Grab your Bibles, because we are going to jump
right into it this morning. We are in a series
in 1 Corinthians, and we are in 1 Corinthians
chapter 6. Go ahead and turn there if you will.
Even though we're only covering three verses
this morning, we have so much to talk about.
So we want to get started. By the way, if you
are newer here at Oak Hill or you're visiting
with us this morning, you probably will not have
heard the warning that I issued. to our church
family and to our parents in the past week. And
if you didn't hear that and that's the case,
let me give it to you now. We're going to be
discussing some mature themes that come up in
this morning's passage, themes of a sexual nature.
So if you have a child and that child is not
ready for those conversations. You might want
to head over to our children's ministry, check
them in, then come back. And if you need to do
that, we have some ushers in the back. Blake's
walking around somewhere. He can help you, direct
you on how to do that. Fact is, sometimes these
things come up, right, as we work our way through
the Bible. We're looking at verses 9 to 11 this
morning, but let's back up to verse 1 so that
we make sure that we read it in context. 1 Corinthians
6, beginning verse 1. Here's what God says. When
he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go
to law before the unrighteous and not before
the saints? Or do you not know that the saints
will judge the world? If the world is judged
by you, are you not competent to constitute the
smallest law courts? Do you not know that we
will judge angels? How much more matters of this
life? So if you have law courts dealing with
matters of this life, do you appoint them as
judges who are of no account in the church? I
say this to your shame. Is it so that there is
not among you one wise man, one wise man, who
will be able to decide between his brethren?
But brother goes to law with brother, and that
before unbelievers. Verse 7. Actually then, it
is already a defeat for you that you have lawsuits
with one another. Why not rather be wronged?
Why not rather be defrauded? On the contrary,
you yourselves wrong and defraud. You do this
even to your brethren. So obviously the members
of the church there in Corinth in the first century
were completely ignoring the basic principles
of forgiveness and reconciliation, and they were
not allowing church leadership to get in there
and help them work through these conflicts according
to the pattern that we have in Scripture. Instead,
they were dragging each other into court. They
were seeking financial vengeance, gouging one
another, and doing it all before unbelievers,
dishonoring the name of Christ and the testimony
of his church there in that city. So Paul says,
don't you realize that you are different from
the world around you? So why are you acting like
the world? Why are you operating as they operate?
It'd be better if you allowed yourself to be
wronged and cheated by someone than to go after
each other in court and bring division and disgrace
into the body of Christ. I say this to your shame,
he writes, which is strong language because remember,
Paul is their spiritual father. I say this to
your shame, but here's the truth. This is already
a defeat for you. Now he goes on. Here are three
verses for this morning, beginning in verse nine.
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 the effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves,
nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers,
nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
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. So let's start here. Who is
Paul talking about at the beginning of verse
9? He's talking about the unrighteous, he says,
adikoi in the original Greek. This is the same
word that he used up in verse 1 when he chastised
the Corinthians for bringing lawsuits before
unbelievers, before the unrighteous. Or as it
could be read, you bring your case before men
who are unjustified in God's sight. He's speaking
of people out there in the world who have no
fear of God, no saving knowledge of Christ, and
obviously then these are people who will not
inherit the kingdom of God, Paul says. But here
was the problem. Some of the church members in
Corinth were living just like the unrighteous,
unsaved population around them. They'd been sucked
into the culture. So Paul feels compelled to
warn them severely in the middle of verse 9.
Don't let yourself be deceived, he says. Do not
be self -deceived. You may profess to know Christ,
but you're habitually living like people who
will be shut out of heaven someday. Imagine getting
that letter from the apostle. And this is important
to point out before we get to the list of sins
that comes next. Paul is warning them about having
a lifestyle So this isn't just I stumbled into
sin or momentarily on occasion I fell into temptation.
He's talking about professing believers living
in an ongoing, continuous pattern of sin, clinging
onto their desires without any sense of repentance.
They're not battling against their sin. They're
not seeking God's face to try to overcome it.
They've simply chosen out of their own will to
resist. the moral commands of Scripture, and
go their own way. That's the posture that they've
taken. If that's you, Paul says, you should know
this. You are not a Christian. You cannot live
that lifestyle and claim to be a Christian. You're
not saved. You're either lying to yourself and
those in the church or you're self -deceived,
and therefore you need to wake up and hear the
truth. If you persist in a lifestyle that mirrors
the unrighteous, you will not inherit the kingdom
of God. It's a strong language, right out of
the gate in verse 9. And then we come to something
that Paul uses fairly regularly as a literary
tool. We call this a vice list, a vice list.
And these are not unusual. You'll find lists
in the book of Romans, Galatians, Ephesians,
and Colossians. And oftentimes you'll see a list
of vices that are contrasted to a list of what?
Virtues, right? A vice list and a virtue list.
And the intent of these lists in Scripture is
not to be exhaustive. Paul's not trying to list
every possible vice or every possible virtue.
He's using representative sins on the one hand
and representative examples of righteousness
on the other. And here in 1 Corinthians 6, he
picks a sampling of 10 sins that show us, even
today, what an unrighteous lifestyle looks like.
So let's walk through them. And as we do, Here's
what I want you to do. I want you to resist the
temptation to say, this doesn't apply to me.
Because we all have that defensive measure in
us to say, oh, this is interesting, but not for
me. Maybe for you, but not for me. So be careful,
right? Before you do that, I want you to consider
the range of meaning of each of these words.
The range of meaning. Consider the most blatant
manifestation of these things, but also the most
subtle. manifestation, the ones that are least
detectable, that might actually be seeping into
your life right now. You might be surprised.
If you dig deep enough into your heart, you might
say, you know what? Now that I read that, I probably
need to guard my heart against the seeping into
my life. So let's start with the sinful lifestyle
that Paul puts first. It's fornicators. Fornicators.
In the Greek, the root word is pornos. Now, we've
already come across this word three times already
in the first six chapters of this letter. Obviously,
it's the root of our English word, pornography.
And in the context of a vice list like this,
it refers to a general category of sexually immoral
people. That would mean any sin that is forbidden
in God's word. Given Paul's Jewish background
and his understanding of the Old Testament, he
would probably have in mind things like prostitution,
adultery, incest, homosexuality, and yes, here's
the big one, any sexual activity outside of the
covenant of marriage. We categorize that as fornication.
This is why I just cautioned you to consider
the range of meaning. It would be so easy to
say, well, listen, I'm never going to engage
in prostitution or incest, but then miss the
possibility of the more subtle one, which is
any sex outside of marriage. So you might understand
why, if somebody were to come into our church
body and say, I'm living with my boyfriend or
living with my girlfriend, that any of us members
lovingly should confront that situation and issue
a warning. And I know that's not a comfortable
conversation to have, but it's a necessary one
for this reason, because we care about that person.
We care about their soul. We want them to know
that they're living in disobedience to God's
commands and that such a lifestyle might someday
exclude them from inheriting eternal life. Is
that not love to have that conversation because
we care about them? But also we would want to
tell them the good news about how to overcome
this problem that they have engaged in. What's
the remedy? Repentance. Submission to Christ
combined with practical steps to move out of
that lifestyle and to walk in holiness. Those
are important conversations that we have within
the body of Christ. Fornication. It's a big general
category. That's the first one. Second one is
idolaters. Idolaters. Now here, based on the
context of first century Greek culture, it's
likely that Paul has in mind all of the religious
activities. that were happening there each and
every day in the city of Corinth. Things like
sacrifices being made at pagan temples, worship
of Greek gods and goddesses, religious festivals
and banquets in honor of Zeus and Apollo and
all the gods, even the cultic sexual practices
that we know were taking place inside those pagan
temples. And again, we might say to ourselves,
well, I'm not planning to stop at a pagan temple
on my way home. I'm not going to build an altar,
a pagan altar in my living room today. But obviously
the term idolatry has a huge range of meaning.
In fact, you could say that idolatry may be the
most basic and fundamental of all sins. It's
giving status and loyalty to anyone or anything
that rightly belongs to God alone. And we are
all under the temptation, me included. to fall
into this, right? To subtly prioritize things
above our devotion to the Lord. Things like money
and material possessions, career and achievements,
vanity and appearance, safety and security, personal
comfort, entertainment, political ideologies,
social media, and the list goes on. We can end
up making those things idols. They come before
our devotion to the living God. And that's why
it's so important for a believer to constantly
be in prayer with the Lord, assessing his or
her heart, to walk through that self -examination,
asking the Spirit of God to reveal the deepest
part of our hearts, to say, Lord, what is it
I truly love? You know me better than I know
myself. I think I know what I love, but tell
me. Are there things that I need to lay aside?
What are the motivations behind why I do what
I do? That kind of self -examination and prayer
with the Lord is really important. This is how
we avoid falling into a habitual lifestyle of
idolatry. And by the way, there are going to
be times in our lives when we can be kind of
blind to our own idolatry. We end up in a habit
or something we're doing where we're kind of
blind to it. This is why we need one another.
loving fellow church members that will pull us
aside, again, motivated by love and concern to
say, hey, I'm seeing something in your life.
Can we talk about this? Because we don't want
one another to fall into idolatry. Does that
make sense? Third one, adulterers. So here Paul
narrows the focus to a subset of the first one.
sexually immoral people. These are people who
are unfaithful to their covenant marriage vows.
They're engaging in sexual relations with anyone
other than their spouse. But of course, in the
Sermon on the Mount, we know Jesus expanded the
meaning of adultery, didn't he? To include this,
simply looking at a woman with lust in your heart.
Ouch. And the obvious point of Jesus doing this
was to emphasize that a sin like adultery is
not just physical. Correct? Because long before
a man or woman physically cheats, he or she has
thought about it, rehearsed it, lusted after
it, and probably planned it in detail. So it's
a sin that begins in the heart and in the mind,
then it's fed by the heart and the mind as we
rehearse it. And then when the opportunity comes,
it flows easily out of the heart and mind. It
becomes one of the most devastating sins that
we can commit. You know why? Because it has ripples.
The consequences of adultery radiate out like
waves and affect all of our relationships. So
as Solomon warned us in Proverbs 4, guard your
heart with all diligence, for from it flow what?
The springs of life. Guard your heart. Be diligent
about it. Be careful. Now, the fourth and fifth
words in Paul's list are the effeminate and homosexuals.
I'm going to lay those aside for a second because
we're going to come back to them. They are at
the center of a very wicked propaganda effort
in our culture today, and I want to spend some
extra time on those two things, so we'll come
back to them. As we look at verse 10 now, we
see number six in our list, thieves. You see
what the word is there? Kleptists. Where do we
get from that? kleptomaniac, someone who has
a recurring compulsive urge to steal. Now, in
the context of that day in Corinth, I think Paul
likely has in mind the very thing he referenced
up in verse 8 of the same chapter when he talks
about these church members who are wronging and
defrauding their fellow brothers and sisters.
They're stealing. So with this one, don't think
of people, when we see kleptomania, what do we
think? Shoplifting? stealing supplies from the
office, things like that. But I want you to think
bigger. Thievery happens any time we manipulate
a situation to get a financial advantage, where
we manipulate it. We get an advantage over other
people. When we cheat people out of what they're
owed, or we lie to get some kind of deal that
we really don't deserve. And I know there are
people out there that will say, well, look, I'm
just being clever. I'm just being shrewd. Or
I'm just grabbing a hold of what I can get away
with. Guys, God sees all of it. And worse, he
doesn't just see the physical thing. He sees
the motivation of your heart when you do such
things. Thievery. Number seven, covetous. Another
one of the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not covet,
which is an old -fashioned word for greed. Being
greedy. Paul's talking about Corinthian church
members who were acting in greedy ways, marked
by an insatiable, selfish desire for more of
everything. More wealth, more possessions, more
power, more accolades, more of everything. And
covetousness, that's a hard word, covetousness
comes out most obviously when we see what other
people have and then we want to go take it. We
want that too. In fact, we want it bigger and
we want it better. It's actually a compulsive
expression of lust. It reveals a life shaped
by self -centeredness and a lack of contentment,
a lack of saying, thank you, Lord, for what I
have. I'm good with this. I'm content. And it
plays out in all kinds of ways that, again, is
no doubt connected back to Paul's concern over
these lawsuits in Corinth. He says you're suing
each other out of greed for what they have. You
want to take it from them. You want to see what
you can get out of a brother in Christ. This
is to your shame. So it can show up in our business
practices, in our efforts to do social climbing,
in power seeking, and then most commonly in our
day, in playing the comparison game. We've all
been tempted by this one. So don't exclude yourself.
I'm going to get a bigger house than him. Now
we fight that. We're like, oh, that's a terrible
thing. But we might feed that. I want a bigger
house. I want a nicer truck. Right? I want better
tools than my neighbor. We're going to go on
more elaborate vacations than that family. Or
I'm going to look even better than her. My kids
are going to outdo their kids. And even, you
ready for this? I'm going to grow a bigger church
than that guy down the street. This could be
really subtle, right? In fact, every aspect of
our lives, the comparison game, be aware, covetousness.
Number eight, drunkards. Those who repeatedly
abuse alcohol to the point where they lose self
-control and they lose moral judgment. And when
they do it, they damage relationships all around
them. But don't just think alcohol with this
one. It could be any substance that we turn to
for all kinds of reasons. For comfort, to deal
with pain, to cope with the hardships of life,
to just get a moment of escape. We'll turn to
substances. And the list of addictive things
shouldn't stop at just alcohol and drugs. There's
all kinds of things that can master us, right?
In fact, glance down at the very next verse in
this chapter, verse 12. We'll look at this next
Sunday. It says, all things are lawful for me,
but not all things are what? Profitable. All
things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered
by anything. Consider all the things in this
culture today. that might get a hold of you and
begin to master you. We'll save that list for
next Sunday. Come back. Number nine, the ninth
word is revilers, which is a summary term for
people who are verbally abusive. They slander
other people. Have you ever met someone who just
seems to love to use foul and harsh language
while attacking others? Right? That fellow parent
in the at Little League Baseball that just can't
stop? You know what I'm talking about, right?
Or they're on the other side of the duck. Maybe
they're on the other duck out. I don't know.
But they seem to revel in this idea of using
foul language or trying to, you know, insult
people, mock people, demean them. They enjoy
tearing others down. Even if they're making a
false accusation, it doesn't matter. They enjoy
using their words as weapons. They're revilers.
Final word in our list for this morning, number
10, swindlers. And once again, I think Paul's
pointing back to the issue of defrauding one
another in these lawsuits because this is what
a swindler does. He's a con artist who takes
advantage of other people. He's not satisfied
with honest gain. He habitually seeks to cheat
others out of what they have through deception
and manipulation. And the sin that always parallels
the swindler is pride. He thinks very highly
of his cleverness. He believes he can scheme
his way into extracting goods and services from
other people, and he's actually proud of his
ability to do this. I've heard people go, can
you believe I got over on that guy? And I'm like,
that's not good. I can't believe you're bragging
about that to me. It's not good. Having finished
that list, I want to make sure I say something
very clearly before we move on. A vice list like
this can weigh heavily upon the heart of a true
believer. And it's a good thing if conviction
of the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you are
led to recognize something and guard your heart
so these things don't creep in. But there's always
the danger of a true believer reading a list
like this, feeling the weight of conviction,
and then wrongly concluding, maybe I'm not saved.
Be careful here. Let me repeat what I said earlier.
Paul is talking about professing believers living
in ongoing, continuous sin. Not occasional stumbles,
ongoing, continuous sin. A habitual lifestyle
where they have no sense of conviction and they're
not taking steps towards repentance. What they're
trying to do is say, I'm a part of the church
while at the same time living as they please.
and not expecting anybody to call them out on
it. They're not battling sin. They're not asking
God, please help me overcome these things. So
listen, let the exhortation stand to guard your
heart on those things, but also don't doubt your
salvation. Be careful with that. Don't let any
hint of these 10 things slip into your life.
But if they do, what do we do as believers? We
repent and we turn away. We confess those things
to God and say, Lord, strengthen me to battle
these things well. That is what a true follower
of Jesus Christ does. Amen? Okay. You ready for
this? Let's go back to those two words I skipped
over. Uh -huh. Let's go back to those two words.
What I'm about to share is dangerous language
in our culture today. So grab your chairs if
you have to. First, let me say this. It can be
typical of evangelicals, and it's good for us
to be self -critical when we need to be. It can
be typical of us to look at a list like this
one and employ tunnel vision, to look at 10 things
and say, yeah, but that one is more grievous
than the others, and to hyper -focus on just
one thing. So when we clutch our pearls over
a sin like homosexuality, But then we look the
other way when we think about heterosexual sin,
or we look the other way and give a wink to greed
or drunkenness. It hurts our credibility in the
world. Makes us look like hypocrites. So we need
to be consistent about the fact that God doesn't
wink at any sin. They're all serious before him,
and we should approach all of them with that
same seriousness. Amen? Having said that, there's
no question. that there is out there today, has
been for decades, a vibrant propaganda campaign
to categorize homosexual relationships as somehow
acceptable to God. Some of you know this. You've
read the books. You've heard the podcasts. And
as one of your shepherds, I always feel compelled
to alert you to the lies that are out there,
the lies that are disguised as intellectual scholarship,
but aren't. I'm always concerned that you may
bump into this propaganda someday while you're
doom -scrolling or something like that, and it
shakes your faith, or your trust in your leadership,
your elders, is weakened because you see something
that looks intellectual, but it's really there
to fool you. So know this. In recent years, lots
of books, lots of podcasts have been produced
by people that will label themselves progressive
Christians. And they're trying to reform homosexuality
in the eyes of God. Now, they're not employing
good interpretive principles, good hermeneutics.
They do this, the one thing that every good Bible
student knows you should never do. And this is
what it is. Rather than coming to the text to
interpret it with a blank slate, laying aside
all of my presuppositions, what they're doing
is starting with the conclusion in mind, Right?
Where they want to end up and then selecting
certain passages that they can twist and modify
and rework in order to get them to their goal,
which is their premise, that homosexuality is
okay. It's a completely backwards way of interpreting
scripture. They start with their goal in mind.
And if you're not familiar with any of these
works, you'd be surprised at the lengths that
they'll go to because they desperately want the
Bible To justify their lifestyles. They desperately
want this. And they try so hard. And they do
entire conferences about this stuff. And podcasts
and books. I mean, it's all over the place now.
Just be warned. It's out there. But here's the
thing. Homosexuality is labeled as sin in every
single place that it's mentioned in the Bible.
Both Old and New Testament. Whether it's Genesis
19, Leviticus 18 and 20, or 1 Timothy 1 or Jude
7, Old and New Testament, it's labeled as sin.
Perhaps most clearly in Romans 1, where Paul
takes the time to speak to both male and female
versions of homosexuality, explicitly, and using
some of the strongest language you'll find in
the New Testament. I'll put the phrases on the
screen. Tell me if this is ambiguous. He calls
homosexuality degrading passions, unnatural function,
indecent acts, a depraved mind, the lusts of
their hearts given over to impurity so that their
bodies would be dishonored. And in Jude 7, the
homosexuality from Sodom and Gomorrah is called
going after strange flesh and indulging in gross
immorality. Is that unclear? Now, Romans 1 is
hard for progressives to argue against because
it's so fierce, but they will try, and the giant
reach that they use is this. This is one of the
main premises that they will put forward. Well,
homosexuality in general is not what's being
condemned here. Given the culture of the day,
what Paul is condemning is abusive homosexual
relationships. They refer to what we call pederasty,
where wealthy adult men would keep adolescent
boys in their households purely for sex. And
yes, that did take place in the Greco -Roman
culture of that day. But the problem with their
argument is this. There is absolutely no hint
of any of that in the actual text that Paul wrote.
This is what we call eisegesis. Exegesis is extracting
meaning from the words of Scripture. Eisegesis
is putting your own spin on the words that are
there, inserting meaning that doesn't exist.
There is no hint anywhere in these verses about
pederasty. It's a made -up concept. It's what
we call an argument from silence, where the interpreter
gets to fill in the gaps in whatever way he wants
in order to get to his desired conclusion. I
just add that meaning in because it gets me to
where I want to go. Now, an even more common
argument that's raised in favor of homosexuality
being okay, and that's what they'll say, okay
in God's eyes, is even more simplistic and easily
dismissed. Here's what it is. Well, Jesus never
addressed the issue of homosexuality. First of
all, Basic hermeneutic principle, you can't separate
Jesus' words in the four gospels from Jesus'
words spoken through the apostles. It's all the
voice of God. There are not degrees of inspiration
where the red letters that Jesus spoke in the
gospels are more important than the black letters
written by the apostles. It's all God's word.
So don't ever let people do that. It's all God
breathed equally. Second, there are many things
that Jesus never addressed. In his time on the
earth, he never talked about rape, never talked
about kidnapping, never talked about abortion.
Would we then conclude that somehow it's okay
in God's sight? Any of those things? Again, it's
a childish argument from silence, and it doesn't
hold up. And by the way, in both Matthew and
Mark, we do have Jesus' explicit statement about
God's design for marriage and procreation, and
it's not same -sex. Not a surprise, right? Jesus,
who comes out of a Jewish tradition, right, affirms
the creation account in Genesis. He confirms
that God designed man to be male and female and
to procreate and fill the earth. That is the
essential framework for interpreting the Creator's
intention for our sexual lives. Let me say that
again. That is the essential framework for interpreting
the Creator's intention for our sexual lives.
The union of a man and a woman within the covenant
of marriage. That's the only way that God says,
yes, I bless that. And He does. He blesses our
sexual life within the boundaries that He's given
us. Isn't that great? But you guys seem to be
doubting that. Like, what's wrong with you guys?
Now, that was an even moment. We missed it. Anyway,
no, we're going to try it again. But going back
to Romans 1, I think this is why Paul so heavily
focuses on the issue of homosexuality there,
because it brazenly distorts God's design in
the beginning. It's a prime example of what's
at the root of all sin, worship of created things
rather than the creator. Paul says there it's
contrary to nature. Natural relations are exchanged
for that which is unnatural. And honestly, look,
just from a common sense perspective, this is
sometimes the things that I'll say to you. Just
for a second, let's lay aside the common sense.
Look at male anatomy. Look at female anatomy.
Does not logic and nature show you the proper
design and function? Do they not fit together?
It's obvious, isn't it? Now, the objection to
the nature argument that comes from the progressive
left is, and yes, they have a response to this.
They'll say this. Well, there are some animals
in nature who act in homosexual ways. Therefore,
it can't be called unnatural. But understand
this. You would expect in nature that some things
are disordered. You know why? Because the creation
was affected by the fall. Just as there are disordered
relationships among human beings, there are disordered
relationships in the animal kingdom as well.
But God told us what he intended from the beginning
before the fall, and homosexuality is a departure
from the purpose that he built into us. We know
that before the fall. So these are not good arguments,
man. But listen, if you're not careful, they
will persuade the uneducated, right? The immature.
So be careful. They're out there, and they're
growing in size. Now, let's turn our attention
to these specific two words, because this is
a part of the propaganda campaign as well. Two
words, the effeminate, malakoi. Malakos means
soft. Malakoi, the soft ones. And homosexuals
are senokoitai. In their continuing effort to
prove their case, the progressives have tried
everything to try to redefine these two words.
They do not like 1 Corinthians 6, 9. And so they
try to redefine the terms. Once again, they want
so badly to say that these terms are included
in a vice list, right? Only because Paul has
something in mind other than what they have,
which they claim is a loving, monogamous, homosexual
relationship. They insist that he's referring
to relationships between powerful men of that
time, and effeminate call boys. That's what they
would say. So it's about sexual exploitation,
slavery, and rape, not about their loving relationships.
And yes, malakoi does mean soft, literally. It's
generally thought of as referring to the person
who takes the passive or the female sexual role
in a gay relationship. And the second word, arsenokoitai,
is the person who takes the active or male role.
Which, by the way, is quite ironic that even
progressive Christians speak in terms of male
role and female role. It's ironic, but I digress.
There are two big obstacles to their argument
on this. First, again, there is zero indication
in the actual text here that Paul is limiting
his condemnation to a particular type of same
-sex relationship. It's not there. It's an argument
from silence. Now, if he'd wanted to do that,
limited to a certain type of relationship, there
is a common Greek word he could have used here
that literally means pederasty. Literally means
that. But he doesn't choose that word. Instead,
what he does, and this has fascinated Greek scholars
for centuries, he creates his own unique word
to describe this particular sin. Okay, you see
the word, I know you may not be able to read
Greek, but you see it there, the pronunciation
there. He takes one of the Greek words that refers
to a man, arson, and adds a word that refers
to a bed, koite. Now in Hebrews 13, koite is
used to describe the marriage bed. In Romans
9 and 13, the same word is used to describe a
place of sexual activity. So the implication
is very clear. It's describing a man who lies
in bed with another man for the purpose of sex.
That's it. Nothing about abuse or older man and
younger boy. None of that. None of that. And
I think the reason Paul puts both of these terms,
malakoi and arsenokoitai, in the vice list, get
this, is because he's condemning both sides of
the homosexual relationship, the active and the
passive role, both of them. One doesn't get a
pass just because he's trying to mimic the female
role. He too is condemned. Now, just as a follow
-up objection, they'll go, but yeah, but the
word homosexual is a modern word. It's a bad
translation. Well, it's true. Did you know the
word homosexual was first put in print, I think,
in the year like 1892? It's not a first century
word. I think the first time it shows up in a
Bible, a modern translation, is 1956. But it
is the appropriate word for modern day translations.
Unless you want Paul to write men lying with
men in bed for the purpose of sexual, he just
says homosexuals, which is perfectly reasonable.
Perfectly reasonable. The second and more devastating
argument against the progressive position is
the source. of this word that Paul creates, the
source. If you were able to read Greek and you
took the Greek Septuagint, which is the Greek
translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, and
you looked at Leviticus 18 .22, you would see
this in the text. In fact, here it is in English.
You shall not lie with a male as one lies with
a female. It is an abomination. What is the Greek
word for male there? arsenos, and the Greek word
for lies, koiton. Put them together and you have
the word that Paul created. And these are the
same two words that are found again in Leviticus
20, where that act is described as detestable
in God's eyes. And here's the point, and I'll
finish with this. As Paul is writing here in
1 Corinthians 6, he quite literally has the Torah
in mind. As he writes, he's employing the Greek
version of the two Hebrew words that make the
very same statement from God about homosexuality
that God made to Moses. The same statement about
what homosexuality is in God's eyes from Moses
until the days of Paul. Nothing has changed over
time about God's view on this issue. No matter
how much some of these people say, well, it's
2026, man. Get with it. Nothing has changed in
the way God sees this issue, and it's not going
to change. Okay, deep breath. If you have questions
about any of that, please find me after the service.
Again, we're not trying to be mean here. We're
not trying to hurt anybody's feelings or to lift
this one thing up. It's just that you guys are
being bombarded these days. with all kinds of
really bad information. And I want to warn you
because my heart is for you. Okay? Let's get
to our key verse. Actually, the key verse is
verse 11. You want to end on a high note? Good.
Look at this amazing declaration in verse 11.
Such were some of you. Such were some of you.
Paul's saying, look, friends, I know that some
of you have a sinful, ugly, wicked past. And
some of us could stand up and testify in church
this morning. Yeah, me too. A sinful, ugly, wicked
past. You were fornicators, he says. You were
idolaters. You were homosexuals. You were drunkards
and swindlers. But praise God, not anymore. What
a statement, right? One of the most beautiful
statements in the New Testament. That's who you
used to be. That's that old man, right? prior
to being born again, a fleshly, self -worshiping
man. You lived in pursuit of nothing but your
own desires. But then come these three glorious
uses of the word but, this adversative word but.
Each one is designed, by the way, to emphasize
the monergistic work of God in transforming us.
But you were washed. But you were sanctified.
But you were justified in the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God. When
I say monergistic, I simply mean that these are
things that we cannot do for ourselves. They're
things that only God can do for us. He washes
us. He sanctifies us. He justifies. He's the
active cause of these works in us. We are the
passive recipients of them. And praise God for
that, right? Let's look deeper. The first one
is often misunderstood, so let me walk you through
this. Many Bible readers make a mistake here.
Many. It turns out it's a wrong way of interpreting
this word. We have a tendency, whenever we see
water in the Bible or washing, we think of the
ordinance of baptism. And sometimes that's right,
but oftentimes it's not right. The context of
the passage is always going to determine the
right meaning. I'll give you a great example.
John 3, 5. We know this great conversation that
Jesus has with Nicodemus, right? And he says
to this famous rabbi, he says this. There we
go. He says, unless one is born of water in the
spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. And
immediately our mind jumps to the ordinance of
baptism because he spoke of water. But the context
there has nothing to do with an ordinance of
the church. In fact, at this point that this
happens, the church hasn't been established.
and neither has the ordinance of baptism for
the church. It doesn't make sense that he would
be speaking that way. What he's talking about
here is being born again. That is the context.
He's speaking of the work of the Spirit doing
spiritual things in us, bringing us to life through
a regeneration of our hearts, breathing life
into our hearts. This is the point of what he's
saying. By the way, this lines up with all the
prophetic statements about what's coming. When
Messiah arrives. God says through Ezekiel, I
will sprinkle clean water on you. I will put
my spirit within you. This is a fulfillment of
that. So the water in this conversation is a
spiritual cleansing and renewal. The penalty
of our sins metaphorically being washed away.
And that lines up with the New Testament as well.
Titus 3 .5, we're told this. This is how we're
saved, it says in Titus 3. Not on the basis of
works, but by the washing of regeneration and
renewal by the Holy Spirit. That is not baptism.
That is a work of the Holy Spirit in us when
we're born again. So this is what Paul means
in our text for this morning. Such were some
of you, but then you were washed. You were these
awful things, these ten... representative sins,
but then you were washed. God took your spiritually
dead heart of stone and brought it to life, granting
you new life in Christ. You were cleansed, purified,
and renewed by his washing. And once that happens,
once a man repents of sin and puts his trust
in Christ, then yes, he should be baptized as
soon as possible. And that baptism serves as
a sign of the spiritual reality that's already
taken place. Through the work of the Spirit.
And when we call it a sign, we're not demeaning
the power of baptism. We're not denying that
it's a means of strengthening grace in our lives.
What we deny is that the physical water itself
or the act of baptism itself can accomplish the
work of spiritual washing. Only God can do that.
Because if we could do that, we'd grab everybody
off the street and start dunking them. Get in
the water, man. and you'll be saved. Nobody thinks
that way, because only God can do this work.
He washes us when we put our trust in Christ.
Okay, then the Spirit does the second thing you
see here in verse 11, but you were sanctified.
Now, when we hear sanctified, our minds go straight
to sanctification in the sense of our progressive
growing and maturity in Christlikeness. But here,
Because sanctified is put second in the list
of these three things. And before justification,
Paul's talking about something different here.
What he has in mind is what we call positional
sanctification. Here's what that means. When
we trusted in Christ and we were washed, we also
received a new status as sanctified. We were
set apart. That's what that word means. Set apart
as holy unto God. That is the positional truth.
about any one of us who's born again. And we
know this based on the original Greek usage.
The word sanctified here is the aorist passive
form of a word hagiazo. And the root of hagiazo
is hagios, which means holy. So catch this. At
the moment of conversion, we all become holy
ones, which is another word for saints. Forget
what the Catholic Church says. We've got to take
a vote and say that guy is a saint and you're
not. He's amazing. You're just average. No, we're
all saints, holy ones. It's right there in the
text. And now we're set apart for service to
God's kingdom. And then finally here in verse
11, we see such were some of you, but now you've
been justified. This is God's legal declaration
rooted in the ransom payment that Jesus made
on the cross. that says we are now acquitted
before the Lord. We are now innocent in God's
eyes. And here's the key. This is often, we get
attacked for this. Not just because God says
so, but because the perfect righteousness of
Christ has been credited to our spiritual accounts.
There's an actual transaction. Without the cross,
we can't be declared righteous. There's a transaction
that takes place there. We're declared justified
based on what Jesus accomplished for us through
his atoning death. And when that happens, when
we're declared righteous, listen to this now,
this is so great, our past is fully severed.
We now have a new identity in this one who gave
himself up for us. And if I can borrow Paul's
language from Ephesians 2 .10, having been saved
by God's grace through faith, we are now called
his masterpiece. created in Christ Jesus. He
has made you his workmanship, his masterpiece,
by doing these things for you. Man, it's so beautiful.
So catch the movement. Once we were lost, cut
off from eternal life, but now we've been brought
to life. Now we've been set apart as holy. Now
we've been declared righteous because of what
Christ has done and because we are in union with
him. And what a comfort we find here. Guys, what
this tells us, remember those 10 things? Nobody
is too far gone to be saved. There is nowhere
God can't go, no person too sinful that he can't
save. There are people that might be involved
in all 10 of those things. God can still save
them if it's his will. And if I could, just one
last word of clarification. This is for some
of you because I know I've talked to some of
you about this. You've come into conflict with
either Roman Catholic or Orthodox polemics on
social media. You will often hear them attack
Protestants by saying, well, nobody can know
for certain that they're saved. That is a teaching
in both branches of Christendom. You can't know
for certain because in their doctrine, salvation
is a lifelong process of good works. and participation
in the sacraments, and who knows if you're going
to make it faithful to the end. All you can really
do is try to persevere in the faith, and in the
end, hope it's enough. That's what gets taught
in the Catholic and Orthodox churches, but that
is a betrayal of this passage. You have to know
this, and it's a betrayal of so many other passages.
It is a position rooted in ignorance of the Greek
text. Know this. All three of the action verbs
you see in verse 11, they're action verbs. Washed,
sanctified, justified. They are written by Paul
in a form we call the aorist indicative. What
that means is they are actions completed by God
in the past. They're done. They're accomplished.
And they can't be undone by human beings unless
you foolishly think, I'm strong enough to undo
the will of God. Uh -uh. That's why in our English
translations, verse 11 is written in past tense.
But you were washed. It's done. Upon conversion,
you were washed. You don't have to keep trying
to earn it. Oh, my, if I just do some more things,
maybe in the end I'll be washed. You were washed.
You were positionally sanctified. You were justified.
You were legally declared. It can't be changed.
Thank you, Lord, for your sovereign power to
save us, right? to do what we never could have
done for ourselves. Brothers and sisters, let
me finish. I'm just going to bring your mind
back to the two things we read earlier in the
service, and then I promise we'll be done. Thanks
for your patience. First, this description of
the true believer found in the Westminster Confession.
Chapter 13. We are those who are, look, effectually
called and regenerated, having a new heart. and
a new spirit created in us. In other words, washed
by God. At the end of the chapter, we're told
that we are saints who grow in grace, perfecting
holiness in the fear of God. In other words,
we are sanctified as holy ones. And finally,
we're called the justified there. The justified
who, by the word and the indwelling spirit, are
more and more made alive and strengthened in
God's grace. Isn't that beautiful? Confessions
are important. And then let's look a final time
at our call to worship passage in 1 John 3. See
how great a love the Father has bestowed on us
that we would be called children of God, and
such we are. Not, and we hope to be someday.
Such we are, present tense. We're washed, sanctified,
justified right now, children of God. And listen,
therefore it's inconceivable. Because of that
truth that we would begin to act like the unrighteous
in lifestyle, right? Because of who we are, starting
today, make it your prayer that God's spirit
would cause you to start living according to
who he declares you are. Make that your prayer.
It goes on, for this reason. The world does not
know us because it did not know him. Beloved,
now we are children of God. Now we are children
of God. And it has not appeared as yet what we
will be. Guys, what a glorious future we have
if we're found in Christ, someday perfected and
free from sin forevermore. And lastly, we know
that when he appears, we will be like him. because
we will see him just as he is. And everyone who
has this hope fixed on him does what? Purifies
himself as he is pure. May that be our final
prayer this morning, that every one of us would
strive to purify our lives in growing measure
as we await his return. Wow, amen? Let's bow
our heads.