You Are Not Your Own

Go ahead and open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

As you are turning over there, know that this is going to be another one of those passages where we talk about a sensitive issue that is so vitally important for us to understand.

Last week, we continued our walk through the section of 1 Corinthians that some have called Paul’s “holiness code.”

He has challenged the church of Corinth to align their behavior to what they say they believe.

We have been challenged to disassociate from other believers if they continue in unrepentant, public, habitual sin so they will recognize their need for God’s grace.

We have been challenged to overlook offenses and seek to resolve conflicts with other believers instead of handling those conflicts the way the world does.

Last week, the passage challenged us to recognize that we need Christ’s righteousness to enter God’s kingdom because we cannot get there on our own. Paul highlighted ten sins that plagued Corinth to demonstrate that, and we were challenged to examine our own lives to make sure those sins aren’t our identity as well.

Paul is continuing this line of thought in today’s passage, and he is focusing in on one particular area of sin that was common in Corinth and still plagues us today. That area is the area of sexual immorality.

Last week, Jeff summed up the Bible’s teaching on sex this way:

The only sexual activity blessed by God is between a man and a woman in a marriage.

If we reverse that statement, that means that any sexual activity outside of the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman is sinful. That includes pornography, premarital sex, extramarital sex, homosexuality, and more—any sexual activity outside of marriage between a man and a woman.

Hearing that may leave you with a lot of questions, and we can’t answer them all in one message.

However, from this passage, I want us to find some answers to the question, “Why? Why is sexual activity outside of marriage wrong?”

There are a bunch of different reasons God gives us for that in his word, but this morning, we are going to focus on the one he outlines here: Sexual immorality is wrong because you are not your own.

I am drawing that from the end of verse 19-20, so look at that with me…

Our goal as we look through this passage this morning is to draw out at least four principles that help us understand what it means that we are not our own.

Let’s dive in.

The first principle we find in this passage is that…

1) God designed our bodies for a purpose.

Pick up in verse 12…

Paul begins this section by rebutting a phrase that was apparently popular among the church at Corinth— “Everything is permissible for me.”

We don’t know exactly where it came from, but it appears from context that the members of the church were using it to justify their immorality.

It seems they had this idea that since Jesus saved their souls, what they did with their bodies didn’t really matter.

We will come back to that in a minute, but here we see that Paul rejects the idea that we can do whatever we want with our bodies.

His first response to the quote indicates that we should focus on doing what is beneficial and good, and that some things are still bad for us.

In his second response, he reminds both them and us that the only thing we should allow ourselves to be ruled by is Jesus, not a desire that we keep giving in to over and over again.

In verses 13-14, he addresses another apparent slogan from Corinth.

One challenge for us is that the original text doesn’t have quotation marks, so we have to figure out where the quote stops and where Paul’s commentary starts. You will notice that the CSB translators didn’t include the rest of the sentence of verse 13 in the quote.

I agree with some commentators who say that the phrase“and God will do away with both of them” is part of the quote from Corinth.

It seems to fit the context better here—The Corinthians seem to be saying that the body doesn’t matter any more and I can do whatever I want with my body.

Given the context, it seems they weren’t just talking about food here, but rather that, just like the body gets hungry and we solve that by eating food, so also the body has sexual desires that should be satisfied. In their mind, it doesn’t really matter because God’s going to destroy it all in the end anyway.

In the remainder of verse 13, Paul corrects their misunderstanding—God didn’t design you and your physical body to be ruled by sexual desires; he designed your body for you to live in and experience the joy of walking with him.

He made your body for more than sex, and he has a much better plan for your body than for you to constantly chase satisfaction in ways that don’t honor him.

Remember, Paul just said that as believers, we are not to allow ourselves to be ruled by anything other than Christ.

What is God’s plan for my body? Look at verse 14 again…

You see, when Jesus was raised from the dead, his physical body was resurrected and transformed into this beautiful, sin-free body that is so much better than what we are experiencing now.

We will talk about this a lot more when we get to chapter 15, but part of the end of what God is doing in you is that one day, your body will also be resurrected and transformed into a body like Jesus’s.

What does all that have to do with sex?

Well, I didn’t make my own body—God did.

As the one who designed it, he has the final say over how I use it. It isn’t mine!

Not only that, but these bodies are wrecked by sin now, and his eventual goal is to remove that stain of sin and change these bodies into one like Jesus’s.

I don’t get the right to reject God’s plan for my body and just do what I want—God has the final say because I am not my own.

There is more we could say, but let’s move on to the next principle:

2) My union with Christ extends to my body.

Pick up in verse 15-17.

Don’t read through that first phrase of verse 15 too quickly… “Don’t you know that your bodies are a part of Christ’s body?”

And then again in verse 17…

What is going on here?

Let this truth soak in: when you surrender to Christ as your Savior and Lord, you are not simply giving mental assent to a set of beliefs and then God gives you a ticket to heaven. It is so much more than that.

You see, when God saves you, he draws you into a relationship with himself that is so much deeper than the transaction we sometimes reduce it down to. Here’s what Jesus prayed the night before his crucifixion:

John 17:21 CSB

May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me.

When God draws you to himself, he draws you into the relationship that has existed between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit from all eternity.

You get to share in the joy and love and beauty that he shares within himself.

It’s mind-blowing to wrap your head around.

Now, let’s come back to the text we were in…Look back at verse 15 - That union with Christ isn’t just about the immaterial or spiritual part of you; it extends all the way to the reality that now everything you are is united with Christ, including your body.

The union you have with Christ is actually even deeper than the union formed between sexual partners—it extends completely including body, soul, spirit, and however else you want to divide us up.

This may be what some of you have never fully understood.

Being united to Christ means that what you do with your body matters! Here’s how one commentator puts it:

“The man who has sexual intercourse with a prostitute is therefore not only committing an act of infidelity to Christ but also taking something that belongs to Christ (his own body) and linking it to the sphere of the unholy.” (Richard B. Hays)

When you sin sexually, you are cheating on Jesus and you are dragging his own body into the sphere of the unholy.

How can we look on the God who has gone to such great lengths to love and save us and disregard his design and drag him into the mud like that?

That’s why Paul picks up in verse 18…

Don’t flirt with temptation; flee from it!

Run away like Joseph did from Potiphar’s wife back in the book of Genesis!

Remember what Jesus said about lust, which in this context is that inappropriate desire that leads to sexual sin?

Matthew 5:29–30 CSB

If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

Don’t go home and gouge out your eye or cut off your hand, but for goodness sake, take this seriously!

Jesus told us to take drastic measures to avoid sexual sin, and here Paul tells us why: Because we are dragging the body of Jesus into our sin.

Flee! Run!

Before we keep going, let me pause right here and remind you that sex itself is not wrong or bad.

As we said at the beginning of the message, sexual activity within the marriage of one man and one woman is something God blesses and is wonderful and life-giving to a marriage.

We will see that more next week in chapter 7, and we find that affirmed in passages like Proverbs 5:15-19.

When we take sex out of that context, we are rejecting God’s very design for our body and dragging Jesus’s body into an unholy place.

In case that weren’t enough, Paul keeps going.

The third principle we see of why sexual sin is such a big deal is…

3) The Holy Spirit lives in my body.

Again, pick up in verses 18-19a.

When we sin sexually, we are sinning against our own bodies.

That’s a huge statement, but it’s made even more serious by verse 19…

If you are in Christ, your body is the temple where the Holy Spirit lives.

No; you can’t dissect a Christian and find where the Holy Spirit is living.

However, in an incredible way, if you are in Christ, the Holy Spirit is living in you to convict, encourage, teach, empower, and guide you.

Sexual sin, then, defiles the very temple in which the Holy Spirit lives.

We don’t have a lot of time to camp out here, but put these three realities together for a minute:

When we sin sexually, we are sinning in unique ways against the entire godhead—Rejecting the Father’s ownership and design, dragging Christ’s body into sin, and defiling the temple where the Holy Spirit dwells.

It’s no wonder that the Bible tells us to run far away from sexual immorality in any form.

He drives this home with one final principle that brings us full circle:

4) Christ sacrificed his own body for me.

We read this earlier, but pick up the end of verse 19 again… “You are not your own.”

Man, that flies in the face of every individualistic bone in American culture.

Your body is not your own—why?

Because you have been bought with a price.

What is that price?

Peter says it beautifully:

1 Peter 1:18–19 CSB

For you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb.

Don’t check out on me here, because if you miss this, you miss some of the richest part of this passage.

Some of you have been feeling incredibly convicted during this entire message because you know you have sinned in this area.

Conviction is not a bad thing—we need to feel the weight of our own sin at times so we can remember what God has done.

You and I have all sinned in so many ways, and yet here is the beautiful reality: The God who created and is lord over even my body knew I would sin, he knew I would fail, and yet he loved me.

He couldn’t overlook sin and still be a just God; someone had to pay the penalty for all my sin and unrighteousness.

What did he do? The Son of God took on humanity. He took on an actual, physical body.

And in that actual, physical body, the Son of God never sinned.

Instead, he hung on a cross and took the penalty and punishment in his body and his spirit that I deserved for my sin.

That’s the price that was paid—the precious blood of Christ, like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb.

I am no longer my own—spiritually or physically—because the body of Christ was broken for me and the blood of Jesus was poured out on the cross to pay for my sexual sin and all my other unrighteousness.

If you have never trusted him for eternal life, that’s the God we are talking about surrendering to.

That’s the God who we turn from our sin and have turned to follow, and he has saved us and washed and cleaned us and clothed us in his beauty and righteousness instead of our sin.

I would invite you to cry out to him today for salvation if you never have. There where you are, ask him to save you and surrender to following him.

For those in here who know they have been bought with a price, we are going to commemorate and celebrate that sacrifice together as we take the Lord’s supper.

In just a moment, I am going to ask you to get up from your seats and make your way to the outside walls.

You will come down here and take a piece of bread that symbolizes Christ’s body that was broken and a cup of juice that symbolizes his blood poured out for us.

As you return to your seat, take a few moments and prayerfully process what God has been saying. Hold these elements in your hand and remember what great price Christ paid to save you.

When you are ready, eat the bread and drink the cup on your own or with your family or those you came with.

Let’s pray…