Sermon Tone Analysis

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

March 17, 2002

 

*Intro:* Paul goes back for the 2nd time addressing sexual immorality.

A-  As we’ve discussed before sexual immorality was very prominent in the city of Corinth (A Greek port city in South Greece).

*1-   **And as Paul has brought up many problems in this epistle it seems that the city was having more influence on the church than the church on the city.*

a-   True of any church that is not moving forward, compromising, not applying God’s word to it’s life.

-         This is a church that has lost it’s desire for God, it’s passion for His people, and is not motivated.

·        In it’s backslidden state has become week.

·        My right arm after surgery

*B-  **In Paul’s address of sexual immorality in Chapter 5 he dealt with allowing it into the church and the lives of the people through the influence of a believer who was infected with it.*

1-   We see the 3X’s rule here.

a-   God bringing sexual immorality up in Chapter 5 (influence in fellowship) in Chapter 6 (existence in our personal lives) and the solution in Chapter 7.

-         He knew it would be a problem in the future,  He knew it would be a problem today.

Ø *I see 2 major reasons that God created sex.*

*#1- It is the ordained means that God uses for a man and woman *

*       to become one flesh.*

A-  There is the act itself, in that this is a gift that my wife and I share with no one else but each other.

1-   It is her and I completely open, vulnerable, expressing love .

*B-  **The becoming of one is not just in the act but it’s becoming emotionally one.*

1-   To have sex outside of marriage will cause emotional damage.

*Genesis 2:24*,  Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

*Hebrews 13:4*,  Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; (everything else) but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.

*#2- The 2nd reason that God created the sexual relationship is to *

*       have children.*

A-  If it wasn’t for the sexual relationship why would anyone have children.

*Psalm 127:3-5*,  Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, The fruit of the womb is a reward.

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth.

Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them;

Ø *This also explains why the sexual relationship has been perverted.*

*#1- If God uses it to make man and woman one then Satan can *

*      use our fleshly use of it to destroy whole households.*

A-  How many households have been torn apart by

1-   Adultery,  Pornography, Romance, decease??

*Proverbs 5:3-6*,  For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey,

And her mouth is smoother than oil; But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, Sharp as a two-edged sword.

Her feet go down to death,

Her steps lay hold of hell.

Lest you ponder her path of life—Her ways are unstable; You do not know them.

*#2- 2nd IF Satan can disrupt the child bearing part of the purpose*

*      for sex he can disrupt the future church (at least he seems to *

*      think that he can).*

*Turn to Genesis 3:15 & 20*

A-  In the chapters to follow; God’s plan seems to be working in that godly men (and women?) are being born.

*Revelation 12:12*, “Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them!

Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea!

For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.”

1-   He better do something (and he did)

*Turn to Genesis 6:1-5 *(explain) 

*Jude 6-7*,  And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day;7 as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

*2 Peter 2:4-6*,  For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment;5 and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly;6 and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly;

a-   A vulnerable point in man’s defense has and will always be the sexual relationship.

*1 Corinthians 6:12*,  All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful.

All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.

*A-  **Helpful = To our spiritual advantage.*

1-   Nobody preached the freedom from the bondage of sin more than Paul (Galatians)

*Romans 6:1-2*, What shall we say then?

Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?2

Certainly not!

How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

2-   God wants you to rejoice in the freedom we have in His grace.

a-   BUT, in doing so do you take advantage of this freedom.

(If I repent God HAS to forgive)

*Galatians 5:13*,  For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

3-   Look at King David (a man after God’s own heart)

a-   Yes God will forgive (if repentant) but there are always the consequences to live with.

1-   Disease,  Emotional damage,  Pregnancies,  destroyed families.

b-   The result of David’s adultery with Bathsheba was:

1-   The death of 2 people, and a dysfunctional family.

*Turn to Psalm 51*

*l- “I will not be brought under the power of any (thing)”*

*A-  **The risk of any sin (especially sexual) is to me mastered by it (become it’s slave).*

1-   This is what the world today calls addictions.

a-   The “I couldn’t help it excuse”

-         BUT; they looked,  they gazed,  they moved toward,  they tried it,  they indulged,  then they became a slave.

*Romans 6:5-6*,  For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

*Read verses 13-14*

A-  The Greeks reasoned that just as eating was a function of the body so was sex (today).

1-   Those who justify sex by what animals do.

a-   As a child of God your bodies were created by God, not for mindless functions but to be used by God,  for His glory,  to be preserved forever.

-         Next week we’ll see that even the sexual relationship is to be used as ministry.

*Ephesians 2:10*,  For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

*Read verses 15-18*

*A-  **These bodies that we posses is really to be an extension of Christ in all that we do.*

1-   My heart, soul, and mind

2-   My mouth,  My hands,  My feet

a-   To take this body and join it with a harlot is like using a scalpel to commit murder.

*Romans 12:1*, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

3-   To think about it to cleave to someone in an immoral relationship is really something that can’t be.

a-   True light can not have fellowship with darkness.

*C.S. Lewis: *Each time a man and a woman enter into a sexual relationship a spiritual bond is established between them which must be eternally enjoyed or eternally endured.

*1 Corinthians 6:18*,  Flee sexual immorality.

Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.

*Turn to Genesis 39:7-12*

*Read 1 Corinthians 5:11*

* *

*Read verses 19-20*

A-  If I could somehow manifest Christ to you in bodily form would you take Him:

1-   Drinking,  Entertainment,  Adultery

*a-   **That grace that was a free gift to you was not free to God.*

*1 Peter 1:18-19*,  knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

*Close in Numbers 25:1-9*