The Seriousness of Sin, pt. 2

INTRODUCTION

Good morning and welcome to First Christian Church! I am so glad that you are here with us today to worship our Savior, Jesus Christ. It is a great day to be in the house of the Lord, and I am excited that we can be together to worship and open the Word of God this morning.

Today, we will continue in 1 Corinthians, and we will begin in 1 Corinthians 6:12. Last week, we looked at chapter 5 and talked about how serious sin is. Paul talked about a sexual sin that was so bad that even pagans would not allow it, and the unwillingness of that person to repent meant they needed to be removed from the body.

For the follower of Christ, this also means we must not be people that are ruled by our old sinful nature. If we are followers of Jesus than we are new creations in Christ, this doesn’t mean we never sin, but our heart posture toward that sin changes. We go from chasing after sin to chasing after Jesus. Feeling conviction for sin, and repenting of sin.

This morning we will pick up in chapter 6 and look at Paul as he continues working through this idea of sin and the believer. Today we will look at the seriousness of sin, part 2. Would you join me in prayer this morning?

PRAY

The Response

We ended last week in verse 11, talking about the fact that while our sin once marked us, we have now been washed, sanctified, and justified through the work and name of Jesus Christ. We are no longer to be described by our sin, but by the work of Jesus in our lives. We are a new creation that is led by the Holy Spirit, not by sin. Paul is going to pick up in verse 12 by getting one step ahead of the church. Look at what he says in verse 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.

1 Corinthians 6:12.

Paul writes like he is already in the mind of the church. He knows that their response to his claims above will be to claim that all things are lawful for me. In fact, it is believed that these are probably the words that Paul used with the church. He is anticipating that they will use his own words against him to try and argue their way out of this call to repentance and reliance on God.

It is likely that this belief and idea, “all things are lawful for me,” comes from the Jerusalem council that we see playing out in Acts 15. You can turn there this morning or follow along on the screen with me.

Acts operates as a church history book for the early church. If you have ever read a chronological bible or used one for a devotional, as you read Acts you will be sent to New Testament letters throughout it because it is the road map of the early church. When you get to Acts 15, we essentially have a meeting of the minds of all the early church leaders. They have come together because a group of believers are teaching and claiming that a Gentile must be circumcised in order to be a follower of Jesus. Why would this become a problem?

We must remember that the early church is still an offshoot of Judaism. The idea that Gentiles would be able to hear and respond to the Gospel was something that many Jewish-born believers were still trying to grasp. Since the faith was so deeply tied to Judaism, there was this idea that you would need to become Jewish to be a Christian. The leadership meets at Jerusalem to talk this over, but also to hear reports about what the Gospel has accomplished in the Gentiles.

Peter stands up to speak in verse 7 and says:

And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. 8 And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, 9 and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. 10 Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? 11 But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

Acts 15:7–11.

Peter speaks up to say that the Gentiles are being saved the same as us and are receiving the Holy Spirit in the same way. There is no distinction being made between Gentile and Jew. Since God is treating them the same, why are we attempting to but them under a burden, the Law, that we ourselves could not bear? Why are we even allowing ourselves to discuss placing the burden of the law on someone when we could not hold ourselves up under it?

In this decision, the early church leadership is creating doctrine that we still hold to today. We are not under the burden to keep the law, Jesus has come to fulfill the law. We come to faith through Christ, through His grace, not through our ability to fulfill the law. That is the hinge point of the law, we cannot keep it! But we can be saved by grace through Christ.

Acts 15 makes it clear for the generations going forward that we do not have to follow Jewish law in order to be Christians. That is why we can have Friends and Family Day this week and have delicious pork bbq. We are not held to dietary laws like Jewish people are held to. We do not hold to sabbath law, because in Christ we find rest.

At the end of chapter 15 we see that Paul and Barnabas will leave with a letter to give answer to the question to the churches that are being founded throughout the world.

Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, 23 with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. 24 Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, 25 it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, 26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. 28 For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: 29 that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”

Acts 15:22–29.

The letter comes with the decision that is made. They want to lay no more burden on them than to abstain from anything sacrificed to idols, from blood, from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. The first part is all in regard to the practice of pagan idol worshippers who would unused portions of animals that had been sacrificed to idols. It was very common for the Gentile believers to buy this meat to eat. There was a worry that partaking in this was showing the believers had not given up this idol worshipping. That is also where the blood and strangling part tie in, Jewish custom included to not eat blood or something strangled because the blood would still be in it.

The final is based on sexual immorality. All of these things were closely tied to idol worship at the time and were not to be done in the Jewish tradition either, and so the council agreed it should not be something that the Gentile believers did. And there was rejoicing in this doctrinal and theological unity that happened.

In a sense, the Gentile believers could say, “all things are lawful for me.” They are not bound by the law in that way, but Paul is making it clear. You can say that, but it is not all the way true. It may be lawful for you, but it is not helpful. It may be lawful for you, but it should not dominate you.

This should draw our mind back to that idea of theological triage we discussed a few weeks ago. There are things in the third tier that we could have differing opinions on, and it could be called lawful for you, but is it helpful? When we come to these questions of whether something is ok for us, we should view it through those two lenses. Is it helpful? Will I be dominated by it? Would I fall into its control?

When I was in college, there was a time when I worked a full-time 2nd shift job, was a full-time student, worked part-time as a youth pastor, and lived on campus. I had to ride a bus from my dorm to the main part of campus where I worked and had class. I would get off from work at 11:30 most nights, ride a bus back to the dorm, sleep for a little bit, be back up to get the bus back to campus for class or chapel. It was in this time that I drank a lot of coffee. I could drink about a pot of it each morning.

Now, is coffee sinful? No. But I had become reliant on it. And I would drink so much that I remember sitting in class and being so antsy and my hands shaking from just the caffeine. I had to take a break, because I did not want to be able to say that coffee was in control. I know it seems harmless, but anything that is allowed to dominate me, even if I can give good backing that it is lawful, should not be in my life. I should not allow it to.

You may not be dominated by coffee, but maybe there is something that you have allowed to take a spot in your life that it shouldn’t. Maybe something is controlling you more than it should. I would encourage you today, that you can let that thing go. You can take a step back. If you need to, you can repent of that thing.

Continuing his thought in chapter 6 Paul states:

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. 14 And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. 15 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! 16 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.” 17 But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. 18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

1 Co 6:13–18.

The real push he is making is to get them to understand that they must flee sexual immorality. He makes the analogy that the stomach and food are made for each other, just as there is a sexual desire in us that should be controlled and aimed at our spouse, but while these things are made for each other, God will destroy both. The body is not simply created for sexual immorality, it is created to serve the Lord.

When we surrender to Christ, and follow Him, we are now becoming part of the body of Christ. We learn that the Holy Spirit resides in us, and we become members of the Church. We are now part of something bigger than us, yet at the same time it is a change that is happening in us.

While we have freedom in our Christian walk, we must realize that the freedom does not mean we are just allowed to sin. This also means we must be careful to not cause our brother or sister to stumble either. In Galatians Paul states it this way:

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

Galatians 5:13.

Charles Spurgeon gave a great example of what it looks like when we start to allow our freedom to out grow our faith:

If your child should have a rapid growth in its arms but not in its legs, or if its legs should lengthen but not its arms, what a strange being it would be! What a monster! It is the growth of each limb in proportion that brings the man to perfection.

So when our heads grow faster than our hearts, it is an ill sign. Yet how many know a great deal more than they feel, and criticize much more than they believe! It is also an evil thing when a man’s tongue grows bigger than his head; when he has more to say than he knows or does; when, like Mr. Talkative [of Pilgrim’s Progress], he can talk about the road to heaven but makes no progress in it.

The point made is that our heart posture both toward sin and toward a personal holiness must be kept in check. What we think about sin and how we view freedom has to be shaped by what the word of God says. We must guard our own hearts from allowing this freedom we have to turn into a place where the flesh can rule. Freedom does not me that we get to act in a way contrary to what a believer should. We do not get to act in a way contrary to the call of Christ in His word.

In verse 17, he says that when we become joined to the Lord, we become one spirit with Him. We are now a part of this body, while the Holy Spirit resides in us. Sexual relationships carry with them a real reality that when we enter into a sexual relationship with someone, we are becoming one, not only in a physical way, but in a spiritual way. This is why sexual relationships are to occur between a husband and wife who are married to each other. It is not only a physical relation but a spiritual reaction to each other. They are becoming one flesh.

In the understanding of this, we see why sexual immorality carries with it such heavy grieving. This sin is not just a sin that occurs outside of the body, but it impacts our spirits. In Genesis, God tells us that it is one man and one woman who are to be married and that they become one flesh as they have this relationship with each other. But we also see the church described as the bride of Christ. It is this kind of loving relationship that God has with His church, laying down His own life for it, that makes this charge important.

Just as when a person joins themselves to a prostitute, they are sinning against their body, they are seeking self-gratification. When the believer who is now a part of the body of Christ commits sexual sin, they are doing the same. They are seeking self-gratification.

Paul is saying that the believer should see that we are joined with the Lord so closely that our bodies are “members of Christ,” and as verses 19 and 20 say:

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, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body

1 Corinthians 6:19–20.

The Holy Spirit now resides in us. We are a temple that is dwelling in. We have been bought with a price, with the shed blood of Jesus, and so we should glorify God in what we do. Our actions, our thoughts, and our bodies should all be in unison to declare the glory of God to the world around us. So yes, things are lawful, but not all things are beneficial. Not all things bring glory to God. No one thing should take the place of the rule of God in my life.

What a blessing we have that the price of our sin was paid by the blood of Jesus. You can walk in newness of life, as a new creation, because of the sacrifice of Jesus. Today if you know Jesus as your savior, I would encourage you to take this to heart. That we should glorify God in our bodies. And if you have never known Christ as your savior, I would love to speak with you this morning.