"What To Do With Your Body."

I CORINTHIANS 6:12-20

I. The Elevation Of The Body

A. The Limits Of The Elevation Of The Body

B. The Logic Of The Elevation Of The Body

II. The Desecration Of The Body

III. The Consecration Of The Body

A. By God The Father In Resurrection

B. By God The Son In Redemption

C. By God The Holy Spirit In Residence

Every aspect of your life is touched upon by the salvation experience. Now when we think about salvation as it relates to the body I am aware of the fact that there is a great deal of misunderstanding and really failure to know that this is indeed true. A lot of people think they're saved, that means their soul is going to heaven when they die, and it really doesn't matter how they live and what they do with their body.

Now there's a little background that Paul is dealing with here in the verses we're going to study tonight. In Greek society, to whom Paul was writing in Corinth, the Greeks looked upon the body as a worthless thing. They believed that the soul had value but they placed no value whatsoever upon the human body. So because the Greeks looked upon the body as of little worth there were two extremes to which Greek culture would go. Some would go to the extreme of estheticism and they would deny the body, and they would afflict the body, and they would starve the body. There were others who would go to the extreme of license; they would say because the body was of no value and because it was insignificant that it really didn't matter what you did in the body, that that wasn't really you, that your soul is what counted and therefore what you did with your body was really inconsequential. Now because of this then sexual immorality was rationalized and excused. They did not look upon sexual immorality as a sin at all, it was something that was engaged in with the body, it was something that had to do with the physical nature of man and therefore had no moral import at all.

Now evidently Paul is dealing with Corinthian believers who have been saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and yet they are still caught up in the Greek philosophy concerning the human body, they have bought the culture of their times, they have bought the philosophy of the time, and therefore, though they know Christ as their Savior, they minimize the importance of their body and they rationalize sexual sin. I believe we are in the same atmosphere in the 20th Century. I believe that there are many people who have received Jesus as their personal Savior but they do not understand that the salvation experience touches upon the use of the human body. Now we're living in a day when the human body is quite much in the news. We see the misuse of the human body on every hand. On television the human body is indecently displayed, pornography has become a billion-dollar business misusing the human body, all around us we are in a society where the human body is looked upon merely as something that has a physical dimension and there is no understanding whatsoever of the spiritual importance of the human body. So what I want us to do tonight is to just see how the salvation experience touches upon what you do with your body.

I'm not going to ask you to turn but I want to just read for you a couple of verses of scripture that will put our minds in the direction I want to go tonight. The apostle Paul, in the book of Romans, writes about the purpose of the human body and its salvation experience and here is what he says in Romans chapter 6, verses 12 and 13; he says...

12. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

Now listen to this...

13. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.

Now in that passage of scripture he's just simply saying that before a person is saved the members of his human body are instruments of sin; now that a person is saved then the members of the human body are to be instruments of righteousness serving God. I think this is what Paul meant in Philippians chapter 1, verse 20, where Paul says that Christ might be magnified in my body, whether by life, or by death. You see, I am to use my body as an instrument, I am to use my body as a vehicle to bring glory and honor and praise and adoration to the Lord Jesus Christ.

I'm going to deal tonight with the human body as it relates to the salvation experience and I will touch on some very delicate areas in the matter of sex. There are some in the service tonight who may snicker, there are others who may be a little bit embarrassed, I'm going to try to handle the subject very delicately. I don't know about you but personally there's just been a little too much said about sex in our society anyhow. I think we're almost becoming satiated with the subject in our society and I do not believe that the pulpit is the place to sensationalize the subject, but when we come to the teachings of the scripture it's my responsibility to share with you, from the scriptures, what God has to say about sex and about the human body as it relates to the salvation experience. I have several things I want to lay on your heart tonight.

First of all I want to talk a little bit about the elevation of the body, because what Paul does in these verses is elevate the human body and show us the wonder and the splendor and the glory of the human body. You see, Jesus suffered for our sins in His body, at salvation our body is joined to the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, the moment you're saved the Bible says that your body becomes a member of Christ, you are joined to the Lord Jesus Christ. What a glorious elevation is this of our body. These bodies of ours are elevated from dust to deity, we are now identified with the Lord Jesus Christ. But now we must of course understand the limitations of this elevation. Look at verse 12. In verse 12 it begins by saying all things are lawful unto me. I think if you'll take that statement right there and put it in quotations you'll understand it a little better.

Evidently what is taking place is this: Paul had made this statement when he was preaching there and when he was teaching the people. He had probably taught them about their liberty in Jesus; the fact that in Christ they had a brand new liberty. So evidently he had made the statement all things are lawful unto me but, as sometimes people do, they had misused that statement of Paul, they had taken that statement and they had abused it, they had gone to lengths to which Paul was not intending for it to go. So he quotes himself and then he gives an answer. All things are lawful unto me, yes, he says, but all things are not expedient. That is, all things are not profitable, all things are not helpful. You see, there are limits to our liberty in Jesus. The liberty you and I have in Christ is not license to disobey the will of God, there are limits upon our liberty. I am free in Christ not to do what I want but to do what Jesus wants. I am free in Christ not to do as I want but to do as I ought. So that's why Paul says in the book of Galatians use not your liberty as an occasion to the flesh. All things are lawful, he says, but all things are not profitable unto me.

And then the second time in verse 12, all things are lawful unto me, yet he says, but I will not be brought under the power of any. And what he's simply saying there is I must never allow the liberty I have in Christ to cause me to be a slave to any physical, bodily appetite. In other words I must not allow any habit to have dominion over my life. You see, as a believer now I have freedom in Christ but I am not to allow that freedom to cause me to be shackled by some habit. You see, that's the danger of things in your life that can get a hold of you. Sometimes people get addicted to tobacco and that becomes a slave in their life. I don't think a person will go to hell for using tobacco, I don't believe it'll send a person to hell, it'll just make you smell like you've been there. But, you see, you ought not have any habit that takes control of your life. So what he's saying is there are limits to this elevation of the body. I will not be brought under the power of any. So a believer needs to conduct a constant investigation of his life to see if there is anything that is getting a hold in him and getting habit-forming in his experience. The limits of our liberty, the limits of this elevation.

But then I want you to notice the logic of the elevation of the body. And I believe in verse 13 if you'll put that first statement in quotes you'll get it clearer too. Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats. I think if you'll put that in quotes you will have one of the arguments that was being used in that day to excuse sexual immorality. Meats for the belly, the belly for meats. Let's put it in our terms today: food for the stomach, the stomach for the food. I believe Paul is just simply repeating one of the arguments that was used in that day to justify sexual immorality. The argument went like this, here's the way they would argue: they would say didn't God make food? And the answer is yes. Well, didn't God make the stomach with a desire to eat? And the answer is yes. Therefore if God made food and if God made the desire to eat it is only natural to satisfy that desire to eat. But, you see, they didn't stop there, they also then went into the area of sex and they would say, did not God make sex? And the answer is yes. Well did God not give man the desire for sex? And the answer is yes. Therefore, they would say, it is only natural for a person to fulfill the desire for sex.

Now, friend, that is about as current and up-to-date as anything you will find in the Bible. That's just like you had visited the average college campus today. That is the same argument that is used today on the college campus to justify sexual immorality. It's the same argument that the young lady uses to justify living with her boyfriend. It is as current and as up-to-date as the 1990s. But, you see, ladies and gentlemen, just because God has given a desire that does not mean we are free to satisfy those desires in abnormal, sub-Christian manners. It is normal for dogs and cats to have sex but that is not the level that God intends His children to live on. You do not have to live in the barnyard of life. You do not have to go down to that level. You see, the Bible teaches that God has elevated man's body and that therefore now man's body has a spiritual

relationship as well as a physical relationship.

I remember several years ago, back during the hippie days, and by the way, it was during this period of years that the sexual morality of America changed. I saw it changing. I saw the whole sexual morality of America change during these years of my ministry. I saw us move from an older, more Puritan ethic to the ethic by which people live their lives today and it all came about during the hippie era. It came through the rock and roll music and, by the way, you can listen to the rock and roll music today, read the lyrics of it, and one of the dominant themes is still sexual immorality. And I mean, friends, it is sex in the gutter, I mean it is sex down on the raunchy level of the barnyard animals. But during that period time I was asked to visit in the psychiatric wing with a young man, he was just a young fellow, probably 15 or 16, and he had actually gone off balance mentally in the sexual area, he had flipped out sexually. And I will never forget as I went into his room to talk with him and talk to him about the Lord Jesus and about knowing Christ as his Savior, at the request of the psychiatrist by the way, when I walked in the room he had paper and he was drawing and he was drawing various parts of the physical anatomy, sexual parts of the physical anatomy. He was absolutely, absolutely gone off his rocker in the area of sex.

So when I began to talk to the young boy he made the same argument that Paul is dealing with in these verses of scripture, he was just simply saying it's just something physical, there's nothing wrong with it, God made me this way, I'm not to be blamed for being this way, it's just the normal, natural way for a person to live. And I will never forget the Holy Spirit gave me this truth right here while I was sitting in that hospital room. Because, you see, in verse 13, the latter part of the verse, it says, Now the body is not for fornication. In other words you are not to fulfill normal sexual desires by sexual immorality, but the body is for the Lord and the Lord for the body. Now you see what that does? That establishes a spiritual relationship between your body and the Lord. You see, meat and the stomach have a horizontal relationship, it is a physical matter. But, you see, the body also, now that you're saved, has a perpendicular relationship. And I said to that young man, I said, "Son, there's more to sex than the physical, there is more to sex than just the satisfaction of the sexual desire. There is a spiritual aspect to it and a person's body belongs to the Lord." And, you see, that's why sex can be so unfulfilling and so damaging and so destructive in a person's life; if they leave out the spiritual and if they do not put it where God has intended it to be, within the sanctity and the purity and the safety of marriage, then you lose the real purpose of sex altogether. You see, friend, if you'll go God's way and if you'll obey the rules of God and will put sex where God has put it, within the circle of marriage, it is beautiful and it is holy and it is good. But when you leave out that spiritual dimension then all you have there is a physical relationship. So Paul begins by the elevation of the body and he shows you and I that our body belongs to the Lord. You see, my body belongs to Jesus now. You're saved? Your body belongs to Jesus now. The elevation of the body.

But then secondly I want you to think with me as we work down through these verses about the desecration of the body, and I want to tell you in language that is absolutely astounding Paul discusses the devastation of the human body by sexual immorality. Now he's simply saying here that when a believer partakes in sexual immorality that a believer desecrates his body and in so doing he has a desecrating effect upon Christ and he has a devastating effect upon himself. Now look at what he says in verse 15, he says, Don't you know that your bodies are members of Christ? You see, I've already said that, our bodies belong to the Lord Jesus. So then he says, Well are you going to take the members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot? You see, when a Christian commits sexual immorality he is desecrating the Lord Jesus Christ himself, he is dragging the Lord Jesus Christ down to that level. So it does something to the Lord Jesus Christ, it desecrates the precious, pure Son of God.

But then notice what it says it does to the individual believer. He says, What? don't you know that he which is joined to a harlot (verse 16) is one body? and two, says he, shall be one flesh. You see, that is not only true in the marriage relationship that is also true in sexual immoral relationships. In other words, when a person commits sexual immorality with another person there is a oneness that is created there. Here is a believer and he goes to a prostitute and he has sex with that prostitute, they have become one, they have become physically one, and though he may never see that prostitute again there is something about him that is tied to that prostitute and something about that prostitute that is tied to him. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to tell you that is a serious, serious thing to consider. It is no small matter when a believer desecrates himself and desecrates the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now I want you to think with me carefully. He that is joined to a harlot is one body; two, saith he, shall be one flesh. There is only one way that that taint can be removed, there is only one way that that can be absolved, and that is by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now notice what he says. He says down in verse 18 every sin that a man does is without the body, but he who commits fornication sins against his own body. Now what he's saying there is is that other sins affect a portion of a person's life but not the total life. For instance, alcohol affects certain parts of the body; alcohol affects the liver. I mean you just keep drinking that old rotgut and you'll get a pickled liver down the road. And it affects the brain. You know, I applaud Lewis Sullivan who has come out so strongly against tobacco, I applaud that, I'm glad he has, and I'm longing to see the day when there will not only be no smoking on airplanes but no smoking in airports. I nearly choke to death trying to get on the plane for all of the smoke. And I don't want to be unkind to people who are addicted to tobacco, I know it's a problem for them but, you see, I'm going to get the effects of it from them. And research has proven that the smoke you get from another person, inhaling their smoke, is more damaging to you than it is to them, so I've got a health investment involved in this thing, brother, I'm concerned about it. So I applaud Mr. Sullivan for what he's had to say about tobacco.

But I would to God, and hopefully he will say something about alcohol. The number one drug in America tonight, ladies and gentlemen, is not cocaine, it is not marijuana, the number one drug in America tonight is alcohol. And, you know, I get a little ill with some of these do-gooders in the city of Jacksonville who are all the time so hepped up about the drug business and then they're sitting around guzzling their cocktails. Those big phonies. Those big hypocrites. How dare they tell our kids to say no to drugs and then they're sitting around drinking their highballs and their cocktails. Oh, you see, alcohol affects the liver and alcohol affects the brain. And then, of course, tobacco affects the lungs and overeating affects the body, it affects your stomach, it affects your blood pressure. Pray for me. I need to lose six pounds. I'm about to get under conviction in my own sermon here tonight. So overeating, that affects one part of the body. But Paul says that sexual immorality is so desecrating that it affects the entire body, it affects every area of your life.

You see, sexual immorality has a devastating impact upon a person physically. Venereal disease, epidemic: syphilis, gonorrhea, epidemic; herpes, epidemic; it takes its physical toll on the human body. When God says, "Thou shalt not", God means what He says. Emotionally; it has a devastating effect upon a person emotionally. You see, friends, just standing in front of a preacher somewhere and saying, "I do", is not going to undo what took place ten years ago. And, friends, if you have been sexually immoral before your marriage the guilt of that and the stain of that is going to come right into that marriage and if you don't claim the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ and get forgiveness in your life it will have a devastating impact upon your marriage. It has something to do with you emotionally. It has something to do with you spiritually. It has a devastating effect upon a believer's relationship to God. A man just cannot walk with God and have sexual immorality in his life. So that's why he says he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.

Now here is God's word about sexual immorality, here's God's command, it is verse 18, two simple words, young people, God says, "Flee fornication." God says run. What that means is get yourself out of any atmosphere where you would be tempted to be sexually immoral. That just simply means there's some places you probably ought not to go. There are some social events to which probably a born-again, Jesus-loving young person ought not to go. You say, Oh but, Preacher, everybody is going. Well that doesn't mean you ought to go. You don't be a slave just because everybody is doing it do you? I remember when I was a senior in high school and they were having the junior-senior dance and I had just given my life to the Lord. I was saved at nine but I had recommitted my life to the Lord and had surrendered to preach the gospel. So it came the night of the junior-senior, we had a banquet and then we had the junior-senior, and I remember I went to the banquet and then I left because I just didn't think as a believer I ought to be there. Now that was just my feeling about it, that's what the Lord said to me, it just looked inconsistent to me to go over there and be in an atmosphere where the music was going to be sexually immoral, going to glorify drugs, and going to glorify alcohol, and everybody was going to be their drunk; I just couldn't justify me as a believer being there. And, brother, I'll tell you, I just walked out.

Boy, I want you to know I got in my car and the devil got in that car with me. And I rode up to our little old county seat square. Where I came from every little old county seat town had a square and you'd ride around that thing at night. We used to have a great time by the way going around the wrong way and the cops taking off after us. And also they had a Confederate monument up there and on the four corners of the Confederate monument it had big old marble balls. You know, those things disappeared one night and they've always wondered in my little town what became of those. They might check the bottom of the Chattahoochee River. I don't know for sure but I've heard rumors. But anyhow... Man, I'm in trouble here. Don't send this tape out. Let's don't let this tape back in Georgia. I could wind up in jail for some of this. But the devil got in the car with me that night and I rode up on that little square and there was not a soul in that square because all the kids were at the dance. And the devil said to me, "Uh-huh, you've gone too far with this thing, you've gone overboard. You've gone too far, you're taking this thing too far, now look at you. You're up here by yourself tonight and there's nobody else here, you don't have a friend left." That's what the devil told me. But you know what? The Lord Jesus was in that car with me that night and you know what Jesus told me? Jesus said, "Well I'll tell you what, Jerry, I'll be your friend." And I said, "Jesus, if you'll be my friend I'd rather you be my friend than anybody in this world be my friend." But, you see, I found out the devil was lying, I didn't lose friends. I was just getting ready to meet friends. I was just getting ready to find out that when you live for Jesus you get real friends. I mean real friends who won't try to get you to take a drink of liquor, real friends who won't try to get you to shoot up drugs, real friends who won't try to get you to be immoral and lose your purity before marriage. Oh, listen, friends, you'll never go wrong when you do it God's way. Flee fornication.

You remember the Old Testament story about Joseph? Now by the way, Joseph's mama was a beautiful, beautiful woman and evidently Joseph had inherited her attractiveness, because the Bible says he was a good-looking young man. That's what the girls would call a hunk. I mean Joseph was a hunk. And you remember, don't you? he was sold down there into slavery and he was living in Potiphar's house, and Egyptian women were famous for their immorality. So the Bible says she cast here eyes on old Joseph; you could almost see it coming couldn't you? I mean just the way she looked at him, and just the silly little things she'd say to him, and how she would just always kind of appear where Joseph was. And one day in the heat of passion, like a dog in heat, Potiphar's wife comes to the young man Joseph and says, Sleep with me. And I can almost imagine the devil got in the car with Joseph that day and the devil began to whisper in the ear of Joseph and say, Joseph, you're a long way from home, nobody will ever know; you're way off down here in Egypt, God's mistreated you, look at you, look what God has let happen to you; go ahead, Joseph; everybody is doing it, it's the thing to do; why after all, Joseph, it's only natural. Young people, the devil will tell you the same kind of stuff, same kind of stuff. And then the Bible says that Joseph, she reached out and she grabbed his garment, and Joseph ran and he left his coat with her. Listen, young people, it would be better to lose your coat than it would to lose your character. See? See, one of these days you're going to get married and hopefully you're going to have children, and one of these days you're going to hold in your hands your own flesh and blood, and I'm going to tell you what, it's a wonderful thing to be able to look at your own flesh and blood, the result of a pure, holy union between yourself and your mate, and look at that precious little part of you and say, Oh, little fellow, oh, little girl, I want you to know I kept myself clean just for you. Flee fornication. Run from sexual temptation.

The elevation of the body, the desecration of the body, and now I want us to think for a few moments about the consecration of the body, because in these verses you will discover that God himself has consecrated the body of the believer. Every person of the Trinity has contributed to the consecration of the body of the believer. For instance, in verse 14 we see that our bodies are consecrated by God the Father in resurrection. Verse 14: And God hath both raised up the Lord and will also raise up us by His own power. One of these days God the Father is going to raise these bodies of ours. Friends, you're going to have a body like the Lord Jesus Christ. These bodies are so important, these bodies are so valuable that God has said they'll be changed in the twinkling of an eye, in a moment, and your body is one of these days going to be a glorified body like the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, friend, with such a marvelous destiny how can we take our bodies then and desecrate them the way we do. It is consecrated by God the Father in resurrection.

Number two, it is consecrated by God the Son in redemption. Look at the last part of verse 19: You are not your own; look at verse 20, You are bought with a price. You see, friends, when Jesus went to the cross Jesus paid the purchase price for you and you are redeemed. You say, Well, Preacher, I know my soul is redeemed, I didn't know my body was redeemed. Yes. The Bible says that these bodies are going to experience redemption one of these days. Christ has paid the price with His own blood to consecrate your body, so anything that Jesus paid His blood for I must never ever allow to be put on the bargain counter of life and let it become soiled and greatly reduced in value. My body has been purchased by the Lord Jesus, it's very important.

But then, number three, these bodies of ours have been consecrated by God the Holy Spirit in residence. Look at verse 19: What? know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you. On the wall of the Library of Congress there is this word, it says there is only one temple in the universe and that is the body of man, and when you become a Christian the Bible says that the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in you. God the Holy Spirit takes up residence in you and your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. What would you think if next Sunday morning when you came in to the morning service if you came in here and just found this building here just covered up with trash? I mean how would you feel just coming in and just all of the trash of Jacksonville had been dumped into this building right here? You'd be horrified, you'd be incensed, you'd be hostile, because someone dared to desecrate this holy building of God. But, you see, friend, this is not really the temple of God right here, this is just a building where believers who are members of First Baptist Church of Jacksonville gather together to study the Bible and pray and fellowship and see people come to know Jesus.

The temple of God is your body, the Holy Spirit is living in your body. Well why do we want to turn these temples of the Holy Spirit into trash heaps? Why do we want to abuse these bodies? Why do we want to put things in these bodies that bring discredit on the Lord? Why do we want to immodestly display these bodies? Why do we want to abuse these bodies? You say, Well, Preacher, it really doesn't matter, I'm going to be saved, I'm going to go to heaven when I die and when I die it won't matter what I've done with my body, I'll just go right on in to glory. You think so, huh? Let me read you a verse of scripture. In II Corinthians it says in chapter 5, verse 10, For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad. You're going to go by the judgment seat one of these days and the Bible says you're going to give an account of the things done in your body.

Here is Paul's conclusion, and here is my conclusion, tonight, the middle of verse 20: therefore, because of the elevation of the body, because of the danger of the desecration of the body, because of the consecration of the body, therefore here's what to do with your body: glorify God in your body. Young people, I want to tell you that will solve a thousand questions for you right there, it'll solve a thousand questions. You get ready to decide whether or not the latest style is for you, ask yourself the question, Will this style help me glorify God in my body? The next time someone wants to suggest to you that you try something, ask yourself the question, Will this glorify God in my body? You see, what you see with your eyes, what you hear with your ears, what you say with your lips, all of your life your total body should be singing, "Glory to God, Glory to God, Glory to God." And, you see, when Christians live that way, when Christians glorify God in their body it causes other people to take notice and the chances are there will be some folks who will follow your body into this building to see what it is that causes you to live the way you live and to see what makes you a different person. So here's God's word for you tonight, Romans 12:1, I beseech you therefore, brothers and sisters, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice holy, acceptable unto God. And that's what you do with your body.