Glorify God in Your Body

1 Corinthians 6:20

“For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

The message that we are called to proclaim is the Gospel, which means good news. The gospel is good news because it is all about the hope that we have in Jesus Christ. Jesus has come to give us hope. Before moving on in First Corinthians we will pause and direct our attention to the hopeful opportunity and invitation expressed in five simple words found in verse 20. “Glorify God in your body . . .” This verse proclaims that there is available to all of us a tremendous opportunity, an opportunity to glorify God in our bodies. This verse not only makes us aware of the opportunity but invites us, or rather urges us to respond to this opportunity.

I spoke recently with a woman who had made some bad choices in her life and was now filled with regret for the things she had done with her body and the pain she has caused herself and others. But as she was telling me her story she described how Jesus has been changing her life and giving her new desires. She described how she now wants to let the Lord lead her life and she desires to walk in His way. She said that “From now on I want to go for the silver, I’m not interested in the bronze, I want to go for the silver and be the best that I can be.” Do you hear what she was saying? If she wanted God’s best for her life why was she aiming for silver and not for gold? Because she was convinced that because of her past sin and failure the best that she could hope for in life was God’s second best. I wonder how many of you feel the same way this morning. Do you feel that you have disqualified yourself from ever hoping to glorify God in a powerful way?

Let us look at our text in verse 20 this morning and remind ourselves of who this is addressed to. Who is the Spirit of God speaking to when He urges them to glorify God in their body? First Corinthians 1:2 tells us that this is written to the church at Corinth. They are described as being sanctified saints. But many of these saints had a pretty rough past. They had a lot of messy baggage from their previous life. We saw in 6:9-11 that before coming to Christ some of these saints had been fornicators, idol worshippers, adulterers, homosexuals, thieves, extortioners and drunken alcoholics. And we saw in verses 13-18 that some of these saints were still caught up in this sinful immorality of their past life, some even actively involved with harlots. But notice that it is to these messed up sinful people that God extends His appeal to glorify God in their bodies. Those very same bodies that have often done horrible, immoral, destructive things, and some of them still presently being used in very degrading and shameful ways, are the same defiled bodies that are being encouraged to now be used for the glory of God. That means they weren’t too far gone or too defiled to be used by God for very noble, very pure and very honorable purposes that bring glory to God.

There are some here today who have committed great sins against God with your body. You have misused and abused your body in very shameful and degrading ways. And some of your bodies have been abused and degraded by others leaving you scarred and humiliated. Perhaps you feel like any chance of really glorifying God with your body has been long gone. You may feel like any hope of experiencing purity and wholesomeness of body disappeared in the past. The idea of ever again thinking of your body as something sacred, precious and set apart exclusively for God’s glory is an inconceivable fantasy. You believe that now the best you can ever hope to experience is to be an insignificant nobody in God’s eyes.

But this appeal in First Corinthians 6:20 is extended to every child of God who has been bought with the blood of Jesus Christ. “Glorify God in your body”. God urges all of you to respond. This is not just for those who have kept their bodies pure. This is not only for those who have a good reputation. This is for every Christian. The same appeal is made to us in 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.”

You may wonder, is it really possible that God would still want to be glorified though my body? Is it really possible that God could still be glorified through this messed up body of mine? Look at the lineage of Jesus Christ which is recorded in Matthew chapter one. God chose some very immoral people to be the ancestors of His Son Jesus: God chose the offspring of an incestuous encounter between Judah and Tamar, and He chose a prostitute like Rahab and He chose Solomon, the offspring of a marriage that began with adultery and murder. And Solomon himself had seven hundred wives and three hundred common law wives. And then there was Manasseh, the most wicked and immoral king in Judah’s history but because he repented at the end of his evil life he was also chosen by God to be a great, great grandfather of Jesus.

Or look at the Apostle Paul. He identified himself as the worst of all sinners. He began as the sworn enemy of Jesus Christ, persecuting the church and murdering Christians. But God got a hold of his life and he became the champion of the church and one of the greatest men of God in history. In 2 Corinthians 12:9 the Lord declares an operating principle of the Christian life which is this: “God’s grace is sufficient for you, for His strength is made perfect in our weakness. Therefore Paul declared, “Most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me . . . For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

And there is also the example of the prodigal son who blew his inheritance on prostitutes and wild living. But when he came to his senses he humbly returned to his father saying, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.” But the father gladly forgave and fully restored his son to full stature and full sonship.

Luke 15:22-24“. . . The father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry.”

How is it possible that God can be glorified in bodies that have been shamefully defiled and deeply scarred by all sorts of degrading and destructive immorality? How could God be glorified in the bodies of these Corinthians? How can God be glorified in even the worst of our bodies?

Well to start with we see in verse 20 that the Lord bought us, not just our spirit and soul but our bodies also. He bought us at the huge price of His own life sacrificed on the cross. We were slaves to Satan and sin but God bought us so that we now belong to Him. Then after purchasing us He didn’t leave us in the sorry condition we were in but He changed us. Do you feel like a “nobody”? Do you feel like dirt? Then you need to know this: that as a child of God you now belong to the one who out of nothing made the universe and out of the dust of the ground He formed the first man, Adam. God delights in taking the broken pieces of ruined lives and creating something beautiful that will bring glory to His name.

Look again at the description of the past sins of the Corinthians in verse 9-10 paying careful attention to what God did to them in verse 11. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”

Verse 11 says, “But you were washed . . .” means to be made morally clean, purified by the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7)

“But you were sanctified . . .” means to be made holy, to be made special, set apart from the world and now belonging to God and to be for His glory. Romans 12:1 tells us that our bodies have also been made holy and acceptable to God.

“But you were justified . . .” means to be made sinless in your spirit, to be made acceptable and loveable before God and to be in right standing with God. So that now they can inherit the kingdom of God. Though we still bear the scars of past sin in our body and in our memory we have mercifully received a full and unconditional pardon from God. And this miraculous change in nature from sinner to saint was accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit when we trusted in the name of Jesus Christ. God does it all as we simply hand over the broken pieces of our ruined lives to Him. He makes us new. “If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, the old has gone, behold all things have been made new.”

What does it mean to glorify God? To glorify God means to accurately display or to show or to declare the majestic greatness of God’s nature, the purity and beauty of His character, the truth of His words or the strength and goodness of His work. To glorify God is simply to make God’s glory seen and known; or to display God’s glory; or to draw attention to God’s glory. When God is made known to others in a way that accurately portrays Him we glorify Him. (I.e., In our witness, teaching, preaching, writing, etc) When we give Him credit for what He has done we glorify God. (I.e., In thanksgiving and praise) When the work of God is displayed in us and we ensure that He receives the credit we glorify God. (I.e., When the fruit of the Spirit is expressed through us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.)

Therefore, God is glorified in our bodies when our bodies are set apart from all impurity and treated as holy and reserved for His use. He is glorified when rather than us being obedient to the cravings and desires of our bodies, our bodies are instead, by the power of the Holy Spirit, made obedient to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. God is glorified in our bodies when we offer them up to Him as a living sacrifice saying “Lord, take my body and use it any way that You wish.” God is glorified in our bodies when it is His life being lived through our bodies and not the self indulgent life of our flesh.

And God is most glorified in our bodies when it is evident to the all around that we are not pursuing all the lustful passions and immoral appetites of the body and yet we are not missing out on life but instead we are joyful, fulfilled and abundantly satisfied in our passionate pursuit of Jesus Christ. When the world sees that there is something that means infinitely more to us than gratifying all the desires of our body then God is most glorified in our bodies. When the world sees that we would even rather choose the death of these bodies than give up our joyful pursuit of Jesus, then God is most glorified in our bodies.

Another important point is that God is glorified for what He does and for who He is. God is never glorified by what we do for Him, but He is glorified by what we let Him do through us. For example, if I paint a picture and then sign Thomas Kincade’s name or Robert Bateman’s name to the picture, and try to give them the credit, they would not be glorified by it. In fact they would be insulted. Or if I recorded myself singing a bunch of songs and put Steve Green’s name on the recording so that he would get all the credit for what I had done, Steve Green would not be glorified. Or if I baked a cake and gave it to you and said “give my wife Tami all the credit and praise for this desert”, she would not be glorified by that.

Even if I did an excellent job of something, I could not legitimately give someone else the glory for what I have done. That would be a lie. In the same way, if I do a good deed, or if I perform a ministry in my own strength and then say, give God all the praise, He is not glorified by that. God is rarely if ever glorified in my body by what I do for Him but rather by what I let Him do through me.

It is important for some of you to realize that your sinful past does not disqualify you from glorifying God from now on, nor has it decreased your capacity to give maximum glory to God. For Jesus once commented in Luke 7:47 about a prostitute who had been forgiven that the one who has been forgiven much tends to love God much but the one who is forgiven little tends to love little.

Often God will let us fail in life so that we can see what depravity and evil we are capable of on our own. Then when we are restored to fellowship with God through repentance and faith in Christ God is glorified through the contrast that is displayed in our lives when it is no longer us living our own way through these bodies but now Christ in control. The contrast of our own sin with the new glory of Christ now living in us is like the black cloth that a jeweler puts behind the diamonds in his display case in order to enhance the brilliance of the diamonds.

Of course there are painful consequences to sin that often leave lifelong scars and regretful memories in our lives. But sin that has been repented of and cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ will never hinder you from experiencing God’s ultimate intention for your life in all of its fullness.

God’s ultimate intention for your life is not that you find the right spouse, and pursue the right career and raise the ideal family, and be involved in a fruitful ministry. Perhaps you may feel like you have blown it in all of those areas of your life and therefore you may feel like you have wasted your life. But that is not true. God’s ultimate purpose for your life is to conform you to the image of Jesus Christ and to glorify His name through you. Even if you have lived an immoral life or if your marriage has broken down and your kids are not living for the Lord; even if you ran from God’s calling on your life and feel you have wasted your life in an unfulfilling career . . . You can still realize God’s ultimate purpose for your life and glorify Him in your body if you will let go of trying to run your own life, and begin letting God have His way with you. God still desires to conform you to the image of His Son Jesus and will bring great glory to His name if you will give Him everything and trust Him to perform His work through you.

As a child of God your body is not trash, it is not ruined, it is not a biological mass of flesh, it is not something to be despised and abused. Look at verse 19, “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you . . .?” “Therefore glorify God in your body.” Give your body to God and see how God can use your past failure to contrast and display His awesome and radiant glory in you.

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