The Church: Pure

Introduction

We will have this message and then take a short break from 1 Corinthians for Word & Prayer. We will return to 1 Corinthians launching right into marriage, family, singleness, and relationships.

There are many reasons to avoid this passage:

For some this topic is a sensitive one.

Perhaps you know someone struggling with a sexual sin.

Perhaps the topic of sexuality is one you know will bring arguments between members in your family - maybe between you and your spouse.

For some this topic is a painful one.

If statistics are correct then many of you have been affected by sexual sin.

Some of you have been hurt by the effects of sexual abuse.

Some of you feel still feel the guilt of past sexual sins.

For these reasons, all of us we need to hear God’s Word on this topic.

The culture gives us its catechism all week long.

ILLUST - I hope this message will be like an Oreo - Grace / Truth / Grace. Eaten together it tastes sweet

1 Corinthians 6:12–20 (ESV)

12 “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. 13 “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. 18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

Notice how many times the word “body” is used - 8 times.

Your body is significant and you will have one for eternity (granted a glorified body)

How many of you created your own body?

How many wish you had had a hand in creating your own body? (No pun intended)

Paul mentions the body many times and what does he say about the body:

The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.

Your body is for the Lord.

Culture claims our bodies are our own.

13 “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other.

Popular phrase in Corinth. Meant the purpose of the stomach was to seek satisfaciton with the pleasures of food and the implication was that the purpose of the body was to seek satisfaction with sexual pleasure.

We actually have cookbooks that show how important food was - gluttonous.

“We’re tempted to think we’re living in unique days with unique challenges regarding sexuality, but we only think that way because we don’t realize what was happening in Corinth 2,000 years ago. In the first century, when the book of 1 Corinthians was written, the city was known for rampant sexual immorality, confusion and deception. They had a temple to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, where every night a thousand prostitutes would come down into the city to work their trade. Corinth was a culture where anything goes. Indulge your body however you desire.”

- David Platt

Sexual sin is offered to you deceptively.

1 Corinthians 6:12–20 (ESV)

12 “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful.

Corinthians were living the lies of their culture that said they were free to do whatever they wanted.

Philosophers would often debate about criteria one should use to make decisions — one of the criteria was whether or not something was lawful.

Just because you CAN do something doesn’t mean you SHOULD do something.

ILLUST - ?????

Sexual sin is deceptive. It looks good. It feels good (for a moment). We think it will satisfy, but it is nothing more than the cotton candy of relationships.

Sexual sin controls you quickly.

“All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.

It is no secret that sexual sin can quickly and easily become an addiction. There are physical reactions that happen in our brains such that if we do not have self-control or Spirit-control, we will chase the next sexual high.

Sexual sin affects you spiritually.

We cannot compartmentalize our physical bodies and our spiritual lives.

15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her?

Since we have the presence of Christ, Paul makes the argument that where our bodies go so goes Christ.

Shall we then today forward everything you looked at to Christ?

Sexual sin hurts you personally.

Don’t ever think that sexual sin is a victimless sin. Sexual sin, more than most other sins, is particularly insidious.

Part of our humanity, even the image of God, is that we are relational creatures. Sexual sin breaks relationships. It breaks marriages, destroys families and homes, often leads to lying, bitterness, unforgiveness, and even murder

David and Uriah.

You personally

Your relationships

God designed our bodies for good.

For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.

Where does Paul look to help the culturally sophisticated and knowledgeable Corinthians know how they should live their ‘modern’ lives in regards to sex?

Paul looks back to creation.

ILLUST - old tool - kids use it the wrong way. Not meant to be used that way and just because time has changed, it doesn’t change the purpose of the tool.

God has a good design.

Genesis 2:5–7 (ESV)

5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

Genesis 2:15–25 (ESV)

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” 18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

God designed sex and God only designs good things, therefore,

Sex is good.

Sex is designed to be between one man and one woman.

God made Eve corresponding to Adam.

God intended for sex to be between multiple partners he would created more partners for Adam and Eve.

Sex is designed to be enjoyed within the marriage covenant.

24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife,

Sex is designed to be both productive and pleasurable.

God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply — and he wasn’t talking about produce.

Sex in a biblical marriage produces intimacy.

Biblical definition of sex:

God designed sex to be enjoyed between one man and one woman within the bounds of the marriage covenant for our good and God’s glory.

This is the ideal. We all fall short of the ideal. When we choose to use our bodies in a way that is inconsistent with that ideal it is called sin.

We do not get to redefine sin because we cannot meet the ideal.

Nor do we get to redefine sin because our desires and temptations pull us away from the ideal.

This was the problem for Adam and Eve. God created the ideal place for them in the garden.

God gave them all good things and restricted them from one - do not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Adam and Eve gave into their bodily desires and ate the fruit. They sinned.

It brought brokenness. It did not satisfy.

**Sin always brings brokenness and never satisfies.**

**Sexual sin - adultery, hooking up before marriage, homosexuality, pornography, always leads to brokenness and never satisfies.**

God’s ‘Thou shalt not’s’ are restrictions to keep you FROM experiencing God’s goodness; they are boundaries to help you ONLY experience God’s goodness (and not the brokenness of sin).

God’s design is for all time.

God’s design for Adam and Eve was God’s design for the Corinthian church and is God’s design for you and me.

Culture says, “My body, my choice.” / No one can tell me what to do with MY body

Culture says, “You define your sexuality. How you were created doesn’t define you.”

Culture says, “God wouldn’t create me with these desires if he didn’t want me to fulfill them.”

Culture says, “Times change and so does our understanding of the human body and sexuality.”

Despite what these lies claim you will not find satisfaction

with another woman or another man

with sex before marriage

by looking at the women or men on your phone

in a homosexual relationship

Here’s where the Oreo of grace comes in.

The church collectively (you and I individually) must be equally tenacious about rooting sexual sin out of our own lives and the church as we are gracious toward those struggling with sexual desires and temptations.

It is hypocritical to look down on someone wrestling with homosexual desires while looking over at pornography on a regular basis. And it is spiritual suicide to neglect addressing both.

It’s time for many in the church to take the log out of their own eye and then help their brother.

This needs to be brought to the light.

If you are struggling. . .

God is FOR the body?

“The reason I say these truths are so foundational is because if you don’t believe that God is for your body, then you will inevitably buy into all kinds of lies from the adversary about your body. You will question if God knew what He was doing when He made you this way or that way, with this disability, with that desire. You’ll question if God knew what He was doing when He made you as a male or a female.”

We must understand that God, as our Creator, designed our bodies (fearfully and wonderfully)

We must understand how God designed our bodies and our sexuality.

Anything different from that original design is a result of sin (or a sinful world) — temptations, desires, abnormalities.

We either give in to the lies whispered to us about our bodies in this sinful world — give in to desires, God made a mistake, etc.

OR we recognize that Jesus has broken the curse of sin and, through the Holy Spirit, has given us a way to live in freedom from sinful desires and temptations and a way to live with joy even if our bodies have been affected by sin.

This is why Paul says:

18 Flee from sexual immorality.

The Lord is for your body.

9 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,

20 for you were bought with a price.

The ultimate way that God shows us he is FOR our bodies is that Jesus gave his body for yours.

I think many times we get caught up in the idea that we are ‘bought’ and we neglect to recognize the ‘price.’

Think about it. It’s pain and hurt that seems like it won’t ever go away in some of our lives. It’s guilt from the past that we can’t ever seem to shake. Maybe it’s struggles in the present that we can’t ever seem to escape.

It’s questions like, “Why do I go back to this temptation over and over and over and over again?” Or maybe it’s confusion about why God would even allow us to have this desire. Why God won’t take this desire away, this desire that nobody else understands?

Or maybe it’s the constant battle with unfulfilled desire.

With his body Christ bought your freedom.

On the cross Jesus broke the bonds of sin so you CAN LIVE a life of freedom.

Your sexual addiction can be broken through the help of the Holy Spirit. It does NOT need to be the dark secret in your life anymore. You can walk free of that weight.

You can be free from overwhelming temptations that lead you to sin.

On this side of heaven we will struggle or we “will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

The more we pursue using our bodies the way God designed them to be, the more joy we will experience.

With his body Christ offers you his grace.

He took what you deserve to gives you what he deserved.

Because of Jesus guilt can be changed to grace. (that’s your wordle for the day)

If you have confessed your sexual sin; if you have repented of your sexual sin, then guilt is a lie.

No amount of guilt about what you have done will ever change what you have done, but living in guilt will limit what you may do.

For the Christian, living in guilt is attempting to pay on a debt that has already been paid.

With his body Christ secured your redemption .

Often a word used in giving freedom and restoring status.

The reality is the brokenness associated with sexual sin is sometimes the result of our own actions, but sometimes the pain and the hurt and the feelings of guilt and the brokenness that you experience is a result of someone else’s sexual sin.

Good news is God is for your body as well.

Almost used the word ‘restoration’ — Christ has secured that as well. One day we will experience our glorified bodies.

So glorify God in your body.

David Platt - what is our ultimate aim - self-gratification or God-glorification?

Psalm 51:2–3 (ESV)

2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

Maybe that’s you today.

Psalm 51:4 (ESV)

4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.

Confession precedes grace.

Psalm 51:7–8 (ESV)

7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

Psalm 51:10 (ESV)

10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Psalm 51:12 (ESV)

12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.

English Standard Version (Psalm 51)

17  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.