Would you now please stand for the reading of Scripture? We'll be reading in our Old Testament Scripture readings in Isaiah 43. Isaiah 43, beginning in verse 1. This is the Word of the Lord. But now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob, and He who formed you, O Israel, fear not. For I have redeemed you. I have called you by your name. You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I gave Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in your place. Since you are precious in my sight, you have been honored and I have loved you. Therefore, I will give men for you and people for your life. Fear not. For I am with you. I will bring your descendants from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, give them up. And to the south, do not keep them back. Bring My sons from afar, My daughters from the ends of the earth, everyone who is called by My name, whom I have created for My glory. I have formed him. Yes, I have made him." Now turning to our New Testament reading to 1 Corinthians 6. 1 Corinthians 6, and we'll begin reading in verse 12. Our text this evening will be the last two verses of this chapter. We'll begin in verse 12 to catch the context. This is, once again, the Word of the Lord. All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me. but I will not be brought under the power of any. Foods for the stomach, and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power. 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 harlot? Certainly not. Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For the two, he says, shall become one flesh. but he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. The grass withers. The flower fades. The word of our God shall stand forever. As we approach the ministry of the Word preached, let us briefly ask our Lord for help and for illuminating grace. Let us pray. Father, we pray the prayer of Your servant Moses when he pled with You asking, show me Your glory. And we echo that prayer from of all. We pray, O Lord, that You would show us Your glory in the face of Your Son, the Lord Jesus, who paid it all for us. Help us to see that glory and be changed by it. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. I want to speak briefly to the children who are in attendance. Children, have you ever had a toy that you particularly liked? And you looked across the room, and you saw maybe your brother, or a sister, or a friend, and they were holding your toy. And you ran over, and you seized the toy, you grabbed it to yourself, and you said, that's mine. It belongs to me. I have three sons, and so that scene has some relevance in my home life. That's mine. That belongs to me. A sense of ownership, possession. On the one hand, there's something natural about that. There's something natural about that impulse to own land, to own a home, to be protective of your wife, of your children. something about life, liberty, and property that is right and good. But is it not true that so quickly and so easily that impulse to own, to possess, is twisted, is distorted by sin, is turned in on itself to become what Jonathan Edwards called the essence of sin, selfishness, self-love, self-centeredness? Think of our culture, the pro-choice movement, where what's the bumper sticker slogan? It's my body. Belongs to me to do with whatever I please. Or the homosexual agenda, which says it's my orientation, it's my body. I can do whatever I want. It belongs to me. Maybe bring it a little bit closer to home. How do you view your time, your money, your energy, your children? When one of your children comes into a room where you're working hard on a project, and they interrupt you, and you lash out in anger, and you send the message to them, that was my time, it belonged to me, and you messed it up. Or maybe at tax season, you're screaming at your computer, you're on H&R Block or TurboTax, and you see your money evaporating into the hands of the federal government, and you say, that's my money, it belongs to me. Can't take it away. Well, however right and good this impulse to own might be, it does quickly become distorted, fragmented into sin, where you clench your fists, You stand up for your rights and you say, it's my body, it's my life, I belong to myself. Well, the Corinthians, to whom Paul was writing, were not immune from this sinful tendency. They were living in a very worldly culture, not that much different from the culture we live in today. It was a culture that had at least a subconscious belief that they belonged to themselves. Self-assertion, self-expression, and at least in this culture, particularly in the area of sexual immorality. If you look at the flow of 1 Corinthians in chapter 5, Paul puts the spotlight on the sin of incest, where a man has his father's wife, something that was shameful even among the pagans. And so he calls for church discipline, he calls for ultimately excommunication, And that picks up in chapter six, where in verses one through 11, he talks about lawsuits between believers, and then in 12 through 20, he deals with the broader sin of sexual sin in general, what C.K. Barrett calls the root of the trouble in this letter. But at the very end of the chapter, in verses 19 and 20, which we'll take as our text, Paul, in that discussion, lays down a broader principle. a bigger principle that governs not simply bodily ethics, but really cuts to the heart what it means to be a Christian at all. Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, brothers and sisters, is it your time? Is it your money? Is it your energy? Are they fundamentally and ultimately your children? Is it your body? Is it your life? Do you belong to yourself? Well, here, the booming message of the Apostle Paul, which is simply this. You belong unto Jesus. Therefore, live unto Jesus. You belong, body and soul, unto Jesus. Therefore, live unto Jesus. You belong to Him, so live for Him. At the end of the day, this is your only comfort and chief end. Your privilege and your responsibility, your promise and your obligation. Well, by God's grace, this evening, we're gonna look at this text under two simple heads. First, we'll see that you belong unto Jesus. And second, we'll see that you must live unto Jesus. Let's look at the first part. You belong unto Jesus. You belong to him. The Apostle Paul puts this truth negatively in verse 19 where it 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 catch this phrase, and you are not your own. In other words, you don't belong to yourself. Then he puts it positively in verse 20. For you were bought at a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. In other words, you belong unto Jesus. This is a theme that runs throughout the passage. You look at verse 13. It says, now the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. Verse 15, do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Verse 17, but he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. Over and over again, you don't belong to yourself, you belong to Christ. Now why is this true? Why do you belong to Jesus? What are the grounds of his ownership, his claims upon your life? We're gonna see on the one hand that this is true simply by virtue of creation. Simply by virtue of creation, you belong to the Lord. Children, what's the very first question of the child's catechism? Who made you? Who made you? Did you make yourself? God did. I heard a few people say it. God did. And if God made you, what's that mean? He owns you. If he made you, he owns you. So I have three young children, two of whom are a little bit older enough to do this, and they have a little art table. And often they go to that table, and they pull out sheets of paper, and they have pens and markers and colored pencils, and they make these masterpieces of art, and they put them up on the fridge. And when I get home, they say, Daddy, look. Look at my painting. Your painting, why does it belong to them? Well, they made it, and so they presuppose that they own it. It's their drawing. Well, God made you, he owns you. And here's the amazing thing, this is true of every single person on the face of the earth, Christian or non-Christian. If you're sitting here today and you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, he still has a claim upon your life simply by virtue of creation. He made you, you bear his image, he owns you. But for the believer, this is even a deeper reality. Not simply by virtue of creation, but by virtue of redemption, he has a claim on your life. And we'll see this is true in a couple of ways. First, it's true by the blood of Jesus. And second, it's true by the indwelling of his spirit. First of all, this is true by the blood of Christ. Redemption purchased. Look at verse 20. For you were bought at a price. Note that word for. It's like a foundation stone. It provides a ground, a reason for. You are not your own. Why? For you were bought at a price. And what is that price? We know from 1 Peter 1, 18 and 19 that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, but you were redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus. At the cross, at the cross, Jesus went to that tree and He purchased your salvation at the high cost of His own life. A ransom price. of blood. Jesus paid it all. And He paid it all for you. Paid in full. It is finished. He bought you at the price of His own blood. That's why we think about the covenant of God. O. Palmer Robertson defines it this way, it's a bond in blood, sovereignly administered. Where by the blood of the covenant, God binds you to himself and binds himself to you. To be bought by Jesus is to be bound to Jesus. You belong to him. And that's why the Apostle Paul is obsessed. He's fanatic about the cross. What's he say in chapter one? But we preach Christ and Him crucified. Chapter two, but we determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified as Christians. We live a cross-shaped life. We look at life as Dr. Dyer likes to put it, through blood-colored glasses, purchased at the ransom price of the Son of God. You don't belong to yourself. You belong to Jesus. You are not your own, for you were bought at a price. There's a second way in which you belong to the Redeemer, not simply by the blood of Jesus, but second by the indwelling of the Spirit. by the indwelling of the Spirit. Look at verse 19. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? It's not only the blood of Christ, it's the indwelling of His Spirit. Not only redemption purchased, but redemption applied. We are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ by the effectual application of it to us by His Holy Spirit. And what does this mean? It means that your body doesn't belong to you. Why? No, it's a temple of the Holy Ghost, a temple of the Holy Spirit. Now in this verse, the word for temple is often used of a shrine or a sanctuary. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, it's used of the holy place, the most holy place, that inner compartment of the tabernacle. And in this way, we learn something absolutely amazing. That God not only is everywhere, that he fills heaven and earth, but in a very special way, he lives inside the believer in the person of the Holy Spirit. And in a special way, God the Father and God the Son, by the Spirit, make their home in you. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. And we know from the book of 1 Corinthians that this is true on the one hand corporately. Look at chapter 3. Paul talks about this image of him being a wise master builder. You have the foundation of Christ and the building of God's people and inside is the Holy Spirit so that corporately we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. This is also true individually. If you look at this passage in particular, this appears to be what's going on. Look at verse 15. Do you not know that your bodies, plural, are members of Christ? And the whole context, he's talking about individual Christians who are joining themselves to harlots, to prostitutes. So when you get down to verse 19, do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? What is in view is the individual Christian. Individually, your bodies are temples of the Spirit. I heard one preacher describe it this way, that corporately, as a people, we are a grand cathedral for the third person of the Godhead. But then individually, we are like little chapel alcoves within that broader cathedral space. We are mini temples within the broader temple space. Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. But what spirit is in view here? Note the descriptors Paul uses. This is the Holy Spirit, and that means that you in Christ are definitively holy, and you're called to grow progressively in holiness. The temple of the Holy Spirit. And not simply the Holy Spirit, but the Spirit who is in you, literally. The in you Holy Spirits. This is the intimate language of union and communion. The Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God. And note the subtle Trinitarian theology here, that the Spirit comes from the Father, through the Son, to you. The Spirit whom you have from God. You put it all together. You're the temple of what? Of whom? It's the holy, internal, divine love gift of the Spirit. This is truly the revealed mystery of Christ by His Spirit in you, the hope of glory. I like how Leon Morris describes the significance of this reality. He says, this gives a dignity to the whole of life such as nothing else could do. Wherever we go, we are the bearers of the Holy Ghost, the temples in which God is pleased to dwell. And what is the necessary implication that Paul draws from this? Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. Who is in you? You have from God, and you are not your own. God has laid claim to your life by the seal of the Spirit as a down payment until he fully purchases and claims the purchase redemption at the day of the resurrection. He's laid claim to your life by the indwelling of the Spirit. By the blood, by the Spirit, you belong to Jesus. Did we not see a beautiful illustration of this fact even this morning in the baptism of one of our covenant children? Because if you think about it, what happens in baptism? Let me use an illustration. What's the first thing you do when you buy a book? I happen to own a lot of books. I own more books than I realize, because recently I'm getting ready to move, and I'm boxing up as many of them as I can, and I have a lot of them. And the first thing I do when I buy a book is I open it up to the first page and I write my name in it. Simple thing, you write your name in your book because it's an act of ownership, an act of possession, where if you lose your book, which I'm also prone to do, someone else can pick it up and say, oh, it belongs to Ethan Bolliard, I'll get it back to him someday. Well, what does God do? What does Jesus do in baptism? Let's look at our chapter in the broader context at verse 11. Paul's been describing the wicked lifestyle that believers came out of, and in verse 11 he says this of them. And 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. Washed in the name. Brother, sister, do you realize that in baptism, as it were, Jesus writes His name on you? That He claims you as His own. That He binds you to Himself. That this sign, this seal, this sacrament is, in a way, a stamp of ownership. It's a title deed to your life. It's a proof of purchase. It declares with unmistakable terms that you belong to Christ. How do we apply this? We have to start with knowledge. That's what the apostle goes to in verse 19. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, that you've been bought at a price? Do you not know? It's an interesting phrase. If you go through the book of 1 Corinthians, six times in this chapter and 10 times in the book as a whole, he uses this phrase. It's almost like a sledgehammer that Paul brings back again and again. He says, do you not know? Do you not know? Do you not know? Do you not know? Do you not know? Do you not know? Do you not know? Do you not know? Do you not know? Do you not know? 10 times in the book, six times in this chapter, he presupposes that his audience knows something. Not just simple rote knowledge of a fact, but that deep down, deep down, You know who you are. Deep down, you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, that you've been bought at a price, that you don't belong to yourself, that you belong to Jesus. You know this. This is what we could call a covenant consciousness, an awareness of who actually has possession of your life. And so, remember, Your baptism. Remember who you are in Christ Jesus. Cultivate this covenant consciousness that you don't belong to yourself, but you belong to Him. For me, for a while, something very simple, I took a 3x5 card and I wrote down on it just two things. You don't belong to yourself. You belong to Jesus. I put it in my office and every once in a while, just look at it, remind myself of this reality. of who I am and who God is. And this really has implications for all of life. You begin to think of yourself not simply as an owner, as a possessor, but as a steward, as a caretaker, as a trustee of everything that God has given you. Your time, your money, your energy. You're a steward, you're a caretaker, you're a trustee. God's given these things to you to use well. Think about the context of this passage. Perhaps you find yourself at a computer screen, on a smartphone, you open a new tab, and you're realizing that you're going down a direction that's going to lead you into serious sin. Would you pray that in that moment, the Holy Spirit might bring to your conscious awareness, no, I belong to Jesus. I don't belong to myself. It's not my body. It's not my life. I belong to Christ. No, I can't commit this sin. Remind yourself, bring this to your conscious awareness. Think of it this way too, even as parents, sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking that we somehow own our children. Do you realize that fundamentally, they don't belong to you? The book of Ezekiel has an interesting phrase. God is castigating the Israelites. for their terrible wickedness. And in Ezekiel 16, he says this, moreover, you took your sons and your daughters whom you bore to me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your acts of harlotry a small matter? Your children, your sons and your daughters. Then in verse 21, he says this, and catch these words, that you have slain my children. You've slain my children. Do you realize that before your children ever belonged to you, they belonged to God? And when you present your children for baptism, what a great reminder that he's given them to you to train up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, that as Paul Tripp puts it, you're not an owner of your children, you're an ambassador of Jesus to them. This is your only comfort, privilege and promise that you don't belong to yourself, that you belong to Jesus. That's the first part. But if we know anything from scripture, we remember that God's covenant always has two parts. And that takes us to the second part, the chief end, the obligation, the responsibility. Note the word therefore in verse 20. For you were bought at a price, Therefore, it's a hinge that brings together the indicative and the imperative. Simpler terms, what is true, and then what you must do. God's promise, God's command, that hinge word. You were bought at a price, therefore, what's the implication? This is what Sinclair Ferguson calls biblical logic. You belong to Jesus, therefore, live unto Jesus. Live unto Jesus. You belong to Him, so live for Him. Note that primary imperative in verse 20. For you are bought at a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's. Quite simply. What's the application? Glorify God's. Children, once again, what is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. That's why Joel Pekey, when he summarizes Calvinism, says it's this. It's simply living for God's glory. This grand theme is pervasive in the book of 1 Corinthians. Think of 1 Corinthians 1 verse 31 where he's quoting Isaiah and he says this, he who glories, let him glory in the Lord. Literally let him boast in God. With that wonderful phrase in 1 Corinthians 10 31, whether you eat or you drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God, that we as redeemed image bearers might reflect back the glory of the Lord, even as the moon reflects the glory of the sun, that we might reflect back to Him the radiance, the glory of His worth. Glorify God. But you might think, what does that actually look like? How do we make this concrete? What does it mean to glorify God? Well, what's the Child's Catechism say so helpfully? How do you glorify God? By loving Him and doing what He commands. Loving Him and doing what He commands. Love and faithfulness. And of course, this means we should trust in Jesus. And if there's anyone here today who does not know the Lord Jesus Christ, I would plead with you. Receive and rest upon Jesus Christ alone as He's offered to you in the Gospel. Flee to Christ. Flee to Him. We also know that faith works by love. That part of what it means to glorify God is not simply to trust in Jesus, but to walk with Jesus by faith. Love Him. Do what He commands. Now, where do we do this? Where does this happen? Well, note, again, the language of our text. Therefore, glorify God in your body, in your spirit, which belong to him, which are God's. Glorify God in your body. Reminds us of Romans 12, to present our bodies a living sacrifice to God, which is our reasonable service. Present our bodies. To glorify God in our spirit. What does this mean to glorify God in these two areas? Really, what Paul is saying is, with your whole being, body and soul, in every aspect of life, glorify God. Reflect His glory back to Him. Love Him. Do what He commands. That means that when you're washing dishes, when you're changing a diaper, when you're cleaning a room, when you're preparing a meal, glorify God in your body and in your spirit. Live unto Jesus. This means that when you're changing attire, when you're sending an email, when you're writing a paper, when you're building a wall, when you're repairing a fence, glorify God in your body and in your spirit. Live unto Jesus. And this means that when you're playing with your children and you're engaged with them and taking them on a trip, when you're drinking a cup of coffee, when you're spending time with your spouse, when you're watching the sunset, when you're watching the sunrise, when you're just basking in God's creation, glorify God in your body, in your spirit. Live unto Jesus. Live unto him. Of course, negatively, in terms of this passage, In the immediate context, Paul draws the application, flee sexual immorality. Flee it. And you should. But remember the broader principle. Not only this negative application, but the broader, the bigger idea. Glorify God in your body, in your spirit. Live unto Christ. Your baptism declares that you belong to Jesus. So improve your baptism. Live unto Jesus. with diligence, with zeal, and all by grace through faith. Brother, sister, like Abraham, like Abraham, be willing to offer the Isaac of your hopes and your dreams upon the altar as a burnt offering. And remember that if you do that, God has promised he will give you the world. Like David, take that cup of your own life in your hands and pour it out, every last drop upon the ground, with the realization that God will fill it back up again until it's overflowing. Find freedom. in submission to Jesus. Sing the great hymn of a recent songwriter, I cling to Christ and marvel at the cost. Jesus forsaken, God estranged from gods. Bought by such love, my life is not my own. My praise, my all shall be for Christ alone. Congregation, It's not your body. It's not your time. It's not your money. It's not your energy. They're not fundamentally your children. God gave them to you as a caretaker. It's not your life. You don't belong to yourself. No. You belong unto Jesus. You belong to him by virtue of creation, by virtue of redemption, by his blood, by the indwelling of his spirit, but you belong to Jesus. Therefore, live unto Jesus. This is your only comfort and chief end. Your promise and your obligation, your privilege and your responsibility. This is at the heart of what it means to be a Christian. Belonging unto Jesus. Living unto Jesus. And it's captured so perfectly, I think, in the words of Lord's Day One of the Heidelberg Catechism. That first Lord's Day, in that great statement of faith, which one of my professors likes to say, if you memorize Heidelberg Lord's Day One, it'll put iron in your blood, it'll put steel in your spine. What is thy only comfort in life and death? That I, with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own. I'm not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who with His precious blood, fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil, and so preserves me. Without the hair, without the will of my Heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head. It makes all things subservient to my salvation and therefore by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life and makes me sincerely willing and ready henceforth to live unto Him. You belong to Jesus, so live for Jesus. Let's pray. Lord God, we come to you as our great creator and as our redeemer. And we pray you would cultivate in us this consciousness that we don't belong to ourselves, that we belong to Christ. And we pray, oh Lord, that out of that consciousness you would make us men, women, and children who live for Christ's advantage and for His glory all of our days until we see Him face to face. We pray this in His name, amen. We now have the opportunity to respond to the truth of what we've read and heard by standing to sing Trinity Hymnal number 644, May the Mind of Christ my Savior. Let us stand and sing. From day to day, By His law and boundless glory, All I do and say. May the Word of God grow richly in my heart from hour to hour, so that all may see I triumph holy through His power. May the peace of God ♪ That I may be calm to conqu'ring sin and sorrowing ♪ ♪ May the love of Jesus fill me as the waters fill the sea ♪ ♪ With exulting self-aggracing bliss in my soul ♪ Amen.