Sermon Brief
Date Written: May 28, 2014
Date Preached: June 01, 2014
Where Preached: OPBC (AM)
Sermon Details:
Series Title: A Series in 1 Corinthians
Sermon Title: Glorify God in Your Body!
Sermon Text: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 [ESV]
TEXT:
Essence of the Text: Paul challenged believers in Corinth to bring glory to God thru living spiritually disciplined lives.
Essence of the Sermon: We are challenged to glorify God thru living spiritually disciplined lives.
Main Question(s) of the Sermon: What does it mean to have freedom ‘in Christ’? Does it mean I can do anything?
Applicable Objective of the Sermon: The hearers will know:
Freedom in Christ must be fettered with disciplined spiritual living
The 3 spiritual realities for spiritually disciplined living!
The boundaries Paul sets forth for living a spiritually disciplined life!
Introduction:
Turn with me to 1 Cor 6:12-20… I will be reading from that passage in the ESV in just a few moments…
This week as I was reading and studying this letter from Paul I thought, WOW! Paul’s heart expressed thru this letter to the Corinthians just keeps inspiring me!
Paul loved these believers SO very much that he held NOTHING back when it came to their spiritual condition! Many believe he was too harsh with them… BUT I disagree.
What many may believe to be ‘harsh words’ on Paul’s part were actually the truth spoken in love to help them see the error of their ways & follow Christ as Paul had instructed them & as Paul had been an example for them!
Have you ever come across a situation where you believd you should try to stop or caution about something. You knew what was being done was not illegal but you could see that it was NOT going to lead to anything good? Well anyone with children can attest to that – am I right parents? However, I am speaking more on a brother to brother level here…
When you tried to step in and give your advice, did you hear something like: “Hey man you can’t stop me, this is a free country!” To which you really had no answer other than, well ok if you want to be disappointed/stupid/get hurt…then GO FOR IT!
This is exactly the situation Paul was dealing with in this particular part of this letter to the Corinthian church. A situation where the believers were headed down a road that would lead to nothing good… and Paul did not want them to travel down that road!
What Paul was dealing with was a very pointed and brutally honest subject! And quite frankly it is a subject the church has always shy’d away from & that is the area of sexual sin!
There! I said it… I said SEX in church! Lightening did not strike and the walls did not crumble! You see SEX is NOT an ugly word, because it is something God created FOR His creation.
It is something God created beautiful and our sinful nature and this evil world has taken it, perverted and twisted it to become what we see portray today! This issue is that the church today seems to view sex thru the lens of the world & THAT is why MOST Christians AND churches choose to avoid this subject!
I am here to tell you that Sex is NOT what the world wants you to believe it to be! Sex was NOT created by God as a casual thing that held no meaning… it was created as a sacred event that carries deep spiritual meaning along with the obvious physical intimacy! So, when we pervert God’s original plan… we only damage ourselves and those around us!
Now we need to understand that even though Paul is directing most of this section toward sexual sin, I believe there is a deeper truth to what we can take away from this passage. I believe Paul uses the issue of sexual sin as a spiritual object lesson or vivid illustration of our sinful hearts.
You see, like BACK in Paul’s day, today we live in a world where they believe EVERYTHING is permissable & everything should be allowed, no matter how awful it sounds or unnatural it is…
For example, in our world today, for the most part, homosexuality is viewed as just another ‘normal’ in society… like the single parent household. Both are considered to be the ‘new’ normal and for the most part, neither are viewed as abnormal or against nature.
Society is trying to make us believe that a person is born homosexual (that is in their genetic code) and that they have NO choice in the matter.
But this attitude does not stop with just homosexuality, but extends to just about any part of life! This type of outlook seeks to remove all responsibility from the human soul…
Sadly, this same type of attitude is worming its way into the church! Do you realize that many people who profess Christ as Savior have come out in support of homosexual Christianity?
They say that Jesus would not have judged them as we do and that we need to adjust our beliefs for the society today! Well, I am not standing in judgment of these people, but I stand firm in my belief in the Word of God!
I believe what Scripture tells me and that it has set forth a pattern we are to live by…I will preach it and teach it, until He takes me home. My calling is not to submit popular opinion but it is to preach the truth of Scripture!
It seems as if TRUTH very often gets in the way of popular opinion! TRUTH can often stymy what we desire as individuals! But what I have found as a pastor and as a human being is that when someone desires something enough, the truth will NOT stand in their way. If people want to do it they will…
Ever since the 1st church was established there has been a particular teaching that has perverted the doctrine of salvation. The doctrine of salvation is that we can do NOTHING to earn our salvation OR lose it, but that it is by GODs GRACE alone that we are saved and kept saved!
Out of this doctrine has creeped a very dangerous teaching and it can be summed up like this… “if I am saved by God’s grace, and there is nothing I can do to earn OR ‘lose’ that salvation then I can live my life like I please because His grace covers all my sin…’
This was the attitude being taught in Corinth and one of the reasons for Paul’s letter to the church. Paul had to deal with this in other churches as well… read his 1st letter to the church in Thessolonica!
It is also something we still deal with today in our churches… there are people in our church who openly profess Christ as their Lord and Savior, but they believe they can live their lives anyway they choose!
They believe that they can do what they want, that they can live like the world, and it is all good because of God’s grace for salvation!
Now I want us to understand that we ARE free in Christ and because of what Christ has done, we are FREE from the Law and the burden of the Law…
We ARE free from the consequences and guilt of ALL our sin, past, present and future… THAT IS ALL TRUE! BUT with that being said, God does NOT give us the right to live as we desire!
When we read this passage we can see that Paul was teaching with the godly view of the body and how it is to be ‘used’ for the glory of God…
In our world today we see the widespread decline in sexual values! We can even see it in our churches. One prime example is people professing Christ believing that sex before marriage is ok… or living together before they get married is just fine, as long as you love the person you are with… The issue is that is NOT what Scripture teaches us.
Now, Corinth was probably no worse than some of our cities today, but it was known in the 1st century for its unrestrained view of sexual indulgence!
In fact in the ancient world the phrase, “to corinthianize” was synonymuos with ‘to practice fornication’! Corinth had become a sinful beacon to all that was against God’s plan!
Now we MUST teach our children good theology, but I know good theology alone will not solve all our problems when it comes to sexual sin, but if we DON’T teach good theology, we have ZERO chance of making much progress against the sexualized standards of this world!
Let’s look at this passage a few verses at a time and see what Paul has to say here and how it applies to US today! (read v12-14 here…follow me as I read)
Free in Christ! Can I do ‘anything’? (v12-14)
12“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. 13“Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
This statement by Paul carries a double meaning. We know Paul taught believers when saved we come under the grace of Christ’s covenant. AND under that grace we are ALL free from the burden and shackles of the Law! ‘In Christ’ we are free… free to live for Him without the Law burdening us with needless rules and stipulations…
However, there was also a ‘Corinthian slogan’ that came from the OPPOSITE end of the spectrum… it stated, “Everything is permissable for me…” —This Corinthian slogan was the rallying cry of the liberal theology that was being taught in the church at Corinth!
The believers in the Corinthian fellowship actually believed that they could act as they wanted and could have any sexual relationship they desired.
They not only believed this… but they actually used the argument that just as the stomach needed food, the body needed sexual satisfaction…v13
13“Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food—and God will destroy both one and the other.”
They were being taught that just as their physical hunger could be satisified by food in the stomach, so should their sexual appetite be satisifed by eliminating sexual boundaries.
They fully believed that BOTH the body and stomach would be ultimately destroyed by God in the end...SO God held neither in high regard. In other words, they chose to live their lives as if NEITHER of these things (body or stomach) had any relevance toward their spiritual life!
With this attitude toward sexual freedom, how does Paul respond to the Corinthians? He does so by telling the people that ‘freedom in Christ’ was NOT about them, but that to live ‘free’ in Christ takes a disciplined spirit and a focused heart! He takes this Corinthian phrase of “all things are lawful to me…” and he modifies it a bit…
Paul uses the phrase ‘all things are permissible’ However, the freedom we have ‘in Christ’ is a freedom from the Law. Paul taught that ‘in Christ’ believers were delivered from the burden of the Law and lived under grace.
But what we need to see here is that Paul points out that authentic Christian freedom… (aka freedom ‘in Christ) can only be exercised thru the context of a true love for God.
Likewise, a true love for God seeks only to glorify Him and do good to the fellowship of believers! This type of love on our part requires a great deal of spiritual discipline!
So, basically Paul is saying, YES all things are legal… BUT not everything is good for you and is that really the issue here… is what we can ‘get away with’ in our Christian life where our focus should be? OR should our focus be on glorifying the Christ in whom we profess salvation?
Looking at what Paul says in v12…FOCUS has everything to do with it…12“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.
Paul is setting a requirement for the believer that will temper any unfettered freedom of conscience. In other words, Paul’s perspective here places spiritual discipline OVER spiritual freedom!
He says that just because something is permissable, it is NOT always beneficial… or as it says in the ESV, “…not all things are helpful…”
This tells us that our life is not lived in a vacuum! What we say or DO has consequences within the body of Christ! What we say or DO has an affect on our Christian witness to the world around us! We are NOT an island unto ourselves… and we cannot live our lives as such!
Undisciplined freedoms ARE harmful to both the individual and to the fellowship! It will harm the witness of both! Undisciplined freedom within the body of Christ fosters addictive behaviors because that is WHO we are… when left to our own choices we will always be brought BACK to being enslaved by our own passions!
Also undisciplined freedoms within the body of Christ WILL be a tremendous stumbling block for those new in the faith or for those weak in the faith… Undisciplined freedom is not good for believers and it is NOT what God desires of His children!
Paul tells them at the end of v12:
12…but I will not be dominated by anything…
In other words, I am not going to do something that will allow sin to take me BACK from which God has delivered me…I will not be mastered… I will not be again enslaved…
Our freedoms in Christ are based on God’s love for us! If we truly LOVE God, we will not seek our pleasure but we will discipine ourselves 1st seek HIS desire and will…Matt 6:33
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you
If we seek God first, seek His righteousness first, then our battle with our sinful desires can be won! It doesn’t mean the temptation is removed, but it does mean our focus is on the right thing (GOD) and thru His power we will be delivered!
So while we DO have freedom in Christ… our freedom must be fettered by spiritual discipline and love for God. Our 1st priority in this freedom is to seek God!
As our church purpose statement verse says, “…Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind…this is the 1st and most important commandment!”
We DO have freedom in Christ, but when we dicipline that freedom through our love for Christ, then our focus is where it needs to be and we are not taken down the path of sinful desires!
In light of that focused spiritual discipline we are called to…in v13 Paul also gives us a moral/godly principle to follow:
…The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. . .
Our physical bodies were created by God to be instruments of worship and service to Him! Our phyiscal bodies ARE important to God, they are instruments for our worship of Him and our service to Him!
The false teachers in the Corinthian church taught that God was NOT concerned about the physical or what we did with our bodies… but that is wrong!
God IS concerned about how we act and how we live! As His children, we are called to be instruments of His glory! If we use our physical bodies to satisfy sinful pleasures, how then can we be instruments for His glory?
So the answer to the question, am I free in Christ is a definite YES! But it is a qualified ‘yes’! We are free in Christ to live a disciplined life focused on seeking God first in all we do! So we ARE free in Christ, but we cannot live as WE see fit, but must seek what God desires!
So if we live our lives seeking God what can we realize about our phyiscal body that will drive home the point that we are instruments for HIS glory? So Paul says we are FREE in Christ but that there are actually boundaries we should observe in that freedom.
What Are the Boundaries? (v15-17)
Three Insights to Spiritual Freedom…
14And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. 15Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” 17But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
He actually sets forth the boundaries as 3 spiritual insights about our physical bodies! These 3 spiritual insights Paul drives home here point that our physical bodies are an important part of how we live out our life for God in this world and also how we glorify Him with our bodies!
1st Insight – There is the future destiny of our bodies…v14:
14And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power…
A theology of the resurrection provides a strong antidote against abuse of the body, especially sexual relations outside of marriage. We will be raised to be with Christ and our bodies should be treated as Scripture describes them… as ‘temples’ of the Holy Spirit!
Our bodies are important to God because He has a valid claim on who we are and our physical body… sexual sin rejects God’s intended purpose for us being an instrument for His glory… so His desire is for us to remain pure in our bodies!
2nd Spiritual Insight Paul reveals our nature as believers: We ARE the body of Christ - v15:
15Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!
Most people today do NOT see our physical bodies as ‘part’ of Christ’s church. Instead we think about our spirit and/or our personality being united with God in some mystical way.
We have the tendency to leave our physical bodies OUT of that equation…but our physical bodies are instruments for God’s glory here in THIS world!
One reason we may dismiss our physical bodies as part of God’s kingdom is that we are taught that God is going to give us a new, resurrected body! That IS going to happen, but that does not give us freedom to do what we please with the body God has given us now!
Paul teaches us that our PHYSICAL body, thru the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, is physcially united to Christ! That means our flesh and blood is ONE with Christ… SO with that being understood, once we accept Christ as Savior, then what we do with our bodies is also tied to Christ!
When we understand THAT principle, we can then ask, is it appropriate to take MY body that is united with Christ and unite it physically/sexually outside of God sanctioned marriage?
And, understand, I am speaking of ANY sexual act outside of a God honored marriage… Paul answers his own question here by saying…NEVER! Or as it says in other translations, “MAY IT NEVER BE!”
But why pastor? Why is this so awful? I can understand that it may be a bit inappropriate, but why is it considered so sinful? Here is where Paul steps up his game a bit…and he gives us a 3rd spiritual insight about Spritual freedom:
3rd Spiritual Insight – The God Honored Marriage! It traces back to Creation itself (Gen 2:24) this is where God instituted marriage by establishing it as a union between a man and a woman (no other options). God said that the man should leave his family and cleave to the woman and the 2 shall become ONE flesh!
There is an actual physical reality in what God establishes here… The 2 becoming one flesh on the surface represents the sexual union of husband and wife after marriage. However, this spiritaul insight goes deeper than that.
If you have been married for ANY stretch of time you realize that your spouse becomes an extension of who you are and YOU become an extension of who they are…we joke about this when we say that we can finish each other’s… but it is all about becoming ONE in the union. BUT it begins with the physical union!
Back to our spiritual relationship in Christ… When we are saved, we are united with Christ thru the indwelling of the Holy Spirit! So, any form of sexual activity outside of a God approved marriage breaks/damages this spiritual union we have in Christ!
God has established this and Paul believed it to be a very serious matter and should NOT be overlooked or ignored. So, he closes this particular section of this letter with some advice on what the believer should do when faced with the temptation to live ‘free’ beyond a disciplined life
How can I glorify God with my body? (v18-20)
18Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 19Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
Paul takes a page from the Corinthian saying by formating his own saying based on Scriptural authority…
First Paul offers a direct and short answer to the issue of fornication for the believer… he says, …Flee from sexual immorality…
This is a simple, yet very effective instruction for believers when faced with the temptation of sexual sin! Just turn away and leave…
We can see that Paul’s main point here in this final section of ch6 is fornication (which is sex outside of a God approved marriage) is an abuse of our body because God has purchased our bodies to be holy instruments for His glory! Therefore our actions should point to God’s glory and NOT be damaging to it!
In v18 Paul restates a Corinthian slogan which says:
Every other sin a person commits is outside the body…
Here these teachers had convinced the fellowship that Christian freedom meant that sin is a matter of the inward soul and its motives and intentions, so any bodily function or appetite was irrelevant in regard to sinful behavior…
But Paul quickly retorts that this type of teaching is FALSE… it is heresy! He says: …the sexually immoral person sins against his own body...
Here Paul tells these believers that sexual sin is a sin against your own body. He goes on to give a theological principle for this… this is found in v1
15Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ…
And because of this we are a ‘temple’ for the Holy Spirit who indwells us. Our bodies are considered holy… The term used here for ‘temple’ is the Greek word nah-oss which was only used to describe only a particular part of the Temple in Jerusalem… it was used to describe the ‘holy of holies’… the place where God dwelt!
Do you realize what Paul was saying here? He was saying that our bodies are the dwelling place of GOD Himself! This Jewish man saw our bodies the same as the Jewish nation saw the ‘holy of holies’ at inner sanctum of the Temple! So if that is true, how can anyone think that sexual sin is NOT a problem?
We must NOT abuse our bodies because we are HIS temple here in this world! We are the dwelling places of God for the world to see…so if we involve ourselves in sexual sin this is how it goes:
We who profess to be believers ARE the dwelling place for God in this world [indwelled by the Holy Spirit]
If we then we choose to desecrate that dwelling place [the Temple of God] by participating in sexual sin, how will the world see God? How will our witness be damaged?
Paul also addressed this in his letter to the church in Thessalonica (1 Thess 4:3-8) We are called live lives that are ‘holy’ … ‘holy’ meaning set apart for God and his purpose… set apart as HIS instrument for His glory!
Holy does NOT mean perfect or sinless… that will NOT happen in this world, but it means our focus and our direction is under His control because we are allowing the HS to guide and direct our steps, thoughts and actions!
Paul tells us that our bodies don’t belong to us… they belong to God! This flies in the face of today’s personal rights agenda… The pro-baby murder crowd trumpets that a woman’s body is her own to do with as she wants…but for the Christian woman, this is NOT true! Your body belongs to God!
This is true with ANY body… ANY believer… we are NOT our own, because we have been purchased by God! Paul says were bought with a price… our bodies belong to God not just because of that but also because of Creation AND because of our redemption!
Redemption fulfills God’s intended purpose for His creation… his intended purpose for our bodies! We are freed from the bondage of sin, called to serve a greater Master! So we should NOT allow ourselves to be brought back into the slavery of our old master… by any means, but in this case Paul is focusing in on sexual sin!
So Paul then uses the word ‘therefore’ in v20:
20for you were bought with a price. So [therfore] glorify God in your body.
In other words what Paul is saying here… if you can understand that you are NOT your own and you have been bought with a price by God… THEN do what you should do, bring glory to God thru your life!
Sexual sin brings sensual pleasure to YOU for a season, but offers NOTHING in glory to God! In breaks down our witness and proclaims our defiance of God’s plan for our lives!
Sexual sin tells the world that God in our lives has not really changed us, but that we are still the same… is that the witness you want the world to see about Jesus?
We preach abstinence for many reasons in our society today… fear of pregnancy, fear of sexually transmitted diseases and fear of the HIV virus and the AIDS syndrome that has claimed so many lives over the past 35 yrs.
But Paul teaching here about sexual sin was NOT for fear of pregnancy or any form of sexual disease, but it is because if we are members of the body of Christ, how can we defile that membership by defiling our own bodies!
We are called to be holy as He is holy… we are called to live lives that are set aside for His purpose and to bring Him glory! When we fall prey to sexual sin, we destroy so much of what Christ brings to our lives…
Give evangelistic invitation here…
