Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / October 23, 2022 | 1 Corinthians - Bought at a Price

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October 23, 2022 | 1 Corinthians - Bought at a Price · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to see you.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we have a little two-month-old at home, and uh this week we started giving him these little uh vitamin drops.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: And uh based upon the smell and the what you know seems to be his reaction of definitely not being happy with them, and uh they probably don't taste like candy, you know, and we were advised about that.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: But um this morning's message is bitter medicine, right?
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: So um we're gonna be talking about a difficult subject, and uh that difficult subject is necessary to talk about because we want to uh draw deeper into our relationship with Christ, but uh it's not gonna be super comfortable.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: So two things I have to say before we get started.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: One is if you have little kiddos, um, I am gonna be talking about sex a little bit, and so that's for your decision to make.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: You have a couple minutes.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um second one is that just in general, in relation to sex, um we uh there are gonna be some uncomfortable topics that are discussed in relation to it, and so if you know if that's part of your past or or whatever it is, uh just be mindful of that as we walk forward, right?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but before we get into those things, I have to tell you about this uh crazy lady from uh Boston who wore a pasta strainer on the top of her head, okay?
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: So this is um this is Lindsay Miller, and uh this is her driver's license photo.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um she lives in Boston.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: The DMV in Boston is named the RV, and so uh she is a pastafarian, okay?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the RMV does not allow drivers to wear hats in their pictures uh unless it is for medical or religious purposes.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And she says, I'm not making this up, as a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I feel delighted that my postafarianism has been respected by the Massachusetts RMV.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Miller said, Well, I don't think the government can involve itself in matters of religion, I do hope this discussion, dis decision, excuse me, encourages my fell fellow postafarian atheists to come out and express themselves as I have.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: So here's my plea, right?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you are also Apostofarian atheist, uh self-identify so that we can all stay away, right?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um this relates, though, very well to Paul's first statement in our passage this morning.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he's gonna be talking a little bit about Christian liberty.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: He's gonna be talking about what it means to be free in Christ, and he's going to be talking about how there's some constraints that we should put on ourselves.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: That things are permissible, right?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: They are allowed technically, but not all of them are beneficial.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Technically, you can put a posture strainer on your head if you're a postfarian atheist.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Might not be beneficial to anybody except yourself and those who were warned to stay away from you because you're walking around with a colander on your head.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, as we get into chapter 6, verse 12, um, Paul says, Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Everything is permissible for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Food is for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will do away with both of them.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: However, the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: God raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: In those first two verses, you'll see things in quotes.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, to make a really boring story short, basically what's happening is whether it is from the church in Corinth or from the surrounding culture in Corinth proper, this is a common phrase.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody, well, again, whether it's in the church or outside the church, but it's still known within the church, would be saying things like, everything is permissible for me.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so what Paul's doing here in these first couple verses is he's basically having like a one-sided argument with himself.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: He'll sort of present this idea, then contrast it, then present it and contrast it.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: He does this three different times, right?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so what he's talking about here, though, is this idea that be when we are in Christ, we have been set free from a previous way of living, right?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that means that we are no longer held to the law, we are no longer held to a works righteousness, but rather we have been genuinely given freedom in Christ.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: But Paul wants to put some constraints on this by saying, well, yes, you have been set free, but that freedom is then supposed to be used for things that are beneficial.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Beneficial for you, beneficial for other people as well.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: He's actually going to use almost this exact same phrase later on when he discusses Christian liberty proper in chapter 10.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: The first part there is from 6.12, and then you see in 1023, everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Everything is permissible for me, but not everything builds up.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see the difference?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: After the second quotation, there's a change in his application, right?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the first one is that I will not be mastered by anything, and the second one is, but not everything builds up.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: When we get to chapter 10, a couple weeks, we'll be talking about what builds up.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: But for this morning, Paul's purpose is, and this is going to be very relevant later on when we get to the last pass the last passage and even the last verse, is that we understand that we are not to be mastered by anything, but rather we are to follow our sovereign master, Jesus Christ.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: See, everybody is a slave to something.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody serves something.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: The option that you have is you get to choose what you serve.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: You get to choose who your master is.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Paul is going to talk about this in great detail later on, but for now, all we're looking at here is we're saying that this is going to be a theme that runs through the rest of this passage, right?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: No matter what he's talking about, he's saying you are not to be mastered by it.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Rather, your freedom is supposed to be used for good things.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: But as we go back, in verse 13, he says, food is for the stomach and the stomach for food.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's another quote.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: What he's talking about there, right, is that there is this attitude, this idea that the body was simply a tool.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is in this culture, in sort of Greek Stoic philosophy, right, there's a great difference between how they view the importance of your spirit or your soul or however they contrive that and your physical body.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: One of them is beautiful and glorious and should be talked about, these spiritual or metaphysical kind of things, and then you've got the debased body that is corrupted, right?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is why one of the earliest church heresies was that Jesus was not fully man and fully God, because they didn't like the idea that he was God who took on flesh.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, what we're talking about here, though, is Paul is contrasting this idea.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: He says, You have such a low view of what your body is supposed to do and its purpose that you have missed the glory that God has intended for it.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: The stomach is for food, the food is for the stomach.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: You think of your body as this tool, right?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: It just serves a utility.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's a vehicle to get us from one place to the next until it expires.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says you don't realize how valuable your body is.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And this is also going to be really relevant as he's going to talk about then what we do with our bodies.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: He says, God will do away with both of them.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: However, the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: 14, God raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: He brings up the resurrection in verse 14, right?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians, right, we're going to get into the resurrection more fully.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: So once again, this is kind of a brief statement about it.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: But far too often when we discuss the resurrection or think about the resurrection, it's simply sort of ground down to Jesus came back to life, which is very significant.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Don't hear me wrong, but there is significance to the fact that Jesus was raised with his body.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: His flesh and bones are now in heaven, sitting at the right hand of the Father.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul brings up this reality.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: He brings up this statement about Jesus' resurrection being lifted up by the power of the God.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And basically what he's saying is, you think your body is so useless or you think so little of it, but God by his power raised up Christ's body, and now it is glorified in heaven.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is sort of his opening salvo, if you will, into what he's going to get in in the next passage, which is that your body matters and it is special and it is valuable.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And there are some of us, whether because of things that people have done to us or the ways that we view our own body, we simply view it the same way.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: We don't treat our body the way that we should be treating it.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's broad application for this.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Paul's going to make it very specific in talking about the most damaging thing that we can do to our body, which is sexual immorality and specifically sex outside of the bounds that God had created it for.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: So as we go on to the next passage, you can be thinking this way.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Don't you know that your bodies are a part of Christ's body?
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: So should I take a part of Christ's body and make it a part of a prostitute?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you know that anyone joined to a prostitute is one body with her?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: For Scripture says the two will become one flesh, but anyone joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you know that your bodies are a part of Christ's body?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what Paul's saying.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: You are connected with Christ.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Your body is connected with Christ.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: It is not some sort of like philosophical statement about how we are joined more closely with him in a relationship.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because God's Holy Spirit dwells within you, your body is spiritually connected to Christ Himself.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: There is a much more grand design for your body, as broken and abused and bruised as it is.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: No matter if it is a brand new body or if it is later on, right?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: God has a design for your body, he values your body, and it is connected to him.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, when Paul says, right, you are connected with Christ, therefore, how could you join together with a prostitute?
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying, when you engage with things that are outside of God's bounds, you are harming and speaking of the Lord in a way in which he would not be speaking of or acting of himself.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because you are almost this extension, a member of God's body.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Later on in uh in 1 Corinthians, Paul is going to talk about how we are all a part of God's body, and even in um, nope, wrong one, even in uh earlier in chapter 3, he said that, right, you are all a part of this temple, this part of God's uh church, that you are an extension.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: But here it's this very, very individual statement.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: He says, your specific body, it is an extension of God's body.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And therefore you must be so considerate of what you join your body to, because you are then doing something if you join it with a prostitute, you're joining it to Christ's body.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that can't work.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's not how it's supposed to go.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you might also be thinking here, you're like, okay, hey, um, never join my body together with a prostitute, right?
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: We can substitute in here really any form of sexual immorality.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's not specifically this.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Paul is talking about this because it's rampant in the Corinthian culture.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: You might remember last week, if you're here with us, I mentioned the uh the temple of Aphrodite, uh, which was which is in Corinth.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can still see the ruins today, and where if you were to go and worship the goddess Aphrodite, you would have sex with cult prostitutes who are there.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: That was part of your worship.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so, idolatry, all of these things, cult prostitutes, they're replete within the Corinthian uh knowledge and experience.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul is pointing out these things as basically the most common example, right?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: But we can substitute a lot of other things because the point here is that we should not be engaging in any of these things that harm our body, and the most damaging one, which is sexual immorality, because we are connected with Christ.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Don't you know that anyone joined to a prostitute is one body with her?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: For Scripture says the two will become one flesh.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Here he's quoting Genesis 2.24.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: God is talking to Adam and Eve in the garden, and he is telling them about what their physical marital relationship has done for them.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: As they come together and then populate the earth, right, they are joining together into a one-flesh kind of relationship.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Once more, that is not some sort of symbolic length.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it is symbolic, but it runs deeper than that.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: That there is something special about the relationship that God intended for sex within marriage, that it joins two people together in this very significant way.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: There is no such thing as casual sex.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: It is only people who feel casual about the spiritual and emotional weight of sex.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul is drawing these things together, and frankly, it's really bold of him to say that joining together with a prostitute is like Adam and Eve's relationship in the garden.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: But that contrast is what is so alarming about it, is he's saying, the way you're treating this sort of like flippant sexual relationship, he's like, God has intended that for a specific purpose, and you're abusing it.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: You're not using it for what it's intended for, and you're gonna be harmed by it.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: As he says, right, the two will become one flesh, but anyone joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be really clear, the language, any point in this passage where the language is that we are joined with the Lord, it isn't a sexual kind of language.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's simply saying our spirits are connected to him, right?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: And because we are living this life with the Spirit of God, we should be considerate about the ways that we are living that life, right?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: That we are living it with his spirit within us.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: But there's something also that is very devious about this nature, which is that a lot of people think of sexual immorality as playing with fire and trying not to get burned.
• 15:55
  unknown: Right?
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to engage in something.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's not wise, I know it's not a good thing for me, but I'm gonna do it as much as I can, or I'm gonna try and be as smart about it as I can so that I don't, there's no effects of it.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: And what you also have to know, and this is part of Paul's bringing Genesis into the story, is that tampering outside of God's design for sex always damages.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a matter of, will I get burned?
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: The question is always, how much?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is the story of Tiffany Johnson.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh she's a mother of three.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: She was vacationing in the Bahamas with her family back in 2019, and this is how she described the shark attack that took her arm.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: She says, I didn't feel any pain, I just felt like I had run into something.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: I just casually turned to the right to see what I bumped into, and I was face to face with a shark, and he had my arm in his mouth.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: I went to yank it out of his mouth, and that's when he clamped down and we started to struggle.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Immediately, when I pulled it out, I just saw that I had lost my arm, she said tearfully, and it was just mangled.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: So Tiffany loses her arm, swims back to the boat, uh, escapes from the shark, swims back to the boat with her left arm.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, her husband jumps out of the boat to go and bring her back, and then she said, saw the full damage.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: The shark had torn from her elbow down to her hand, but she said it wasn't until she got to the ambulance that she felt pain, and then it was excruciating, right?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Lord willing, you're never attacked by a shark.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: But if you read accounts of people who have been attacked by sharks, almost to a T, they will say, I didn't know what was happening, and I didn't feel anything until I saw it.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then later on is when I felt the pain.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Their body had gone into shock, right?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Their body could not handle the overwhelming trauma of having a great white tear off their limb, and so it went down into this very numb mode that protected them, in a sense.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: When you walk outside of God's designs for sex, the question is not, will you get bit?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: The question is how much damage has it done, right?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: And why are we bringing this up?
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because there are some people the statistics and also personal knowledge say that there are a lot of people within the church who are struggling mightily with sexual immorality.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want you to recognize that if you are walking in these ways, your arm is already in the shark's mouth.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: The question is, how quickly will you realize it and take it out and then get back to the boat?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to take it out before Satan takes more than an arm.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because these things, they are consumptive, they are monsters, and they are going to continue to ruin your life, whether you realize that it's happening right now or not.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what is so that is what is so difficult about walking through this is that people who are in the midst of it rarely see and sense the danger.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: What's wrong with swiping right on everybody and going out and having a lot of sex with people on Tinder?
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: What's wrong with watching pornography?
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: What's wrong with sleeping around?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: What's wrong with the things that I read or the things that I watch?
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: The things that are wrong is that it is going to stick with you.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: There are lots of things that you can do to your body that are harmful.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: You can be a glutton, you can be a drunkard, you can cause self-harm.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's some people who have taken it ultimately to the point of their taking their own life, right?
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Sex specifically harms you differently.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: And the damage that it does not only affects you, it affects other people, but it is also going to linger.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want you to understand these things because I want you to be free from them.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: But by only only by, I think, illustrating some of these points clearly and expressing the danger, can you understand that you might need to move a little bit faster than you are already?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: So this might bring you to the point where you say, okay, I understand that it's a problem.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: I understand that my body is valuable, I understand that I need to protect it and I need to honor the Lord with it.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: What do I do?
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Flee sexual immorality.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the person who is sexually immoral sins against his own body.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: You are not your own, for you were bought at a price.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: So glorify God with your body.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: There are three arguments that Paul brings up here.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not skipping over fleeing sexual immorality.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: That is the crux of the application.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: We'll get back to it in a second.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: But before that, Paul brings up three arguments for why this is something that we should do.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them are familiar, some of them are new.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is he says, every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the person who is sexually immoral sins against his own body.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked about this one, right?
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is the gravity of the situation, the nature of the sin.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: It is pervasive and damaging, and Satan loves to see people in it.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: There are other sins, as I mentioned, that also affect the body.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: Paul's not disregarding those or saying those don't matter, but he's sort of putting it on a hierarchy, sort of an order of operations.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: He said, This one, though, this one is the most significant and the most damaging.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you land on a grenade, you're gonna get blown up.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: And if you a nuclear missile strikes you, you're gonna get blown up.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: One of them is going to cause more damage than the other.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is the first part of his argument.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Every other sin a person commits outside the body.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 19 is argument number two.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna be like kind of a campus tour guide and walking back through some things here.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: So Garden of Eden, right?
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Garden of Eden, God is with Adam and Eve present, visibly manifesting himself and walking with them through the garden.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: God dwells with his people in the garden.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Adam and Eve sin.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: They're sent out of the garden, right?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: And now fast forward to Moses.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Moses is leading the emancipated Israelites out of Egypt, and he is going through the desert, and he gets the plans for the tabernacle, right?
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now this tabernacle is going to take the place of what the garden was, which is God wants to be with his people, but it sort of has to be within these boundaries.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so the tabernacle is like this mobile temple.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to walk with them through a whole bunch of stuff, through a lot of desert, a lot of sand, and then ultimately into the promised land.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Fast forward, right?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: Israel is established as a nation.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: They get kings.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: The third king, Solomon, builds a temple, a fixed place for God's presence to dwell fully.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Within that temple, if you're with us through Leviticus, we've talked about this stuff.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: The temple is where now God's presence is dwelling.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: In Jerusalem, it's a fixed location, and it is where his Holy Spirit rests, over the Ark of the Covenant.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Then we get to Jesus.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now Jesus, he says that no longer will you worship at a temple, right?
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because while he's here, he is the physical manifestation of God.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: He is God in flesh.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: He is dwelling amongst the people.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: He is walking amongst the people, he's doing miracles for people.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: But when he leaves, he says, now God's spirit, it is going to dwell within all believers.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit then goes to rest upon everybody who trusts in Christ.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: So if you can track with me through all of that, if you can see the line here, what's happening is that from the garden to the tabernacle, to the temple, to Jesus, to now your body, you are now the dwelling place for God's Spirit.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that is just as significant of a claim as you were thinking it is, based upon what I just said.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: The fact of how people treated God and the garden and the tabernacle and the temple and the respect they had for Jesus' body, that's the same kind of respect that your body now deserves because the Holy Spirit dwells within you.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: God dwells within you.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: You are a vessel for the Holy Spirit.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: That is so meaningful.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't think about it very often.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: But that's his second argument here, right?
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: Is he says the first one is, I mean, it's sin is damaging.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: But the second one, he's like, your body is a temple.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: And this isn't some sort of like weird macho, you know, kind of like gym rat dude who's like, my body, you know, I've seen it used that way.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's not.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's like your body is a holy vessel for God's spirit.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: You are joined in unity with Christ.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that should affect the way that you live.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: The third thing he says here, he says, you are not your own, for you're bought at a price.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: So glorify God with your body.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: The language of being bought and sold, and ultimately what we're getting into is the language of a slave and his master is an uncomfortable hurdle for some people.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't come from an African-American background, and so I want to show a level of deference there when I talk about this, because I understand specifically in America here, but also throughout the world, what this means to some people.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to pause and I'm going to try and explain this so that you can see that what Paul is doing should make you think even better of God.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he's going to use this human institution of slavery, as broken as it is, to describe the magnificence of freedom that is found in Christ.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, in 1 Corinthians 7, just the next chapter, where we're going to get to tomorrow or next week and the week after, Paul says this.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Don't you yourselves know nope, not that one.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 7, were you called while a slave?
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Don't let it concern you.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: But if you can become free, by all means take the opportunity.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: For he who is called by the Lord as a slave is the Lord's freedman.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: Likewise, he who is called as a free man is Christ's slave.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: You were bought at a price.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Do not become slaves of people.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Corinth, in this little isthmus that it stands in the nation of Greece, in the country of Greece, right?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: It has a port on either side.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very narrow piece of land where Corinth is at.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's why everybody's wealthy.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody's involved in maritime trade, both to Eastern Europe and Western Europe.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's sort of a connecting piece so they don't have to go around the whole peninsula of Greece.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of slave trade happening in the city of Corinth.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of slaves.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: It is something that is well known to people in Corinth.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: There are also a lot of slaves who belong to the church at Corinth.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is why Paul later on is going to, I mean, he talks about it so openly here, but later on he says, you are neither slave nor free, you're neither Jew nor Greek, right?
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: He says, you are all seen as the same under God's sight.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: There is a unity, an equality that is presented amongst those who are under the banner of Christ, who have the Holy Spirit within him.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so he speaks here, first of all, about those who are literally slaves.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: Were you called while a slave?
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: He means, did you come to Christ while you were a slave?
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: Don't let it concern you.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: But if you can become free, by all means take the opportunity.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: He's talking about a bigger notion of being content in Christ and looking forward to a future where we are no longer slaves in this world.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: But he does say, if you can pursue your freedom, by all means take it.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: For he who is called by the Lord as a slave is the Lord's freedman.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Likewise, he who is called as a free man is Christ's slave.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Flipping, again, we've done this almost every week.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's been something that Paul flips on its head.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: He says, if you were called as a slave, know that you are free in Christ.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: If you are a free person, know that you are a slave to Christ.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: In reality, everybody is a slave to Christ, and everybody is free in Christ, but those two things mean very different people, very differently to the people, depending on where they're coming from into God's kingdom, right?
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: And what is so wonderful about this, and I use that word very carefully, is that just as the meek and the mild are best able to understand the gospel of Christ, those who were coming from slavery best understood the spiritual reality that affected every single person, slave or free, which is that they all had a master, and they all had a spiritual master.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: You say, what does it mean that we were bought at a price?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it means that you were bought by Christ from something or someone, and that individual was Satan.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus redeemed you, he emancipated you, he freed you from the slave owner that is Satan.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's what he's talking about here.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: He says you were brought from the household of Satan into the household of God.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: And one of them is a liar and a thief and a murderer, and the other one washes you and sanctifies you and justifies you.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: There cannot be a greater difference between the two households of faith.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus Christ, the price that he paid for you to be freed from your slavery to sin was his blood.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: He died so that that could happen.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is the language that Paul is using.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so if we can for a moment take a step back and see how Paul is using this broken human institution to describe the disparity, right, between the way that we were slaves to sin before and might still be slaves to sin now, and what God has done through Christ, redeeming us by his blood, so that we can walk in freedom.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Back to verse 12, right?
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: You are free so that you shall not be mastered by anything.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now is when that becomes very, very relevant.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: You are set free in Christ so that you will not be mastered by your sin as you were previously.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of Romans in this language here, too.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: But so that you might follow after the master who is good and does not abuse you, and loves you and cares for you, and has died for you, and has brought you into his kingdom that you will inherit.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's the master that is Christ.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, all that being said, what that means is that Paul, many times in the New Testament, is comfortable calling himself a slave of Christ.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if we don't understand the language behind that, that can sound kind of scary.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: But if we understand what Paul is saying, a dulasus or dulas ha christas, that he is a slave for Christ or a slave for Jesus, we understand that Paul, being in the midst of slavery, telling slaves that they should take their freedom if they could get it, said, I am happy to be obedient to Jesus Christ as my master.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's his third argument there in verses 18 through 20.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: So when all these things come together, right, that sexual immorality is more damaging than you realize, that your bodies are more special than you realize, and that you have been bought by Christ, if you've trusted in him, whether or not you realize it, and now that you are within his family, you should glorify God with your body.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's its purpose.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's what you're here to do, right?
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: You've been saved by grace through faith, but God has also prepared good works for you to do with your bodies.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: Your body is, yes, it is decaying, yes, it gets disease, yes, sometimes that ultimately means that our bodies die.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: But until that time, and until we get our resurrected, complete, and perfect body, until that time, your body is a vessel of the Holy Spirit, and it is just as special as God says it is.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: But that brings us back up to verse 18.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: What are you supposed to do then because you know all these things?
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: Flee sexual immorality.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: Very simple, very hard to do, right?
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: Takes two things to do this.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the first is you have to recognize what sexual immorality is, which is sh kind of hard to do almost because of how pervasive it is actually in our culture.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there are things that are very clear.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, chapter five, Paul says, you know, to the man who is in an incestuous relationship with his stepmother, you're like, okay, got that.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, spade's a spade, pretty clear.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot more pervasive ways that this has kind of infiltrated what we think.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the first step, though.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the second step then is fleeing from it, which is the hardest part.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you are in it, you typically don't realize the danger of it, the damage that is currently happening, and the futility of yourself to try and escape without the power of Christ.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: All those things become difficult.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: But sexual immorality, recognizing it.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about some really obvious things, okay?
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is gonna be fun.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um sex or paying somebody so that you can look at sex?
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: Are you having sex with somebody of the same gender?
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: Are you not married and having sex at all?
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: And are you viewing sex casually as if it will not affect you and is not affecting you?
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: Those would be some easy ones.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: But we can go deeper than that, right?
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: You can talk about like think of the media that you are consuming, what you are reading and what you are watching.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: And this applies, all of these things apply to men and women.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot think of a single good reason, legitimately, why you should be watching with movies that have nudity in them.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: I genuinely cannot.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: You have freedom in Christ, but verse 12 says, what is beneficial?
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's not beneficial.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it is going so, so deep.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the most recent Thor movie had his clothes blown off and you could see his rear end.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, I saw the movie, that's why I was able to see that.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that that was coming.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that we have to understand, though, sort of this pervasive nature that it's coming to.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: I not to get on a rabbit trail about Marvel movies because it affects everything.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: I just but like think about how deep that is running now.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: That these movies that we're showing our kids, that a humorous and to some people sexually appealing moment is found in this Marvel movie.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: But it applies to a lot of different areas.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: You should look at a parent's guide before you watch a movie or a TV show and avoid these kinds of things.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: Man, are you reading books where people are having sex a lot?
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're usually going to have a cowboy on the front of them, okay?
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: Are you reading those kinds of books?
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: They're all about this thick, you know.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think we have to consider what we are filling our mind with, what we are watching, because the eyes are the window into our soul.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it is not just actually having sex with people that damages us.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: It runs so deep, right?
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sports illustrated swimsuit issue, throw it out.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: You can call them and ask not to receive it if you still want to get SI.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of things here that we have to talk about.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: Another one is uh social media, right?
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: Think of the accounts that you follow.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: It is a new form of prostitution that people reveal their bodies in sexual ways, both men and women, so that they can get more followers and they can get more money for it.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: There are celebrities, many celebrities in our culture, who became popular because they got a sex tape or because they sexually exploited themselves to rise to the top.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: I digress.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of examples.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: You can probably think of more than I can.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but here's what I want to get into, though, is you have to run from it.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says flee.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is not uh incorporate it in a way that is better or try and limit it.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's run away, it's full stop, it's cold turkey.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: It says acknowledge the thing that is happening and remove it from your life.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, right, if your eye is causing you to sin, gouge it out.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: If your arm is causing you to sin, chop it off.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: If your phone is causing you to sin, remove the internet application from it.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: You can buy flip phones.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: We need to take this really seriously.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the statistics in the church say that we're not.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: That we're not taking this seriously enough.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: And what I also want to say is that if you recognize that you're in this space, being in church is where you belong.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is where you should be.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: I am not in any way, please hear me, trying to condemn those who are struggling with this as if I have not also struggled with it at times.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: What I am trying to say, though, is that you have to address it and flee from it if you hope to have a deep relationship with Christ.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you remember this, okay, if you are connecting yourself with things that are not intended by God and part of his design, you're going to have a hard time relating with Jesus because you are abusing his body.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I want you to know, though, that this is not to shame you by any means.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you are struggling with this, we're here to help.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: We're in the business of redemption.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is in the business of redemption.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to stay in this way of life any longer, but you do have to take your arm out of the shark's mouth.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, what can you do besides fleeing?
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you can contact us.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: You can send me an email, you can talk to me.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be out of town the next week, but I will get to it.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: You can email Doug, you can email Patty, you can talk with us.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is a male and female issue, but I want you to know that this is where you belong.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: We want to help you, but we can't take your arm out of the shark's mouth for you.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: You have to do that.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, with all these things, where do we stand?
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I said at the beginning that it was bitter medicine, right?
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it lived up to that.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's necessary, though, for us to hear this stuff, even though I get it's comfortable.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: But the reason I'm doing it, believe me, it is easy to skip over this kind of stuff.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: The reason I'm doing it is because I love you and I care about you, and I want you to find redemption from these kinds of things because they are harming you and they are killing you.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't hear about it and if you don't know about these kinds of things, then you're going to continue on in ignorance.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: There are groups here at church that meet without shame to try and talk about these kinds of things and walk in freedom from these things, for men and for women.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: Become a part of them.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: Find an accountability partner.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: Share this struggle with someone so that they can help you walk this journey.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't want to do either of those things, which I do encourage, then at least recognize these areas where you are struggling and put up boundaries and walls so that they will not tempt you any further.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: As a last message, though, you do have the power to overcome this.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: Not because you're strong, because Jesus is strong.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: You have the power of the Holy Spirit.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, you're a vessel for that spirit.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: And just as you are all walking temples for God, you have the power of God to be able to overcome every single thing.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing afflicts you which is not common to mankind.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you can do it by Jesus' power.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: And when you do it, you'll realize the grace and the joy and the peace that is found in Christ when you walk in freedom from these things.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: And whether you are in it now, whether you were in it before or you've never been in it, Jesus loves every single one of you and wants you to know him, to accept him, and to not be mastered by anything in this world, but to call him master because he is gracious and kind and loving and wants to give you every single thing that you could need so that you can walk in freedom from this, ultimately being with him forever in heaven.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: We have a high priest, we have a Lord who loves us so much that he bought us, ransomed us from Satan so that we could walk in freedom.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: God, you are good.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: Far better than we deserve.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray for those who are struggling with sexual immorality.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: God, that might be all of us.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: Would you help us to walk in freedom from this, to flee from it?
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, would you help us to, by the power of your spirit, to discern where it is in our life that we are sinning against you, where it is in our life, Lord, that we have been careless, where it is in our life, Lord, that we have been ignorant.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: Father, and help us walk in freedom.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, you have redeemed us.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: You are a good master.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, you have set us free so that we might pursue what is beneficial, and so that we might not be mastered by anything.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: Father, I pray that those who are also feeling this, who might be realizing that their arm is in a shark's mouth right now, Lord, that they would feel your grace and your forgiveness as they walk closer to the cross.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: And God, I also pray that by the power of your Spirit, we would understand and feel your presence resting within us so that we can conquer these things, Lord, both individually and as a church, as we walk alongside one another and encourage each other towards love and good deeds.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you for all of this.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: Most of all, we thank you for the cross that by the blood you have redeemed us from being slaves to sin.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, love you.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great week.