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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
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
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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