Sermon Tone Analysis

C.S. Lewis once said, “Christians have talked as if Christianity thinks that sex or the body, or the pleasure we experience within our bodies were bad in themselves.

But they are wrong.

Christianity is almost the only one of the great religions that throughly approves of the body, which believes that matter is good, that God himself once took on a human body, that some kind of body is going to be given us even in Heaven and is going to be an essential part of our happiness, our beauty, and our energy.”

Over the past several weeks we have taken a look at this wonderful fact that God has wonderfully and uniquely designed and created our bodies.

Last week we took a look at how God has designed us as male and female and set up the marriage union.

We addressed the fact that in God’s good design of marriage, it is designed for a man and a woman and not the same sex with each other.

Now I think that people who struggle with same sex attraction and hear the church address this can feel like their particular sin is picked on, so what about other sins in relation to the body?

That is where I want to begin to head today and finish up next week.

So this is part one of this message on, “Our Bodies are not our Own.”

There are in fact many other abuses to the body that we need to address as well, things that the bible specifically calls out and says is sinful.

Something that needs to be addressed again at the beginning of our time.

Homosexuality, having an affair, lying, cheating, anger, having an abortion, or any sin can be forgiven.

We need to of course see these things as wrong and desire to change, and ask the Lord for forgiveness.

The problem is when people don’t see these things as wrong and hurtful behavior and continue in them without any change of repentance.

In other words, this is a pattern of their lives and they don’t want or desire to change.

Here is what the Apostle John says about this type of behavior or seeing that nothing is wrong about sinful behavior.

So, whatever sin you are struggling with today can be met with forgiveness.

You don’t have to continue in your sin.

I want you to know that today.

In fact, that is why Christ Jesus came to die and rose again on the third day.

He did that so that you and I could gain victory over sin and some day experience eternal life with Christ.

So I want to begin today in 1 Corinthians chapter 6. Let’s look at these few verses.

When I was growing up I heard this message from my Sunday School teachers as well as my mom on several different occasions.

“Matt your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

So, honor the Lord with what you do with your body, with your words and actions, but even more so with your body.

My parents taught me not to have sex before marriage, and to watch out what I put in my body, wether that was smoking, drinking or taking drugs.

As a young man this did make sense because I understood that this was a healthy barrier or boundary marker put in place so that I would not self- destruct or live any old way that I wanted to live.

As a christian my body now belonged to Christ and I should honor him with it.

Ask yourself this simple question this morning, “Am I honoring the Lord in everything I do with my body?”

Is Christ my treasure?

And if so do I realize that my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and that I have been bought with a price (the blood of Jesus) so I should glorify God in my body and with my body.

-This would mean what I drink.

Or have I given over to drunkeness continually?

-Drugs and smoking.

Getting high to numb the pain, or getting high just to get high.

-How much I am eating.

Am I destroying my body because I eat too much?

-What I am viewing or looking at that could potentially hurt my body.

-What I am doing with my body sexually.

-Even violence to our bodies, hurting ourselves, cutting ourselves, etc...

We should keep our bodies clean for God and for His use.

We shouldn’t want to harm our bodies or do things with our bodies that can bring dishonor or shame to the Lord.

We should want to see and think clearly, we should want to remember the things we did last night and know that it was good.

We should want to praise God for the things that He is doing in and through our bodies and not be ashamed or driven to guilt.

When it comes to understanding that our bodies are not our own there are several areas that I want to address.

First I want us to look at the problem of sexual sin and then next week we will look at how we can hurt our bodies by drugs and alcohol, food, and abuse.

1. Sexual Sins.

I want to begin here especially after last week as we took a look at marriage and homosexuality.

So while it is true that sexual sin does not make any of us a worse sinner in God’s eyes than do other sins.

Sexual sins does affect us more obviously in regards do our body, soul, mind, and spirit.

When we sexually sin there is guilt and shame.

In our conscience we are reminded that we have fallen short of God’s glory.

We have sinned against our own bodies because we have really been idolators.

We have put creation before the Creator in that we are worshiping our bodies and the pleasure that comes with it more than God.

In our present culture, I think that it can be very difficult at times for us as Christians to come out and speak truthfully about some of the controversial aspects of sex.

Here is why, because they have so often been misclassified and even misnamed.

-We would say remarriage today instead of divorced.

-We say sexual partner or partner today instead of spouse, let alone husband or wife.

-And now there is separation of gender from sex and all of this talk today is about sexual orientation.

Are you heterosexual or homosexual?

-What about sexual identity?

How do we choose to identify ourselves sexually?

-Then there are other terms we are hearing about gender dysphoria and sexual reassignment and what all of this is ultimately doing is trying to reconstruct sexuality in contradiction to what God’s Word has to say.

So while, these ways of speaking may describe certain kinds of sexual behavior, they are actually misconstruing our actual God given sexuality.

Church, God has made us in his image, and since the fall there has been a lot of devastation and damage that has happened since then.

The main issue here that I want you to see today is that of sexual purity.

Let’s jump to 1 Thessalonians to see what Paul has to say here.

Paul begins his opening statement here in verses 1 and 2 by giving the Thessalonians some instructions.

Church these instructions are put in place because they show us how to walk or how to live and please the Lord.

When it comes to our bodies are we pleasing God with what we do with our bodies?

That is the question we must ask ourselves.

Paul now moves into verse 3 by telling us that these instructions or this plea is the will of God.

Now this is very important because all of God’s Word contains God’s will wether it be His affirmations or His prohibitions.

But, even more specifically God’s will includes submission to the Holy Spirit, self-sacrifice, suffering and particularly here sanctification.

This literally means or refers to being set apart from sin to holiness.

God requires total abstinence from the Greek word (porneia) sexual immorality or fornication.

This is basically all types of sexual sins between a male and female.

Since we are called to be holy, we cannot tolerate sexual abuse and must not turn a blind eye to it or excuse it in the church.

Instead we have to confront it and deal with it appropriately.

Some of the major abuses today would be sex outside of marriage.

Many folks today see no problem just living together or sleeping together before they get married.

But there is also folks who are married who see no problem with having affairs.

This would be cheating on the spouse that God has given them.

The abuse does not stop there.

We also have a massive problem today with pornography.

Pornography is another instance of idolatry, the worship of the human body rather than Christ as the Creator.

What is so interesting during the time Paul is writing this letter is that the pagans during this time viewed moral corruption or sexual fornication as indifferent or favorably.

And because of this it is possible that the Thessalonians could have slipped back into this lifestyle after their conversion.

That is why Paul is giving them these instructions.

They are desperately needed not only for that time and church but even more so for us today!!! Paul wants us to see here that a wholesome marriage between a man and woman is the antidote for sexual immorality.

A holy and honorable marriage is how the Lord set up this bond between a man and his wife.

So, the instructions now come in verses 4-8.

The first principle Paul lays out here for us is that we are to control our bodies by being holy and honoring what God has given us.

Athletes understand what controlling their bodies is all about.

They wake up early to train, they have a strict diet, they get a proper amount of rest so they don’t over do it and get hurt.

They control their bodies in order to receive the prize or gain victory.

So, Paul wants us to see the importance of keeping our bodies under control so that we honor the Lord and we do this because we are believers or Christians unlike the Gentiles that Paul mentions in verse 5. Notice this here.

Paul wants us to see that when he writes about the Gentiles he is referring to non-christians or unbelievers, “those who do not know God.”

Paul now begins to move into some specific reasons on why we as believers need to comply to these instructions and standards for moral purity.

He begins verse 6 by telling us not to defraud or transgress against our brother.