Not My Body
1 Corinthians • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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“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. “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. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do 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! Or 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.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or 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, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
Welcome
Have you ever heard the slogan: “My body, my choice?”
Though this is the chosen battle cry of the advocates of infanticide, we should all take a look at ourselves and think about how much we actually might live by this same mantra.
We live in a society where you can’t tell someone they’re wrong for anything they do with their body - what do we, as Christians, think of our bodies?
Because the whole idea of “my body, my choice” is based on a huge misunderstanding. Because the first part of this assumed - this is my body - and so the conclusion actually follows - what I do with it is my choice.
But the misunderstanding is really the first part of that.
Because if this is, in fact, my body, then it is up to me to use it how I see fit.
But the fact of the matter is that this is not my body. It belongs to God.
As Christians, we recognize that all we have is really God’s, right? At least when we have to stop and think about it. But how often do we remember that our bodies are included in that “all?”
Now, those of the world, as we have seen, we can’t expect them to think like people reborn by the Spirit. So they can’t recognize this. To them, it is their body, it is their choice.
But for us, born of the Spirit and given the mind of Christ, how do we think about this?
That’s what Paul discusses in our passage today.
Remember the context, here. Paul is still writing about sexual immorality. He has mentioned it five times in the last 24 verses. This has been his focus.
He began in chapter 5 talking about the sexual immorality he had heard was being allowed in their church. He explained how we don’t judge the world for such things but must judge these within the church.
We saw that Paul said that those who are sexually immoral will not inherit the kingdom of God. We saw last week that Paul reminds the Corinthians that though we all once were defined by the same sins as the world, now that we have been washed, made righteous, and made holy in Christ, we no longer are.
And now he is going to bring us to the apex of his argument and see why sexually immorality has no place in the church, in the kingdom, and in us.
Warning: Talking about a sensitive topic
Last week we talked about Christ dying for us to bring us into the kingdom. And since we are in His kingdom, we are not what we once were.
We saw Paul say this after talking about the sin-nature of the world:
And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
This is where we ended last week.
We are not what we used to be. We have been made new - born again by the Spirit. And that should affect what we do as new creations. It should affect what we believe. It should affect how we think.
And it should affect how we think about and use our physical possessions - including our bodies. You see, what Paul says here goes beyond spirituality - this applies to our bodies! We are to be holy mind, spirit, and body.
But often, because we are so spiritual, we don’t think much about our bodies - about the physical part of us. But they belong to Christ every bit as much as the rest of us.
Do we think about our bodies that way?
Well, some of the Corinthians apparently did not.
And that’s what Paul addresses next.
“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 dialogue with the Corinthians here. That’s why parts of what Paul writes here are in quotation marks in many English translations.
Most likely, he is referring to some of what was said in the letter he received from Corinth. He will address this letter specifically starting in chapter 7, but what he says here - “All things are lawful for me” - he says again later in chapter 10, so this likely comes from the letter.
And what Paul is talking about in both places he quotes this, is Christian liberty. In chapter 10 he talks about it the context of idolatry. Here he talks about it the context of sexual immorality.
Yes, Paul is really hammering home the danger of sexual immorality in this letter. Because it appears that the Corinthians were confused, not just about how they were to be different from the world, but how their Christian liberty affects how they should live in the world.
And this is a question many Christians today have. What does my liberty in Christ mean?
And there are answers all over the spectrum from the legalists who says just about everything is a sin, to the lawless Christian who believes they are going to heaven no matter what, so they can do anything they want with no limitations.
And yes, both of these types of people really do exist.
But neither of these are Paul’s idea of Christian liberty.
You see, the problem is with the question too many of us ask. I’ll bet we’ve asked it.
Christians often ask, “what am I allowed to do and not allowed to do.”
I get questions all the time about what Christians are allowed to do or not.
I get questions about whether or not specific things are “sinful” for Christians - everything from getting cosmetic surgery to driving over the speed limit. Sometimes people want to know if they are sinning by smoking cigarettes. Sometime people want me to clarify exactly what constitutes things like “cheating” in a relationship.
And people either ask these questions because they really don’t want to sin against God, or because they want to know how far they may go before something becomes sin.
But they are all asking the wrong question.
Because God is concerned with who we are more than what we do, because who we are will dictate what we do. God wants us to be holy people, not people who do holy things.
So, once we are brought into the kingdom, it isn’t about what we’re allowed to do. The question Paul is concerned with here is: what should we do as members of His kingdom.
In other words, just because we can, and just because we may, doesn’t mean we should.
Think for a moment about Christ. As God, He certainly had the right to leave us in our sin, and let just punishment we applied to us. And as a human - Who never sinned - He certainly had a right to live and face no judgment for any sin Himself.
And yet, regardless of what Christ could and may have done, what He did was what He needed to do to affect salvation. To bring us the kingdom. While there was no ethical requirement on Him to do any such thing, He still knew His purpose, and what He should do in order for us to be saved.
God doesn’t accomplish His will through “may dos.” God works in “should dos.”
And, for us, we have liberty in Christ. There is plenty we may do. But as part of the kingdom of God, we need to think about what we should do for the sake of the kingdom.
So Paul puts this “may I” question aside. What we are allowed to do has nothing to do with it.
The Corinthians said “all things are lawful” or in more modern terms: “I can do what I want” - but Paul says just because you can and may, doesn’t mean you should. It may be allowed, but he asks: is it helpful?
Well, first we have to figure out who Paul is talking about: is what I do helpful to whom?
Later in the book, we will see Paul talk about idolatry and come back to this same idea. He will say:
“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.
Helpful to whom?
Here, based on the fact that Paul says: "not all things build up” - it’s clear he is talking about being helpful to others in the body of Christ. That is about building the kingdom by building others up.
If what you do is not helpful to your fellow believers - if it isn’t for the building up of the body - it has nothing to do with whether or not you may do it.
You shouldn’t do it.
But here, Paul says:
“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.
All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful.
Paul clarifies this with “I will not be dominated by anything.” So here, Paul is talking about doing what is helpful to me.
I may be allowed to do certain things, but do they benefit me - and not in a worldly sense - do they benefit me, as in, do they help me seek to live as one washed, declared righteous, and made holy by the Spirit in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Does this help or hinder my walk with Christ? Does this help or hinder how I live out of the kingdom of God story?
And we will address this more fully when we talk about this question in terms of the idols of the world in chapter 10.
Because as I said, here, Paul is using this to discuss sexual immorality.
Because Christian liberty is used by many as a rationalization for sexual sin.
Again, last week, we saw that we are not like those of the world. And part of that is because we have been brought into the kingdom by the Spirit and now can live unto Christ. I said we have the choice to make - and we have to choose to live out what we really are.
The world has no choice - they can’t not live like the world. But we have the choice. We can.
And that is where our true Christian liberty is found. We have the freedom to live unto Christ. We have the freedom to seek holiness.
We didn’t before, when we were of the world. We did not have the liberty of living unto Christ. We lacked the ability to do so.
But now, empowered by the Spirit Who makes us holy day by day, we have that power.
But some still use their “liberty” to rationalize sin.
And that is what the Corinthians were doing.
And so do many Christians today.
Because, remember, the Corinthians lived a culture much like ours - they lived a culture of plenty, a culture that was overly litigious as we have seen, and a culture that was hyper-sexualized.
And some used their “Christian liberty” as an excuse for sexual sin.
Some of them were what some might call today “cultural Christians.” That’s an awful designation, because the Bible would classify such people as either false converts or Christians living horribly contrary to their calling.
They are usually of the ilk that see salvation as an end for themselves, and not a means of living any differently than they used to. You know, I prayed the right prayer and am going to heaven, so I can do whatever I want.
The ironic part is that they use the very idea of salvation to get to the same place the unsaved already are: believing I can do whatever I want.
All things are lawful for me.
Once again, some of the Corinthian Christians were being influenced primarily by the world around them.
Which is why they say:
1 Corinthians 6:13 (ESV)
“Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other.
Now, interpreters disagree on what should be part of the quote or not here, and different English translations put the quotation marks in different places. Unfortunately, there were no quotation marks in Greek.
But this should be in quotes through the end of this sentence. The Corinthians said: “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy both one and the other.”
Paul is quoting the Corinthians on this.
Much Greek Philosophy - the worldly wisdom that influenced the Corinthians - believed in a duality of man. We are part physical, part non-physical. That much they got right.
But in many philosophies of ancient Greece, the physical is lesser. It was the baser part of man.
And it was the non-physical part of man - the spirit or the soul - that was the more real part of us. The important part.
And so thinking that led to two ways of living.
Some would deny the body - would not cater to it at all. Even eating only what is necessary to live so I can seek to satisfy my non-physical existence. So I can seek higher things than this physical world.
Others would indulge the body. It is the baser part of us, so doing base things with the body is fine. Because eventually, we would be released from the physical and become completely non-physical as we move into the highest form of life.
Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.
And these are the two same mistakes Christians make. It’s the mistake the legalists make when they make everything a sin because we are “spiritual” people. And it’s the same mistake lawless Christians who make nothing a sin because I am “spiritual” and I’m going to heaven no matter what.
If you want to see what Paul has to say to those in that first camp, read his letter to the Colossian church.
But the Corinthians were in that second camp. Now, the Corinthians didn’t think the body was evil. They just thought since this body dies, it’s less important than the spirit which does not die.
And while most Christians know that we will be resurrected and get our bodies back someday, popular Christian thinking still imagines the world to come as spiritual. You know, we’re all disembodied, winged things who are still somehow sitting on clouds and playing harps.
But the Bible is clear - and this letter as clear as any - that we are destined for an eternity in the body. We will get these bodies back.
And Paul tells the Corinthians that this is important for how we think about using our bodies now.
And he begins to do that by responding to their mantra:
[They say] “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food—and God will destroy both one and the other.” [And Paul responds] The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
In other words, they said: “the physical is about the physical, and for the physical.”
Paul said: “No. The physical is about Jesus. Your physical body is to be used for Jesus.”
It may be that some in Corinth were turning a blind eye to the man sleeping with his step mother because they figured “this body is destroyed, so what does it matter what he does with it? It doesn’t change anything for us.”
It may be that there was other sexual sin in the church based on the fact that Paul just reminded them that they are part of the kingdom and need to live like it rather than live in sexual immorality.
It is likely, based on what Paul says later in this passage, that some of the Corinthian Christians were going to prostitutes, and rationalizing it as okay.
It may be that, in general, the Corinthians were just lax in their sexual ethic. It may just be that the Corinthians were too influenced by the culture around them and thought that sex was just no big deal.
Are we much different when it comes to sexual ethics?
You know, it used to be that Christianity influenced our culture, even if people weren’t being converted. Sex before marriage was at least said to be taboo. Adultery was believed to be very wrong. Homosexuality was generally spoken of in negative terms. Pornography was at least commonly believed to be a no-no.
But that script has flipped.
Because now, by and large, the culture influences the church, even if people aren’t walking away from the church.
And that’s why, in many churches, some of these things are not seen as sinful at all, and it others, they’re never addressed one way or the other. After all, we don’t want to offend anyone.
And even in solid churches, even where sex before marriage is at least said by Christians to be taboo. And adultery is believed to be wrong. And homosexuality is generally spoken of in negative terms. And pornography is at least commonly believed to be a no-no…
… even in such churches, Christians still take part in these things.
And no matter what they might say they believe, what they do with their bodies, shows that they think that matters far less than what they do in their spiritual lives.
We aren’t much different than the Greeks of the first century.
And we aren’t different enough from the world.
Because Paul says it does matter what we do with our bodies. Because our bodies belong to Christ as much as our spirit. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, he says, but for the Lord.
As Christians, our bodies have a purpose: to be used for God - not for sexual immorality.
If you can do something with your body but there is no way to do that thing to glorify God, and no way to do it with thankfulness to God, you might be as confused as the Corinthians.
Because the body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord.
But look at what Paul says, “our body is meant for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.” What does he mean by that?
Well, he clarifies it with what he says next:
The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.
Paul is correcting the Corinthians on something here by speaking of the resurrection. And he will go into much more detail about the resurrection, because in the letter they wrote to him, the Corinthians asked about it. They didn’t understand how it would happen, or what kind of body we will get at the resurrection.
So here, Paul is taking the fact of the resurrection, and telling them that just as Christ was raised - in the same way - we will be raised.
And he doesn’t give details here on the how or the what - he is more concerned with the “so what” of the resurrection of the body.
This body will be resurrected.
So what?
So it is as eternal as our spirit. So it does matter for eternity what we do physically like it matters what we do spiritually.
So it matters how we nurture our bodies like it matters how we nurture our spirits.
So, considering what we should do physically is as important as thinking about what we should do spiritually.
Because our bodies belong to Christ as much as our spirits belong to Christ.
Do 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!
Here is where the prostitution comes in.
In the Old Testament, God often used the metaphor of prostitution to talk about Israel following other gods. It was a spiritual whoring on their part. And this spiritual whoring was a turning away from God - it was unfaithfulness to God.
And of course, Israel - regardless of what they might have said on the Sabbath in the Temple - they thought it was okay to follow other gods. Why? Because they believed their standing in God was based primarily on the fact that they were physically of Israel. They believed that it was the physical that mattered more when it came to their relationship to God.
The Corinthians - and many Christians today - are the complete opposite. We know that our standing in God is a spiritual standing - being a child of God is a spiritual designation. So it becomes very easy to rationalize taking our bodies - which in fact belong to God every bit as much as our spirits - and use them as if they did not.
We’re all about the inner life - often to a fault.
Because our bodies are members of Christ, Paul says. And he is using a little wordplay here. He will later speak about us being the body of Christ as a local church.
Here, he is saying that we are part of the body of Christ, spirit and body.
So both are to be used as members of the body.
And for us, of course, literal, physical prostitution does not mean we aren’t still part of the body. We cannot lose our salvation through sexual immorality.
And this is where some say this means they may - or at least they think, they may as well - use their bodies however they want.
But this is why Paul is focusing us on what we should do, not what we believe we may do.
Because what we should do is honor Christ with our bodies because we are His. And what we should not do is take our body - which is a member of Christ - and make it a member of a prostitute.
Why?
Or 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.”
Ah, more alternatives.
Either we know we cannot take our body - a member of Christ’s body - and make it members with a prostitute...
…or...
…we don’t know that being joined to a prostitute makes us one body with her.
What is Paul saying here?
Well, he is still talking about how we use our bodies, but he is talking specifically about the wonderful and gracious gift of sex that God has given us.
Because there is a proper and fitting way to use that gift. There is a God-glorifying way to enjoy that gift. There is a way to use that gift where we can use it with thanks to God.
There is only one way we should use it. And that is within marriage.
Paul here quotes Genesis 2:24. I quote this in just about every wedding I perform. God performs the first wedding, and gives Eve to Adam as wife, Adam rejoices over the amazing gift, and then we read:
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
We see here the physical joining together of a man and his wife. This is talking about physically coming together, sharing in the gift of sex properly. One man, one woman, one union for life. One physical joining together.
Their bodies are joined as one, as it were, in the physical act, just like they are joined spiritually, emotionally, and every other way through the covenant of marriage.
How does this relate to our spirits and bodies belonging to Christ?
Well, marriage itself was designed by God to show forth His love for His church in Christ.
Paul says this in Ephesians 5:
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her [make her holy], having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word [doesn’t this language sound so familiar?], so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
Marriage - two people coming together as one - is a picture of Christ and His church coming together. Now does Paul describe this in spiritual or physical terms here?
Both!
This is why Paul can describe our spiritual union with Christ the way he does in so many places, like when he says:
But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
And at the same time say:
1 Corinthians 6:15 (ESV)
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?
And because both the spiritual and physical parts of us belong to Christ, he also says:
Or 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.”
And then actually says we should not do this because:
1 Corinthians 6:17 (ESV)
he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
And this is why God designed marriage to show forth His relationship with His church, and why using our bodies for sex within marriage is the only way we should use them for sex.
Our physical faithfulness to only one spouse for our whole lives shows forth our spiritual faithfulness to our one Bridegroom for our whole lives.
And using our bodies for sexual immorality - be it adultery, sex outside of marriage, using pornography, or going to a prostitute - it takes what belongs to Christ and uses it to become one with sin. With something outside of God’s good design.
And that, simply put, is unfaithfulness to God.
Here is the point: what we do with our bodies, we don’t just do with our bodies. Especially when it comes to how we use them sexually. We cannot separate the spiritual from the physical when it comes to using our bodies.
So that means, physical immorality is spiritual immorality.
How important is it to use the gift of sex only according to God’s plan?
Well, this is why we call two becoming one flesh “consummating” the marriage. To consummate means to complete something. In other words, a marriage is not complete until the physical joining has happened.
And in the ancient world, this was basically how couples became married.
We see it in the Bible. When Abraham sends a servant out of Canaan to find his son Isaac a wife, he does it, and brings back Rebekah from Mesopotamia. And she becomes Isaac’s wife. And how is that put to us?
Then Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah his mother and took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her.
He brought her into his tent, took her - two became one flesh - and they were considered married.
This is how important the proper use of the gift of sex is. This is how serious the improper use of sex is.
And Paul agrees:
Or 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.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
The physical and the spiritual are intertwined. How we use our bodies affects our spirit.
And our spirit - once joined to Christ as a member of the body of Christ, His bride - should affect how we use our bodies.
And Paul is so emphatic on this that he makes sexual immorality the sin most detrimental to our spiritual well-being by saying:
Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.
Paul says to flee from sexual immorality.
Not resist it. Flee from it.
The only other sin he tells them to flee is idolatry when he uses this same quotation again. In other words, he is likening spiritual unfaithfulness to physical unfaithfulness.
So that’s why it is too dangerous to go anywhere near it. Sexual sin has such far-reaching effects on our bodies and our spirits - not to mention our minds and emotions - that we should go no where near it.
To all the unmarried in here: you cannot consider sex a physical act. Because you cannot separate the physical from the rest of you. It affects every part of you. If you use it wrong, you are wronging all of yourself.
Other sins - they happen outside the body. Sexual sin is sin against the body.
Why does Paul put it that way?
Because he just said the body is for Christ. And since he is using that word play, because he will explain that we collectively are the body of Christ, Paul is saying that sexual sin affects not just our spiritual well-being, and our relationship with Christ, but our relationship to the church.
You see, Paul tells Corinthians that their church - the local church in Corinth - is to be a representation of the universal Church. The local body represents the universal Body.
And now he is saying that our physical body is a representation of the church.
How are we using our bodies? What does how we use them say about us, about the church, and about Christ?
And Paul continues this word play - he further compares the physical body - which since it is Christ’s and therefore, in that sense, the body of Christ - and the body of Christ that is the church.
1 Corinthians 6:19 (ESV)
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?
Speaking of the church in Corinth, Paul already said:
Do you not know that you [collectively] are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you [collectively]? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
Now he points to the Christian and says:
1 Corinthians 6:19 (ESV)
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?
Our body - which belongs to Christ - is a Temple. Because it is where God the Spirit dwells.
Like the collective body of Christ is the Temple where the Spirit dwells.
Do you see. In making this comparison, Paul is explaining how important it is to use our individual bodies to honor God. It is every bit as important as us - the collective body - honoring Christ.
Because remember what he just said:
you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
We talked about all that Christ has done and the Spirit’s role in that last week.
And we tend to think of righteousness and holiness in spiritual terms. And we should. But we can’t take our bodies out of that. We are to be righteous and holy in how we use our bodies.
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
Have you notice all of the questions Paul asks about what the Corinthians know in this section.
He asks if they know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom.
He asks if they know that their bodies belong to Christ.
He asks if they know that sexual immorality joins the body to sin.
He asks if they know that the Spirit dwells within them.
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?
And he tells them why all of this is so:
You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.
Paul wants the Corinthians to know all of these things.
Christians have been made righteous. Their bodies belong to Christ. Using their bodies for sexually immorality joins them to the sin they are no longer part of because they have been washed and made righteous and holy. And the Spirit dwells within them to continue to make them holy.
We need to know all of these things.
But as I said last week, it is not ultimately about what we know.
It is about what we do with what we know.
Just think about what Christ did.
He took on the physical - took on a body - that He may take on our sin and give that body over to be killed for us.
He came in the body to redeem us - all of us - mind, body, and spirit.
This is why Paul can say our bodies are for the Lord and the Lord for our bodies.
He gave His body for us.
It was the price He paid for us in His death.
Know this:
you were bought with a price. [And what do we do with that?] So glorify God in your body.
In other words, use your Christian liberty, to choose Christ, and glorify God in your body.
Not just in your mind.
Not just with your words.
Not just in your spirit.
In your body.
Brothers and sisters, the fact of the matter is that far too many of us have been influenced by the world, and by and large, sex has become no big deal.
We see it exploited everywhere - TV, movies, advertisements, books, magazines, social media, just about everywhere on the internet. And it’s become almost like an annoying noise that you get so used to you don’t even notice it anymore.
I had someone visiting from out of state point out to me recently how annoying all the airplanes are here. And I told them: I don’t even notice them anymore.
That is what sex has become for so many Christians. We are so desensitized to it.
Just like the world around us.
But they will not inherit the kingdom. They do not belong to Christ - their bodies are not members of Christ and their spirits are not joined to Him. They do not have the Spirit of God dwelling in them to lead them into righteousness and holiness.
We do.
They embrace sexual immorality.
What will we do?
We have to flee from it.
Let’s have some real talk for a minute.
It is not uncommon for Christians who intend to get married to rationalize having sex before they are married. That is taking the “all things are lawful” approach, though they’d never say that. That is saying sex is no big deal.
And if that’s you, you are robbing yourself of the gift, and you are sinning against your body, your partner’s body, and Christ.
The statistics show that pornography use is a scourge both outside and within the church. When talking about the percentage of people - men and women - who regularly view pornography, the numbers don’t decrease all that much for Christians compared to the world.
And the numbers are not low.
That is taking the “food for the stomach and the stomach for food” approach, though no one would ever say that. What I do when I’m alone in the privacy of my own home with my own eyes and my own body - that’s my choice.
But it’s not your home, they aren’t your eyes, and it is not your body.
And you aren’t alone.
Do you now know that your body is a Temple of the Holy Spirit within you, Whom you have from God?
We have seemingly seen one big-name church leader after another disgraced because of adultery. And we only hear about them because they are big-names. It is happening with some in the pews, too.
That is not just unfaithfulness to our spouse. That is unfaithfulness to our Bridegroom.
But listen, as I said last week, Paul talks in terms not of what we do, but who we are. And you, brother or sister, are a washed, righteous, holy, and redeemed child of God.
There is forgiveness.
There is power over sin.
There is restoration available.
Because there is a Savior.
If you have been losing the battle with sexual sin, turn to your Savior this morning. Be forgiven. And seek Him that He may make you holy.
But, if you have been losing the battle with sexual sin, it’s because you are engaging in battle, instead of fleeing.
How do we flee sexual sin?
First, protect your body with the help of the body. You need the help. We all do.
Second, make provision for your flight from sexual sin.
Confess your sin to God, and He is faithful and just to forgive you.
Confess your sins to a brother or sister that they may pray for you, that you may be healed.
And take steps to avoid the temptation before the temptation comes.
You can, because you are not your own, but belong mind, spirit, and body, to Christ.
Technically the end. Here is the hard part:
If you have been unfaithful to your spouse, and you are not working together on the road to healing, healing begins with confession, and seeking help to restore your marriage. This is what pastors are for. I am certified in family counseling, or I can refer you to someone. Use the body.
If you are unmarried and have been having sex, you need to stop. Repent, be forgiven, seek Christ, and do not even be in a situation where it can happen again. You can’t resist it, so flee it.
If you are an adult and you are having sex because you are in the “we’re getting married one day, anyway” camp, here’s what I suggest: put a date to that “one day,” and do not again be in a situation where it can happen before that.
If you are anyone here, and you struggle with pornography, what you need is help through accountability. You already know you can’t win this one on your own. Partner with someone here - or more than one person - and let’s all be accountable.
There are pamphlets on the resource table titled “5 Stones” from a ministry called Covenant Eyes. If you don’t want to take a pamphlet, I get it, but go to their website, and see how they can help.
They even have software you can put on your devices to keep certain content off, and even to keep you accountable to someone else. Again, use the body of Christ.
And this is all very difficult to do. But Christ is worth it.
This is part of seeking Him.
And seek Him we must. Because even though we are not strong enough to overcome sexual sin, He is.
So remember, you are not your own, for you were bought with a price. Glorify in your body He Who paid the price for you.
