Gospel Meeting

Introduction

It is wonderful to be here with you all and to have all of you here. And I think God is pleased that we are here. Hopefully we are all here for the right reasons and with the right hearts and motivations, and that is to praise and honor our God and His Son Jesus Christ. You might turn your Bibles to 1 Corinthians, the sixth chapter. 1 Corinthians chapter 6. While you’re turning there, I’ll remind everyone about the invitation board down the hallway and encourage you to be handing out invitations.

So I take partial responsibility, but there’s a lot of spaces missing. So invite people and those who are not Christians, put those names of those invites, first names on the invitation back there, invitation board. And the goal is to fill that thing up with 500 names. Well, we’ve got a lot of names to fill in a week, but we can do it. So I want to encourage you, please remember to do that. Everywhere you go. I don’t care if it’s the grocery store. Take one of these with you and try to look for an opportunity to invite somebody, and uh they won’t bite you. First Corinthians chapter six, beginning in verse 12 through the end of the chapter, reads All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable.

All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food. But God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. Now, God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be. Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For he says the two shall become one flesh. But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with him.

Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own, for you have been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body. I, as I told you the last time I was up here, went to watch a movie with my wife called Old Fashioned. And in the first time somebody told me about that movie, I thought that sounds very corny. And I thought it would be corny. A lot of times these Christian movies have really bad acting and so on. Well, I went to watch this thing and I was blown away.

It was really good. And uh, you know, that movie came out to be sort of an answer or uh uh a response in a way to the movie Fifty Shades of Gray. It came out right at the same time as that movie, and uh it’s still out, uh, by the way. I’m not telling you to watch Fifty Shades of Grey, I mean old fashioned is still out. They’re both out. Anyway. Uh so it it is to give a total opposite worldview than that of the movie Fifty Shades of Grey. An opposite view of of what love is really about. And an opposite view of purity. Now, if you have not heard of Fifty Shades of Gray, it’s basically a movie based on a book that is in the genre of erotica.

So I have heard that if the movie had everything that the book has, that it would have to be rated X. And so they’ve even toned it down, but it’s from what I’ve read, it’s pornography. The movie. And the book as well. By the way, if you have watched that movie, or even if you have read that book, shame on you. It is utter filth. And when Holly and I went to watch Old Fashioned, we saw this long line coming out of the movie theater. I’ve never seen anything like that. Of course, I don’t go to the movie theater a lot, but this wasn’t a line to get tickets. This was a line to get in the doors. And I said, What is this for? And they said, This is for Fifty Shades of Gray.

I mean, it’s all the rage. It brought in a lot of money. It’s a huge hit. And, you know, I just thought, now that’s a commentary on our day and age. That here you have dozens of people that are standing in line in public without any shame, that they’re about to go in and watch pornography. And this is socially acceptable. It’s okay. Woe to those who call evil good. And good evil, as Isaiah said. And our generation does not even know how to blush. Well, anyway, so I watched that movie, not that movie. I’ve got to be careful up here. I watched old fashioned, Holly and I, and it motivated me to want to preach this lesson. It is a sweet movie about purity in the dating relationship.

If you have not seen that movie, please go. Take your older children. The mature is very, the theme is very mature, so don’t take your younger children. But that is why I wanted to preach this lesson today. So this lesson I think will be applicable to all of us, married or unmarried. Purity in our relationships. And so it appears that some of the Christians in Corinth were defending fornication as being an optional thing. And so Paul explains in this section, no, fornication is not some optional thing in the eyes of God. It’s absolutely wrong and sinful. His primary purpose is not to condemn fornication in this section. He does that in the previous section, like they’re starting in verse 9. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

1. All Things Are Lawful for Me

Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, and so on, will inherit the kingdom of God. So he clearly condemns all manner of sexual sins in that section. But in 12 through 20, his purpose is to refute arguments that would justify it. And to give reasons why it is wrong. It’s important that we not only understand that fornication is wrong, but that we know why it is wrong. And so several reasons are given here. And so first we’re going to see rationalizations for fornication rejected by Paul in verses 12 through 14. These are either rationalizations that they were making, or they are potential rationalizations that he is dealing with. And so first we have in verse 12 all things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable.

All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. And so what is the rationalization that he’s dealing with? It is this idea, well, all things are lawful. And it appears that they were saying, hey, all things are lawful for me, and applying that to things like fornication. Well, Paul did teach that all things are lawful. We see over in chapter 10 in verse 23 where he says all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify. So certainly Paul taught all things are lawful, but that was within a certain context. And it deals with matters of liberty, matters which God has not commanded or forbidden. Matters of indifference to God in those areas, all things are lawful.

But not all things are lawful. Then there would be no sin. But that seems that that’s the way that the Corinthians were treating this. All things are lawful, including fornication. You know, people really use basically the same rationalization today when they say things, well, like, well, God just wants me to be happy. I mean, I’m entering into my fourth marriage and all, I know that, but doesn’t God want me to be happy? He wouldn’t want me to be alone. All things are lawful. Or someone who believes and once you’re saved, you’re always saved, or perseverance of the saints, as Calvin put it. I remember having a conversation with a young man one time, some years back, who believed that once you’re saved, all your sins are forgiven, past, present, and future.

And I began to show him from the Bible that no, you can fall away if you turn from the Lord. And he began to be afraid. And he said, Does that mean that I need to stop viewing pornography? And I said, Yeah. He said, Does that mean I need to tell my parents about the lies I’ve been telling them? I said, uh-huh. You see, it’s a dangerous doctrine. Hey, all things are lawful. No, not all things are lawful. But Paul responds to this in a way that, you know, you may not have responded or expected. His first response is, not all things are profitable. Even of things that are lawful by God, that doesn’t mean that it’s profitable for yourself and for all involved. Eating meat sacrificed to idols, for example, might cause others to stumble.

And he deals with that in chapter 8 and in chapter 10. Now we know that fornication is not lawful, but we also know that fornication certainly is not profitable. If a person could look back on his life and think of a time that he committed fornication, I seriously doubt that he would think, you know, that’s when my life got better. That was the turning point. That’s when my reputation increased. That’s when my spiritual life just took off. That’s when I encouraged others around me, is when I committed fornication. Instead, that individual will look back and say, That’s when my life almost fell apart. That was one of the darkest times of my life. Not all things are profitable. Paul’s second response is we must not be mastered by anything.

He says, I will not be mastered by anything. Even of things that are lawful, we must realize that we can’t allow anything to take control over us. Any sort of habit or any sort of devotion, if it becomes the priority in your heart, it takes over and takes the place of God. And certainly we know that fornication, though it is not lawful, is something that can master a person. Of all things that can master a person, lust and the sexual sins can make a person a slave worse than anything. It can so take over a person’s mind that they can think of nothing else, and they can do nothing else than commit fornication multiple times throughout their lives on a regular basis as a habit of life, and they become a slave to it.

2. The Body Is Not for Immorality but for the Lord

And that is misery. And it is not God’s will to be mastered by anything. The second rationalization that Paul rejects is in verse 13. You have to kind of think with me. Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food. But God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality. But for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.

It is the body is for fornication. It seems the Corinthians were arguing that, hey, that’s what the body is intended for. It’s for fornication. Just like eating food is what the stomach is for. I mean, if God made me to be able to do this stuff, then isn’t that just naturally what I should do? Don’t people make the same basic argument today? Well, I’m just doing what comes natural. Animals do what comes natural. They have an urge and they just do it. But humans do not do that. Well, a lot of them do. God’s people do not do that. And the truth of the matter is, the body is not for immorality. Actually, that’s not natural. What is the body for? It is for the Lord.

3. God Will Also Raise Us Up

It is for the Lord. That means it is fitted for the Lord. It is purposed for the Lord. It is intended for the Lord. When we abstain from immorality and keep a relationship with our spouse, that’s what should come natural. That’s what you were created to do. And not only is the body for the Lord, but the Lord is for the body. Which means that He intends to use our body for His purposes. The third rationalization Paul deals with is in verse 14. Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through his power. Now, what’s the implied rationalization here? Well, the body’s going to be destroyed. You know, just like in verse 13, just like food and the stomach will be destroyed.

Our body’s going to be destroyed just the same. So, what does it really matter what we do in this body? I mean, the spirit’s going to go on forever. But the body’s going to be destroyed. It’s almost a Gnostic way of thinking. It may be. But if you don’t know what Gnosticism is, then you don’t know what I’m talking about. So I won’t go there. But anyway, Paul’s response to this is we will be raised from the dead. Just like Jesus Christ. And how was Jesus raised from the dead? Spiritually, he was raised from the dead physically. And so for us to be raised from the dead, just like the Lord means that our bodies are going to be raised. Now they’re going to be transformed, for our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body, that it may be conformed to his glorious body, according to the working by which he has even to subject all things into himself.

Philippians 3, 20 and 21. And we will be changed in the moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, 1 Corinthians 15, about verses 50 through 52. It will happen that we will transform. But our physical bodies are going to be risen from the dead. And it seems to me that Paul’s point here is saying that therefore, since your body is going to be raised from the dead, and in a transformed state will continue in all eternity, of course.

After this life is over. Think about that. That’s a sobering thought. What you do in this body matters after this life is over. Because your body will be risen from the dead. That’s just three justifications that Paul rejects. People make all sorts of excuses for immorality and all sorts of sin. I one time I knew a man who came to church, masqueraded as a Christian, but his wife told me he’s got a serious problem with pornography, which a lot of men have a problem with. Well, anyway, so I went to his house, and when I could be alone with him, I said, Your wife tells me you have a problem with pornography. Is this true? And he just looked at me without any shame on his face, and he said, Yeah.

I said, Do you think that that’s wrong? He said, No. Can you show me a scripture that says it’s not wrong? No. He said, but if my wife will not fulfill me, what does God expect me to do? If my wife will not fulfill me, what does God expect me to do? I said, He doesn’t expect you to sin. You know what that is? It is rationalizing sin. And you can do that in a thousand ways. But you know what rationalize means? Rational lies. That’s all it is. So, no excuse will work with God. God will not be mocked. So then, Paul in the next section gives us reasons against fornication. And really reminds the Corinthians of things they already know. A couple of times he will say, Do you not know?

4. Unity With a Prostitute Voids Unity With Christ

And this is verses 15 through 20. So these are some additional reasons why fornication is wrong. And the way that I can list them, there are three. Which works out nicely for a preacher. We always like when there are three. So, first, unity with a prostitute voids unity with Christ. That’s his first reason he gives in this section. And so we read first in verse 15. Do you not know? Do you see that? That your bodies are members of Christ. Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Meganoita. A double negative in the Greek. May it never be. No, no. Our bodies are members of Christ. As 1 Corinthians 12 and verse 27 says, you are the body of Christ.

So if we are, if we are the members of his body, that means fingers, toes, and so on. Then that means we make up his body. We must not therefore make our bodies members of a prostitute. You’re going to be in two bodies at the same time. We must not rob from Christ that which belongs to him and give it to a prostitute or to anybody that you don’t have the right to have that relationship with. To do so is not only physical fornication, it is spiritual adultery. You think about that. The church is the bride of Christ. We have married him. We have agreed to be with him for richer or for poorer in sickness and in health. And I would say till death do us part, but death doesn’t part us.

And so we are married to Jesus Christ, committed to him to be chaste, to commit to him only. And to go and to make yourselves a member of a harlot is to commit spiritual adultery against Jesus Christ. He continues in verses 16 and 17. Or do you not know? You see that again? By the way, it’s not just what you know, it’s what you do with what you know that matters. James says to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin. You might be filled with all these things you know that are right and wrong. You know what you need to do? You need to abide by them. Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her?

For he says the two shall become one flesh. Genesis 2 24, what God said to Adam. But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with him. What’s the point here? The point is that fornication makes a man united. One flesh with a prostitute, but the Christian is united, one spirit with Christ. And notice the contrast from verse 16: the one flesh and verse 17, the one spirit. We’re not one flesh with Christ. What are we? One spirit. That means we are to think and we are to act like him in this unity that we have with Jesus as part of his body. I want to commend you for being chaste. For refusing to be one flesh with a prostitute. I spoke with a new Christian sometime recently.

Who told me that when he became a Christian, he learned that he can’t live with his girlfriend. And so there was no second guessing it. He just told her, we can’t live together. And I don’t want you to be my girlfriend. I want you to be my wife. Well, she didn’t want any part of that. And so he’s no longer in that relationship. But I commend him and I commend you for taking a stand and saying, I will not be one flesh with someone that I do not belong to in the Lord. I will not do that. Even if it’s hard, even if it means remaining single, I will not do that. That one flesh idea is powerful. It’s not a no strings attached one night stand.

5. Fornication Is a Sin Against the Body

You know, physical fulfillment. You see, there are strings attached. The strings attached when you commit fornication with someone is you are now one flesh with that individual. And then you commit fornication with somebody else. Now you’re one flesh with them too. How can you do that? And be united with Jesus Christ. You can’t. You just cannot. In order to make yourself a member with a prostitute, you have to be removed from the body of Jesus Christ. There’s no other logical way around it. Now, we move on to verse 18, where we see the second reason given, that is that fornication is a sin against the body. Paul says, flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.

Now, first of all, before I deal with the reason that Paul gives, I want to deal with this warning and the command, flee immorality. How do you overcome fornication? Do you stand there like a man and resist it? You flee. That’s how you resist it. You flee. And what does this mean? What is the core idea? The core idea is stay far away from it. You know, the Corinthians, this was sin city. To be called a Corinthian was to basically be a playboy. It was to be an immoral person. And so this is the place, I mean, they were surrounded with immorality. The worship to Aphrodite was a worship of fornication. You talk about pornography, walking down the streets, there were statues, pornography everywhere. They were surrounded with all of this stuff.

So Paul says, flee it. Don’t just keep it at bay, but remove yourself far from it. And really, we have to think about what that means practically. Even if you’re submersed in it, we are in Corinth ourselves, in this culture, in this world we live in. It’s around us everywhere. When you go to the movie theaters, the people are standing in line to go watch pornography. Everywhere you go. It’s around us in the billboards and on the commercials. Sexual immorality. It’s everywhere. So what does God want us to do in terms of fleeing? Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 5, 27 and 28? You have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Jesus said, you’re missing the point if you think, as the Pharisees do, that all you’ve got to do is avoid the act of fornication, adultery. What you got to do is you got to avoid that which leads to the fornication, which is the lust. You look at a woman with lust for her. You’ve already committed it in your heart. Doesn’t matter if it’s walking down, somebody walking down the side of the street or somebody on a computer screen. Men. And so we have to avoid that which leads to the sin. And so you think about the movies we watch. Oh, well, I don’t watch movies like Fifty Shades of Gray. Well, good. But maybe on your regular TV station, you watch a show where you are taken into the bedroom.

Well, they didn’t show nudity. But it took your heart and your mind into the bedroom. Brethren, is that where our hearts and minds need to be? Are we fleeing from immorality when we do that? No, we are not fleeing from it when we do that. And shame on us if we do that. You have a young couple that’s not married. And what is the traditional expectation of the dating relationship in our culture? Heavy petting, physical affection. I’ll tell you, those are things that, when done in marriage, lead to the bedroom. But naively, these young people think we can do those things and it won’t lead to the bedroom. We’ll stop short of the bedroom. Yeah. That might work for so long, but you know where it’ll eventually put you?

In the bedroom. The dating relationship in our culture is twisted and perverted. We play with people’s hearts, we mess with people’s bodies, we mess with people’s emotions, and one day when you walk down the aisle, all you’ll have in your mind is a feeling of guilt that you have shared all of these affections with so many people, even if you never committed fornication. I believe that we need purity. There’s a book, I kissed dating goodbye, that I would highly recommend you reading. And again, watch the movie, old-fashioned. I would encourage that. Well, I can say much more about fleeing fornication. But I want to come back to this reason that Paul gives here. Fornication is a sin against the body. And that’s an interesting thing. He says every other sin that a man commits is outside the body.

But the immoral man sins against his own body. You might wonder, how is that? I mean, aren’t there a lot of sins that are against the body? Perhaps this is one explanation. Well, it is one. The body is designed for the glory of the Lord. That’s what we see at the end of verse 20. Therefore, glorify God in your body. Fornication is not something you do to the body. It is not an effect on the body, it is a contradiction of the very intended purpose for the body from within itself. Other sins may damage the body, but fornication and fornication alone desecrates the body. From within itself. And by the way, fornication you have in some versions, immorality in some others. The Greek word is pornea, from which we get words like pornography.

6. The Body Belongs to God

It doesn’t just mean fornication, it’s all manner of sexual immorality, including homosexuality and so forth. Alright, now, thirdly, the body belongs to God. This is the final reason Paul gives, and we’re in the home stretch now. Verse 19 says, Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own. So the body is a temple. Now, people get hung up on the Holy Spirit part, and that’d be for another lesson. I want you to focus on the temple part. If your body is a temple intended for the Lord’s purposes, then that means it is a place of holiness. And to use that place of holiness for fornication desecrates the holy place.

Just as somebody worshiping an idol in the temple of the Lord would desecrate the temple. Or a priest going in there and committing fornication would desecrate the temple. Our body is a holy place in which the Holy Spirit dwells. And you do not own yourself. People say, well, it’s my body. I’ll do it what I want. You know what? It’s actually not your body. Really, your body is on loan to you. When we borrow something, we take better care of it than we might our own things. I don’t know if that’s true for children, but hopefully it’s true for us adults. I can remember borrowing somebody’s truck one time. This was a doctor at a church where I attended, and for some reason I needed a vehicle, and it was a long trip I had for a vacation, a summer vacation with my family.

So we borrowed this super nice truck, and we’re like scared that we’re going to mess it up. So I’m so careful with it. Everything, I’m just, and it’s big, so you have to be careful when you’re parking it. And somehow, somehow, I put a dent in that truck. It was little, and I did the research, it would cost me about $75 to fix that tiny dent. And I felt I was mortified to tell the doctor because I didn’t have time to fix it when I brought it back to him. I told him, I will fix this. He told me I didn’t have to worry about that. But we’re careful when we borrow other people’s things. Your body is something you are borrowing from the Lord. You do not own it.

He is giving it to you for a short time to use for his glory. So, you know what we need to do with it? We need to be careful with it. We need to treat it as a temple in which the Holy Spirit dwells. You do not own yourself. Therefore, you need to glorify God in your body. Verse 20 says, For you’ve been bought with a price, therefore, glorify God in your body. What is the price that God has paid? It is the death of Jesus. He paid a high price to own you, and not only to own your body, but to own all of you. Your whole being belongs to God. And if we were bought, that means we have a master. And let that master own you, and let not that master be fornication.

Glorify God in your body. You know, this conclusion far surpasses what you might expect. He doesn’t merely say, therefore, sanctify your body or something like that. This far surpasses fleeing immorality. Far beyond all of those things. Glorify God in your body. That is the ultimate purpose. This means to use your body in such a way that everyone sees that your body belongs to the Lord. To use your body as a tool for the glory of God in everything that you do. Christianity involves more than just not doing bad things. It involves glorifying God with your body, and some versions add, and your spirit. So Paul deals with three justifications that would allow immorality. And he gives three additional reasons why immorality, sexual immorality is wrong. Therefore, glorify God in your body.

Conclusion

And I would conclude with this question. Do you glorify God in your body? Notice I didn’t say did you, because the past is the past. And whatever you have done, you need to repent of, and maybe you already have. And maybe there will be ongoing consequences, maybe for the rest of your life. But you can’t change the past, brethren. One thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. So take courage, brethren. Look to the future and say, from this point forward, what I’m going to do is use my body as a temple for the Lord and glorify Him in all that I do.

Would you bow your head with me in a word of prayer? Our Father and God, thank you so much for your mercy and grace, and for not only telling us why sin is wrong, or rather, not telling us only that it’s wrong, but for explaining to us why. We pray, Father, that we may abide by your commandments, and that we may keep our bodies chaste and pure and sanctified, and that we may glorify you with our body. It is through your Son that we pray. Amen. If you’re not a Christian, you can become a Christian today by believing in the Lord, repenting of your sins, and being buried in baptism, continuing to obey the commandments of Jesus. If you’d like to do that now, or if you need the prayers of the church, we’d love to assist you if you come as we stand and sing the song of invitation.