We Believe in Biblical Separation Part 3

Turn first to second Corinthians chapter six and then we'll make a couple other turns here later in the message today. So, second Corinthians chapter six, we'll reintroduce once again our series that we're studying. We have been on a broader series for the past six months on what we believe. What do Baptists believe? What do we believe?

What should Christians believe? What should we believe? What should Christians believe in? We should believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and in His Word. What I what is my statement of faith?

We do have a statement of faith in our constitution. It is a shortened summary but it's not all that I believe. What I believe is where? All that I believe is in in here. This this is our real statement of faith.

It is the word of God. It's not the word of men. It's not a set of denominational distinctives. It is the word of God and it is what all Christians should believe. Man sometimes gets it wrong.

Man often gets it wrong. But God what? God never gets it wrong. The Lord is always right and so is his word. Which is why when it comes to Sunday around here what do we do?

Well we look to the Lord, we praise him in song and we study his what? We study his word to see what God has to say to us and we're going to start in second Corinthians chapter six as we continue on this portion of that study on what we believe on biblical separation. Second Corinthians six fourteen Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? What communion hath light with darkness?

What concord hath Christ with Belial? What part hath he that believeth with an infidel? What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God. As God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they shall be my people.

Wherefore, come out from among them and be separate saith the Lord and touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you and will be a father unto you and you shall be my sons and daughters saith the Lord almighty. Let's go to the Lord almighty in prayer. Dear heavenly father, thank you today for being our almighty God. For being our savior who gave his only begotten son through faith in him and what he did for us on the cross of Calvary through your great sacrifice and your resurrection from the dead. You have given us life.

Everlasting life. Forgiven all our sins, made us the children of God. Thank you. We praise you for that today. That is not the work of man.

That is the work of God. We thank you for the work that you have brought in our hearts. Pray Lord if there be one here today that's never trusted Christ as savior. Lord, I pray that you'd help them to see their need today to become believers in you. To receive you that they too might become the children of God.

In Jesus name, we pray. Amen. This this passage has a has a a bad word in it that nobody likes. It's the word separate. In Christian circles, we don't preach much on separation today.

Why is that? Well, sounds what? Negative. Separation sounds negative. So, we want to avoid that which sounds negative because we live in a a positive world.

Everything's always gotta be positive and you know, for the Christian, in a way, everything really is positive because if you're in Christ Jesus and you have eternal life in Christ, really it's all what? It's all positive. But in our mind we use the word separation and we think negative and so we avoid it. The Bible says Paul told Timothy, Preach the whole counsel of what? Scripture.

Don't avoid the things that seem negative. Preach it all. And as you preach it and you teach it and you study it, you find out it's really not negative anyway. The doctrine of biblical separation is also called sanctification and it doesn't mean primarily to be separated from but it means to be set apart unto. As Christians, as believers in Christ, as born again believers who have become the children of God, we have been set apart from the world unto who?

Unto God. We're his children. Because we're so good? No. Because we have a good what?

We have a good God. We have a good savior who gave his life for us and when we accepted him as our savior, he washed away our sins. He gave us everlasting life and he made us his children and we have been set apart unto him. And we are to be set apart and we live unto him. That also means being separated from some things that the people of this world seem to live for and enjoy.

Things that are not beneficial for them, things that are destroying them which we don't need anyway. But we need to be sanctified. We need to be set apart. We need to be holy. The word holy, sanctified, saint, all come from the same Greek word Hagios.

Meaning, cleansed, consecrated, set apart, or separated from. A sanctified believer is one who is set apart under the Lord. A saint is one who is holy, holy in the eyes of who? God. We have been holy.

We've been constant. We've been set apart from destruction and judgement unto who? Unto God and everlasting life. Praise the Lord. We have been set apart unto him through faith in his son, Jesus Christ, by his grace.

Word holy means to be set apart from certain things. Our God is holy. He's holy, set apart from all others in character, nature, and power. He is without sin, without flaw, or imperfection or mistake. He is commanded both Israel and the church.

Be you holy for I am holy. Now, in certain ways, we we can't be whole like him entirely. He is all powerful. You are not, okay? He is eternal.

He's always been. You had a beginning. But in character, we can become more like who? More like our savior, Jesus Christ and he commanded Israel to do so in the Old Testament. He says here, sanctify yourselves therefore and be holy for I, the Lord your God, for I am the Lord your God and I am what?

He is what? He is holy. Therefore, he wants you to be like who? To be like him. What is that?

That means to be holy. In the New Testament, part of the passage Al read just a few minutes ago but as he who have called you is holy, so be you holy in all manner of conversation because it is written, be you holy for I'm holy. Peter is quoting in that last phrase there from the Old Testament and the passage we read just a moment ago, Leviticus 20 verse seven and he's relating that which was first given to the Israel and he is now taking that and he is telling it to who? To Christians, to the church, to born again believers in the New Testament. God also wants us.

God wanted them to be holy. Guess what? He also wants you to be holy too. He wants us to be like him. He wants to change our character.

He wants to change our heart. He wants to make us holy as he has declared us to be before his throne in heaven. He wants us to be holy in all manner of conversation. There are three types of separation seen in scripture. We looked at two of them over the past couple weeks.

We'll look at third today. The first is national separation. That's the separation of Israel. They in the Old Testament are called the children of God. God called them his people.

They were set apart unto him from all other peoples. They were given the 10 commandments and the mosaic covenant at Mount Sinai. They were a special people reserved unto himself to represent him in that time. Today, we have not national separation. We have ecclesiastical separation and that is God has set apart not Israel but today the what?

The church, the church, born again believers in Christ. We have been set apart unto his glory and to represent him and we're told as we read at the beginning of the service last week to contend for the faith. This message that we have been given. This word of God that we have been given. This doctrine that is taught here in is the good news.

And it's important news. The world needs it. For without it, they will be lost forever. And so God gives us, has given us, preserved it for us and we're to contend for the faith. We are to keep it pure.

The church is commanding the New Testament on several occasions as a body, the body of Christ to separate itself from apostasy, apostasy, that is false teaching and false teachers. We must be vigilant. We cannot let false doctrine and teaching infiltrate the church. And our teaching. We must stick with what?

The word of God. We must stick with the truth. We must not air from it. It is the responsibility of the church. Number three, that today we're going to look at personal separation or the sanctification of the believer.

Each individual child of God has the responsibility to separate themselves from the former lust of the flesh that previously directed our lives and to be conformed to the image of who? Jesus Christ. As he produces in us the fruit of the what? The fruit of the spirit. As God changes our what?

Our character. As God changes our morals, as God changes our attitudes, as he changes our heart, we are to be personally set apart unto him and separated from the world. We're going to start in Romans chapter 12. You can look up here or look it up in your Bible. Romans chapter 12 and verses one and two this morning.

Romans twelve one and two. There we read, Paul writing, born again believers, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God. According to the mercy and grace of God that's been bestowed upon us through Jesus Christ. That you present your what? Bodies, a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service.

It is reasonable, Paul says, for us to present our bodies, our lives, a living sacrifice to be used in his service. We are bought with a price The blood of Jesus Christ and my life is now his life. It's reasonable. He gave his life for me, for me, to let him have the reigns of my life. He goes on to say in verse two, and be not conformed to this world.

But be you transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is a good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Paul writes and he says, don't be conformed to what? This world but be you transformed by the renewing, by the changing, by the molding of your mind, by who? By God. Don't be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove, that you may live out that was a good and acceptable and perfect will that God has for his children, okay?

That is God's command. According to the grace and mercy, we are bought with a price and it is our reasonable service to give him our lives. Our lives in service to him to the transformation of our mind, will, and actions to his purpose and likeness. But also, this means resisting the pressure to be conformed back into the image of what? The sinful world around us.

Two things here, be transformed by the renew of your mind but don't be what? Conformed back to the image of the what? The world and the flesh. I worked at a tire factory. Brother Al, tell you all about it some time.

I worked at tire factory when I was in college over the summers. It got me help pay my bill and they made these tires. They put all of these strips and materials together, had machines. And when they put the tire all together it looked sort of like a big black donut. Didn't smell like one.

I never tried tasting it. But it looked like a big black donut. And then they would take these big black donuts and they would put them in presses. And this 300 degree steam went through these presses to keep them incredibly hot. And they put the tire in there and they bring down that obviously they weren't doing it by hand but machine brought down this mold onto the tire and it squeezed it with great pressure and heat and molded it into the image that is on your car today.

Okay? The world in which we live to the Christian in many ways is not our friend. Our flesh that we still deal with, the desires, the pleasures of the world over the things of the Lord is often not our what? Our friend. We have an enemy called the devil who is a roaring lion roameth about seeking whom he may devour.

He already has the lost. He wants to destroy the Christian. And so we deal with these pressures. These pressures. As we are being transformed inwardly into the image of Christ the world is trying very hard to mold us back into what?

Into its image. Into its image. And it pressures us. Our flesh pressures us. Sometimes our friends in the world around us, entertainment and other things, they pressure us to conform to the ways of the world, to conform to temptation and sin.

We as children of God must resist that temptation. We must resist that pressure to conform and instead we must look to Jesus and allow him to transform us from the inside out. To make us holy. To make us like him. That we might be used in his service that we might bring him glory.

God has a will for you but so does the devil and the world. And the two are in conflict, the one with the other. Either you are doing God's will or you are doing sin's will. Look up here Matthew six twenty four, No man can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

Those are the words of who? Jesus. Jesus says you have to make a choice. You can't serve two masters. There was a counselor at the camp that I used to take the teens to.

He had this little illustration he used in counseling and it looked like a Y. It started at the bottom and then it forked at the top and it focused on the point at which it divided. Okay. And one side said God and the other self. There's just two choices on the shelf, pleasing God or pleasing self.

Self meaning the flesh. There are just two choices. Either we're going to do God's will or we're going to do the flesh's of the devil and the world's will. And we make decisions every day as to whose will we're gonna choose that day on that decision. Am I gonna do what God wants or am I going to listen to the world the flesh and the devil?

Just two choices on the shelf, pleasing God or pleasing self. You can't please both at the same time. You cannot serve both at the same time. First John two fifteen and sixteen. John writes to the Christian, love not the world.

Neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the father is not in in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life is not of the father. But is of the world. When we serve the flesh, are we serving God?

No. And if we serve God, guess what? We won't be serving the the flesh. As Christians, we are to be holy. In all manner of conduct, we're to be set apart unto our God.

That means choosing to do whose will? God's will. That's personal sanctification or separation. As servants of God we must set our hearts and minds on doing the will of God. You have things you like to do.

You have things you scheduled to do and nothing is going to keep you from doing that thing. You have a vacation coming up. You are going to go here. You are going to go there. You are going to do this thing and it is your determined will that nothing is going to what?

Stop you from doing it. Now, we all know that there are things that can stop us from doing it. But you know that you set your mind on those things. As Christians, we need to set our mind and heart on doing his will, On God's will. With the same determination or more so than we set our mind on going to Disney World next month.

Okay? Which one is more important? God's will. And yet I find a lot of times and this is a little bit of a tangent. A lot of times I find Christians.

Well, I'm sorry. I just haven't come to church in the past month or three months or six years or whatever. I mean, I mean to. You know, I try to come and you know, but this comes up and that comes up. Say, well, why don't you schedule?

You know, make it part of your schedule to come to church. Schedule it. You know, you have a schedule, you go to work. You set your mind. Imma get up tomorrow.

You set your alarm and I'm going to go to work. We'll do the same thing with church. Do the same. Is it important? Then, do the same thing.

Set your mind on it. Romans six twelve and thirteen says this, it says, let not sin. That means, don't let sin. Therefore, reign in your mortal body that ye should obey it in the lust thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but yield yourselves unto who?

Yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your members that is your your body, your mind as instruments of righteousness unto God. What is Paul saying? He's not saying that Christians don't ever sin because sadly we do. Praise the Lord we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous who intercedes for us because he died for us and he has received us as his own. But God doesn't want us to sin And we need to set our mind on serving God and His will and not on serving the flesh and the pleasures of the world.

Do not let sin. Set your mind on doing the right thing. Set your mind on serving the Lord. Set your mind on being set apart to do his will and being set apart from the things of the world. We are not alone.

Praise God in this endeavor. The Bible tells us that it is God that it is God who sanctifies us, who has set us apart under his purpose, and works within us to transform us into his image. Have two points. That's the first one. Well, the second one.

First point is this, we are being sanctified by him. You're not alone. You're not supposed to do this all by yourself. A matter of fact, you can't do it all by yourself. Romans eight twenty nine says this, for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of who?

His son, Jesus Christ, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. God saved you. He saved you to change you. He to change you into what? The image of his son.

He is going to do that. He is going to change you into the image of Jesus Christ. He didn't save you just to take you to heaven. He saved you to change you into the image of his son. And it says in first Thessalonians five twenty three and the very God of peace sanctify you, make you holy.

And I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is God who begins this work. It is God who ends this work one day when we stand before him what? Blameless. In Christ Jesus without sin.

But God is doing that work even this what? This very day as we sit here in this place God is working in our hearts to conform us not to the world but into the image of Jesus Christ. In this in these verses we learn that although God has set us apart as his children, we are not instantly conformed to the image of his son. That is a process that begins at salvation and continues through life until one day we stand before him complete and God promises to finish it. He says here, being confident of this very thing that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.

What God has started, God will what? God will finish. If it was up to you, you'd be in trouble. Because you don't have the wherewithal in yourself and neither do I but what God has started in us when we came to him for salvation, God has promised to finish. Praise the Lord.

The flesh is not the driving mechanism behind this change. No, the flesh is actually one of the three inhibitors. The world, the flesh, and the devil. The flesh, the lust of the flesh. Lust after the things which are not of God and when we walk according to its lust and desires, we do resist God's change in our lives.

God has given us his holy spirit to work this transformation in our lives and the Bible says, if we walk in the spirit, we will not fulfill what? The lust of the flesh. The two are contrary to one or the other. Just two choices on the shell. Pleasing God, pleasing self, walking in the spirit, or walking according to the what?

The lust of the flesh. If we learn to walk in the spirit then we'll not fulfill what? The lust of the flesh and that's what being holy is. It's walking in the spirit. It's walking according to the leading of God and his word.

Not just in our actions but in our attitudes and in our very character The Holy Spirit will change us. Into his image. He is the power behind this change. He produces the fruit of the what? The fruit of the spirit in our lives.

Renewing our mind and transforming us through the sword of the spirit. What is the sword of the spirit? It is the word of God that he uses to make us into the image of Christ. Therefore, the Bible says in first Peter two two, desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. Desire the sincere milk of the word.

Study it. Read it. Feed upon it. In Psalm 119, David says, wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? We're not born.

Desiring to please the Lord. When we're born again, we receive his spirit and God helps us. To get on the path of pleasing the Lord. Young man, he says, how do they cleanse their way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word.

With my whole heart have I sought thee. Oh, let me not wander from thy commandments. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not against God. You are not alone. Hide God's word in your heart.

Spend time on your knees talking with the one who can change your life. And who you are. And set you apart and sanctify you and transform you into the image of Jesus Christ. It is he who is the power behind the change. Not the flesh.

Thus, the Christian life is one of continual growth as we yield ourselves to the transforming power of God and feast daily upon his word. Obviously, we can yield to this process and supply the Holy Spirit with ammunition by hiding God's word in our hearts or we can hinder it by resisting the spirit and disobeying or neglecting his word. Do we have a part to play in this? Yes, we do. Point number two, we must also sanctify ourselves.

We must also sanctify ourselves. Back to first Peter that we read earlier if you turn there. Back to first Peter one. And look again in verse 14. First Peter one fourteen.

As obedient children, as children of God, it is the responsibility of a child to be what? To obedient. Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Now, are we who are born again children of God? Yes, we are.

What is our responsibility as children of God? To obey. God wants us to be obedient children. Are we always obedient? No, sadly, we're not but we should be striving.

We should setting our mind and trusting the Lord and as we do, we will become more obedient to his word and God wants us to be that. He says, as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lust and your ignorance. That's before you came to Christ, that's before you were saved, that's before you received the Holy Spirit, through faith, by grace, when you receive Christ. You were lost and in sin. And you followed the lust of the what?

The flesh. But Peter writes, you who are now children, we need to learn to be obedient. How do we learn to be obedient? We learn to be obedient by not fashioning, not patterning ourselves, not conforming ourselves back to the way we were before we came to Christ. But verse 15, but as he which hath called you that is God is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation or conduct because it is written be holy for I am holy.

That is what's called a command or an imperative. God commands Christians who are set apart unto him to learn, to grow, to become obedient children, holy as he is holy. In every aspect of life, all manner of conversation and what we say and what we do, where we go, how we worship everything we do. We are to be becoming holy, sanctified. That means being also set apart from some things.

It says here in first second Timothy two twenty one and twenty two, if any man therefore purge himself from these things, he shall be a vessel unto honor. Sanctified, set apart and meet for the masters prepared for the masters use, prepared unto every good work. Flee also youthful lusts but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace with them that call the Lord out of a pure heart. What does Paul say to Timothy? You need to flee what?

Youthful lust. You need to set your heart on fleeing those things which are contrary to God's will and which we see a lot in youth. But don't necessarily stop when you get older. I thought when I was a teenager, when I graduate from high school I'm going to be super Christian and I woke up the day after I graduated from high school and guess what, still struggling with the same things. I thought when I graduate from college, woke up the next day guess what?

Still struggling with some of the same things. When I get married guess what? Still struggling with someone. Not super Christian yet. Didn't wake up and boom, Doesn't work like that.

It takes what? Takes work. Takes work. Takes discernment. Takes patience.

Doesn't happen overnight. But you gotta work at it. Gotta set your mind on it. Daniel said, it says in Daniel that Daniel purposed in his heart. He purposed in his heart.

We need a purpose in ours. We need to listen to God and we need to put certain things out of our life as Christians that just do not belong in the life of a child of God. Things that hinder us in God's work of conforming us into the image of his son. Hebrews twelve one says it this way, wherefore seen we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which just so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.

Paul liked athletic metaphors and he likened the Christian life to a race and if you're in a race, you don't get three suitcases and put on five layers of clothes and carry weights on your ankles and your feet in order to run the race, do you? No, you put all those things as much of that aside as you can. You get it read as much weight as you possibly can so you can run the fastest and you can run the longest and you can win the what? And you can win the race. Writer of Hebrews says you need to lay aside those weight.

We need to recognize the weights, the things of the world that have attached themselves to us. The temptations that are holding us back and we need to separate ourselves from them. We need to cast them off. We need to repent of the sins in our life that are keeping us from being like Jesus so that God can do his work more freely in your heart and mind. So that we can be vessels of honor.

Meet for the master's use prepared unto every good work. We do have a part in this and it is an important one. It is both the privilege and responsibility of every Christian to separate ourselves from those things which drag us down and hold us back in our service for Christ and our transformation into his image. Whether they be close, binding relationships which pull us away from God, that was the verse from second Corinthians, be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. Or whether they be sins and temptations which entice us to betray our Lord, flee youthful lust.

Flee temptation. Don't toy with it. Whether they be activities which obscure and harm, our testimony for Christ. They must be discarded. Whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you do to all to the one.

To the glory of God. Do all to give glory to God. If you can't give glory to God while you're doing that, stop doing it. Stop doing it. It's not for you, child of God.

It's not for you. You are to be salt and light but if the salt have lost its what? Savior. What what good is it? But to be tossed out on the seat and trodden under the foot of man.

God has left us here to be salt on the earth. To point men to Christ, to show them the difference, to give them the gospel, to demonstrate the power of God. And the church is failing today because Christians are not purposing in their heart to be set apart in all manner of conduct, in all their ways. They're settling for second best in their testimony and in their joy And in the blessings of Christ. Because they're not taking this seriously.

They've lost their distinctiveness. And if we've lost our distinctiveness, then what good are we in bringing others to Jesus. It is here we will park ourselves over the next few weeks as we delve deeper into what the word of God has to say concerning our need to be separated from the world, to be set apart under the Lord in all attitudes and actions that we might rightly glorify our father becoming more like him each day. I would like to close this morning with some questions. First is this, are you a child of God?

This doctrine is for Christians, for believers in Christ. For those who have been born again, who have been set apart in Christ Jesus unto eternal life and to the service of our God. That's who Paul and these others are speaking to today. If you're not a child of God, the first thing you need to do is be what? Become a child.

Be born again. Except a man be born again. He cannot see the what? The kingdom of God. And I can show you today how you can be born again and know it if you'll come.

Christian, are you striving to be like him? Are you drawing close to him and his word? Are you casting off the weights? Sins, the worldly entanglements that need to go? Are you willing to repent of the sins that God has brought to your attention?

Will you today allow him to take those away and to make you more like his son. Let's pray. Dearly father, thank you Lord for your word. Thank you Lord for what it teaches us. Lord, you have called us to be set apart and separated.

To be sanctified believers in Christ Jesus, not only in our position before you in heaven but in the way we live here on earth. In our thoughts and our actions, in our very character, Lord, you are able and working to transform us into the image of Christ. Oh Lord, let us yield ourselves to your hand. Let us recognize the weights and sins which have entangled us in the things of earth. Repent and discard them so that you can do a greater, mightier work in our life this very day.

So that we might shine brightly, that others might see our good works, your good work in us, and glorify our father. Which is in heaven. In Jesus name, we do pray. Amen.