Impediments to Every Christian's Ministry
Tom Shrader walks through 2 Corinthians 6:11–7:1, explaining Paul's appeal to the Corinthian church to open their hearts and reciprocate the love shown to them through ministry. He focuses on the command not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers, applying it to marriage, business, and close relationships, while warning against both compromise and isolationism. The teaching closes with a call to personal holiness, urging believers to actively cleanse themselves from defilement as a necessary response to God's promises.
“The only thing that will never disappoint you is your personal relationship with the living God through His Son, Jesus Christ.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: 2 Corinthians
Recorded: 2003 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 1 hr 19 min
Themes: holiness, ministry, relationships, evangelism, separation, love, compromise, reconciliation, new believer, considering marriage, business partner search, struggling with worldly relationships, young adult, feeling spiritually cold, navigating conflict, someone dating an unbeliever
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 6:11-7:1, 2 Corinthians 5:17, 2 Corinthians 5:18, 2 Corinthians 5:20, 2 Corinthians 6:3-5, 2 Corinthians 6:6-8, 2 Corinthians 1:3-8, 1 Thessalonians 2:11, 3 John 1:4, Deuteronomy 22:10, 1 Corinthians 6:19, 1 Corinthians 7:39, 1 Corinthians 15:33, Ephesians 5:8
Theological Themes: sanctification, becoming holy, unequal yoke, ambassador for christ, soteriology, ministry of reconciliation, biblical separation, new creation
Full Transcript
The Foundation of Ministry: Conversion and Reconciliation
Open your Bibles, if you would, please, to 2 Corinthians chapter 6, and we'll start in verse 11. Let me remind you of the context. I find that every teacher is going to tell you the same thing when asked, "What's your favorite book?" Most often the answer is whatever book you're teaching. I really enjoyed — and that's the word I'm looking for — just enjoyed the study of this book, because there's such great practical application. Obviously it applies to your life, but I'm speaking autobiographically to myself as well. As we look at ministry, Paul is talking so much in here about his own life, very autobiographically, and consequently he's talking an awful lot about ministry.
Let me remind you of the context. In chapter 5, verse 17, Paul says, "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature." Before he reminds us that if we're going to talk about ministry, we have to talk about conversion. It is very important to understand that ministry — serving the Lord — is driven by and motivated by conversion. Conversion precedes the service. It is not at all unusual to find people who come into the church and immediately want to know what they can do and where they can work. But there is nowhere for you to work, nowhere for you to go, if you are not truly converted. That is our first desire for you.
Once I am converted, I understand I am a new creature. I am forgiven. I am repentant. The old things have passed away — the old value systems and priorities and beliefs and loves and desires and habits and plans — and they are replaced by a new set of values, priorities, desires, loves, and plans. We start to see the world through God's eyes. Paul does not want us to think we take responsibility for this transformation. Remember chapter 5, verse 18: "All these things are from God."
Along with that substitutionary atoning death, God gives us a ministry of reconciliation — the word of reconciliation. God says this is the centerpiece of your service. You are a follower of Christ, you have been converted, you love the Lord Jesus Christ, and the centerpiece of your service is the proclamation of the gospel, verbal and nonverbal. That is your job assignment. You are a minister of reconciliation. You have the word of reconciliation.
In chapter 5, verse 20, we get our title: we are ambassadors for Christ. In that role, it is as though God is entreating through us as we beg others on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God. We go into the world as ambassadors for Christ. We have a ministry of reconciliation, we have the word of reconciliation, and we are calling people to reconciliation — a reconciliation that acknowledges our sin and God's provision for it solely, entirely, wholly, and completely through Christ and Christ alone. There is no other way. And that is the message we take to the marketplace.
Hardship, Comfort, and Blamelessness in Ministry
As we saw two weeks ago, in the midst of this calling we want to make certain that we are blameless. In chapter 6, verses 3, 4, and 5, Paul says we are not giving any cause for people to discredit the message or the ministry. And we should expect — see what Paul says — endurance of hardships: affliction, distress, beatings, all those difficulties.
Go back to chapter 1, verses 3 through 8. When we were there at the beginning of this book, I encouraged you — and I like to do this in my own Bible — when you see a pattern, to mark it. I asked you to go through verses 3 through 8 and circle the words "comfort," "comforts," or "comforted," and "suffering" or "affliction." When you do that, you will see — as I did it in two different colors — I highlighted in yellow the word "comfort," and I found it eight times. In green I marked the word "suffering" or "affliction," and I found it eight times as well. Whenever I turn to that page, it reminds me immediately that in this letter, Paul is talking about the hardships, the inevitable difficulties that we face in ministry. He lays them out there, and we will look at them again when we get to chapter 11.
But Paul also tells us in chapter 6, verses 6, 7, and 8, that we are not alone. There is comfort, because we are ministering in purity and knowledge. We have the fruit of the Spirit at play in our lives. We have the word of truth and the power of God — weapons of righteousness preparing us for what is in the left hand and the right, for all things and all situations.
Paul's Open Heart to the Corinthians
And that brings us to the text before us today. Paul is talking to this church, which has not cooperated fully with him. In fact, he tells us there has been a lack of response, but he wants us to understand what is causing that. Look at chapter 6, verse 11: "Our mouth has spoken freely to you, O Corinthians, our heart is wide open." Literally, our heart is enlarged. Paul is telling them that he has loved them not just in word but in deed, and that if you look around, you can see the punishment and affliction he has absorbed — and he has done this for the cause of Christ and for them.
One man paraphrases these two verses this way: "Look, I have been open and frank with you. I've bared my soul. It isn't anything in us that's created a frozen, sterile relationship between us. We've poured out our hearts. If there's any hesitancy, it's on your part. You're the ones who've stifled your emotions. You're the ones who've held back." Paul says in chapter 2, verse 4: "For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears." Paul loves these people, and loves them desperately. He says, "We have spoken freely." That is a characteristic of love. If you love someone, there is an openness — openness about feelings and struggles and joys and dreams and pressures and problems and failures and successes.
The Problem of Withheld Affection
Paul acknowledges that there is a strain or a split between these two parties. They are not moving along as they should, and these people are not growing as they should. But he puts the blame squarely on them. Look at verse 12: "You are not restrained by us. You are restrained by your own affections." There have been limits and bounds in the relationship, but they have nothing to do with Paul. As one author writes, Paul puts his finger right on the problem — it is not that they are not being loved. There are people reaching out to them, trying to touch them and help them, but they are not responding. Love that is not reciprocated cannot go any further.
That is a great principle in ministry. We always have to be open to self-examination and certainly appropriate criticism. But you would be surprised at how often we reach out to people who are hurting, love them, and are there for them time and time again — and nothing happens on their end. There is no growth, no development. Somebody prays for them, somebody brings them here, somebody hopes there will be a connection and this will be home and God will save them. They experience all the love we can demonstrate, and they do not respond.
Take a look at your own life. If you are sitting there today and you are dry, it is easy to sit around and begin to think it is everybody else's fault. But it is your responsibility to grow. What we try to do here is to love you, nurture you, and encourage you the best we can. That is an enormous task, and yet so often you will see somebody who is withheld — who holds back for whatever reason.
We see this in children's ministry, we see it in student ministry. You can reach out to a child, you can love a child, you can provide environments for that child — but if the child does not want to respond, the child is not going to respond. There are people who do not reciprocate and respond to love, and sometimes it takes sin in their life, or a disaster, or a car wreck — something. As an adult, maybe it takes a broken marriage or an economic disaster of some sort. Paul said: we have been open, we have been frank, we have been honest, we have not shown favoritism to one group or another, but you have not responded.
The Vulnerability of Love
Let me pause here, because this is helpful beyond ministry and applies to all relationships. When you are in a relationship and you love, you are vulnerable. C.S. Lewis writes this: "Love anything and your heart will continually be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully around hobbies and little luxuries and avoid entanglements. Lock it safe in a casket or a coffin of your own selfishness. And in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, your heart will be changed. It will not be broken. It will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."
I see this especially in men and women who have been divorced — the pain and agony that goes with that. Frequently, here is what I will hear them say: "I am never going to love like that again." But you need to understand something. If you are never going to love like that again because you do not want to be hurt, you are never going to have the joy that comes from that love. To love — and I appreciate Lewis's inclusion of animals — to love even a dog means disappointment. It simply happens.
Susan and I had been married about three months or so when I came home one day and she asked if something was wrong. I said, "Well, yes. I married you to make me happy. I married you to meet my needs. And I am not happy, and you are not meeting my needs." She said, "Well, slick." Every time I do a wedding, without exception, standing right about here, I make a point of telling these two people — who at that moment think they are the exception to every rule in the universe — that the other person is not going to meet their needs. He cannot possibly do it, she cannot possibly do it. And then they act shocked when that happens.
Only Christ can meet your needs. To love, or to be in the role that God has given you, is going to mean some level of hurt, pain, and disappointment.
The Roles of Husbands and Wives
Consider the marriage relationship, because God speaks directly to it. Wives, submit to your husbands. Husbands, love your wives. Let us deal with the wives' part first, because it is the easiest. I have taught this a thousand times. I will be with a group of ladies, teaching the role of the husband and the role of the wife, and I will say: wives, submit to your husbands. Certain ones will start shifting immediately — moving up to the edge of their seat, waiting for me to say, "Are there any questions?" They will say, "I have a question."
I am like Kreskin. I will say, "Wait a minute — do not even ask the question. I will just answer it. There are no exceptions. But what if he doesn't? I presume he doesn't. But what if he isn't? I presume he isn't." We want to somehow explain away "wives, submit to your husbands." I find this even in Bible churches. And yet I have never heard a Bible teacher bold enough to try to explain away "husbands, love your wives." We simply take that for granted.
The Pain of Unrequited Ministry
Wives, this may stun you, but there are actually men who say, "I love and nurture, and she just doesn't respond." When you love, you are going to be vulnerable, you are going to be disappointed, you are going to be hurt. The only thing that will never disappoint you is your personal relationship with the living God through His Son, Jesus Christ. But you are called to love anyway.
In the context of ministry, I find that this is an even more common occurrence. You will serve and love and do what you think is best, certainly do what you hope is right, do it with all your heart, and that person does not respond. That is okay.
What I appreciate about Paul is that he puts the blame squarely on them. Look at verse 13. He says, in a like exchange — the idea there is a fair exchange, the phrase quid pro quo — "because of this, do this." He speaks to them as children: "Open wide to us also. We have loved you, we have cared for you, and I am telling you as my children — like a dad talking to his kids — open up to us."
Paul uses imagery that is familiar throughout his writings. First Thessalonians, chapter 2, verse 11: "Just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each of you as a father would his own children." There is a spiritual paternity here that he is exercising. He is not talking down to them.
For those of us in leadership, there is a verse worth claiming. Third John, chapter 1, verse 4: "I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in truth." That is our motivation as part of a leadership team. Paul is saying, "I am talking to you like you are my children," and his heart behind that is one of joy at seeing them flourish.
The Command Not to Be Unequally Yoked
Then we come to chapter 6, verse 14: "Do not be bound together with unbelievers." One version says "do not be mismated" — literally, do not be unequally yoked. Now, verses 14 through chapter 7, verse 1 have caused a lot of controversy among scholars. As they look at this passage, they are not entirely sure it fits here appropriately. Was it reinserted later? Did Paul really write it? Well, yes, Paul wrote it, and I think it fits quite well.
Paul has been talking about ministry and the hardship of ministry. These people have experienced his love, and yet they are not responding. He says, "Open wide to us." So what would cause them not to respond? What would be an impediment to reciprocating the love that God has shown them through the apostle? Perhaps they are bound together with unbelievers — unequally yoked.
The moment we say that, we think about marriage, and we will address that in a moment. But I think Paul has an even broader sense in mind here. It may be that these people are involved in relationships that are stopping them from being the men, women, or students that God would have them be.
This is not an idea unusual to Scripture. Deuteronomy 22, verse 10: "You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together." Now, I am from Iowa, but I am not an agriculture person. I like to eat, but I do not particularly care how it gets planted or plowed. So I could miss the imagery here, and if I could, I suspect some of you might as well.
A yoke is a wooden frame or bar that has a loop on either end, fitted around two animals to harness them together and force them to function as one. Because of that, you want like-kind animals. You do not take an ox and a donkey, as Deuteronomy 22, verse 10 says.
The Camel and the Donkey
Ray Stedman writes this: "I have never seen an ox and a donkey yoked together, but once I was traveling in the Middle East and I saw a farmer plowing a field with a camel and a donkey. It was almost ludicrous to watch. The camel was three times the height of the donkey, and his legs three times as long. He was striding along at a rather slow pace for him, but the little donkey was running as fast as it could to keep up. The farmer kept beating him all the time, trying to get him to keep up. It was cruel. Both animals obviously were miserable. They hated being tied together like that."
There is the picture. Paul is saying you are the camel — you cannot be tied together with a donkey. A believer cannot be yoked with an unbeliever. You have different values, different views, different bottom lines. You are going to draw different conclusions, have different responses, and pursue different strategic plans of approach and action. Do not be bound together.
Questions That Illustrate the Point
We said this principle applies to marriage, but what does it mean beyond that? We will address that shortly. What I want to focus on first is how Paul now presses his point home.
If you are someone who circles or underlines in your Bible, look at where we are — 2 Corinthians 6:14 — and circle the question marks in the next three verses. When I see questions clustered like that in Paul's writing, he is typically illustrating or commenting on the point he has just made. That is exactly what we see here.
He is saying, listen, you do not yoke a believer with an unbeliever. And then, as if to illustrate this, he asks: "What partnership have righteousness and lawlessness?" — some of your translations will read "righteousness and wickedness." What do righteousness and wickedness have in common?
Unequally Yoked: What Believers and Unbelievers Cannot Share
What does righteousness have in common with wickedness? The answer is obvious. Paul is not talking about oppositional righteousness here; he is talking about ethical behavior. Right behavior and wrong behavior have nothing in common. What fellowship, what commonality, is there between light and darkness? They cannot even coexist. This room can be dark, or this room can be light, but the minute light is introduced into a situation, the darkness vanishes. They cannot peacefully coexist.
Paul wrote to the believers at Ephesus and said that as non-believers they were formerly darkness, but now they are light in the Lord — walk as children of light. When we see light in Scripture, it always symbolizes understanding, awareness of reality, seeing things as they really are. You cannot pair someone who is dark in their vision — who does not see, who does not understand, to whom things are unclear — with someone who has understanding. Righteousness and wickedness, light and darkness, simply do not go together.
Verse 15 asks: what harmony is there? How do you place Christ and Belial — an ancient name for Satan meaning "utterly worthless one" — in a compatible situation? You cannot put together righteousness and lawlessness, or light and darkness, or Christ and Satan. And then Paul makes the point directly: what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? Just as light and darkness cancel each other out, they cannot coexist in this relationship. They are mismated.
Verse 16 continues: what agreement has the temple of God with idols? You cannot take the temple of God and fill it with statues to false gods — it is entirely incompatible. Paul then declares that we are the temple of the living God, just as God has said, "I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." That message runs all through the Old Testament, and into the New Testament we understand that the physical temple is gone — we are the temple. Paul wrote to the same audience in 1 Corinthians 6:19, "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you received from God? You are not your own."
Paul's point is clear: do not be bound together with unbelievers, any more than you would put righteousness and wickedness together, or light and darkness, or Christ and Satan, or fill the temple of God with idols. None of that makes any sense. And since you are the temple of God, there ought to be no agreement, no union, between you and an unbeliever.
The Question of Marriage to an Unbeliever
Returning to verse 14 and just the first part — "do not be bound together with unbelievers" — this clearly refers to the idea of marriage. In 1 Corinthians 7:39, Paul tells a woman she may remarry if she wishes, but only in the Lord, only someone who knows Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. The Amplified renders verse 14 this way: "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. Do not make mismated alliances with them or come under a different yoke with them inconsistent with your faith."
Now, while the principle is broader than marriage — it raises questions such as whether a believer should go into business with an unbeliever, accept financing from an unbeliever, or enter other binding associations — the marriage question is worth staying on, because it comes up so frequently. It is not at all uncommon over the course of a month to deal with two or three situations where someone is involved romantically with an unbeliever and wants to get married.
In one such situation, a meeting took place in the office with a young woman who may have been a Christian and a man who was clearly not a believer. When the conclusion was stated that he was not a believer, he took strong exception to it — and he stood up. That is always the concern in those conversations, because the position cannot be surrendered no matter how the other person responds.
There was also a phone call, some years back, from a woman asking to leave a prayer request. She identified herself as Betty and said her request was for wisdom and God's understanding about whether she should marry a man named Bill. When asked whether Bill attended church anywhere or worshiped on his own, the answers were no, no, and not really. The conversation finally arrived at the direct question: is Bill a believer? The answer was that he was not — but that he was very close, not at all antagonistic, and that he let her pray for him.
The response was to read the prayer request back to her as written: "Betty called — prayer request: should she marry a pagan heathen?" And then to tell her plainly, without any intention of hurting her feelings, that the request was being torn up. She did not need to pray about this. This was not hard to figure out, not difficult to understand.
Dating, Marriage, and Being Unequally Yoked
Let me be clear at the outset: I am not representing the elder board at this moment. I am speaking as a civilian — I am Tom Schrader, and I am giving you my own view on this. Whether you are 15 or 16 going on your first date, or whether you are 35 or 55 going on a date, you are making a serious mistake if you are dating a non-believer.
I cannot build this case with a direct biblical prohibition against dating an unbeliever, but we can clearly say: do not marry one. And my observation has been that most people who are married were once engaged, most people who were engaged had dated seriously, most people who dated seriously had dated casually, and most people who dated casually had a first date. You are playing with fire, because that relationship cannot go anywhere good.
Three Dreams
I want to share something unusual. Friday night I had three dreams, and I do not think I have ever come in and shared my dreams before. I will give them to you in descending order, starting with the last one first.
The final dream: I came in to worship on Sunday and Gary had added choreography to the music. It was so difficult saying goodbye to Gary and Robin. The dream before that: I was standing outside a building talking to someone when Ted Turner came out of a church — he had just donated a million dollars — and I was saying to this person, "How can you take money from a pagan? It is obviously a ploy." At that moment Woody Allen said to me, "What are you doing? You are pontificating. You do not even know me." And I said, "I have watched a lot of your work, and you are confused, and you are lost, and you are searching, and there are answers. You acknowledge the existence of the world around us, yet at the same time you will say two plus two is four, and you deny that there has to be a Creator who makes the two and makes the four." At that moment Diane Keaton said, "Woody, get away from him — he is going to convert you," and I woke up.
I will answer the question you are already asking: Mexican chicken Caesar salad. That is what I ate Friday night. I went back yesterday to have another one to see if we could replicate the experience. It has been decades since I have dreamed like this.
The dream that woke me at 3:17 in the morning was dealing with Sarah. I do not know if it was my daughter Sarah — I do not remember it looking like her, but I was speaking to her as though it was — and I was saying, "You are not going to date this guy." She said, "I am way beyond dating him. I am falling in love with him." I said, "That guy is a Mormon who did not give a thought to his faith — he is as converted as this pulpit. You are not going out with him. You are not falling in love with him." She said, "I am going to marry him." And I said, "Let me save you some money: you do not need to send an invitation to your mother, to me, or to your sister." The next image in that dream was me standing in this pulpit conducting church discipline. That is how strongly I feel about this.
The Seriousness of Disobedience
That dream made me think about a great many things, and it crystallized just how serious this is. If you are out there weighing whether to marry someone who is not a believer — or who is not walking with the Lord in a vibrant relationship — what are you doing? You think you are the exception to every rule and that it is all going to work out for you. It is not. Sometimes it does. Rarely. And if you have been in one of those relationships where you knowingly violated what God has said, and God still brought that other person to faith, you had better thank Him and praise Him for sparing you a lifetime of anguish. This is serious.
Let me read to you from the Amplified Bible: "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. Do not be mismated in alliances with them or come under a different yoke with them inconsistent with your faith." You have to take a hard look at the relationships in your life — those unions and alliances. I am not going to tell you exactly what to do in every situation. Pray to God for sanctified common sense, asking Him for wisdom. But here is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:33: "Bad company corrupts good morals." I know that is true. You need to use your head.
Light and Darkness Cannot Coexist
Paul makes the point plainly. He does not want us unequally yoked because righteousness and lawlessness cannot coexist. Light and darkness cannot share the same space. Satan and Christ cannot be in fellowship. The temple of God cannot be filled with idols. Then verse 17: "Therefore, come out from their midst and be separated."
Ray Stedman writes that this is one of the most abused verses in the entire New Testament. Some people fear it and avoid it altogether. Others use it as a kind of club to clobber anyone who violates any of the common taboos of fundamentalist Christianity. What I see is that there is a significant amount of tension here.
The Tension Between Separation and Engagement
I hope you feel tension here, because there is a boatload of tension in this passage. Paul says he does not want you unequally yoked, and then he comes back and says to be separated from them. One of the flinches we can see in response to this is a bunker mentality. We become isolationists. We begin to assemble these evangelical monasteries, becoming totally isolated from the world until life becomes artificial, mechanical, and sterile.
Remember the context. Paul just got done saying that you are an ambassador, that you have a ministry of reconciliation and the word of reconciliation. How are you going to carry out a ministry of reconciliation if you have no contact with unbelievers? It is very wrong to isolate.
I want you to wrestle with this, struggle with this, grapple with this. This whole isolationist tendency, if it comes into play in your life, is just as wrong as the person who says they will simply go out and drink and party with unbelievers and call that their platform. Both of these extremes are wrong.
The Idol of Family and the Pattern of Isolation
I will tell you — and I will have to do a thousand disclaimers here, because this is me talking — part of what I see in isolation is a pattern where all of a sudden the family becomes a person's god, their idol. It becomes all about family, family, family, family. The children are put on pedestals, and this spills over into relationships so that people only associate with other Christians.
Then it comes time to educate, and the question is how. Let me say upfront that we do not hold a singular view on this — it comes down to your motives. You can be motivationally wrong whether your child is in public school, private school, or home school. But I see a great deal in the home school movement, for example, that is simply an extension of this isolation.
If a young person is 14, 15, or 16 years old, they ought to be out in the world. Are they not also ambassadors for Christ? There is no age restriction on that calling. I have had people go so far as to say they are not sure a teenager should be in student ministries because there are unbelievers present. At that point I have to say that whatever you are doing at home mustn't be working, because if that young person cannot survive an hour and a half in a controlled environment like that, something is seriously wrong.
At the same time, it is just as wrong to say God is in control, He will figure it out, and then throw a child into the other extreme with no guidance whatsoever and simply let them fend for themselves. Do you feel the tension? I feel extraordinary tension here. Paul lays it out: you are an ambassador with a ministry of reconciliation and a word of reconciliation, and yet in the midst of that you are called to pull away from defilement — while still being an ambassador. How is that going to work?
Applying the Principle with Wisdom
I only have to figure out my own life, not yours. You are smart people, and we can give you principles — and there they are. It comes down to your heart. What is your heart? It is also a matter of your head. There is nothing wrong with protecting yourself and your family, but there is something wrong with isolating yourself completely.
I say it around here all the time: we are committed to doing things with excellence, but there is a fine line between excellence and perfectionism, and we will drive ourselves to madness trying to be perfect. There is likewise a line between protecting yourself and your family and isolating them entirely. Maybe you need to be more protective. Maybe you need to be less isolationist. I cannot tell you which it is for your situation, but that is the principle, and my job is to teach the principle. It is a great responsibility, especially in the world we live in.
Cleansing Ourselves and Perfecting Holiness
Look at verse 1 of chapter 7. Paul writes, "Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all the defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting..." — and the idea there is completing holiness. Holiness carries the idea of separation from those things that will defile us. Notice that he says, "let us cleanse ourselves."
John MacArthur writes that this form of the Greek verb indicates that it is something each Christian must do in his own life. We can become so focused on the sovereignty of God and all that God does that we forget we are also called to strive, to work, to labor. You are to cleanse yourself. You are to pull yourself away from the sin and defilement around you.
This thought continues, and next week Paul looks at one of the hallmark characteristics of the Christian life: repentance. We will pick up right there next week.
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Father, help us see this truth. For those who are here and hurting, filled with pain, looking for answers — maybe wanting to know what it means to know Your Son Jesus as Lord and Savior — we pray they would come and talk to the men who will be at the front of the worship center after the service. God, let us be faithful stewards of what You have given us. Thank You for the gifts. Thank You for Your love. Thank You for the peace we have in You. Let us exercise sanctified common sense in the way we live and in all we do. We worship You and praise You. In Jesus' name, amen.