"It's My Life And I'll Do What I Want"

"IT'S MY LIFE AND I'LL DO WHAT I WANT"

1 Corinthians 6:12-20 (NLT)

for audio video of this sermon, www.thecreekmonroe.com

Intro: Let's play name that tune. (play just the musical intro to the song from the animals) Does anybody remember that tune from 1965? That was a song from the rock band named the Animals. The name of the song is the title of the sermon. It's my life and I'll do what I want.

. Listen to part of the lyrics of that song.

. It starts out with this:

It's a hard world to get a break in

All the good things have been taken

But girl there are ways to make certain things pay

Though I'm dressed in these rags

I'll wear sable some day

. Then the first part of the chorus is this:

But baby! (Baby!) Remember! (Remember!)

It's my life and I'll do what I want

It's my mind and I'll think what I want

. That is a philosophy that is prevalent in our world today.

.Quite often, we hear individuals espousing philosophies of unbridled personal freedom.

.The pro-abortionists cry out that a woman has a right to her own body and that no one should interfere with what she does to her body, with little regard to the rights of the unborn child and its body.

. The drug culture would try to expound the supposed harmlessness of marijuana claiming that to keep these drugs illegal is an infringement on personal freedom.

.We have seen in recent years the growth in what’s known as the Gay Culture - famous people "Coming Out." Their claim is that no one has the right to tell them that their sexual deviation is abnormal or wrong. It’s their life and they will do what they will.

. We hear of those who support or endorse sexual promiscuity as long as it’s between consenting individuals. The claim is it is my life and my body I can do whatever I want to do and nobody has the right to tell me what to do or what is right and wrong.

. What is disconcerting is that we often hear these views being touted by professing Christians. Many believe that this is a new philosophy that has crept into the church.

. Wrong

Look at what King Solomon, the wisest man to ever live wrote in Ecclesiastes 1:9-11

9History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new.

10Sometimes people say, “Here is something new!” But actually it is old; nothing is ever truly new.

11We don’t remember what happened in the past, and in future generations, no one will remember what we are doing now.

. Solomon is saying you may think you have a new philosophy but you don't. There is nothing new under the Sun. It has been done before.

. The philosophy of it's my life and I'll do what I want is not new either.

.This philosophy is no different than what existed within the Corinthian church of Paul's time

. Their motto was "all things are lawful to me"

. They had brought their Epicurean Philosophy into the church with them. Part of the philosophy was that pleasure was the gre4atest good. More than anything else, they sought pleasure.

. Paul had heard of what was going on and addressed the issue of Christian freedom in this letter.

.He uses sexual immorality to make his point but it can be used to describe anything that could get in the way of our relationship with God.

. Let's look at 1 Corinthians 6: 12-20

12You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is good for you. And even though “I am allowed to do anything,” I must not become a slave to anything.

13You say, “Food was made for the stomach, and the stomach for food.” (This is true, though someday God will do away with both of them.) But you can’t say that our bodies were made for sexual immorality. They were made for the Lord, and the Lord cares about our bodies.

14And God will raise us from the dead by his power, just as he raised our Lord from the dead.

15Don’t you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ? Should a man take his body, which is part of Christ, and join it to a prostitute? Never!

16And don’t you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? For the Scriptures say, “The two are united into one.”

17But the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.

18Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body.