Thank you. We're turning our Bibles together
to 1 Corinthians chapter 6 this morning. And
think about your body, God's temple. It might
be good for you to visualize the city of Corinth,
located on the plain south of the, or east of
the city of Athens. A place that for hundreds
of years was really a rival of Athens. Corinth
was an ancient city. At the time that Paul walked
upon those streets, the city of Corinth was more
than a thousand years old. And yet the Romans
had destroyed the city and it had been basically
rebuilt about a hundred years before. It was
a city that was fabulous in its architecture
and its engineering. It was also well known for
its many temples. One to the god Apollo has been
restored somewhat today in the city of... Corinth,
which was destroyed, by the way, at an earthquake
about 150 years ago. Above the plain of Corinth,
however, there is a mountain that's 2 ,000 feet
high. It's a rocky, jucking kind of a mountain,
and on the top of that mountain, in Paul's day,
there was a temple to the goddess Aphrodite,
or Venus. The goddess of... sensual pleasure.
Up there on that mountain there were at least
a thousand priestesses who, as part of the temple
worship, gave their bodies as prostitutes in
the name of Venus to the men of the city of Corinth.
When they would come walking down in the city
itself, it is said that they would wear sandals
with left imprints in the sand of the city that
said, follow me. and many of them did. It was
through a city like this that was sophisticated,
beautiful, wicked, that the Apostle Paul and
his party arrived to preach the gospel of Jesus
Christ, and some of the Corinthians believed,
as we know. The old way of life for those people,
however, was hard to leave. And apparently some
of them were being tempted to go back to the
old ways of worshipping through prostitution.
And so the Apostle Paul writes about their attitudes
toward immorality. He wants them to know that
a Christian is a distinctive person in the midst
of a corrupt culture. A Christian is a holy person.
And because of that, the body of a Christian
is God's temple. It is God's dwelling place.
That's what Paul essentially says in the text
we're looking at this morning beginning in verse
12 through the end of the chapter It is that
the body of a Christian is God's holy temple
and should be treated as such In verse 12 the
Apostle lays down some principles regarding your
body in the way that you use it He says all things
are lawful for me, but not all things are possible
All things are lawful for me, but I will not
be mastered by anything." That phrase, all things
are lawful for me, apparently was a common statement
made in the Church of Corinth. They were saying,
well, there are no laws. I am free in Jesus Christ.
His grace has forgiven me of my sins. All things
are lawful for me. They had apparently heard
the message of God's grace through Paul, but
they were now at the point of abusing that message
by going too far in it, so that instead of giving
them freedom, they were getting from it license
for sin. All things are lawful for me. Paul gives
the first principle when he says, not all things
are possible. That is, not all things give advantage.
Not all things bring benefit with them. Paul
does not deny that God has given to us in our
physical body certain appetites. He mentions
two of them here in our text. One of them being
the appetite to eat. That is a blessing to be
able to have appetite, isn't it? If you've ever
been sick or been on some sort of medication
that has... taken away your appetite, you know
what a blessing it is to be hungry, and then
to be able to satisfy that hunger. God has made
our bodies so that we, several times a day, sometimes
too often, since we have this need to eat. And
the apostle neither denies that God has given
to our bodies the need for sexual intimacy and
fulfillment. Sex is God's idea. It is holy. It
is good in His eyes. It is clean in His eyes.
Our bodies also have a need for sleep. Our bodies
have a need for exercise. God has given our bodies
these needs. There's nothing wrong with them.
But sin can take these appetites and twist them
for evil. so that our need for sexual intimacy
can become immorality, and our need for food
can become gluttony, and our need for sleep can
become laziness. Our need for exercise can be
overdone to the point that we neglect the spiritual
part of us. The apostle is saying here, yes,
it may be true that in Jesus Christ you are free.
from the law of God But he says I remind you
of something not everything that you might be
free to do is profitable And you need to think
about that Does it bring any advantage to you
or to others this activity that you say you are
free to do? Secondly he says there's the principle
of enslavement He says, will the thing that you
say you are free to do cause you to be mastered?
Will it put you into bondage to something? He
says, you may be free, but you need to think
about your liberty, because your liberty can
make you a slave. So he says to us and to the
Corinthians, here are some principles regarding
the use of your body. He says, yes, there's a
wonderful liberty that is in Jesus Christ, but
Christian liberty does not mean doing what pleases
you. It means doing what pleases Christ. And
there's a big difference, a big difference. He
goes on in verses 13 through 16 to tell us a
bit about the purpose of your body. He says,
God has not only raised, excuse me, verse 13,
Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for
food, but God will do away with both of them.
Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the
Lord, and the Lord is for the body. Now God has
not only raised the Lord, but will also raise
us up through his power. Do you not know that
your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then
take away the members of Christ and make them
members of a harlot? May it never be. Or do you
not know that the one who joins himself to a
harlot is one body with her? For he says, God
says, the two shall become one flesh. As the
apostle writes about the purpose of the body,
he says in the first place that the body is not
for abuse. It is not for abuse. It is not, for
example, for gluttony. Yes, the body was made
to eat. It needs to nourish itself through eating.
But it was not made to indulge yourself to the
point of sinning by what you eat. The body was
not made for abuse of gluttony. He reminds us
that both the stomach and the food will one day
be of no use, for they are temporal, they are
transitory, they belong to this world. Secondly,
he says that the body is not for the abuse of
immorality. Yes, sex is part of what is natural
to the body, but it is not to be indulged in
in a sinful manner. An expression of gratifying
the sexual appetite of your body outside of God's
precepts is sinful. And as I said earlier, there
were some Corinthians who felt apparently that
it was a natural appetite, like food, and therefore
it was made to be satisfied. And the way to do
it was through prostitution. Paul says that is
abuse of the temple that is abuse of the body
He says actually the purpose of the body is for
the Lord He says the body is in the first place
an instrument for his youth in the verse 13 The
body is for the Lord and the Lord for the body
He says believers God has given you your body
that he might use that in accomplishing His purposes
in the world. He is for your body, and your body
is for Him. It is for His use. Secondly, he says,
your body is permanently claimed by God. Just
as God raised our Lord from the dead, so one
day He will raise you and your body from the
dead. Your body, is an eternal part of who you
are. For you to exist for eternity without a
body is for you to be something less than human.
Because God has created us material and immaterial.
He says just as Jesus was raised materially from
the grave, how be it in a glorified material
body. So you one day also will have a body like
his. In saying this, Paul is showing us that
the resurrection places a high value on the body.
The Corinthians were thinking the body was unimportant.
They were perhaps affected by the Gnostic kind
of teaching that came to maturity later, which
said that the body is sinful. What you do with
the body is unimportant. It's insignificant.
What's really important is the immaterial, the
spiritual part of you. To do with your body what
you want to do with it, it's the immaterial part
that counts. Paul is denying that. He says your
body has high value as far as God is concerned,
and you're going to live forever in your body,
in its resurrected state. Then thirdly, he says
your body is joined with Christ, verses 15 and
16. It says, you have made it members of Christ.
Therefore, to join your body with a prostitute
or in immoral behavior is absolutely unthinkable.
It is unthinkable. It is the abuse of your body
to treat it in that way. It is outside the boundary
of the Christian liberty that you are boasting
in. To abuse your body in that way dishonors
the Lord, he says. For whatever you do in your
body affects the Savior. Keep that in mind. And
so he gives them some understanding of God's
purpose for the body. It's for the Lord's use
that has an eternal purpose, and the Lord dwells
in your body, and he joins himself with your
body. That brings him then to verses 17 through
20 where he gives some pronouncements regarding
the body. Essentially he says here it is impossible
for you to commit some immoral act without grieving
Jesus Christ. He says, but the one who joins
himself to the Lord is one spirit with him. One
of the most clear articulations in the whole
New Testament of the union that we have with
Jesus Christ. The one who joins himself to the
Lord, that is, in faith receiving him, is made
one spirit with him. So that does not mean that
we become gods or that we share in his deity
at all. But it does mean that there is a marvelous,
mystical, spiritual union that takes place with
us in Jesus Christ. So that it nearly becomes
impossible to discern where the believer ends
and Christ begins. We are one in spirit with
him. Therefore, he says, flee immorality. Every
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." There are two pronouncements
that stand out in this text. The first one is
that you and I are to flee immorality. Paul puts
this in the present tense, so he's actually saying,
continually flee from it. Make it your constant
vigilance to be on guard against immorality and
flee, get away from it. The body is not a vehicle
for merely personal pleasure, says Paul. It is
a vessel for Christ's use. We are one in spirit
with him. Therefore, immoral acts are not only
against yourself and your body, but against God,
and it leads to dissipation. Proverbs, of course,
warns about this, doesn't it? In those early
chapters of Proverbs, it warns about going into
immorality and what it does to destroy the life
of a man, or the life of a woman, for that matter.
So Paul says, let it be your continuous attitude
and habit of life to flee from immoral things.
That is when temptation presents itself, not
to play with it. For you and me to look at temptation
and to think about what we're going to do is
like standing in quicksand and trying to decide
if we should get out of it or not. Because the
longer that we stand there, the more deeply we
become admired in it. And so it is with temptation.
The longer that you and I look at it and think
about it, the more in danger we are of falling
into it. And so the apostle says, immediately,
flee from temptation. Get away from it. Charles
Swindoll writes. Do not try to coexist peacefully
with temptation. If you are weakened by certain
kinds of music, you are playing into the hands
of Satan himself to listen to it. If you're weakened
by certain pictures that bring before your eyes
things that build desires within you that you
can't handle, then you're not counteracting sin
and temptation. You're tolerating it. You're
fertilizing it. You're prompting it. If the newsstand
is something you can't handle, stay away from
it. Quit clucking your tongue and shaking your
head as you linger over the pages. If you're
weakened by relationships with certain people,
abstain from them. Then he writes, there is a
word for those folks who linger and try to reason
with lust. That word is victim. This is practical
advice, folks. You and I live in a day when this
stuff is not just on a hilltop outside our city.
It's in our homes. You can't pick up a newspaper
or a magazine or watch a television program without
it being thrown directly in your face. You say,
will you saying cancel your newspaper subscription?
Take your TV out of the house. I'm not going
to tell you what to do. I'm just telling you
that the scripture says, please, for the morality.
And if there are things in your life that you
can't handle, you must stay away from those things
so that you can obey the Word of God. Now there's
a second pronouncement that's very practical
regarding our body. It is this, glorify God in
your body. Glorify God in your body. They had
the idea that they were glorifying Venus when
they would go up to that hilltop and join themselves
to a prostitute. That was part of their religious
act of obeisance to this goddess Aphrodite. Paul
says, no, glorify God, the creator God in your
body. There are three reasons to do that. I'm
going to give them in reverse order. as he puts
them in the text. The first reason is that he
has bought your body. The verb here is in such
a tense that it points back to one act in which
your body was purchased. And of course that one
act can be nothing else than what we observed
this morning, the cross work of our Lord Jesus
Christ. It is through His precious blood shed
on that cross that He offered the price for our
bodies. He has bought them. Therefore, we are
obligated to glorify God in our bodies. We're
not to harm our bodies. We're not to sell our
bodies. We're not to waste our bodies. We are
not to indulge or serve our bodies either. For
our bodies belong to another master who owns
them. The second reason that He tells us that
we are to glorify God in our bodies is that He
has placed His Spirit within our bodies. Do you
not know that your body is a temple of the Holy
Spirit who is in you? He tells us in Romans that
if the Holy Spirit be not in us, then we do not
belong to Christ. The Holy Spirit lives in our
bodies. Do we understand that? Do we grasp that
no matter where we are, what we're doing day
or night, public or private, that the Holy Spirit
resides right here, inside of us? If that grips
our hearts, how can we do anything other than
to remember our bodies are for the glorification
of God, not for selfish pleasure? The third reason
he tells us we are to glorify God is that he
has made our bodies his temple. The Holy Spirit
is in you. You're his temple, he says. This is
in contrast, of course, the temple of Aphrodite
on the mountain. There was where Aphrodite dwelt,
according to their mythology. Paul says, oh no,
God is not somewhere else. God is in his temple,
which is you. That temple was made of a beautiful
marble, and it stood there for centuries at times.
God rather chooses to dwell in temples of flesh,
our bodies. Indeed, He says that our bodies have
become like the Holy of Holies of the Old Testament,
that place where God was pleased to reveal Himself
in His Shakaena glory, that innermost part of
the temple. He says, that's what you have now
become. One writer has said the Holy Spirit does
not choose to abide in temples of marble or granite,
but in bodies of flesh. Through them he can reveal
his person and power and convey his message to
men. Each Christian can become a channel through
whom the Holy Spirit can express some aspects
of his message to the world. To defile the body
is therefore sacrilege for a Christian. because
in defiling his body he is desecrating God's
temple. Keeping God's dwellings holy is a prime
motive for purity. Glorify God, he says, in your
body. In conclusion, in closing, there are just
three things that I want to say regarding this
text and how it applies to our lives. The first
is this, your body is sacred. Treat it accordingly.
You see it matters to you and it matters to God
how you dress it. In a day of near nakedness
in our nation and in much of western culture,
in certain seasons of the year and certain activities,
It is important for you and me to remind ourselves
that our bodies are sacred. It matters how we
dress them. It matters how we eat, what we eat,
how much we eat. It matters. It matters how much
we exercise, whether we keep the temple of God
fit and in good shape. not to assess, but in
a balanced way. Our bodies are sacred. We should
treat them accordingly. Remember that, will you?
There's a second thing I'd like to say in closing,
and that is your moral standard as a Christian
must come from the character of the Eternal God
and not from popular culture. Because we live
in a Corinthian culture. We live in a day when
it doesn't make any difference what you do with
your body. It is just there as a toy. Your body
is something that gives you sensual pleasure,
whatever gives you jolly. That's unbiblical.
That is our cultural ethic. that God has so much
more to say about the importance of the body.
The moral standards that you and I have must
never come from television. The moral standards
that we have must never come from the editorial
pages of the newspaper. The moral standards that
we have in our lives must come from the Bible
and from the very character of the eternal God
himself. And in closing thirdly, I'd like to
say that the Holy Spirit dwells in you to help
with temptation. We know that our bodies are
the temples of the Holy Spirit, but I tell you
something, temptation is strong. And when the
temptation of our own lust is reinforced and
fed by the culture around us, it is extremely
difficult to deal with temptation. But we are
not the victims of lust. We are not the victims
of sensual pleasure. We have the Holy Spirit
within us to enable us to resist temptation and
to flee from it. I think the best illustration
I've ever heard of it is the illustration of
power steering. that as you and I, with our will,
choose to obey God and turn the wheel, the Holy
Spirit -like power steering comes along to assist
us so that we can do that. But it begins with
you and me making the decision to obey God. And
as we do that, the Holy Spirit is there to be
our power assistant. to take us in the right
direction. One day a man in the ministry was
walking in a coal mine and entered in that dark
black hole in the dark earth. And as he walked
into the mine, he noticed up towards the front,
there in that black soil was a white flower growing
right out of the wall. And he marveled at this
flower because With all of the dust, the cold
dust in the air, he couldn't understand how the
flower could be white. And he asked the one about
it, and the person said, if you notice the flower,
it's so smooth that when the dust hits it, it
just slides off. And so the petal remains fresh
and white in the midst of the dark coal mines.
That's what your life and mine needs to be like.
Smooth with holiness, smooth with yieldedness
to God, so that when the dark soot and dust of
this culture comes in life upon us, it just slides
off. And our lives remain a beautiful, pure blossom
to the praise and the glory of God who has bought
us. I urge you today to present your body freshly
to God, to flee immorality and to glorify God
in the body in which you both live. Let's pray.
in a culture in which sensual pleasure is thrown
at our mind from morning to night. And we have
a lust that is within us that is capable of leading
us easily into sin and desecrating the temple.
We are Corinthians. We live in a world like that,
and we need this word today, whether young or
old, we all need it. And I pray that you will
help us to examine our hearts, to confess sin,
to flee from temptation, and to yield ourselves
freshly to you. Just in the quietness of this
moment, will you tell God that you give Him your
body? If you're a Christian, if you're not, then
you need to trust Christ. You need to be saved
and washed and cleansed from your sin, but if
you're a Christian, will you give God your body
today anew? and determine in your heart to glorify
God in it. May it be so. Amen.