Sermon Tone Analysis

Finding the True Culture of the Spirit, the Soul and the Body in Christ tr4

Adapted from Pastor Chris Segun Onayinka

www.livingwordmedia.org

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1 Cor 6:11

How to develop new habits and break the old ones.

One issue we sometimes come to battle with is the fact that Salvation does not mean a change of habit; and if someone get that wrong, they will keep coming out for “altar calls” all the time, as many people do; And here’s how it is, if for instance, Salvation means that everything about you will change, and habits change etc. there would be no reason for Spiritual Growth, there would be no reason for the word of God being taught, there would be no reason for any of that; It would be just to find out if you’re a Christian or not.

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As we see there is so much information available in the Scripture, instructions and directions, it shows that there are things to be done, having received the Gospel.

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1 Cor 6:11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

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Look how he addresses it, 1 Cor 6:9-10 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God 11 And such were some of you...but ye are...

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We should be FIRST looking at what at who WE ARE, meaning to RECOGNIZE YOUR IDENTITY.

who are you now?

Keep in mind when Paul first started how he addressed this church; The book of the 1st Corinthians is one of the most debated, particularly in what is called reformed theology; Reason being, is because it defeats a whole number of things that they teach.

By the time we see that Paul was addressing things that happen with unbelievers with the saints.

They came up with a theory, that it would mean that within the church we have the believers and unbelievers.

But that’s ridiculous, simply because you want to endorse a theory you begin to create a new theory.

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Notice: Paul [of course using an oxymoron] called the entire church in 1 Cor 3:1-3 “carnal”.

“ye not carnal, and walk as mere men?”

This means he was either talking to a complete set of unbelievers [which would be preposterous] or he was talking to believers [that still had lacked knowledge, “know ye not?” and exhibited old habits].

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1 Cor 1:2 Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:

Translators being scared of things he was discussing with them added their own words there; they added TO BE (future tense) to something that Paul said (in past tense) have been done in Christ Jesus “Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, , with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours”

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Sanctified and Saints are from the same word, ἅγιος hagios.

First thing he calls them is sanctified; And if you look at all Paul’s letters, he addresses the identity of the believers first, “blessed in Christ”, “called”, “chosen” he communicates that clearly, so that when letters (epistles) are read you know he’s talking to the believers, those who have this identification in Christ.

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“Called saints” - where saints mean somebody who is separated unto God, it’s who they are, they must recognize that.

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Second thing he says:

1 Cor 3:16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

You can say as a Christian: I am sanctified in Christ, I am a saint in Christ, and saint, for those coming from certain denominations doesn’t mean somebody died with St Jude, St Thomas, St Bartholomew...

And then we have those that say: oh he’s not a saint though...using saint as someone who doesn’t do wrong; but you see Paul uses the word saint in Eph 4:12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ

… and that means saints still need to be perfected.

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So the First thing is that he calls you a saint, you realize that you are a saint, in Christ; Somebody who is sanctified.

He says you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you.

IDENTIFICATION

1 Cor 1:9 says “...ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”

That word fellowship is “κοινωνία (koinōnia)”.

n. fem.

fellowship, communion, sharing, participation, -TO SHARE THE SAME IDENTITY

You share the same identity with Jesus, the Son.

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When it says you are the “temple” of God, temple is like a shrine, used in the OT for a temple where God is worshiped, a place of holiness, a place where God is hollowed; he says YOU ARE.

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1 Cor 6:2 Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?

and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?

He later asks these people: “ do you have anybody who is wise?” vs 5 to judge the smallest matters

Yet he calls everybody here saints.

he highlights two things for them, you will judge the word, and you will judge angels.

And judging the world means we will not going to all file in the same line.

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1 Cor 6:9,15,19 He goes on to say “know ye not that you’re righteous, and in vs 15 know ye not that your bodies are members of Christ, know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost.

What comes clear is that BEING comes before WHO YOU ARE and is not a product of WHAT YOU DO.

That ought to be settled in our hearts, that who we are is not a product of what we do; rather what you should do is a product of who you are.

We have to realize the BEING before the BE.

You don’t become a saint by action, rather you are to develop actions that are according to your saintly nature, saintly identification that you have in Christ.

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First you REALIZE the person that you are; that is why the clause in Christ, in Him features mostly in the entire epistle; that is the reason why the letters were written.

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One pastor actually said that the epistles are the believers history written ahead of time, just like EW Kenyon said that epistles are the family album, where you look out for who you are, you look out for your picture...

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For Paul to be reiterating the “KNOW YE NOT...” means your diet determines a lot, the kind of things we consume.

Just like we were noticing the importance of how many times satan and devils were mentioned; and it was much less that some prayer meetings, and satan would be mentioned 20 times and Jesus would be mentioned as a finishing part of the prayer.

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What do you eat?

The kind of diet you feed upon is vital.

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Let’s for a time look at the word “sin” since we’re talking about habits generally; although we weren’t talking about sin particularly, in as much as it was still in view.

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The word “sin” (singular) used

19 times in the four Gospels, and Jesus mentioned it 15 times

1-ce in the Book of Acts

89 times in the Epistles, out of 89, 45 times (over half of word’s usage) concentrated in the book of Romans and that tells us something we’ll look at later.

12 times in the book of Hebrews

4 times in James’ epistle

15 times in 1st epistle of John

3 times in 1st and 2nd Peter.

7 times in 1st and 2nd Corinthians

2-ce in Galatians

1-ce in Ephesians

2-ce in 1st and 2nd Thessalonians (it was referring to the “antichrist” largely there)

Nobody needs to tell you what sin (without plural usage) was like in the book of Romans, it shows us that to understand it we must study the book of Romans.

And it’s in that that book we have terms like λογίζομαι (logizomai) - impute; count; reckon; account...righteousness is a gift, forgiveness of sins, redemption, freely given, grace...

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Let’s look at the word “sinned” also, you don’t need to be told that majority of where we have the word sinned is in the Old Testament.

“Sinned” (past tense verb of sin)

107 times “sinned” was used in the Old Testament

4 times in four Gospels

6 times in the book of Romans

4 times in 1st and 2nd Corinthians

3 times in Hebrews

3 times in 1st John

3 times in 2nd Peter

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The word “sinneth” now,

15 times Old Testament

7 times in Epistles

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We can see that in comparison, and since our diet is mainly in the epistles ratio is evident.

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the words “sinner/sinners”

25 times in the Old Testament

44 times in New Testament (Four Gospels included;)

17 times was used by Jesus

28 times in the book of Acts and epistles

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the word “sins” (plural noun, not present tense verb?)

75 times in the Old Testament

26 times in the four Gospels, 13 times used by Jesus

7 times in the book of Acts

45 times in the epistles, and 80% of those times the writer was talking about “the forgiveness of sins” or what Jesus did about sins.

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That means that when I’m dealing with sinful habits, and focus on sin, I’m studying and sin I’m preparing the wrong diet.

I won’t get it right from the epistles when approaching it with the wrong focus; same with the “spirit of this and the spirit of that” couldn’t have come to a conclusive study from the epistles, it was likely an outward, extracurricular studies one engaged in to come up with some of these things.

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The wrong diet a lot of times contributes to the kind of struggles we face, when you are feeding on the wrong thing.

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The epistles do not supply us with the knowledge of sin, they don’t, it’s not there.

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Rom 7:7 What shall we say then?

Is the law sin?

God forbid.

Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.