844 1 Cor.6.12-20 Taking Gospel Freedom to the Extreme
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
- As I have spoken about before, Plato, the Greek philosopher, influenced the ancient Greek world to very great degree, but is still influencing the world even down to this day
- As I have spoken about before, Plato, the Greek philosopher, influenced the ancient Greek world to very great degree, but is still influencing the world even down to this day
Date: 03-10-19 844 Echuca
- As I have spoken about before, Plato, the Greek philosopher, influenced the ancient Greek world to very great degree, but is still influencing the world even down to this day
- Plato had a way of looking at life & that way influenced the church at Corinth
- I have spoken about how Plato divided spiritual life off from physical life
Image of the division
- The spiritual was the superior side of life & the life which enabled you to connect with the divine
- Life in the body was in contrast with this – poor, bad, inferior & of no consequence in connection with the divine
- Plato’s dualism put the spiritual above the physical in a disconnected way
----------------
- Essentially, Plato believed that our body is a prison for the soul/spirit
- The ultimate freedom was at death when the “pure”, “undefiled” spirit could depart the wrecked clutches of the body/of matter & be free
- Plato thought that, in the mind, you can have a perfect circle envisaged, but if you try to draw a circle, it could never be drawn as perfectly as what was conceived of in the mind
-------------------
- So what was conceived in the mind was of a higher order than what happened in real life
- Likewise, all the spiritual things were above the physical – they were superior & the physical was inferior
Q. Now I want you to imagine the impact this thinking would have on a Christian church?
Q. What kind of living would you see happening from people who believed this stuff?
-----------------
- For starters, people would believe that what you did in the body was of no consequence to your relationship with God
- After all, what you do in the body has no consequence to my spiritual relationship with God
- We could also raise the issue of worship
Q. What is worship & what does it entail?
Q. Is worship merely a “spiritual matter” - really? Where you get caught up in the divine?
- Or, is presenting your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God...that of which becomes.… your reasonable service of worship
--------------------
- Paul says that what you do in the body is totally relevant to your relationship with God
- The spiritual & the physical connect as we see in v.17... he who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him
- And v.13 “our bodies are members of Christ”!
-----------------------
- Therefore to venture off to prostitutes means becoming one with her in immorality
- The Corinthians position is toxic. The Gospel cannot mean that all things are now lawful for me
----------------
- There are 3 points that I’d like to draw out of this passage today:
- The 1st, that the Corinthians had a muddled view of what Christian freedom meant
- The 2nd, is that your body – your whole being – is actually on loan – in other words, you do not own it
- The 3rd, is that you’ve actually become an extension of Christ’s body
1. The Freedom to...
1. The Freedom to...
Q. v.12 “All things are lawful for me” - Who’s really saying this? You might think it’s the apostle, but no, it’s not
- He is bringing up one of their slogans, their sayings
- Some present day Christians can think this way too
- “The Gospel is a Gospel of freedom – I’m free from the law of God”
- I’m free to live how I like – all things are lawful for me!
- Well Paul actually agrees with this, doesn’t he?
1 It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.
—1 It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.
- What Paul is saying here is that Christians are not under the letter of the law – the Old Covenant that God made with the people of Israel
- What Paul is saying here is that Christians are not under the letter of the law – the Covenant that God made with the people of Israel
- Christ nailed the law to the tree of His cross & it does not cast it shadow of condemnation over God’s people anymore
- Because when it was in force, the law could only condemn & it could give no help to anyone who wanted to keep it
- “Wretched man that I am” say’s Paul, echoing all those who were bound to the OC of law, “who will set me free from the body of this death”
----------------------
- Of course, it is Christ - “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” ().
- In His death on the cross, Christ disarmed all those who would accuse God’s people of breaking God’s law by removing the law’s jurisdiction over God’s people – you can’t accuse when the law is not ruling
---------------------------
- Now having said that, it doesn’t stand that the law is bad, or that it is unimportant
- Just because it is not your ruler, having jurisdiction over you, it doesn’t mean we set it aside
---------------------
- In fact, you could argue to the contrary that, at last, God will have a people who will live out the intent of His law, the intent of His will
- Because I don’t have the law over me that says, “you shall not commit murder”, it doesn’t mean that I can now go out & kill someone
- It means that now, I care not for having to keep a letter of the law, but I care for the reality behind the command, which is “you shall love your neighbour as yourself”
- Furthermore, in coming to die for our sins & in sending the presence of God into our lives (HS), God has given us a will & the power to live out the intent of His law
-----------------
- Some things in the OT law are just for Israel – the Israel prior to Christ – like dietary regulations & those things that contributed to showing them as a distinct people that made them physically different from the world
- Like circumcision, curly edges of their beards down the side of their faces
- Trust me, you can tell when you come across Jewish people who want to dress the way the law specifies
---------------------
- Obviously, in reflecting the intent of the law, we are not living out those portions of the law, literally
- They may well teach us that God wants a people who are distinct from the world, but he doesn’t want us to emulate this dress code or of circumcision – that was to be distinctly for the Jew under the OC
- Yet, those laws that deal with relating to loving God with all our heart & our fellow man are certainly directly instructive to us
-------------------
- So whilst we are free from the Law’s tyrannical jurisdiction over God’s people, we are not free to live as we please
—12 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.
12 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.
- Now the words, “all things are lawful for me” - they’re not his words
- He is quoting back to them their words – it seems like these words have become somewhat a proverb in the Corinthian church
- The Corinthians were claiming that all things are lawful for them, including going to prostitutes
---------------------
- Oh dear, how careful must we be in baptising the thoughts of our secular world into the life of the church
- No wonder this church was proud over the man who was cohabiting in a relationship with his stepmother – proud about it!
------------------
- Gospel freedom – freedom from the letter of the law, that is, being under the law of the OC, never meant freedom to do as you please
- Gospel freedom really means, freedom to serve & honour God who has disarmed the power of sin & law
- Why? Because Jesus has taken care of our sin problem , our guilty conscience & cleansed us, so that we may be free to love & serve Him without the fear of condemnation
- In Jesus, we come face to face with a Creator that loves us above all
- A God whose whole plan & mission is to bring deliverance/salvation to the whole of creation, but especially, to those who believe in Christ
- A God who blesses us with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus
- Who lavishes on us His holy Spirit & it is His Spirit which gives us the strength, the love, the motivation, to live out the intention of His law
---------------------
- The Corinthians had, no doubt, taken issue with the apostle over these matters
- They looked at life’s issues via secular eyes
- What’s wrong with it? Who is it going to harm, they would say?
- Like the defenders of abortion who say that it is only the mothers choice that matters
- But these secular underpinnings harm society in general & you find that behaviour will follow that mindset
------------------
- Not all things are profitable, even if the law in not our ruler
- And why allow yourself to be mastered by sin which, by the way, is still in the world even though the law is not our ruler
2. Owned by Another
2. Owned by Another
- Secular thinking would have us believe that we are the rulers of our bodies & of our own destiny
- As I have already mentioned – these wicked promoters of abortion, claim that the mother has the right over her own body & can, therefore, have her child killed (not politically correct language is it, even though, it is more accurate)
----------------
- This thinking is not Christian, it is not Christ’s thinking
- The apostle does not regard our physical body as a prison from which to be rescued, but as a temple indwelt by God Himself
- It is so important to have biblical thinking
- Wrong ideas can be toxic & cast long shadows over many people’s lives
- God is the owner of all creation, but many choose to ignore this truth
------------------------
- The West’s postmodern thinking is corrosive & destructive & we need to understand it, so we are not carried away in it
- Having a sizable time off in the US helped me to think through this & to see what is happening not only in our country, but in theirs
- The postmodern position is that everything is relative
- There are no absolutes – Israel Folau found that out when he posted a paraphrase of a Bible verse on his Instagram account
- All hell broke loose because he dared to say that some lifestyle choices are wrong & against God’s will & that if you don’t repent, you’ll go to hell
-----------------
- Why any of this mattered to people who don’t believe in hell nor God is beyond me, but what he dared to do was to lay down some absolutes
- In thinking there are no absolutes, these people have relativised absolutes & thus absolutised the relative
- Strangely, & what seems unbeknown to them, they have formed an absolute
- Their absolute is the claim that nothing is absolute – “is that your position we could ask” – “absolutely, they would say” - they are crazy!
-----------------------
- The apostle says that we are not the owner of our body
- We’d like to think that, but we are merely leasing it, or borrowing it
- He writes that our body is for the Lord, because the Lord owns it
—20 For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.
20 For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.
- Your body has been purchased by the precious blood of Jesus when He died for you and me, on the cross
- So we need to consider that we actually belong to God – as Paul says using the slavery analogy in Romans – you have a master/an owner – you are not at liberty to do anything you like
- But you have the great freedom & privilege, however, to do anything & everything your Lord & Saviour would allow you to do
3. There Should Only Be One Union
3. There Should Only Be One Union
- I love the consistent thinking of the apostle
- He richly brings out the wonderful truth that the church is the bride of Christ, united with Him through faith & the Spirit of God
- There is a wonderful union that exists between Christ & the church
- He brings this out in :
28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; 29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, 30 because we are members of His body. 31 For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. 32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.
—28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; 29 for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, 30 because we are members of His body. 31 FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. 32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.
- The two becoming one flesh comes from Genesis after God brought Eve to Adam – finally, one who corresponds to Adam in kind
- Adam’s rib, used to fashion into a woman, was a clear indication that this creation of God has her source in the man & not the earth, whereas Adam had his source in the earth
- It’s a beautiful picture of the plan of God for a UNITY of person that transcends the entities themselves
------------------
- Christ created the church & she has become His bride - & she finds her source of life in Him
- We, as the church, are united to Him in such a profound way that it reaches from body to soul
- As such, Paul says in v.13 that the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord & the Lord is for the body
---------
- So for a man to unite himself with a prostitute, in effect, is creating a new union with someone else
- There can only be one union & anymore than one can destroy the other
- This is why Paul says that immorality means sinning against yourself, because you are in union with Christ & what you do with Christ in your relationship with Him, you do to yourself
- It is sin against union with Christ
- Union with another, threatens union with Christ
-------------------
- When an illicit union happens, the other one in the first union is brought to touch on the new union
- So uniting oneself with a prostitute, unites Christ, who you are in union with, with the prostitute – uniting Christ with a prostitute
--------------------
- The church is united to Christ & we, as brothers & sisters in Christ, are also united together in Christ
“so we, who are many, are one body in Christ”
5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.
- Of course, the secular man or woman would scoff at such things
- As we think about this, let’s reflect on Plato’s dualistic model which has engulfed, not only the Corinthian time, but right down even to our day
IMAGE
- Plato split the spiritual off from the things of physical existence
- Let’s refer to it as the upper story & the lower story
--------------------
- In the upper story, you find the spiritual things, like God, prayer, worship – things that involve the eternal
- In the lower story, you find the likes of nature, science, logic, politics, the things of the natural realm
- Our secular society operates strictly in the lower story & Plato & Aristotle are largely to blame for this
---------------------
- Let me suggest to you how the secular person would justify, what we would consider, aberrant sexual relationships
- I think you would get no better response, than from the Corinthians themselves - follow me here...
13 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.
—13 Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food,
Q. Can you see how secular this argument is & how it is justified from the lower storey type thinking?
- Of course, again, the apostle is quoting what the Corinthians say
- The Corinthians swallowed the pill that divides the secular off from the sacred & are thinking that the only thing that matters in their relationship with God is the spiritual – the upper story - so the body didn’t matter
- What you have then, is them justifying the bad behaviour in the body with a secular argument – it goes like this...
--------------------
- Food is made to be consumed by the stomach & the stomach is made to consume food – it’s only natural, right?
- What they really mean is this & I’ll try not to be too explicit in this…
- The male genitalia is made for the woman’s genitalia & the woman’s genitalia is made for the male genitalia – so it’s only natural, right? What are you talking about Paul, it’s only natural
-------------------
- Wrong, says Paul – God will destroy them both!
- Here, the upper storey (IMAGE) is what dictates the truth
--------------------
- In 1993, a couple were refused a wedding in a Presbyterian church in Qld because they refused to honour God & cease cohabiting until they were married
- The minister maintained that if he was to marry them before God, then they needed to respect God & not cohabit before their wedding
- In a letter to the Editor, this gentleman from Broadbeach Waters on the Gold Coast wrote…
“I refer to last week’s Sunday Mail report about the young couple refused marriage in Church because they were having a sexual relationship. When will religions and churches realise and accept the fact and the truth that sex is a fundamental function of the human body, and is as natural as eating and breathing. God, who created the human body, gave us our sexual organs to use them all our life, therefore, sex is not a sin, and you don’t have to be married to enjoy sex. People who think sex is a sin must still live in the Dark Ages.”
B Walters, Old Burleigh Road, Broad beach Waters.
- This is lower story thinking & a fallen world will naturally be inclined to think this way – but as Christians, we must not
- As Christians, we think according to the new age in which God has placed us
- Don’t try to argue with them based on the lower story because you can never win against that ridiculous logic
--------------
- Paul doesn’t – his answer – the RESURRECTION
- God will destroy everything in the fallen world & all that will be left is the new creation – the new heavens & earth
- You can only get to that if you think upper story
- A resurrected body is our destiny as Jesus’ people & He has proven that our resurrection is coming through His own resurrection – He is the first fruits says Paul
- Paul argues from the upper & lower story in that God will raise us – our whole self – from the dead into a new order of existence. A new but real, tangible body
---------------------
- So if our bodies are going to be raised immortal, then not only the upper story becomes important, but the lower as well
- God rules over all – upper & lower
- Sexual immorality has far reaching consequences, many of which, are not, at first, obvious.
- Absolute freedom, for the apostle Paul, becomes a form of bondage & he will not be mastered by sin
----------------
- 3 times the apostle uses the term “do you not know” - well actually, they think they do, but it looks like he’s saying that they don’t really know
- That is the problem with arrogance & this is an arrogant church – where a good dose of humility tends to be the only hope to learn some things of value
Final Thought - as we enter into a time of communion
Final Thought - as we enter into a time of communion
- There is nothing more frustrating, than a tool or instrument that was borrowed by someone, being returned filthy, dirty or damaged.
- When you look after your possessions, and keep them clean and workable, you despair when someone returns it in a bad condition
- Our bodies belong to God & as such, we should consider them on loan
- God wants us to remain clean and workable and to honour Him in all areas of life