Sermon Tone Analysis

- 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

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- 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

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- 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?

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- 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

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- 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”!

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- 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

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- 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...

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.

- 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”

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- 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

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- 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

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- 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

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- 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

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- 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

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- 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.

- 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

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- 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!

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- 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

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- 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

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- 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

- 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)

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- 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

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- 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