Sermon Tone Analysis

! 1 COR.

6:12-20

!

sexual Desires: What’s Our Body For?

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I.     Intro:

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II.

Sexual Sin Is Not Profitable

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III.

Sexual Sin Should Not Control

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IV.         Sexual Sin Is Not God’s Plan For Our Body

!!! 1.

The Body is for the Lord

!!! 2.   The Body is a Member of Christ

!!! 3.   The Body is a Temple of the Holy Spirit

!

V. invite:

 

!!! 1.

While grace has freed me from the law, I will not do anything except what builds me up to serve Jesus as my master.

!!! 2.   The body appears to have nothing to do with the spirit, and to be made for sexual use, but that is not its main purpose.

!!! 3.

He will raise not just our spirits, but our bodies.

!!! 4.   The body itself is meant for Christ, and is a part of Christ’s body

!!! 5.   Should I take the holy body of Christ and join it and thus Him to a prostitute?

Uhhh… NO!

!!! 6.

Even sex with a hooker makes the two one flesh.

A partial marriage is in mind here, as the quote Genesis 2:24 makes clear.

!!! 7.   The other half of marriage is leaving one family to form another in a way that is recognizable be the culture as marriage.

!!! 8.

This is why adultery is one of only two Biblical grounds for divorce.

The adulterous partner, is partially “married” to another.

The first spouse is under no obligation to be a bigamist and may choose to leave or allow the offending spouse to “divorce” the lover and recommit to the former partner.

!!! 9.   The other Biblical grounds for divorce is when an unbelieving spouse wants out of a marriage.

We will talk more about this in a couple of weeks.

!!! */10.

/**/WHAT DOES SIN AGAINST HIS OWN BODY MEAN?/*

!!! 11.

He also lives within our bodies making them a holy place.

That temple was purchased at the price of the blood of Jesus, God’s only Son, so…

!!! 12.

He OWNS it.

Therefore we must honor him in the use of our eternal bodies.

!!! 13.

The focus here is on the real “natural” use of the body, showing why it is not sex.

!!! 14.                     Newspaper article.

!!! 15.                     Fleeing from wild dogs.

!!! 16.                     Everybody’s doing it.

!!! 17.                      

 

*All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable.

All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.

Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food; but God will do away with both of them.

Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord; and the Lord is for the body.

Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power.

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?

Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot?

May it never be!

Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a harlot is one body with her?

For He says, “The two will become one flesh.”

But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.

Flee immorality.

Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.

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.

*(6:12–20)

Freedom in Christ was a truth Paul never tired of emphasizing.

We are not saved by works or kept saved by works.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast” (Eph.

2:8–9; Rom.

3:20).

“Now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter” (Rom.

7:6).

A Christian can commit no sin that can forfeit his salvation.

God is the highest court, and He has declared that believers are righteous.

There is no higher appeal.

The Corinthian church was using this as a theological excuse for sin.

They ignored the truth, “only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh” (Gal.

5:13.

When Paul spoke of Christian freedom it was always in relation to freedom from works righteousness

They may have had a philosophical argument for their sin as well, perhaps implied in 6:13, “Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food.”

Much Greek philosophy considered everything physical, including the body, to be basically evil and therefore of no value.

What was done with or to the body did not matter.

Sex was just a biological function to be used to satisfy their appetites.

The argument sounds remarkably modern.

In 6:12–20 Paul shows three of the evils of sexual sin: it is harmful to everyone involved; it gains control over those who indulge in it; and it perverts God’s purpose for the body.

Sexual Sin Harms

*All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable.

*(6:12a)

The statement, *All things are lawful* may have been a common Corinthian.

Every sin a Christian commits is forgiven in Jesus Christ.

But no sin is ever profitable.

*T*he price for doing some things is terribly high, terribly unprofitable.

Sin always brings loss.

Proverbs.

“The lips of an adulteress drip honey, and smoother than oil is her speech” (Prov.

5:3).

Sexual allurement is extremely enticing and powerful.

It promises nothing but pleasure and satisfaction.

But what it ends up giving “is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two–edged sword.

Her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of Sheol.

She does not ponder the path of life; her ways are unstable, she does not know it” (vv.

4–6).

The first characteristic of sexual sin is deceit.

It never delivers what it promises.

Illicit sexual relationships are always “unstable.” Nothing binds those involved except the temporary and impersonal gratification of physical impulses.

That is poor cement.

Those who consider all sex to be basically evil, however, are as far from the truth as those who consider all sex to be basically good and permissible.

God is not against sex.

He created and blessed it.

When used exclusively within marriage, as the Lord intends, sex is beautiful, satisfying, and stabilizing.

Scripture says, “rejoice in t~/wife of your youth.

… Be exhilarated always w~/her love” (Prov.

5:18–19).

The Bible’s advice for avoiding sexual involvement outside marriage is simple: stay as far away as possible from the persons and places likely to get you in trouble.

“Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house” This is not the time for argument or explanation but for flight.

Passion is not rational or sensible, and sexually dangerous situations should be avoided or fled, not debated.

Involvement in illicit sex leads to loss of health, loss of possessions, and loss of honor and respect.

Every person who continues in such sins does not necessarily suffer all of those losses, but those are the types of loss that persistent sexual sin produces.

The sex indulger will come to discover that he has lost his “years to the cruel one,” that his “hard–earned goods” have gone “to the house of an alien,” and that he will “groan” in his latter years and find his “flesh and [his] body are consumed” (Prov.

5:9–11).

The “stolen water” of sexual relations outside of marriage “is sweet; and bread eaten in secret is pleasant”; but “the dead are there” (Prov.

9:17–18).

Sexual sin is a “no win” situation.