lot of stuff in the Old Testament. If that's what someone's been called to, their labor is to translate the Bible into new languages as part of the gospel going out to the nations, it would be tempting, wouldn't it, to just say, well, let's do the New Testament. It's like 200 pages long instead of 1,000 pages long. No, let's just do that. Well, often they do the New Testament first, but the goal of ministries such as Wycliffe Ministries, the goal is let's do the entire scriptures from Genesis to Revelation. and we can begin an evangelism by turning to John, or we could, as is the strategy of Pastor Murphy in New York City, he says, well, read Genesis, start reading at Genesis 1, write down any question you have, and next time I meet, let's speak about them. We can start in John, we can start in Genesis. Christianity as the oldest religion in the world. And these are our scriptures and these promises summarized in a threefold way, promises which come from various Old Testament texts are our promises. And that brings us to our third point. Since we have these promises, we are the heir of these promises. And you might, if you want to write kind of a lengthier title to the third point, The Heirs of the Promises by the Work of the Holy Spirit, because certainly we are able to take hold of the promises by the work of the Holy Spirit. And so we have kind of a Trinitarian outline today. Christ is the yes of the promises, God the Father holds the promises, and He will be a Father to you, and He will call you sons and daughters, but how are we heirs of the promises? The Holy Spirit's not mentioned explicitly here, but we know from other places in the New Testament, certainly we can grab hold of the promises because of the Holy Spirit. And we have these promises. Since we have them, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement. every defilement. And that brings us back to some of that language in verses 14 and 15 and 16. We've focused already with our first point, there's no accord between Christ and Bealiel, but these other things are speaking to us. Do not be believers unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? What fellowship has light with darkness? Again, we've already spoken about how there's no harmony between Christ and Belial, but what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? You know the 2nd Corinthians 6 verse 14 is often applied to marriage. It's not wrong to speak of this passage in the context of marriage, but more directly, most explicitly, what's going on here is it's talking about worship. Do not mix your worship with the worship of unbelievers. Do not mix righteousness with unrighteousness. It's most directly within the context of those who are of the temple of the living God. Really, the climax of these five statements here is that one in verse 16. What agreement has the temple of God with idols? In worship, there can be no mixing. There can be no mixing. You know, Scripture doesn't say, you know, it's impossible for you to work for a non-Christian business, right? We're kind of making a broad application here. Scripture doesn't say that, but Scripture does say, in the context of worship, and then, again, rightfully applied to marriage, but most directly speaking about marriage here, in the context of worship, you cannot mix these things, you cannot mix Christ with the Alleluia, you cannot mix unbelievers with the believers. In the context of the temple, in the context of place of worship, in the context of the church, these things cannot have any portion, they cannot have any fellowship, they cannot have any partnership, they cannot have any yoking together. There is no association. Since Christ cannot mix with Bealiel in the context of worship, we cannot mix with unbelievers. We could walk through these individually and just make some quick notes. What do righteousness and lawlessness have in common? Light and darkness, those first two. Well, light and darkness, those are, we might say, simple opposites, right? Or direct opposites. Yeah, light and darkness, they don't have anything together. Righteousness and lawlessness. What's Paul saying there? Unrighteousness and lawlessness are the same thing. Paul is not against the law. To have lawlessness is to be the opposite of being righteous. What portion does a believer have with an unbeliever? We might say that pairs with that fifth and climaxing question. What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? But that fourth one makes it very personal. What portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? We do not share the same promises. We do not share the same hope. We do not share the same place of worship. And then, yes, applications such as, do not be unequally yoked in marriage flow from that. So then in light of that language of righteousness, lawlessness, light, darkness, 7 verse 1, since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God. since we have these promises. We cannot get off the hook. There's a direct connection between the Old Testament people of God and the New Testament people of God. They've always been the people of God. And we might think of it this way. There was a particular time when the nation of Israel with some of the particular laws is established. But the people of God were the people of God before that. And then they were the people of God in the context of the nation of Israel. We can talk about the establishing of the church by the blood of Christ, Acts chapter 20. But the people of God were the people of God before the establishment of the nation in a particular way, and before the establishment of the New Testament church in a particular way. There are things which are particular, but there are overarching similarities. There are overarching promises, and these really outweigh the differences. Since we have these promises, since we have these old promises, beloved, let us purify ourselves. In a short sense. Since we not only know the misery of our sin, but also our great deliverance, let us purify ourselves in gratitude to Him. These promises are exclusive. They come only from Christ, and they come only to the Beloved. They come only to the people of God. So then, believe in Jesus Christ. Know these promises as your own, and seek in the motive of faithful service to live then in holiness. Beloved, Amen. Let us pray. God, we are thankful how your apostle could take these dear promises of old and summarize them. Remind us that they are not old and gone, but they are old and sure and beautiful. Lord God, we know they are exclusive. We do pray that those who would try to mix the devil with Christ would see the foolishness, the impossibility, and that each one of us would look to Christ alone. And so we pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. People of God, our song of gratitude of application 426. Let us stand to sing 426 together. For redeeming from sin and shame and call to holiness. Praise God for works that we have done. Praise God to Him we all. Body of His elect, He comes. Salvation doth bestow. Ought to ourselves we dare not take more of thee of thy crown. Thou wast thyself our surety in God's redemption plan. He gave his grace to us, and then the world began. nor shall the rage of earth or hell take thy shortcomings away. Not one of all the chosen race but shall to heaven attain. Here they shall share a bounding grace, and there with Jesus pray. of God, it's now time for our morning gifts and offerings. This morning that's for the building fund. Following that, our benediction and our doxology. Praise God, from whom all blessings flow. Yeah. So, Yeah. If you would stand. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen. Resonance of the Lord you