My name's Jordan, on staff here. We're gonna jump back into our second Corinthians series. But before we do that, I have a really simple question for you. And you don't have to shout this out loud, okay? You can think this one to yourself. Is there anything in your life that, as you think back for as long as you can remember, has come naturally to you in life? There's something that's come naturally to you in life. I mean, we're in the process of raising four little boys, and I just look at my oldest two, my five year old, it's not hard to see that, like, books and reading come naturally to him. He kind of gravitates towards that. And my 4 year old, maybe less the reading type and more the wrestling type, right? Less of the, like, how do I jump into a book? And more how do I headbutt you? And that's fine, right? He's more the aggressor. And when I think back on my life, not that I remember like being one or two, but I think one thing that came naturally to me was a love for fire. And maybe that's because my dad raised me that way, right? He used to take my brother and I out to a gravel road and just like set off bottle rockets just because. And I fell in love with this idea of like, things catching fire and blowing up to the point where at one point my parents had to hide lighters or at least put them high enough, which again, is not that high, being my height that I couldn't reach. And I so loved playing with fire and fireworks that a buddy of mine, we figured out that if you pull a magnifying glass out and the sun hits it just right, you can still create fire. And it's by the grace of God that I still have, like, my eyes and some form of hearing because we took a magnifying glass out one time in Little Wick that was probably like this short and the firecrackers blew up in our face. But not sure what it is for you. It's probably not playing with fire. Maybe it's something like cooking or cleaning. Maybe you gravitate towards things like music or sports. Maybe you're more of the, like, crafting type. But no matter what has come naturally to you in terms of like, giftings or hobbies or interests, I do know one thing that has come naturally for all of us, and it is this word called sin. Sin has come naturally to us. We were born with this innate desire to rebel against God. And I Know that this is true not only because I have read my Bible before, but because I'm raising kids. Can I get an amen to that? All right. For this very reason, last week, Matthew kind of told us this quote. He quoted modern theologian D.A. carson and said, people do not drift towards holiness. Another way of saying that is our default is not to love God and obey his commands, but rather quite the opposite, right? Our default is to rebel against God, to run away from him, to chase after our own desires. And to make matters more complicated, it's not just that we are individuals who are bent towards rebellion. We live in a world that is bent towards rebellion, right? It's like the world is this magnetic force pulling us in the direction that we're already running to, which is away from God. And that creates issues, right? This world we're living in competes for our worship. We talked about worship last week, and this world is calling us to bow to the false idols of things like money and belongings, things like the pursuit of pleasure or power or status, things like finding our identity and our appearance or our reputation. And we've come here this morning as people who are followers of Jesus, and we've said, hey, we know. We know that God alone is worthy of our worship. We know that he alone deserves to be worshiped, deserves our obedience. And yet obedience is a challenge, isn't it? I mean, we even sang these words that, like, we're wandering, like, wandering comes naturally to us. And I'm just struck. I'm sure you guys have heard this plenty of times before. John 17. This is Jesus longest recorded prayer in the Gospels. It's called his High priestly prayer. And one thing that he prays for believers as he is preparing to be arrested and crucified, he says, essentially, father, keep them in the world, even though they are not of the world. Have you guys heard that before? Right? To be in the world, but not of the world. What Jesus is essentially saying is, though we live in a world that is engulfed in sin, we should not be engaged with sin. How can we do that, though, right? Especially when sin comes so naturally to us. Like, how can we actually be a people that live in the world, but not of the world? That's where we're gonna go this morning. So if you have a Bible, would love for you to open up to The Book of Second Corinthians, Chapter 6. Again, we are picking back up in our Second Corinthians series. If you were not with us. Before the holiday season, we spent 15 weeks covering the first six chapters and including today, we're going to be concluding the book over the next 17 weeks. So we love teaching through books of the Bible here. It gives us no opportunity to just skip around and pick and choose what we want to talk about. We're going to let God's word be our guide. So going to remind us of where we've been. It's been a while since we've been in Second Corinthians. So Paul is writing to this church in Corinth. He had planted the church about three to five years before this letter. And what we know about Corinth is it was essentially in ancient Vegas. Anybody know the nickname for Vegas? Sin City. Sin City, yeah. Corinth was really no different, right? There was actually a slogan that to act like a Corinthian was to be morally corrupt. And so this church is planted in this ancient Vegas. And as you might imagine, it has been a rough start. This church has been overrun by immorality. And rather than influencing the culture, it is a church that has been influenced by the culture. And Paul has written to this church before to correct their immorality. He's visited them before. And now, as we see and have seen in Second Corinthians, things have gotten even more complicated because these false teachers have come into the city of Corinth, a city of prominence and affluence. And what they've done is they've undercut Paul's leadership. They've said, yeah, maybe he helped plant your church, but why would you listen to a guy like that's teachings? Like, look at his life. He is poor. He. His life is marked by suffering. Like, is that really a type of leader to listen to? And these were men who were well to do, they were well spoken, they were affluent, and they're selling the Corinthian church on really a worldly, like, value system. And what Paul has been trying to do over the first six chapters is really not just defend his ministry, but try and swoon them back to the true gospel to say, guys, here's the reality, right? As you look at my life and as you see poverty and suffering, this is meant to just put Christ on display, right? Our suffering Savior, the one who came and laid his life down for the sheep. And so what Paul wants to do is not just protect his reputation. He wants the Corinthian church to be warm to the gospel, to form their life around the gospel, to not be led astray into a worldly value system. And this last verse that we left off in was Second Corinthians, chapter 6, verse 13, where he tells the believers in Corinth, he says, I speak to you as children. Widen your hearts. Also. He's like, please. Like, I want your affections. I want you to die to this, like, desire for worldliness. And I want you to have a widened heart to. To gospel living. And this morning, I want us to see three things that can help us widen our hearts to gospel living. Three things that can help us truly live in the world, but not be of the world. You guys ready? All right, we're getting there. You guys ready? I love it. I love it. We're getting there. All right, we're going to read this first section, beginning in verse 14. The words will be on the screen for you to follow along. The word of God says this. Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. Raise of hands. How many of you have heard that before? Okay, we'll talk about it in a minute. 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. We're gonna stop right there. Paul begins this section with an agricultural or farming metaphor. This word yoke. It's not like the good part of the egg. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about this wooden bar that used to run across a wooden frame, that ran across two animals for the sake of them carrying a plow, carrying a burden forward. And most of his audience was very familiar with the agricultural analogy. But even if they weren't, they were very familiar with a verse From Deuteronomy, chapter 22, verse 10, which actually prohibited plowing with an ox and a donkey together. And it's like. That seems like a really strange command for God to give. But when you think about it, you partner an ox with a donkey. Anybody think that that's going to go really well for the sake of plowing? No. Right. Like an ox is significantly stronger than a donkey. So you think you frame these two animals together and you have them pull a load. What's going to happen? They're going to plow uneven. In fact, they might even just go in a circle because the ox is so much stronger. And what God was trying to prevent from a farming analogy was disaster. And what Paul is trying to prevent from a godliness perspective is disaster. What he's saying to these believers in Corinth is, hey, do not connect yourself so closely with these false teachers that they then are leading you to destruction. Now we can't confuse this by saying, hey, is this a call to just like, should we just build a, you know, build like a confine and all of us just live on it? Should we just like retreat from the world and be a holy huddle? Absolutely not. Right? A couple weeks ago we talked about living on mission. The only way that we can have a real lasting impact in our world is to interact with the world around us, to interact with non believers. But there is a call in this text to not expect to be linked up with or closely affiliated with people who are living for the world if we expect to grow in our godliness. Now, I asked the question, how many of you have heard this verse before? Commonly this verse is used talking with people about dating and marriage, right? It's like, hey, we're not supposed to be unequally yoked. And to that I would say, yes and amen. Right? To be married to someone who is not a Christian, if you are a Christian, is presenting a disaster in front of you when it comes to worldview, right? Like one of you is saying, hey, the Bible is my foundation. God is my source of life. This is how I'm going to move forward in life. This is how I'm going to make decisions. And, and the other, as a non believer, has no regard for God. They do not look to the scriptures as their foundation, but instead they look to the world and they say, I'm going to do what makes me happiest, not what makes me holy. I'm going to choose that which is self gratifying, not that which glorifies God and it's prone to lead to disaster. And so I don't believe that Paul is explicitly giving dating advice here. Now, for those of you who are dating in the room or soon to be dating to the youth in the room, this is still good advice, right? To be mindful of who you are connecting yourself to for the sake of your godliness. But it's much broader than just a dating or marriage verse. It's essentially saying, hey, in any realm, in any way, in any shape, in any form, in any stage of your life, be careful who your closest allies, who your closest community, who your closest friends are. And Paul has actually visited this with the Corinthian Church before. First Corinthians 15, verse 33. This will be on the screen as well. He has told them this. Do not be deceived Bad company ruins good morals. He's telling them, like, who you surround yourself with is going to impact you. And if you surround yourself with bad company, do not expect when your moral ground begins to shift. Proverbs 13 says it this way, whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. Now, how many of you guys can attest to the fact that like, we become like the people we spend our time around? Yeah. Like for better or worse. And I think what's interesting, this is a silly illustration, but actually happened, okay, Back home. I'm from a small town, northwest Iowa. And typically whenever I would go home, whether it be during college or after college, I would go to the community center and would go there to work out. And I would tend to run into people that I just hadn't seen for a long time since graduating high school. And there were these two guys that I ran into that I hadn't seen for a long time. And the first one I ran into, I was like, your biceps are the size of my head. Like, what happened to you? And come to find out, he joined the military. And I was like, yeah, that checks out. Dude was working out a ton. And he was around a bunch of people that were working out a ton. So guess what? He changed, right? The second guy, it was less about his biceps and more about him sounding just like Steve Irwin. And I was like, what happened to you? And he's like, I moved to Australia. And I was like, yeah, you did. Like, this is not fake. He literally had an Australian accent. And I was like, this is just insane, right? But you are surrounded by people who carry real values. And it's not just about your physique or your language, but actually your worldview, your values, your behavior. And there is a strong warning here to say, hey, be careful who you are closely connected to. And Paul here gives several contrasts, right? He's like, what do these things have in common? And the answer to all of them is nothing. Righteousness and lawlessness, exact opposites. Light and darkness. Christ. In this text, the word is belial. It's another name for Satan. It's rooted in the word that means worthlessness or wickedness. A believer and an unbeliever. And lastly, a temple and idols. And the word for temple actually refers to the most holy place. Not just a structure, but the most holy place where God's presence was manifest and is set in stark contrast to idols, which are man made and lifeless, who offer no value, no worth. And so he creates these contrasts and he says these are identity statements, right? He's talking to the church. And what he's trying to help them see is all of these things are true of you. You are characterized not by lawlessness, but righteousness, not by darkness, but light, not by Satan, but Christ, not by being an unbeliever, but a believer. Not by idol worship, but by true worship of the living God. He is making these identity statements. And so one thing that we need to know when it comes to our hope and victory over sin, I mean, that's what it means, like to be in the world, but not of the world, to begin to actually experience victory over temptation and sin. Our only hope in victory over sin is not ultimately new friends, but a new heart. But a new heart, right? The only way that these identity statements can be read over you is not just if you come to church and have good friends. It's if you have looked at the perfect sinless life of Jesus and said, that is my only hope, that Jesus lived the perfect life that I never could. And by the grace of God, he died in my place and he rose again victorious. And so now, as I stand before God, my only chance of entering into the gates of heaven, my only chance of having a restored relationship with my Maker, is to say, not based on my effort, but Jesus, but because of Jesus. We can stand with all of these identity statements read over us. So you can say it another way. Our only path to godliness is not ultimately a better community around you, but Christ in you. That is your only hope. But what's important to note in this text specifically, as you look at the tail end of verse 16, is he's not just talking to individuals here. Who is he talking to? He's talking to the church in Corinth, right? He is making a statement over a gathered group of believers because he says, for we are the temple of the living God. That's important. It's important to note because guess what? If you want victory over sin, first and foremost, you need to belong to Christ. That's your only hope, is to belong to Christ. But also we are called to belong to the church, right? If you're saying, hey, my closest connections are not the world, who is your closest connection going to be if not for the people of God? We're called not just away from a community, but into a community. And I read a quote this week that says the New Testament knows nothing of churchless Christianity. And so the first step of being people who are in the world but not of the world is to belong. To belong. Ultimately to Christ, but also to belong to Christ's Church. That's not the only thing that we're called to here. We have to keep reading to see what else Paul is going to unravel for us here. Let's pick up where we left off, for we are the temple of the living God. He goes on to say, 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. It's a good spot for an amen. Therefore, go out from their midst, be separate from them, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you. You shall be my sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty. Since we have this promise as beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God. So Paul here introduces six Old Testament quotations from a variety of scriptures. For the sake of time, we can't look at every single one of them. I do want to zone in on a couple with you. The first is from Leviticus 26. Here's what the Word of God says in Leviticus 26. 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. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt that you should not be their slaves. And I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect. Now, this is God talking to his people Israel at Mount Sinai as he after he has led them out of Egypt, right? And he is now standing before them and he says, I am here to be your God. I have come to establish this covenant relationship with you. Oh, and by the way, do you know how that's happened? I have broken the yoke of Egypt, right? The yoke here was this picture of slavery. And as you just look forward, what this can foreshadow is the slavery of sin that we are all engulfed in apart from the beauty and wonder of Christ, right? And what this text is showing us is, hey, God has come to fulfill this promise to break the yoke of slavery, to be our God, to invite us near to him. And what's sweet about Leviticus 26 is it's under a subheading that says blessings for obedience. It's an invitation to say, hey, as we lean into obedience with God, here's what we get. We get more of him. We get intimacy with him we get closeness with our Creator. Is that something you want? Is something I want. Right. Especially if Psalm 16 is true and says, in his presence is fullness of joy. I'm like, sign me up. I want to be close to God. Well, the invitation then is, be obedient, walk in holiness. Okay, the second text I want to look at Isaiah 52. The Word of God says this in verse 11. Depart, go out from there. Touch no unclean thing. Go out from the midst of her. Purify yourselves, you who bear the vessels of the Lord. Here God is speaking through the prophet Isaiah to Israel, who is in Babylonian captivity. And the reason they're in Babylonian captivity is because they didn't listen to Leviticus, right? They were disobedient. They walked away from God. But now Isaiah has come about 700 years after Leviticus and about 700 years before this text we're reading. And he has prophesied this promise of Hope in Isaiah 52. That's a call to deliverance, to restoration with God. And also it's a charge to say, hey, go out from Babylon, right? Set yourself apart. Do not be swept up in the ways of Babylon. Here's what you should do. Be holy as I am holy. And what's awesome as you just look at this string of passages, it's followed by a charge to be holy as he is holy. But it's rooted at the beginning of chapter seven, verse one. I'm just going to read that for you again, quick. It says, since we have these promises, beloved. Since we have these promises, beloved, what Paul is doing is he is reminding the Corinthians and he's reminding us that we have these precious promises of God. So he's not just calling us to belong to God, but to believe in the promises of Scripture. That's the second thing we need to believe in the promises of Scripture. And what he's doing for us is, yes, to believe backwards as you look back, right, of over 1400 years of promises that have been fulfilled by God to his people. But also to believe forward as you remember God's faithfulness in the past and also cling to the reality of if he was faithful, then he will be faithful again. And so I guess the question is, how well do you know the promises of God? How well are you rooting your life in the promises of God? Because by God's grace, we have the very written word of God, the Bible, in our language that we can read openly and freely without persecution. Meanwhile, brothers and sisters on the other side of the world are literally dying to get their hands on the promises of God, to build their life around. We have it at our fingertips. And the question is, how well do we know our Bibles? How well do we know the promises of God? How well are we rooting ourselves in the promises of God? Because that actually has drastic implications on how we live for God. I want to just give you a few promises that you can cling to this week. Jesus can give you rest for your soul. Matthew 28:11. Jesus can fill you with all joy and peace. Romans 15:13. Jesus can give you victory over temptation. First Corinthians 10:13 Jesus will never leave you nor forsake you. Hebrews 13:5 like, do you know that? Do you believe that? Are you anchored in these precious promises of God? Because if you are, the natural overflow is you will start to live for him. But if you don't, the natural overflow is you won't. Here's what Paul says to the church in Rome. Romans 12:2 do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Paul is laying before the church in Rome and he's laying before us today. One of two things will happen to you. Either you will be conformed to the patterns of this world. The world will sweep you up in its own form of worship and idolatry. And to conform is this outward pressure that's creating inward change, or you're offered an alternative. If you don't want to be conformed to the image of this world, here's what can happen to you. You can be transformed by the renewal of your mind. The word transformation, actually the root word metamorphosis, is not outward change, but actually an inward change. It's an inward change that reveals itself outwardly. And what Paul is charging the believers in Rome and what he's charging us to do is, hey, you can experience inward change as you renew your mind. How do you renew your mind? By believing in the promises of God's word. He has spoken to root yourself in this to any anchor yourself in the text of Scripture and to truly say this is going to have an impact. Because in the verse right before it, he appeals to believers by the mercies of God. And he says, hey, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. In other words, let your entire life be an offering of worship to God. How? By renewing your mind, being transformed from the inside out by the very promises of Scripture and So so far we've seen two realities. Number one, we're called to belong to God. Secondly, we're called to believe in the promises of Scripture. And lastly, here's how the passage ends. 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. If I were to just say it simply, the last thing we need to do is behave, behave, behave accordingly. Like, behave in light of your gospel identity. Behave in light of the reality of the promises of Scripture. It is a call to practical righteousness. Now hear me when I say the only way that we can be declared righteous before God is because of the finished work of Jesus, right? We covered that in 2 Corinthians 5. Our only hope before God is that Jesus was the righteous one in our place. He who knew no sin became sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. That's an identity statement over us. That is what we would call positional righteousness. That has already been done. If you have placed your faith in Jesus, you have positional righteousness. However, there is a call to practical righteousness, a call to holiness. Because the only way we experience righteousness is through grace driven effort. Maybe you've heard this before. The gospel is not. The gospel is anti earning, but is not anti effort. Right? We don't earn our way to God, but that doesn't mean that it isn't hard. That doesn't mean that we don't have a role to play in bringing our bodies and our minds and our souls into submission to God and His Word, right? This text even says, let us cleanse ourselves. That's not a salvation statement. That's just a holiness statement. How can we be a people that take our holiness seriously? How can we take cleanliness seriously? And not just like taking a bath or taking a shower, right? Some of you kids in the room, you can work on that too, right? But spiritually speaking, how can we be a people that get as far away from idol worship as possible? Because Corinth is not much different than America. Full of idol worship, full of worldliness. And the call is to say, how do we run away from that and towards God? And it says, in the fear of God, right? If you truly understand the holiness and the majesty of our God, his greatness and his goodness, his power and his ability to judge that he is not just Lord and Savior, but the one who we will stand before on our final day and give an account for our life. If you understand who our God is. It says, in light of this, we should act like we belong to him. We should let our lives match up with our confession of faith. And I think far too often we are found asking the wrong question when it comes to engaging with the world, right? We're prone to ask this question, how close can I get to the world and still be forgiven? How close can I get to sin and God would still accept me? Rather than asking the question, how close can I get to God and truly enjoy Him? It's not a matter of flirting with sin, but I want to be as close to my Creator as possible. Again in him as full fullness of joy. And if we're honest, it's like the invitation is to leave behind all the counterfeits, right? To enjoy the real thing. To say, man, we can have fullness of joy. We can have real peace, we can have soul level rest. Why? Because we get God. We don't need some form of false counterfeit that the world is offering because we get God. A couple weeks ago, Ellie and I had the joy of getting to go to Florida. And I know you're all jealous right now. It wasn't really that. I mean, it was like 60 degrees there, which is nicer than negative 20, but I'm like 60 in Florida, still wearing a hoodie. You know, I felt like a local. But one thing we did while we were in Florida is we ate sushi. Any sushi fans in here? Come on. Anybody that says they don't like sushi, I'm like, it's because you haven't eaten it, right? All you're thinking is raw fish and you just haven't tried it. We had good authentic sushi. So much so that we went back to the same place two days in a row. And when we flew back, one of our first stops, when we got back, it was super early in the morning and we just needed caffeine. We went to Quickstar and I happened to look in the cooler and I saw Quick Star Sushi. Do you think that was appealing to me in any way, shape or form? I'm like, that makes me want to vomit right now. Maybe you don't need real sushi to look at Quickstar sushi and vomit. But if you've had the real thing, you don't look at some form of counterfeit and say, wow, that looks delicious. And I think the challenge for most of us is that we really haven't tasted and seen that the Lord is good. As Psalm 34 tells us, it's an Invitation to have the real thing. So that way, as the competing things of this world come, you know, vying for your attention and your appetite, you're just like, that doesn't even look good anymore. To behave in light of our gospel identity and the promises of scripture. Now, I want to get really practical here, right? As someone who personally says, man, I have room to grow in my godliness, and as a pastor of a church that I'm like, man, I want us to like up our game when it comes to our godliness. I want us to just think through three areas that we can grow. The first is our entertainment. The entertainment that we consume. The shows in, the movies we watch, the books we read, the music we listen to, the hobbies we engage in. The question is, are they helping you walk with Jesus or are they hindering your walk with Jesus? Now, don't hear me say, right, like, no classical rock, right? Or, you know, you can't watch these movies and be a Christian. It's not a matter of identity, but it is a matter of holiness, right? This isn't a matter of legalism, us earning a right standing with God, but it is a matter of holiness. To say, do we actually care about our closeness with God? If so, how is that showing up with the things we're feeding ourselves throughout the week? Are we taking our holiness seriously when it comes to our entertainment? Secondly, our language. Are we taking our holiness seriously when it comes to how we speak? Harsh words, crude, joking, complaining, gossiping, slandering, right? Like, is the way that we speak actually helping us grow in our godliness? Or is it making us look more like the world and bringing us distance? Like, leading us to wander from the God we love? And lastly, lifestyle, right? The church is called to be set apart in our lifestyle. And when I say lifestyle, I'm primarily talking finances, right? Like the people of God. It's like, are we on the same debt treadmill that the world is on? Just constantly looking to live, like, engulfed in materialism? We just need the next new thing. The next nice thing is our hope. Maybe not in materialism, but in our nest egg or our 401K. And hear me when I say saving and investing is not wrong. But is our hope in that? Is our comfort wrapped up in this idea of, I can't wait to retire as soon as possible so I can go sit on a beach and eat authentic sushi. Because if so, it's like you're settling for a counterfeit, right? God is our refuge and strength. A very present help in times of trouble, you have access to the real thing. His name is God himself. So the question is, why would we settle? So I'm going to recap for us this morning. How can we truly be a people in the world, but not of the world? Three steps. Belong. Believe, Behave. And it's important that you do that in that order, okay? Anytime we get this flipped, we get it twisted. We unearth the gospel of Jesus which puts our hope in ourselves and not in the finished work of God. So step one, Belong. Let me just ask you, do you belong to God? Have you put your hope in the finished work of Jesus, in Him alone? Or have you constantly been trying to earn your way to God to prove yourself to him by your good works? If so, accept this invitation. Stop. Get off the treadmill of self effort and understand that God lived perfectly so that you can have this identity statement made over your life. Righteous. And with that, if you belong to God, there is a call to belong to his church, the bride of Christ. To love Jesus is to love his church. To surround yourself with people who will help you know, love and follow Jesus not just on Sunday morning, but throughout the week. Do you belong to Christ? Do you belong to his church? Belong. Secondly, believe. Are you being transformed by the renewing of your mind? Are you rooted in the scriptures? Are you reading the Scriptures? Have you done what the Bible has called us to do, which is to store up God's word in your heart, right? This process of like meditation or memorization, there's this invite to say, hey, if we store up God's word in our heart, here's one of the implications that I might not sin against you, right? To root yourself in the promises of God for the sake of your godliness. Do you believe in the promises of Scripture? And lastly, are you behaving in light of your gospel identity? Are you behaving in light of the promises of Scripture that God has clearly given to you? Where can you grow in bringing your holiness to completion? Where can you grow in the fear of God to say, wow, if God is who he says he is, if I will stand before him and answer to him on my final day, if the promises of God are true and obedience brings me true and lasting joy, peace, contentment, fulfillment, you name it, why would I not obey Him? How can you take your obedience more seriously? And oftentimes kind of towards the tail end of message, we talk about, imagine what it would look like, right? Some of you guys have heard that maybe too much. Imagine what it would look like if we were a Church that took our holiness seriously. I can tell you what it wouldn't look like. Okay, little anti vision for you. If we don't take our holiness seriously, church, we're going to end up just like Corinth, which is a church that is not influencing the culture, but a church that is being influenced by the culture. We're going to end up just like Israel. When they ended up captive in Babylon, why did they end up captive in Babylon? Because they wanted to fit in. They wanted to fit in so much with the world that they lost their potency. They lost the gift of being a set apart people of God, they just fit in and they had nothing to offer the world. That's not what we want, is it? And so if you flip that on its head and say, man, what would it look like for us to take our holiness seriously? You actually get a real picture of what it would look like. Not just a group of people that the surrounding world would be like, wow, they must really believe in this Jesus guy. They must really believe in their Bible, right? They must be Bible freaks or like fill in the blank. I'm okay with being called that. Right. Because the reality is we wouldn't just be known as people who wow, they must take their Bible really seriously. What they'd also be able to say is they seem to have joy that is unshakeable. They seem to have peace that surpasses understanding. They might not use that language, but that's what they're thinking. They have hope in the midst of chaos and they're left wondering how right. And in doing so, we get to be the church that Jesus talked about. That is salt in light. A city on a hill that cannot be hidden. One that has massive impact on the world around us so that God can get the worship he deserves. Wouldn't that be amazing? That's what we're all about. That's what we've always been about. That's what we always will be about. We want to be mature disciples. We want to be everyday missionaries, like in the world, but not of the world. Why? So that we can glorify God. Because he deserves to be worshiped. Amen. Let's pray together. Father, what a gift it is to even start a prayer by calling you Father, that we belong to you. Not because we have just found our way into your family or we have measured up or earned some form of status, but because Jesus became sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. What a gift to be adopted into the family. Of God. To bear the name Christian is to bear this identity statement that we are in Christ not because we first loved you but because you first loved us and you sent Christ to pay the price for our sin but God in light of our positional righteousness I do pray as we look at a text like this this morning God that you by the power of your spirit within us would help us with our practical righteousness would help us to be a people that truly are in the world but not of the world that take you at your word and in light of that God experience true and lasting joy, peace, fulfillment, life and life to the fullest. And in light of that God we want to be a church that is a city on a hill, one that cannot be shaken and one that shows the world around us the great God we serve so that you can be worshiped. We pray this in Jesus name Amen.