Part 2: God's Kingdom and Our Inheritance

Review:

1. Identifying the Inheritance of the Kingdom

Identified God’s Kingdom

Explained the Inheritance of God’s Kingdom

2. Identifying the Heirs of the Redemptive Kingdom

Who Will and Will not Inherit the Kingdom?

Paul gives us a list of 10 which is not comprehensive but specific!

The first five in this list are relating to sexual sin

The second half refer to material possessions

The entire list should be viewed in the negative and positive, even Paul does not mention them.

The list is given to identify and warn the church as they consider who they fellowship and allow to belong to them. This man’s sexual sin mentioned in chapter 5 follows the stern warning to the church to strive for holiness.

Let’s spend our time today considering the first five on this list as we allow the Spirit to remind the church who truly belongs and who doesn’t belong to the kingdom of God.

FORNICATION

Porneia and pornos were words that we covered at the beginning of chapter 5 when we looked at striving for holiness in the church through church discipline. We learned, if you missed those sermons, that while the GR culture used these words to refer to prostitution, the Hellenistic influence of the Jews led them to use the term more broadly to cover all extramarital sexual sins. Paul uses it here as an introductory word to summarize the first five of the sins of this list. They first five sins listed are all related to sexual sin outside the marriage relationship.

As introduction, Paul states that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God and the form of unrighteousness that Paul wants to warn the Corinthians about is the sexual immorality that is dwelling among them.

What we will see from this more specific list is that Paul is instructing the Corinthians how such PORNEIA manifests itself in the life of the believer. In other words, the words that follow describe examples of PORNEIA that is being seen in the church.

I want us first to consider what Peter said again in 1 Peter 1:3

1 Peter 1:3 NASB95

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

Peter tells the church in his letter the profound truth of regeneration that becomes the dividing line of morality and holiness in the person’s life. Before regeneration, fulfilling the apex of sexual lusts was something of the ordinary, even though I would say the Spirit even restrains that lust as unbelievers. In other words, think for a moment before your conversion to Christ, what you could have engaged in sexually but the Spirit retrained you in common grace.

Regeneration in Christ transforms us and therefore, we come to understand God’s purpose for His created order, including marriage between a man and woman. God said in Gen 2:24

Genesis 2:24 NASB95

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

Becoming one flesh begins in marital covenant between one another and before the Lord but it is ratified in sexual intimacy as the husband and wife become one flesh. This is the beautiful and glorious union that God designed in his created order to allow his world to be filled with his people.

Paul’s point in 1 Corinthians, is that the unrighteous blaspheme the name of the Lord when the go against the created order of God’s design and purposes. All PORNEIA is an abomination to God because it corrupts what he created and therefore offends his holiness. The following words will give more detail of that offense against God and therefore should not be found among God’s regenerated people.

IDOLATRY

The question that plagues the mind of some as they see this list in 1 Cor 6 is why does Paul place idolatry in the list of sexual sins. The reason that he does so is that Paul knows that in this culture and all cultures, sexual sin is idolatry of the physical world and the chief concern for the church in Corinth. When Porneia is promoted, it is promoted as freedom of expression and freedom of choice. So then the question is are we really free?

God’s Rule Over His Created Order

The sovereignty of God declares that the Lord rules all of his creation. His declaration of the tree of good and evil in the garden declared that even Adam and Eve were not rulers equal with God, but subordinates under him. Therefore, when journey outside the marriage relationship for sexual intimacy, we are not submitting to God’s reign over our lives and instead, we are worshipping and gratifying the physical realm. He are seeking to satisfy the lust in our eyes. Like a kid throwing a tantrum in a toy store at Christmas, we all see what we desire and we stop at nothing to get it. This could include indulging in food, hobbies, material possessions, or sexual immorality.

Paul understands that sexual sin originates in the idolatrous worship of our bodies and our selves. He understands that sexual sin is simply mankind rebelling agiainst God and substituting him in their worship with something else.

Paul states this in Romans 1:18-22

Romans 1:21–25 (NASB95)

For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.

Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

Unbelievers worship the body as an idol and an idol is a substitute for the worship of God. Think about how consumed our culture is with physical strength and our physical stature. Listen I go to the gym and work out to stay fit and healthy but it is not hard to go to far into obsession with the look of the body, now each muscle is crafted and shaped. Social media has all these filters to place on your pictures so that no one can see your blemished skin and imperfections. It can be an idol of our heart, just as much as the food we indulge in.

Regnerated Worship

The point is that God gave us our bodies and those bodies can be used to glorify him with good health and good habits or it can be used to indulge in sin in many different areas. The point that Paul is making when including idolatry in this list is that sexual sin is idolatry of the body.

The regnerated man has a regenerated mind that seeks the worship of God and not idols. Israel was just an example of how we the depraved human condition will always find idols of our heart to replace God’s place there. But in regeneration, God changes our hearts. He gives us a passion for Christ so that we see Christ as precious above all.

In that regeneration we understand that our bodies belong to Christ and are to be used for aspects of worshipping him and not deying him in idolatrous ways.

1 Corinthians 6:19–20 NASB95

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

How are you idolizing your body? Do you serve your body or does your body serve you? Has your looks, or your strength or your mind become an idol in your heart? Do you seek to gratify the lust of your flesh instead of seeking to honor Christ with your body and mind?

ADULTERERS

We move from idolatry being the root of sexual immorality and all rebellion against God to the practical display of that idolatry. Paul identifies adultery as one such sexual sin. At the outset of this explanation, we need to understand adultery in its proper context. Jesus had to describe adultery for the religious leaders who had begun to teach the people that only outward adultery was sinful. The had ignored the initial sin of a lustful eye towards another person and the thoughts that desired such an adulterous encounter. Jesus makes clear that the act of adultery begins with a heart that falls into sexual lust. This therefore intensifies the greater problem for all humanity…that protecting the marriage relationship in the world, starts with protecting our eyes and our mind from lusting for others in a sexual way.

We need no statistics or examples of how prevalent and how promoted sexual adultery is in our world today. It is the subject of countless movies, books, songs, TV shows. It has become so common place that humanity is bored with simple adultery of the eyes and of the body, now they commit adultery with multiple people at the same time. PORNEIA is MOCHOI(adultery) because this all sexual sin starts with the lust of the eyes and Jesus identifies that as adultery.

We also must acknowledge that just as social media and entertainment has redefined what true beauty in our bodies is found, so this medium also distorts the healthy marital intimacy. It so distorts this intimacy that our exposure to PORNEIA before marriage alters the reality and expectations of the marriage bed. We have allowed the entertainment industry to reconstruct sex in the way that we have allowed them to shape what aliens look like. If aliens exist, and they come down looking more like starfish than humanoid, then we would realize the power of media to influence our thinking. In the same way, we have allowed media to say..”this is how sex works and this is how it is to be enjoyed and with whom it is to be enjoyed. Anything else is irreulgar and unsatisfying.” These are lies of Satan as he tries over and again to distort what God has made.

Regenerated Sexual Relationships

As regenerated persons in the church, God has called his people to holy fulfillment of the marriage union. As uncomfortable as it may make some of us to hear from the pulpit, God desires for your marriage to fulfill its purposes in all aspects that glorify Christ, which includes healthy sexual relationships in the marriage bed.

In his book Intimate Allies, Temper Longman writes,

“It is God’s intention that sexual intimacy through trial and error occur in a bonded marriage relationship where inexperience and awkwardness have the safety net of covenantal commitment and love. “

Let’s commit as God’s people to advocate for healthy sexual relationships in the confines of marriage as a way in which all of God’s people can celebrate marriage and all that God has gifted in that union. This the idea of Solomon’s words to his son as he writes the proverbs to instruct his heart in godliness. He strives to keep his son from falling into adultery and sexual sin and instead promotes healthy intimacy in the bonds of marriage.

Proverbs 5:15–19 NASB95

Drink water from your own cistern And fresh water from your own well. Should your springs be dispersed abroad, Streams of water in the streets? Let them be yours alone And not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed, And rejoice in the wife of your youth. As a loving hind and a graceful doe, Let her breasts satisfy you at all times; Be exhilarated always with her love.

Let me encourage all my married couples here today with all pastoral concern. Work hard for the intimacy in your marriage. Do not give us on the struggle. It is necessary and it is a gift from God for you to enjoy and as a means of worshipping him. Do not allows the sins of laziness, poor planning, distractions, unreconciled conflict, or even your age stop you from pursuing what God has designed for your enjoyment.

EFFIMINATE /HOMOSEXUALS

I am going to lump the last two into one because they are related to one another. Paul uses a difficult word that is translated effeminate in the NASB with the word homosexual following. Other translations combine the two GK words into a phrase

ESV “men who practice homosexuality”

NKJV “homosexual, sodomites”

NIV “Male prostitutes, Homosexual”

The first word literally means “soft” and it is best understood to describe those men who were known to take a feminine disposition, even younger men in Roman and GK culture that were prostitutes, being abused by older male customers. Combining this with the general term for homosexual, Paul is condemning all forms of homosexual practice which is why some translators combine the words into one phrase.

But the two words separated are helpful but it shows us the cultures rooted in sin do not change. The LGBTQ+- culture around us today is not new news in history. John Macarthur comments in his commentary on 1 Corinthians,

1 Corinthians: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary The True Character of Christians

It is likely that fourteen of the first fifteen Roman emperors were homosexuals. Nero, who reigned close to the time Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, had a boy named Sporis castrated in order for the boy to become the emperor’s “wife,” in addition to his natural wife. After Nero died, the boy was passed on to one of Nero’s successors, Otho, to use in the same way

This just shows us that this sin, condemned by Paul in his letters is an abomination to the Lord. This is why that the Lord addresses such a sin in Lev 18:22

Leviticus 18:22 NASB95

‘You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.

The proponents of homosexuality and transgender movements want to deny the truth of the Bible and God’s hatred toward homosexual sin just as he hates all sin. They want to dismember God’s design of gender roles at birth and they want to try and confuse his teachings on the natural relationships between men and women. God’s people must stand firm against such abominations even as churches across this world give into cultural pressure by accepting LGBTQ people into their church membership.

Two words here are used:

Malakoi: soft, effeminate men who were play the soft feminine role in homosexuality

Arsenakoitai: men who lie with men

This dishonors Christ because it goes against his designed order and his purpose for man and women. God intended for men to be men and women to be women. Those roles are biologically distinct and their function in the world is distinct. Similarly, women were not created to be sexual with other women, nor men with other men. Nor did God design the family unit to exist with two moms or dads. All of these issues are Satanic perversions of God’s sovereignty and his original purposes.

Friends, you will have to take a costly stand on these issues in your lifetime, if you haven’t already. This is considered hate speech in their eyes and the in some states, it has led to arrests for Christians who had stood up and preached against this sin. You and I need to be ready and equipped to defend God’s design of the heterosexual union between man and woman in the bond of marriage as the only acceptable relationship that pleases Christ and his word.

We must also be equipped to defend this position so that we might aid in the rescue of those gripped by same sex attraction. Same sex attraction is not given by God and those believers who struggle with such an attraction but who are fighting against it in order to honor God are pleasing in his sight.

Let me encourage you to pick up a resource,

What does the Bible say about Homosexuality by Keving DeYoung. He not only lays out a healthy biblical view of sexuality that God ordains but he answers 7 objections given by the LGBTQ community such as :

“the bible hardly mentions homosexuality”

“its not that kind of sexuality”

“we are on the wrong side of history”

“God is a god of love”

This resource covers more than I can cove in one sermon and it will help you as it has helped me defend the biblical roles of man and woman in the marital union while arguing against all forms of homosexuality.

Going back to Romans 1 again, Paul wrote,

Romans 1:18 NASB95

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,

Romans 1:26–28 NASB95

For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,

Paul defines homosexuality as unnatural and unrighteous in these passages. He is arguing from a biological and a theological foundation . People today suppress the truth of God’s creation of the male and female body and how it functions in sex and procreation, which they are trying to do in current forms of body mutilation and trans surgeries. They are trying to take on the work of God in their own human hands while denying his proper design.

Secondly, people are denying the theological framework of God’s design by suppressing the truth that God is opposed to homosexual behavior of any kind. It is rebellion against his name and those who practice it will face the wrath against sin.

Just to be clear also, Paul is not the only voice in this argument. Jesus does speak about and quote from the Genesis account the proper role of marriage given to Israel. In Matthew 19:5, Jesus quotes the Gen 2 account affirming that marriage and all that relationship includes is between a man and woman and they become one flesh. This therefore, counters any argument which states that Jesus did not speak against homosexuality. If he is affirming the God ordained marriage, then he is speaking against perversions of it.

Therefore, students and parents and grandparents and the church, let me address us all in stating that we are in a war for the marriage and family. I know of five students from my previous student ministry days that are practicing homosexuals and it burdens my heart to see these who once professed Christ now deny his name. We must resolute to promote the beauty of God’s design for marriage, the glory of sexual intimacy in the marriage of relationship, and to keep our children accountable in their relationships.

We must also show love toward those who have fallen into such sexual sin and we should lovingly but courageously call them to repentance, in the same way we would call an adulterer or one who denies Christ as Savior and Lord.

If you are living in sexual sin of any kind that we have looked at today, I am calling you to repentance as those who profess to call Jesus your Lord. Remove the pornographic influences, adulterous relationships (both emotional, digital, and physical) that deny the marriage relationship that God designed for you to enjoy, or the homosexual or heterosexual cravings that have led you to some sinful action with someone that is not your wife or husband. Confess your sin before God and trust in the work of Jesus Christ to rid you of unrighteousness.

Matthew 18:8 NASB95

“If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than to have two hands or two feet and be cast into the eternal fire.