Let's pray together. Lord God, we thank you for this day, another day to live, Lord, for you and your world. But God, we need your instruction. We need your word to light the way for us. God, help me to be able to declare it now and work among your people so that we not only hear it, but we become doers of it. In Jesus' name, amen. Start off our last couple sermons with some song references. Today, we're going to do some poetry. William Shakespeare was a famous English playwright from the 16th century. You know him from his plays like Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, but he also wrote a number of poems. And one of his more unusual poems is Sonnet 129. Unusual because the poem's not like a love poem from man to woman. It's a meditation on sexual lust. I want to read this poem to you. It's not very long. It's written in early modern English, so it's gonna sound a little antiquated. You might not get all the words, but don't worry about it. Just try and pay attention to the main ideas as I read Shakespeare's Sonnet 129. The expense of spirit in a waste of shame is lust in action. Until action, lust is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame. Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust. Enjoyed no sooner, but despised straight. Past reason hunted, and no sooner had, past reason hated. As a swallowed bait, on purpose laid to make the taker mad. mad in pursuit and in possession so had having an inquest to have extreme. A bliss in proof and proved a very woe before a joy proposed behind a dream. All this the world well knows, yet none knows well to shun the heaven that leads men to this hell. That's the end of the poem. From what we can tell today, Shakespeare was not a true Christian. Yet even Shakespeare could observe what lust and the immorality that springs from lust is really like. Lust is extremely selfish. It leads to many other sins. Lust is controlling. It causes a person to do something he would otherwise never choose to do because it is so reckless and foolish. Lust is deceptive. It promises joy and fulfillment, but that joy goes away like a vapor and leaves behind nothing but shame and regret. But what is most startling is what Shakespeare asserts at the end of his poem in the final couplet. Even though many have discovered, the world well knows, Shakespeare says, the truly evil and vain nature of lust, it never satisfies. This does not stop people from pursuing it and going back to it again and again. Since the fall of Adam and Eve, immorality and lust have been characteristic of the sinful human race. Romans 1, 24 to 27 says that increasing sexual perversion is the natural outcome of man's rebellion against his creator. Though different cultures throughout history have been more open or less open with this sin, immorality has been a problem, a major problem, everywhere humanity has existed across time. Our modern American culture is no exception. Our society not only excuses sexual sin, but even celebrates it and promotes it. But how should Christians live in such a perverse world? Consider what the Apostle Paul writes to Christians in the first century. Christians who lived in an immoral society that was just as bad, if not worse, than our own. Listen to what Paul says is the Christian calling. Ephesians 5.3, but immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you. Some translations say it should not even be a hint, as is proper among saints, that is, holy ones. Do you hear from Paul what the standard of our Lord is when it comes to his people and immorality? God says it shouldn't even be named among you. Not even a little bit. You should be walking in total sexual purity and self-control. I don't know if that strikes you as crazy. How can that be when we live in such a world? How can, is this even possible? Can sexual purity truly be expected of those who genuinely know God? Consider yourselves this morning. Have you realized, even as Shakespeare did, the evil, destructive, vain nature of sexual sin and lust? And realizing this, do you nevertheless still turn to it, even regularly? Do you appreciate the seriousness of safeguarding yourself when it comes to immorality? And have you come to realize that there actually is a better way, a more joyful way to live your life and steward your sexuality? And that is in a chaste life, in obedience and to the glory of Jesus. Now the good news of the gospel, the good news of the gospel of salvation is that no matter how much, whether if or how much you've already been caught up in immorality, If you repent and believe in the Lord Jesus, you will be forgiven, you will be cleansed, you will be saved. But you must indeed repent. And what does repent mean? It's a change of mind that results in a change of action, change in the way that you live. If we are indeed to fulfill the calling that we have from God, which we can do, which we must do, we must have our minds renewed by God's truth. And that's what we're gonna seek to do this morning in our new passage. Please take your Bibles and open to 1 Corinthians 6. 1 Corinthians 6, let's hear our God speak to this issue of lust and immorality. The title of my message today is Lust, a Costly Consumption. Lust, a Costly Consumption. Our text is 1 Corinthians 6, 12 to 20. You find that on page 1,144 if you're using the Pew Bible. A few bits of background before we look at the text. This text is part of the Apostle Paul's letter to the mostly Gentile church in Corinth, part of Greece. The Corinthians, though true believers, they have become, as is evident as we look at other parts of the book, increasingly proud, selfish, and excusing of sin, partly due to adopting certain ideas from their ungodly culture. Now Paul writes this letter to the church in Corinth to correct their thinking and behavior on various issues, and immorality is one of them. So let's see how Paul and the Lord through Paul addresses that issue in our text, 1 Corinthians 6, 12 to 20. 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 up 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. Amazing text. Notice first here, as we just consider the passage as a whole, the words immorality and immoral. They appear several times in this passage. What exactly is immorality? The Greek word used for it here is porneia, and it refers to any kind of unrighteous sexual activity. It's a very broad term. It is the pursuit of any sexual pleasure or fulfillment outside of God's design in marriage. Anything outside God's design. You see, God created, and he loves marriage. And God designed sexual intimacy to be a blessed part of the one-flesh union of one man and one woman in marriage. This physical union is not only for procreation, but also for pleasure, as Proverbs 5 and Song of Solomon plainly indicate. Even within marriage, sexual intimacy is to be pursued not chiefly to satisfy one's own desires, but to satisfy the desires of the other spouse, as Paul makes clear in the next chapter, 1 Corinthians 7. So God's original design for marriage and sex is good, but every sexual pursuit that violates God's design, God hates, and he calls it immorality. And this would include premarital sex or fornication, adultery, pornography, solo stimulation, homosexuality, bestiality, incest, and prostitution. But that's not all immorality is, lustful looks, lustful thoughts. Lustful speech also comes under the category of immorality. Jesus says, if you lust in your heart, that counts as adultery, Matthew 5, 27 to 30. And Paul says that coarse words, lustful joking, has no place in the Christian's mouth, in Ephesians 5, 4. So understand that when this passage and when the scriptures refers to immorality, it's referring to all of this, those external actions, the lust of the heart, and the coarse speech. Notice also, as we consider the whole passage here, that there are two commands, two commands given. First is in verse 18, flee immorality, and the other is in verse 20, glorify God in your body. These are really two sides of one command. Stewarding one's sexuality as a Christian requires, on the negative side, fleeing immorality, and on the positive side, glorifying God. Glorifying God in your body. You cannot do one without the other. They go together. But notice where the commands appear in our passage. At the end. Near the end. And this delay is significant. Even though obedience to these two commands is the intended outcome of Paul's teaching, Paul evidently wants to address Christian thinking about immorality before he addresses Christian behavior. You may also have been struck by three times in the passage Paul says, do you not know? What you think has a lot to do with whether you're going to obey the Lord. So we're gonna mimic Paul's approach as we study this passage. Here Paul presents three critical truths about the body that should lead us to flee immorality and glorify God in our bodies instead. Three critical truths about the body that should lead us to flee immorality and glorify God in our bodies instead. And we're gonna investigate these truths and then we'll circle back to talk about the two commands. That's our approach. Let's take a look at the first critical truth. Why you should flee immorality and glorify God in your body instead. And this truth appears in verses 12 to 14. Number one, our bodies matter to God. Our bodies matter to God. There's always a temptation as Christians to think that what we do in our bodies does not really matter to God. This was certainly a temptation in ancient Corinth. Popular Greek thought at the time was that the body was innately evil. The body's evil, physical is evil, but the spirit is good. It's innately good, and it's separate from the body. The body's kind of like a prison, and the true self is the spirit. So as long as one's spirit was right with the divine, what happened in one's body, the physical part, doesn't really matter. This popular thinking soon attached itself in the first century to Christian truth. Because Christians like Paul were preaching that faith alone in Christ is what saves. It's totally apart from good works or rituals, things you see on the outside. Also physical issues like food, drink, circumcision, they don't matter to God. What matters is a clean conscience and making sure not to cause other people to stumble into sin. So you can see where popular Greek thought and the Christian message appeared to overlap. and some Greek converts to the faith, they began to believe that as long as one had faith in Christ, it doesn't really matter what one does with one's body. Even immorality could be tolerated or even justified if someone still has the right spiritual beliefs. A situation like this appears to have arisen in Corinth. There were Corinthians suggesting that immorality as a mere function of the body doesn't really matter to God. And Paul responds to some of their thinking in verses 12 to 14 by apparently quoting some of their popular sayings and correcting those ideas. Why do I take that interpretation? Well, it explains otherwise the odd way the passage proceeds. In the effort to deal with these Corinthian slogans, it explains the abrupt transition between verse 11 and verse 12, as well as the series of contrast that verses 12 and 14 present. We've got a series of things that the Corinthians were repeating to themselves to justify immorality and Paul responding. Notice Paul's, oh, I want to say this first. Notice the slogan that Paul confronts at the beginning of verse 12. All things are lawful for me. I don't know about you, that strikes me as a pretty sweeping statement, right? All things are lawful. I have the right to do anything I want. I am clean. I have total freedom in Christ. My spirit is right, so nothing in the world or in my body can separate me from God. That's not too far from what some Christians say today. But notice Paul's response in verse 12. All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable or beneficial. Now this is interesting. Paul doesn't reject their slogan outright, but he shows that it's incomplete and that it arises from a fundamentally misguided perspective. Yes, Paul says, you Corinthians are clean in Christ and you have amazing Christian liberty, but do you remember that Christ called you to live wisely and always look for what is most useful or profitable. Immorality is inherently self-destructive. According to Proverbs 5, it destroys health, it destroys wealth, it destroys reputation, it destroys relationships. So how would giving free reign to your body or how would nonchalantly getting close to immorality fit in the Christian call to wise living? But Paul has another response to this same slogan. He repeats it, all things are lawful for me in the second half of verse 12, but then adds, but I will not be mastered by anything. Here is another fundamental Christian principle. When we became believers, we renounced lordship of our lives and gave over exclusive authority to the Lord Jesus. He is our master now, and he's made quite clear that he's not gonna share his ownership and his control with anything or anyone else, Matthew 6, 24. So now Paul challenges the Corinthians and us with that principle. How does indulging in immorality with your body fit with the reality of Christ's exclusive, jealous lordship? Immorality. even as Shakespeare observed, is inherently enslaving and controlling. It demands greater and greater amounts of your time, your resources. How does that fit with the Christian calling to serve Christ alone? The next slogan that Paul deals with in verse 13 is somewhat longer, and it really has two parts. First, food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Here are two excuses given for the body and immorality. First, that immorality is necessary and inevitable. It's just like the stomach and food. God, they say, made the stomach to enjoy different kinds of food and to nourish your body. That's the stomach's purpose. If you don't eat, you're going to not only be unhappy, but you're going to eventually die. In the same way, God made the human body to enjoy and even to be nourished by many and different kinds of sexual experiences. That's what the body was apparently designed for. We are sexual beings after all. Why else would God give us these passions? In other words, immorality is driven by biological need. Don't try to stop it. It's natural. It's healthy. And again, don't we hear this same idea in our own society? Not only is it assumed today that people will be immoral, but also that this is good. You only give yourself a nervous disorder if you try to repress yourself. You need an outlet for those God-given drives. Why else would God make the passion so strong? Don't put limits on sex. Immorality is necessary. It's inevitable. That's the first excuse exerted, but the second is that immorality is inconsequential. The thinking goes like this. The stomach's not going to last forever, and neither is food. So, does it really matter what foods you choose to eat or not to eat? It's all the same destiny in the end. Might as well live it up. Why make it hard for yourself by refraining from food? In the same way, our bodies are not going to last forever, and neither will sex. So no matter how much we indulge or not, the outcome is the same in the end. Therefore, whatever we do in the body is not really going to matter in eternity. Why stress ourselves out with chastity, with resisting those fierce temptations, those constant temptations? Why not just relax and enjoy ourselves? This apparently was part of the thinking in Corinth, some in Corinth. And notice Paul's two-part response to this longer slogan. We see this in verses 13 and 14. 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. This is an amazing, and unexpected response from Paul, especially in the first part. Notice that Paul doesn't simply retort that the body is made for sex and marriage. You say the body is for immorality. No, the body's made for sex and marriage. That's not what he says. Notice he says it's actually made for something much grander. The body is made for the Lord himself. Your body is made for the Lord, and the Lord was designed for your body. Paul says to the Corinthians and us, do you know what is more necessary to your life, your health, your well-being, than either food or sex? Jesus Christ. Your body was meant for him, and he was meant for your body. So actually, immorality, it goes against the way that God created you. It is not according to it. As for the second part of Paul's reply, notice again that the Corinthian excuse is turned on its head. Yes, our bodies and their appetites will one day come to an end by death. But that is actually, as Paul points out, not the end of our bodies. The same bodies that lived on the earth bodies that we chose to indulge or not to indulge in immorality, those bodies, those same bodies will be raised by the Lord in the same way that Jesus Christ's body was raised. So you cannot talk as if it doesn't matter what we do with our bodies because we'll just discard them in the end. Well, guess what? You're getting that body back. and your body, these bodies that we'll receive back, they will be eternal testimonies to the lives that we lived on the earth. By the way, did you notice in verse 14, Paul does not say, God will raise up our bodies through his power, but instead he says, God will raise us up through his power. Say, what's the point of that? Why is that distinction important? Is Paul saying that our bodies won't be raised, only our spirits? No, our bodies will indeed be raised. Just read over in 1 Corinthians 15 for a longer explanation of that. Rather, by saying that we, rather than merely just our bodies will be raised, Paul is emphasizing something quite profound, something that we can forget. And that is, you cannot distance yourself from your body. You are not, as some Greeks thought, a soul imprisoned in the body like a shell. Rather, you are your body. You are a complex intermixture of body and soul, inner man and outer man. They are both you. So you cannot say, oh my, whatever the body does, that's not me. No, that's you. That's part of you. So we must have none of this, it doesn't matter what I do in the body. It certainly does matter what you do in the body. because you are your body. Your body is part of you. Now, let's pause and think about what these truths mean for us. You cannot claim that you are spiritually safe while you pursue immorality, because God has called you to live wisely, seeking that which most spiritually profits you and others and him. You cannot remain nonchalant about whether immorality might place you into bondage, for God will not tolerate you, you being mastered by anyone besides him. And you cannot excuse your immorality as biologically or emotionally or psychologically or whatever you want to say. You cannot excuse it as necessary because the Lord says that he and his will for you are more necessary than anything in this world. And he cannot treat sexual sin as inconsequential, because in one way or another, you will wear the consequences of your sexual choices for eternity, either in God's new heavens and new earth, or in hell. Clearly then, our bodies matter to God. That's the first critical truth. There's a second critical truth that should cause us to flee immorality and glorify God in our bodies instead, and that's in verses 15 to 17. Number two, our bodies are in union with Christ. If you're a believer, your body is in union with Christ. Let's take these verses all together, verses 15 to 17. 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. In these verses, Paul draws our attention to the nature of our union with Christ. Paul essentially asks, don't you remember that when you became a Christian, you were placed into Jesus? All of you was placed into Jesus Christ. You spiritually became a member of his body. You are part of him now. And really, this is how all the salvation blessings of God come to us as Christians. We have become attached and something like spiritual marriage, a spiritual marriage of total oneness to the son of God himself. Thus, his everlasting life, his righteousness, his strength, they pour into our lives via the union. Meanwhile, our sin goes to him, which he paid off once for all triumphantly on the cross. What's his is ours, what's ours is his. Just like marriage. Now this is a mysterious union that cannot be fully understood, yet it is real, it is plainly declared in the scriptures, and it's the foundation of our eternal life and hope. But what does this have to do with immorality? Paul basically asks us this question next. Having been made part of such an amazing union with Jesus Christ, will you then seek out a contradictory union. In these verses, Paul contrasts two unions. There's total union, body and soul, with Jesus Christ and the Spirit. And there's total union, body and soul, with a prostitute by the flesh. Both of these unions, Paul indicates, are versions of the fundamental one flesh marriage paradigm established by God in Genesis 2.24. The two will become one flesh. And by the way, prostitution was the most common temptation to immorality in the ancient world at that time. Prostitution was cheap and readily available. But what is said about prostitutes here, it applies to any kind of immorality. So don't be like, oh, he's only just talking about that. No, this is talking about lust. This is talking about immorality in whatever form it might appear. The prostitute is just an example, even a symbol for all of that. Now notice what Paul says takes place theologically when a Christian indulges in immorality, even goes to visit a prostitute. The Christian takes away, and that's a good translation in New American Standard 95, he removes, he takes away the members of Christ out of Christ to make them members of a harlot, to make them part of a harlot. And what's Paul's reaction to this scenario? What does he think about that? Should Christians ever do that? May it never be! Absolutely not! God forbid! Never! Why such a strong response, Paul? Well, Paul doesn't draw out the implications for us directly because it should be obvious. We can just explore this a little bit with our minds. On the one hand, can anyone conceive of a greater blasphemy than trying to unite Christ, his members, any part of him, with immorality? He's the holy one, he's the beautiful one, he's the unstained one, and you're gonna try and stain him? You're gonna try and pollute his members? Yet this is what is attempted any time a Christian seeks out and indulges in immorality, whatever form, whether it's in your heart or whether it's in some external way. The person not only robs Christ of the members that belong to him, but he seeks to defile these members, and even Christ himself, with this heinous sin. Will a holy God endure this? Will he not care about that? Will he who dwells in unapproachable light, will he say, that's okay if you pollute my body? Any Christian who loves Christ at all or has a shred of holy fear would not even dare consider such, much less go through with it. That's one implication, but there's another. If you remove yourself, if you remove your members from Christ and unite yourself with a harlot, how will you avoid everlasting spiritual death? Because let's face it, Paul says that you cannot be united with Christ and a harlot at the same time. You have to take away the members from one to join another. You can either be members of Christ's body, or you can be a member of the harlot's body, immorality's body. You can't do both. Either Christ can be your master, or immorality can be your master. You can't have both. Jesus won't share. Someone might ask, wait, Pastor Dave, you're saying that I can lose my salvation by engaging in immorality? No. True Christians, many true Christians have fallen into immorality. That's even evident in the scriptures. But what this passage is clearly saying is this. It is totally inconsistent. God is saying it is totally inconsistent for someone to say that he's attached to Christ when that person then goes and attaches himself to a harlot. Now as I said, there is wonderful forgiving and transforming grace for all who repent and believe in Jesus. He cleanses and he enables you to walk anew in holiness. Praise God, because we who have stumbled into sexual sin many times, we need that hope. But let us not kid ourselves into thinking that God overlooks regular, unrepentant immorality. Or let us not insist that we are repentant when no lasting change ever takes place in our lives. Oh Jesus, I feel bad every time I do it. Do you stop? Does it make you feel bad enough to stop? It's worth mentioning now something that appears right before our passage. 1 Corinthians 6, 9-10 emphasizes the either or nature of Union with Christ. Union with Christ and immorality. Look at 1 Corinthians 6, 9 to 10. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals. These are just different categories of immorality. And he mentions some other ones, and then he says, none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. People who walk in this way, people where this can be characteristic of them, this marks their lives, don't be deceived. They are not gonna enter the kingdom of God. Don't you know that? This is a sobering word that we need to hear today. You cannot have Christ and sexual immorality too. You cannot claim union with Christ while you regularly seek out union with a prostitute. Such is indeed a costly consumption. Immorality will cost you your soul. It will bring God's vengeance. You know something that's kind of interesting and sobering? If you look up the word immorality in the New Testament, What you see in the context almost all the time is a promise of judgment or death to those who refuse to repent of it. God even designates himself as the special avenger of those who defraud others by immorality. God treats this sin seriously. We must as well. And we must ask ourselves, which union do I want? when union with Christ is so much better, when it results in lasting life, joy, and blessing, why would you ever settle for the short-lived thrill and the long-lasting shame and poison of immorality? If you're gonna choose Christ, will it mean persevering during times of temptation? Will it mean saying no to the flesh when your flesh is crying out for immorality? Yes, but it's worth it. This is the union that's worth it, not this. Both the fact that our bodies matter to God and our bodies are in union with Christ should cause us to flee immorality and seek to glorify God with our bodies instead. Now there's a third critical truth that should motivate us towards these actions, and that's what we see in the last part of our passage, verses 18 to 20. Number three, our bodies must not be desecrated. Our bodies must not be desecrated. In this last section, Paul points out three ways that immorality unacceptably desecrates a person's body. And I'll give you these three reasons as subpoints, three ways. Three A, Immorality first desecrates man's created dignity. First desecrates man's created dignity. Look at verse 18. Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Now we'll get back to the phrase flee immorality in just a moment. But the rest of the verse, it has long puzzled interpreters. In what sense is immorality a unique sin against one's own body? How is immorality different from gluttony, drunkenness, or even suicide, which would also seem to be sins against one's own body? Why is immorality in its own special category? Those are difficult questions to answer. my view, is that the uniqueness of sexual sin has to do with how it improperly joins people who are not actually married in body and soul. This act fundamentally degrades people from their originally created dignity as image bearers of God. Therefore, those who commit immorality are consequently afflicted with this sense of uncleanness and shame that seems to come from within and doesn't go away. Significantly, Paul says in Romans 124 and 126 that immorality dishonors the bodies of those who participate in it. Something that dishonors, degrades the body when it's subjected to immorality. God doesn't want to see his image so desecrated, and neither should we. That's the first reason our bodies must not be desecrated. The second is, or the second way it can be desecrated, 3b, immorality desecrates the Spirit's holy dwelling. Immorality desecrates the Spirit's holy dwelling. Now look at verse 19, first part. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? Now, I sometimes hear well-meaning Christians misapplying this verse. Do you really want to eat that double cheeseburger? Don't you know your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit? Now, look, we should steward our bodies well when it comes to our diet for the sake of Christ. But physical health or appearance is not at all what this verse is talking about. Paul is rather drawing attention to another amazing salvation blessing. We have union with Christ, but we also have indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And we're told here that the body is the temple or the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. which is like what Paul has already said in Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians 3.16, Paul referred to the entire church as the temple of God and of the Holy Spirit. Here, Paul applies the same metaphor on an individual basis. You, yes, you listening today, if you believe in Jesus Christ, you are the dwelling place of God's Spirit, you and your body. But what does it have to do with the context, the discussion on immorality? Because sexual sin is a desecration of God's temple of the Spirit's dwelling place in you. This isn't about cholesterol. This is about sexual sin. Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? How can you desecrate that temple by sexual sin? As one pastor put it, indulging in immorality is like taking a prostitute straight into God's holy of holies. That's how God sees it, because you are his dwelling place, even in your body. Knowing this, being reminded of this, should not only grieve anyone who loves God and is grateful for the Holy Spirit, a spirit who indwells us, empowers us, and enlightens us, that we would ever consider or do something like that, but it should also sober us, just as with the discussion about union with Christ. Because how did God react to the desecration of his temple in the Old Testament? When people brought sin right into the temple, or they engaged in hypocritical worship while they were unrepentant of sin, how did God regard that? How did he respond to that, do you remember? He let his temple be destroyed. He says, I'd rather have my glorious physical dwelling place laid to ruins than to have it continually polluted by this sin. Will a holy God act any differently with us if we continue to defile the holy temple, the dwelling place of God's spirit, when we won't repent of immorality? Finally, there's 3C. Immorality desecrates the Son's redeeming blood. Immorality desecrates the Son's redeeming blood. Look at the end of verse 19, going into verse 20. Or do you not know that you are not your own? For you've been bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body. Here, Paul reminds us that our bodies, if we are in Christ, they don't actually belong to us. but not actually ours. In truth, everyone's body belongs to God in one sense because God is the creator. He owns you because he made you. But the bodies of believers belong to God in a special way because of the redemption of Christ. The Bible talks about our salvation using various metaphors, and redemption is one of them. It has to do with slavery. You were, spiritually speaking, formerly enslaved to sin and Satan, Romans 6. But the Son of God, by His incredible salvation work, He redeemed you. He paid the price for your freedom. He bought you back. And what was that price? It was His shed blood on the cross. It was His sacrificial death as a criminal, taking your place, bearing and fully paying the wrath of God that was due you for your sin. That was the price of your redemption, and He paid it. But when he paid it, it didn't merely set you free to do as you please. Okay, have a nice life. Rather, your ownership passed to him. You're no longer having sin and Satan as your master. Now Jesus is your master. After all, he bought you. He paid the price. We have now become, if we believe in Jesus, we have become slaves of Christ and slaves of righteousness. We are fully owned by God. body and soul. Now, most forms of slavery in the world are oppressive and evil, but to be a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ is happy servitude. We are, because he is our master, he is our owner, we are under his eternal care and protection. And amazingly, though we are only unworthy slaves, he says, and you're gonna reign with me when I set up my kingdom. I'm giving you places of honor right alongside me. These are wonderful realities. This is part of the good news of the gospel of salvation. But they mean that our bodies are not our own to use and abuse as we would like or as we see fit. No, our bodies belong to Christ. Therefore, to submit ourselves, any part of us to immorality is theft. It's theft of our master's property, it's defacement of our master's property, and it's a blasphemy against our redemption. Now if you love Christ, and if you believe in Jesus, you love Christ, could you really treat Jesus' redemption so ungratefully? Let us fear desecrating the blood bodies that we have in Christ, by going into sexual sin and not repenting of it. To review the truths we've seen thus far. Number one, our bodies matter to God. Number two, our bodies are in union with Christ. And number three, our bodies must not be desecrated. We don't want to violate our created dignity. We don't want to pollute the Spirit's holy dwelling. We do not want to blaspheme the Son's redeeming blood. This is all to change our thinking about immorality and to motivate us to something in response. Obedience to the two commands. What commands? Let's look at them again. Back at verse 18, we see the first command from Jesus. The first application of these critical truths about the body, and that is first, flee immorality. Flee immorality. This is a present tense verb that implies continual action. Flee and keep on fleeing. What does it mean to flee? It means to run away like your life depended on it. Because in a way, spiritually, it does. Your eternal soul, your place in God's kingdom, it depends on whether you're going to go to immorality or not. Therefore, do as Proverbs 5 says. Don't go near the door of temptation's house. Keep your way far. Give temptation a wide berth, if you can help it, if you can see it coming. Do this for Christ's sake, and do it for your own. Obviously, one implication of this is that if you are currently involved in immorality, you must turn from it. You got to stop doing it. Don't start doing it again. and run away from anything that's gonna encourage you, or drag you, or push you to do it. Run away from it. Like your life depended on it. Be like Joseph. Famous, right? Genesis 39. Literally ran out of Potiphar's house when Potiphar's wife tried to entice him when nobody else was around. He got in trouble for that. He got falsely accused. He got thrown in prison. But he didn't worry about that part. He said, what I'm worried about is being enticed into immorality. I gotta flee. Now what does this command to flee mean practically for us? I'll give you a few examples. Fleeing immorality means getting radical to remove or mitigate sources of temptation in your life. This is gonna vary for each person, exactly how this looks. But you gotta think about relationships, situations, entertainment, technology, social media. There is nothing that is truly essential for you in your life except Jesus Christ. If there's something then that is dragging you towards sexual sin, what must you do with it? Cut it off and throw it from you. That's what Jesus says, Matthew 5, 29 to 30. say, oh, but that's gonna make my life hard. Listen to Jesus' exhortation. Would you rather enter into the kingdom maimed or would you rather be intact and have your whole body thrown into hell? Obviously, this isn't talking about literally maiming your body, but it's talking about cutting off sources of temptation. Get radical. Remove or mitigate sources of temptation in your life. Fleeing immorality also means changing your thought life. What good will removing external sources of temptation do if you don't remove or do something about the internal sources of temptation? You must put off, you must fundamentally put off and continually put off, whenever they try and come back into your mind, unprofitable and lustful thoughts, and you must replace them with helpful thoughts based on God's truth. Think about God. Think about serving Christ. Think about enjoying His creation to His glory. This is another application of Philippians 4.8. Think on what is good. Don't think on what's going to drag you to sin. You must change your thought life. Fleeing immorality also means changing where you look for joy, where you look for comfort, especially when life gets hard. Many people turn to sexual sin when they're looking for comfort, when they feel depressed, when they feel anxious, when they feel angry, when they feel hopeless. Immorality seems like it's gonna provide that comfort, but anyone who's ever indulged can tell you it is short-lived and only brings further pain and shame. You must find comfort. You must find your contentment. You must find your joy from another source that's actually reliable. And the only place is Jesus Christ. Change where you look for joy and comfort. Fleeing immorality also means if you're married, rejoice in your spouse. Enjoy your spouse instead of immorality. Proverbs 5 commands, You enjoy the person that God gave you as your own special source of refreshment, your own fountain, your own cistern or well. That person was specifically designed for you. Don't look for anybody else. God gave you your own special designed-for-you person. Enjoy that person and be a source of enjoyment for that person. And if sin has marred your relationship with that person, well, repent. and seek reconciliation with that person so that your relationship can grow and you can enjoy one another. Fleeing immorality also means getting help from mature brothers and sisters in the church. You knew I was gonna say this, right? Immorality is a very difficult and entangling sin. It is using the good design of God and it's using it against you to draw you away from God. It is a very difficult and entangling sin, but God gave you an amazing resource in Jesus' church, in your brothers and sisters who also have God's spirit. They can help you. They can encourage you. They can instruct you. They can help keep you accountable. They can rescue you. You need them. As a biblical counselor, I'm very familiar with a fact, and that is most people who struggle with sexual morality do not overcome until they get help from another person. Now, if help is not available to you, God is still sufficient. You're not doomed to sin. But if help is available to you and you won't take it, do you really want to overcome? There are other ways we can flee immorality, but certainly those five, those five should be things we put into practice. I'll repeat them to you. Get radical, remove and mitigate sources of temptation from your life. Change your thought life. Change where you look for joy and comfort, especially when life gets hard. Rejoice in your spouse, if you're married. And get help from mature brothers and sisters in the church. Now that's just the first command, flee immorality. Let's look briefly at the second. which we see at the very end of our passage, verse 20. Glorify God in your body. I love this. You know, when it comes to the issue of sexual purity, often the instruction is framed, mostly framed, in negative prohibitions and warnings. Don't do this or these are gonna be the consequences. And that's not bad. That's actually biblical and necessary. If you study the passages in the scriptures that have to do with this sin, you're gonna find that mostly it's negative instruction. This is important for us. We need a holy fear when it comes to this issue. But that's not all there is, as you can even tell from this second profound positive command from Paul. Not just stay away from something, but do something else instead, something wonderful. You see, these exhortations from God's day about sexual purity, they're not just a duty, they are a duty, but they're an opportunity. They're an opportunity for you to experience delight. You have an avenue for joy being opened up to you right now. How so? Well, your body and its sexuality, they are not simply burdens to be endured. They are an opportunity to enjoy God and display his worth to the world. 1 Thessalonians 4.3 says, Or rather, let me put it this way. When you, as 1 Thessalonians 4 says, learn how to possess your own vessel in sanctification and honor. Yes, you're different from other people in some ways, but all of it's under God's sovereignty. When you learn how to possess your own vessel in sanctification and honor, you powerfully glorify God. you put His strength and His worth on full display for the world. Our perverse world doesn't understand that. They don't know what to do with that. They say, how can you do that? Why would you do that? And you say, because of my Lord. When you say no to immorality and you say yes, To chase obedience to Jesus Christ, you not only glorify God, but you get to know more, you get to fellowship with, and you get to please by your obedience the one who saved you, Jesus. In short, you get to walk in joy with Jesus when you're obedient. This is what you were designed for. This is what you and your body were meant for. And you know what? It is the only way to true and lasting joy. I'll tell you something that has really struck me over the years, is that one of the main draws towards immorality is the thought that somehow God is forcing you to miss out. Oh, there's all this joy, there's all this fun, there's all this satisfaction that God says I can't have. Oh, I guess I'll try and endure. Listen, one of the things that God emphasizes throughout his scriptures is that he denies no good thing to him who walks uprightly. God is no killjoy. He promises that he will only give the best to his children. You are not missing out when you choose not to go near immorality. You know who's missing out? Those who go to it. Those who do go near, those who are like, eh, you know, it's not a big deal, or I just have to, I just got these passions. They're the ones who are missing out. You know why? Because they don't get the joy of walking with Jesus. The way you overcome immorality ultimately is by choosing a greater joy. If you just try and grit your teeth, put a whole bunch of rules in place, it's not gonna be enough. Yes, sometimes you have to grit your teeth and endure, and rules are helpful, certain safeguards are helpful, but you need something better to motivate you. You know what that better thing is? It's the Lord, it's the joy of walking with him. There's a statement from scripture I often think of about various things, but certainly when it comes to sexual morality. In Hebrews 13, 10, it says, we have an altar from which those who serve the temple, or we could say those in the world, have no right to eat. We've been given the best. Why would we give that up for something far worse that actually brings destruction with it? We have an opportunity. It is our calling, but it's actually an invitation to joy. Don't simply flee immorality. Embrace the positive. Glorify God in your body. You say, when I say no to sexual sin, when I present my body, when I present my mind in chastity, in self-control, in persevering holiness to the Lord, I get Him, I get to enjoy fellowship with Him, and I don't lose His joy. That's gotta be your motivation. That's how you'll overcome. God will enable you to overcome, but you have to believe that his way is better. Now finally, let me say this. I need to repeat this because I don't want you to get the wrong impression. No matter what you've done with your body, maybe today you're like, Pastor Dave, you don't even know how unclean I am. You don't even know how sullied my body is. I don't. The Lord does. But you know what's the most wonderful truth? No matter what you've done, no matter how many times you've indulged in immorality, even as a Christian, if you will repent and believe, you will be cleansed. You will be forgiven. There will be no stain on you anymore. God forgives it all. Consider this, you know who was one of the groups that repented when Jesus came to the world and found entrance into his kingdom? Prostitutes. He says many of them are getting in while you Pharisees are dallying at the door. Or just look at another verse that appears right before our passage. I didn't read it yet, so I'm saving it for now. Right when Paul says, don't you remember that the unrighteous not inherit the kingdom of God, including all the sexually immoral, look at what he says next in verse 11. Such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God. In this church are people who have been in bondage to sexual sin before. Some are maybe still struggling, but you know what? What's true of these ancient Corinthians has now become true of us. We were the immoral ones. We were the ones enslaved to immorality, but Christ brought us out. Christ cleansed us and caused us to walk anew in sanctification and honor, and he can do the same for you. but you must repent and believe. You must give up this sin. You must give up that idol of sex and say that this is the thing that I need. This is the thing that's gonna make me happy. This is the thing that's gonna satisfy. No, it's not. And every time you seek it out like it's going to, guess what? You're gonna be disappointed. If you'll give that up and say, Jesus is gonna be my satisfaction. Only he is allowed to be my Lord. I will trust him because he will enable me to overcome. If you will do that, you will be saved. But we're gonna need to help one another with this. But he's given us his help by his word today. Let's hear it, let's believe it, let's obey it. Allow me to pray. Lord, we thank you for this hope-filled word. Lord, we are sobered by it. We need to appreciate that we cannot have immorality in you as well. We cannot allow immorality to continue in our life. We must repent of it. And those that we've defrauded by immorality, we must. Where appropriate, confess and make it right. But thank you, God, that you not only forgive and cleanse, but you do give transforming grace. So then when our flesh cries out and says, you need this, you can't get away from this, we can say by faith, I don't need this, I need Jesus Christ, and he's gonna enable me to endure. I want something better. I want something better than immorality could ever give me. Lord, if there are any brethren who are still struggling with this right now, God, I pray that they would take you at your word, they would put off this sin, and they would get help from mature brothers and sisters in this church. And Lord, for those who don't know you and maybe have been afraid to come to you because of sexual sin, I pray, Lord, that they would be like those ancient prostitutes or even like these ancient Corinthians and say, there's total forgiveness and cleansing offered in Jesus Christ. If Paul can say I'm the worst and God saved me, then the Lord can save me as well, no matter how stained with sexual sin I am. Oh God, what a privilege to then stand as a trophy for you, a testimony to what you've done. It would help us to walk in joyful obedience in this area. In Jesus' name, amen.