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1 Corinthians 6:9-20
9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous1 will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,2 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
12 “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. 13 “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16 Or do you not know that he who is joined2:24 and Deuteronomy 10:20); also verse 17</note>">3 to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. 18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin4 a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
[1] 6:9
[2] 6:9
[3] 6:16
[4] 6:18
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
I invite you to open your bibles to 1st Corinthians chapter 6 as we continue our study on 1st Corinthians. First Corinthians chapter 6. We'll begin reading in verse 9. If you don't have a bible, you can grab the one in front of you, or the text should be there in your worship guide. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?
Joel Brooks:Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God. All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful.
Joel Brooks:All things are lawful for me, but I will not be enslaved by anything. Food is meant for the stomach, and the stomach for food. And God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord, and will also raise us up by his power.
Joel Brooks:Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never. Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For as it is written, the 2 will become 1 flesh.
Joel Brooks:But he who is joined to the Lord becomes 1 spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you have been bought with a price.
Joel Brooks:So, glorify God in your body. And this is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. If you would, pray with me. Father, we ask that through your spirit, you bring great clarity and conviction through this text.
Joel Brooks:May we hear your heart for us. Lord, I pray that anything that might be harmful or hurtful or confusing, you would blow away. I pray that only your words would remain. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Joel Brooks:Let me explain to you the next 3 weeks. Today, we're gonna be looking at this chapter, which deals with sexuality. Chapter 7 continues these themes, and we'll be looking at sex, singleness, and marriage when we get to chapter 7. Which normally we would hit next week, but next week is Easter, and I honestly just didn't feel like preaching on sex on Easter. So so I'm not gonna do that next week.
Joel Brooks:I could've made it work, But we'll be continuing this series, if you will. This kind of the part 2 of this message, when we get to chapter 7 in 2 weeks. Now, I mentioned this when we started our series on Corinthians, but you really have to understand Corinth if you're to understand all the things that Paul is talking about, especially as it comes to this chapter. The Corinth that Paul is writing to is only a 100 years old. It was once leveled by the Roman Empire, but the Romans knew it had too much of a strategic importance to just lay in ruins.
Joel Brooks:And so they rebuilt the city 100 years ago, or 100 years earlier. And the city flourished. Within a 100 years, that city had grown to over 500,000 people because of its strategic location. It's the very definition of what we would call a boom town. And so the people from all over the empire were flocking to Corinth.
Joel Brooks:Young people needing a job or or wanting an adventure were heading to this port city. If you were ambitious and you wanted to make a name for yourself or or make a buck, this was the place to go. And of of course, with Corinth being such a new place, nobody had any deep roots in the city. Nobody had been there for generations. Most people had left their family behind, their hometowns behind.
Joel Brooks:And with that, they left behind all of those stabilizing influences that were once upon their lives. So you've got this thriving port city, full of young, adventurous, 20 somethings, who no longer have any attachments to family, and who are now living in close, close proximity to one another. And so the obvious result of this was that this was a city full of sexual energy, full of sexual temptation. The city, was obsessed with sex. Overlooking the city is was a hill called the Acro Corinth.
Joel Brooks:And on this hill was where they had built a temple to their God. And the ruins of this Acro Corinth are still there today. Every city in the Roman Empire typically had its patron god. And so for Corinth, of course, the patron deity was Aphrodite. The goddess of love and the goddess of sex.
Joel Brooks:And every single night, one 1,000 temple prostitutes would come down the Acrocorinth into the city, offering their services to everyone. 1000 every single night. Sex became what the Corinthians' lives revolved around. It was it was the air that they breathe. The city became so obsessed with sex that, the name Corinth or Corinthian actually became an adjective.
Joel Brooks:Alright. It's never a good thing if your city becomes an adjective. And and Corinthian to be a Corinthian was was an adjective. It meant basically you would have sex with with anybody or anything. And so it was used as a pejorative term throughout the Roman Empire.
Joel Brooks:Corinth reminds me a little bit of Vegas. As a teenager, my my parents, we took a family vacation to Vegas, which probably really surprises you now. But but back then, the promotional campaigns, the ad campaigns for Vegas were wholesome. I mean, yes, it was a place that you could go and gamble, but they advertised themselves as being a place of wholesome fun for your entire family. And so they would try to get the entire family to come to Vegas.
Joel Brooks:And then, you know, finally it dawned on them that nobody wants to take their entire family in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere, and be stuck with them with almost nothing to do. And so they decided to redo their promotional campaign. So they finally settled on the one we all know. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. And Vegas boomed.
Joel Brooks:It absolutely boomed. Then then their location no longer worked against them. It worked for them. Come be out in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere. And you could do whatever you want and nobody's gonna know.
Joel Brooks:What you do here stays here. Indulge every appetite. And it kinda doesn't really even count because after all, it's just Vegas. And the city just flourished. And I've talked to many people who've come back from Vegas, who've done some terrible things.
Joel Brooks:And and when you ask them about it, they're like, well, it's just Vegas. Like like that is an answer. You know, that is just it's just Vegas. So of course, I would do that. It doesn't really count.
Joel Brooks:I actually find a lot of similarities. You know, I did college ministry for 8 or 9 years. And a lot of similarities between Corinth and Vegas with college life, in which you have a bunch of 20 somethings living in close proximity to one another, away for the first time from the stabilizing influences of their family, and then they believe this lie. What happens in college just stays in college. It it becomes actually the place where you're encouraged, maybe even to experiment.
Joel Brooks:You're encouraged to sow your wild oats, to do all of this during this time, and then you move on with your life as if none of that really mattered. Somehow, you're detached from that college experience. The pulse says you're not detached from that. What what you do with your body actually remains with your body. These things matter.
Joel Brooks:And Paul, he starts off this section of his letter by by giving us a list. It's quite a list. It makes us squirm when we read it. That's actually when the fire alarm was supposed to go off. And so we could just end it there, but the timing was a little off there.
Joel Brooks:Let's look through this list again. Sorry if I'm squeaking like a child going through puberty, I've just sinus infection. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither these sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
Joel Brooks:The word sexual immorality there is the word pornea. It's where we get the word pornography. And porneia is always translated sexual immorality throughout the bible. And it simply means this, any sex outside of marriage, any sex outside of marriage is porneia or sexual immorality. So adultery is sexual immorality.
Joel Brooks:Homosexuality is sexual immorality. And and we'll look a little bit more at that in a bit. Now, it's important to note here, especially in this day and age, when there's so much focus on what these words actually mean. That Paul here is talking about actions. He's not divorcing a a title from the act.
Joel Brooks:So he's not talking about desire. He is talking about acting upon these desires and living this lifestyle. And so when Paul here lists adulterers and idolaters and greedy and homosexuals, he's talking about people who are practicing such a lifestyle. And this is why he could say in verse 11, and such were some of you. You you were this.
Joel Brooks:After you became a Christian though, you stopped doing these things. Even though you still very well might have had an impulse to keep doing these things. The desire might still be there, but but you have stopped doing this. Why? Because you're no longer a slave to your impulses or as Paul says, I will not be enslaved or mastered by anything.
Joel Brooks:Okay. So we all have fallen desires. And just because you became a Christian, that doesn't mean that those desires, those evil desires instantly go away or ever go away. It doesn't mean that you no longer are going to covet your neighbor's house, or your neighbor's spouse. It doesn't mean that you are no longer going to want to take another person's possessions, or that you are no longer gonna be attracted to somebody of the same sex.
Joel Brooks:These desires might still very well be present in us as believers, as Christians. What Paul is saying is you are no longer a slave to those desires. You have been set free. Christ has set you free from this. And now, your desire to obey Jesus outweighs any of those other desires.
Joel Brooks:Your desire to obey Jesus becomes the controlling desire in your life. Used to be those things, but now you're Christ. You belong to him. It's it'd probably be helpful to know that even Paul had some of these desires. Even when he became a Christian, these desires didn't go away.
Joel Brooks:Later in this chapter or in this book in chapter 15, Paul says that he has to die to these desires every day. He he says these words in 15:31. He says, I die every day. What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with wild beast at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, let us eat drink for tomorrow we die.
Joel Brooks:And now when Paul talks about fighting wild beast, you need to understand that wild beast is just a common idiom for lust. The wild beast. He's he's fighting lust. As a single man who's going through all of these cities, cities that many of them are saturated with sexual immorality, Paul had to battle this. And he says, I have to die to my desires as a single guy.
Joel Brooks:I have to die daily to this. And then he goes, but believe me, if I didn't believe in the resurrection, I wouldn't. If I didn't believe in a judgment day, that we would be raised in to be a judgment day, I would eat, drink, and for tomorrow I die. Because it is hard to fight this wild beast. I have to die every day to these desires.
Joel Brooks:And he would tell the Galatians later, I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who lives, but it is Christ who lives in me. So Paul had the desires. He's just dying to them. Now the Corinthians, they had 2 dominant views, predominant views on sex.
Joel Brooks:There were some who thought that that you should abstain completely from sex. The sex was wrong. It's dirty. Even within marriage, you should not have sex. We'll look at this when we get to chapter 7.
Joel Brooks:People, they when they thought of sex, they thought of it as just sinful, as just bad, ugly, dirty, filthy. And the goal was to be free from things like that. To be free from your body, which you saw as sinful. And Paul, he deals with this view later by reminding people that no, actually sex is God's gift to humanity. It's a beautiful, glorious gift to be used and enjoyed within marriage.
Joel Brooks:Paul is by no means a prude. Sex is a pleasurable good gift from God, and he exalts sex to a higher position than the Corinthians originally had. The the other view, which is the more dominant view, is found in the first part of verse 13. Paul is quoting the Corinthians here. When we read, food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food.
Joel Brooks:Food is for the stomach, and the stomach for food. In other words, the Corinthians, they were saying sex is just an appetite. I mean, when you get hungry, you eat food. When you have sexual desire, you have sex. Just like you would any appetite.
Joel Brooks:And prostitution was was viewed in that day largely like a vending machine. Really. You got hungry. You go. You put in your change, and and you get something to satisfy your hunger.
Joel Brooks:And that's how they viewed prostitutes. And it was not a big deal at all to go and to visit a prostitute, to satisfy those urges. As a matter of fact, in the Corinthian culture, the more you study it, the more you realize actually food and sex went together a lot. And so, if you were part of the Corinthian elite and you had people over for dinner, you were expected after dinner to provide sexual entertainment for your guest. They even had a word for it.
Joel Brooks:The after dinners. In which, with dessert, you were to have sex. And so, why wouldn't you? I mean, you're hungry. You eat.
Joel Brooks:You have sexual desire. You fulfill it. Could you imagine being a Christian in that culture? I mean, could could you imagine that? Just imagine your 1st Friday night.
Joel Brooks:I mean, you just came to know the Lord. You know, Paul was preaching. You you came to know the Lord, and now it's your 1st Friday night with your friends. And so, you know, you do the typical thing, you know, after spending an hour trying to decide where you eat, you go and you eat. And, and then after dinner, you go back to somebody's place, and you're there, and everybody just kinda begins, you know, taking off their shirts, their clothes, and you're just like, you're sitting on the couch, now you're perspiring.
Joel Brooks:You're the only one who doesn't have clothes. And, people are like, woah. What what's the big deal? And you're like, well, you know, I just kinda thought we maybe do something different tonight. Not that we play Settlers of Catan or Monopoly.
Joel Brooks:And you know, instantly you stood out. People are like, what do you what do you mean? We do we do this all the time. Your life has been utterly transformed. God's turning your life upside down, and the people would have thought you were crazy.
Joel Brooks:Now, I love what Tim Keller said about this passage. He pointed out that the Corinthians, they were once promiscuous with their sex, and they were held tight to their money. And now God was asking them to be promiscuous with their money, and to sanctify their sex, and hold tight to it. Basically, God was turning their entire world upside down. He said, before you just used to just sex with whoever.
Joel Brooks:Now, I want you to give money out to whoever. But I want you to hold close this sacred gift that I've given you. Keep it within marriage. Now, the Corinthian view of sex is by far the dominant view of sex today. It's an appetite that needs to be met.
Joel Brooks:If you have the desire, we'll go and meet that desire. And actually desire has become the foundation or the the cornerstone in which our entire sexual ethic is being built on today. What you desire has to be what's right. And we build our ethic on this. To to deny your desire is seem to be denying the life that you were meant to live.
Joel Brooks:It seems to be signing up for an unfulfilled life. So what does Paul say to this? How does he respond to this casual view of sex? He responds by saying 2 things. First, that we are not to be deceived by our desires.
Joel Brooks:We're not to be deceived by our desires. And then he gives them a new view of the body. He holds the body up in high esteem, and he says, there is no such thing as casual sex. He elevates the idea of sex far beyond anything they could have ever imagined. It's far more glorious and beautiful than they think.
Joel Brooks:So let's first look at being deceived by our desires. In verse 9, Paul says, do not be deceived. It's a phrase he uses elsewhere in scripture as well. In Ephesians 5, when he's also talking about sexual immorality, he says the same thing. He says, do not be deceived.
Joel Brooks:He says this, for you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you. So once again, when Paul is talking about sex, coveting, idolatry, inheriting the kingdom of God, he's saying, we can be deceived. We can be deceived about these things. The Corinthians were deceived in thinking that their desires determined what was right.
Joel Brooks:Now, of course, Adam and Eve, they were deceived. They were deceived by their desires. So so Eve, after she sinned, after she took the fruit and God asked her what have you done, she says, the serpent deceived me. He deceived me and this is why I did this one thing you asked me not to do. Now, how did the serpent deceive her?
Joel Brooks:Well, he started by telling her a lie that has been going on today, and it's this. Did God really say you can't do that? Did God really say that? He gets her to start questioning what God has clearly said in His word. God has clearly spoken about these things, but the first thing Satan does is go, really?
Joel Brooks:Did he really clearly say that? And she begins to question. And then he he feeds on this. He says, and you basically you know, I know you wanna eat that fruit. You desire that fruit.
Joel Brooks:Don't you? Why would god put forth something right in front of you that you desire so much and ask you not to partake in it. What kind of god does that? God's holding back on you. God's not good.
Joel Brooks:How can you trust him to do such a thing like that? I I mean, if you don't take this, you are going to live an unfulfilled life. And so of course, she believes the lie, and she partakes she takes of this fruit. And what she thought would so certainly lead to life and to joy led to her death and her destruction. And let's be honest here.
Joel Brooks:When we look at the sins that Paul has laid out in this list, the reason that so many of us do those things is because we have bought into the same lies that we have been deceived. And so we desire something. Perhaps it's sex outside of marriage. We desire it. Or it could be possessions.
Joel Brooks:We need more. Or that we need to be tight fisted with what we have. Or perhaps it's to pursue a romantic relationship with someone of the same sex. We desire these things, and we think, well, why do I have this desire, and then God doesn't want me to act upon it? I mean, it's just right there for me.
Joel Brooks:Why doesn't He want me to take this? And you begin to doubt God's goodness. And that to not take this is to live an unfulfilling life. Or maybe you begin to doubt God at His word. Did God really say that this was wrong?
Joel Brooks:And you begin to do some mental gymnastics as you begin to interpret His word. We fall into the same deceit. Eve should have trusted that God would fulfill her ultimate desires. Hear me. God is no man's debtor.
Joel Brooks:Any sacrifice you make for Him, He will pay back a 1,000 fold. She should've trusted. So Paul warns us here that we should not be deceived. God's instructions are clear, and we should trust Him that they are for our good and therefore His glory. Now, if Paul, hear me, if he had stopped right there and never said another word, that would've been enough for us.
Joel Brooks:That he's just clearly outlined what is right and what is wrong. But Paul, in his kindness to us, he actually tells us some of the reasons why. He doesn't go into full detail here. He does that elsewhere in scripture, but he does give us some of the reasons why for these things. Why sexual immorality is wrong.
Joel Brooks:And he begins by telling us that we have a far too limited and small view of the body. The Corinthians thought little of their bodies. They thought what they did to them really didn't matter because it's only your spirit that matters. The body would, of course, someday be destroyed, but your spirit endures forever. And so that's what you really need to focus on, and then of course, you know, even some of our modern hymns focus on that.
Joel Brooks:You know, I'll fly away, hallelujah, when I die, you know, then I'm gonna fly away. Leave this body behind. That's all that matters. And we have this low view of the body. And so, who really cares what the body does?
Joel Brooks:If it's hungry, feed it. If you want sex, give it sex. And Paul, he says, no. It's not that the food is for stomach and the stomach is for food. Let me give you a new saying.
Joel Brooks:The body is for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. What you do with your body matters. Because hear me, the body is not meant for destruction. The body is meant for resurrection. And what you do with this body endures.
Joel Brooks:God has a high value on your body. So much so that later he talks about even his spirit comes to live inside of our body. Don't you dare put a low view on the body, because Christ has not. Our body is not meant for destruction. It is meant for resurrection.
Joel Brooks:So what we do with our bodies matter. And then Paul, he goes on to explain. He says, you know, it matters so much. Not just our soul, but our bodies do. And the fact is this, body and soul are never meant to be separated.
Joel Brooks:They're never meant to be separated, yet sex outside of marriage is an attempt to divide body and soul. That's His main argument here. Sex outside of marriage divides body and soul. Look at verse 16. Do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her.
Joel Brooks:For as it is written, the 2 will become 1 flesh. This is a astonishing, world shattering view of sex that Paul just throws out there. He gives us an example of sexual immorality. Once again, sex outside of marriage is sexual immorality. And he he uses the example of a prostitute here.
Joel Brooks:When you join yourself to prostitute, but then he says, you become one body, or then he quotes Genesis, you become one flesh. And and flesh, the term he's using here is often used throughout scripture to to talk about persons, personhood. Clearly, when he quotes Genesis 2, he's talking about persons. The 2 shall become 1 flesh. They shall become united in personhood.
Joel Brooks:That's what Paul is saying here. 2 become 1 flesh. 2 become 1 person. And you should never try to unite just your body with someone without trying to unite your person with someone. So God forbid that that ever happened.
Joel Brooks:It's a horrible thing to be joined together physically, but not to be joined together, spiritually or personally with the other person. God did not design you to give away your body without giving away your soul, is what he is saying. The 2 shall become 1 flesh. So sex outside of an absolute commitment to another person is attempting to separate body and soul. So if if you were vulnerable with somebody, completely vulnerable with somebody physically, And let's face it, sex is about as vulnerable as you can get physically.
Joel Brooks:It's when you have removed your clothes and you are you are naked before the other person. It's as vulnerable as you could get. And what Paul is saying is, if you have made yourself so vulnerable physically, but not made yourself vulnerable, emotionally, vulnerable with your emotions, or with your money, or with your time, or with your whole person, says you do that, what you're telling that person is, I just want your body, but I don't want your person. I want you to be committed to me physically, but I don't really want your commitment as a person. Body and soul were not meant to be split.
Joel Brooks:So when God looks at people trying to split body and soul, and remember He looks, when He looks at us, He sees us body and soul together. He sees a mutilation of what He's created. Us trying to tear apart who we are. And he's thinking, why would you ever mutilate such a beautiful thing? What you do with your whole body needs to be a reflection of what you do with your soul.
Joel Brooks:So hear me. You humans are the only species, the only species that has sex, face to face, heart to heart. We're the only species that do that. That is not by accident. It's because there is a shared personhood there.
Joel Brooks:God made the physical act of sex to mirror the spiritual act, which is the joining together of persons. 2 become 1 in marriage. This is also one of the reasons that homosexuality is wrong. The physical nature of sex, once again, is to mirror the spiritual nature of sex. 2 people becoming 1 body, becoming one person.
Joel Brooks:This cannot happen in a homosexual relationship. God designed sex to be between complimentary parts that join together. It's it's obvious that male and female were designed to be joined together. And these complimentary parts, these complimentary natures of man and woman, they ultimately point to our marriage with Christ. And the complementary natures of Jesus and us joining together.
Joel Brooks:2 very distinct natures, but someday becoming 1. It speaks to the mystery of Christ and His church. Let me just say a few words about homosexuality. It's it's so interesting. It's such a hotbed and a divisive issue.
Joel Brooks:About a year ago, actually it was around Easter a year ago, the paper was interviewing me for just what's going on here at our church because it was just growing so rapidly in the middle of Avondale. And like, how can, you know, a conservative evangelical church be thriving in the middle of this community? And so the reporter comes here and is interviewing Lorne and I, And the very first question, the very first question he asked is, so what's your view on homosexuality? Because he knows, like he's looking for a sound bite. He's looking for something you could put out there and divide.
Joel Brooks:It's the issue. Now hear me, Paul does not make homosexuality out to be the worst sin. Not by any means, nor does the rest of scripture exalt that as somehow the most heinous sin there is. Homosexuality here is just kinda listed as another form of sexual immorality. No worse than adultery.
Joel Brooks:No worse than just having sex outside of marriage. Also no worse than greed or swindling, or stealing. A matter of fact, if you were to go through scripture, you will find the the verses that directly deal with scripture, you're only gonna find about 7 of them. That, I mean, that deal with homosexuality, only about 7 verses that directly deal with homosexuality. It's not there very much, but do you know how many verses deal with greed?
Joel Brooks:God hammers in the fact that we need to change our greedy hearts. And there might be so much more damage from greed in our hearts than there is about homosexuality. Another reason though, I do think that it's not mentioned that much in scriptures because there's never been controversy over homosexuality throughout the history of the church. It has readily been accepted as clearly this is not God's plan. And then the church has moved on.
Joel Brooks:So homosexuality is certainly not the worst thing, but Paul says it also is not the best thing. It's not the right thing for us. Sex wasn't intended to be that way. The interlocking of our bodies is to mirror the interlocking of our persons. That's how God created it, and a homosexual relationship cannot do that.
Joel Brooks:There is no face to face, and there is no heart to heart interlocking of bodies. He is not saying that the homosexual, sex cannot be pleasurable, it cannot be fun. He is not saying that, any more than saying sexual immorality cannot be pleasurable or fun. He's saying it falls just way short of God's best. It falls short of God's design.
Joel Brooks:Why would you wanna do that? Now I realize in saying this, that I'm going completely against culture. I realize this, there's probably gonna be little lines of this sermon pulled out and put all over social media. Who knows? But I want I want you to hear me say this.
Joel Brooks:Paul was clearly going against his culture. There's an argument that goes out there that Paul was just a victim of his times. So of course, he said these things. No. Sexual immorality and homosexuality were far more accepted in his culture than in ours.
Joel Brooks:And Paul stood up to it, and he says, I don't know I don't care what culture preaches. This is clearly not God's design. Don't distort this beautiful gift God has given us. And so He took a took a brave step to say that as clearly as He can. Sex is a symbol of Christ's relationship to the church, and needs to be preserved.
Joel Brooks:Paul is actually gonna talk more about that in other letters, and he does hint about that in in verse 17. We'll we'll end with this. Let's look at verse 17. But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Paul compares 2 people becoming 1 flesh to us being joined to the Lord.
Joel Brooks:Sex is meant to be a representation of our relationship with Jesus. A relationship that's not just physical, but it's emotional, spiritual. It's our whole self giving for a life transforming encounter. That's what sexual union is supposed to be. It's to affect our entire being in which we give our whole self to someone, not just partially.
Joel Brooks:And hear hear me on this. Jesus will not allow you to sleep with him. He will not allow you to use Him in that way. And for you to come to Him on your terms and maybe just throw up a prayer here or there and just sleep with Him. What He demands from you is total lifelong commitment.
Joel Brooks:Sex, which points to our relationship with Him, has the same the same guidelines. Total lifelong commitment to one another. It's the symbol that He has given us. And let me tell you, sex is just the symbol. Can you imagine?
Joel Brooks:Can you imagine what the real thing's going to be? I love it at weddings. I always read from Genesis 2, and, and where the 2 shall become 1 flesh. In one day, that will apply to us and Christ. Right now, it doesn't, because Christ has his resurrected body, and and and there's there could be no joining there.
Joel Brooks:But I love it that one day, we will rise again because He is risen. He will give us new resurrected bodies, and he's gonna say the exact same thing that Adam said when he saw Eve. So we go, at last, bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh, And we will be united with Jesus forever. Sex is the symbol of that day. It's something that is to be preserved and something that we should rejoice and delight in with God's instruction and His guidelines being used within marriage.
Joel Brooks:Hear me. Jesus is a lover with a a passion for you that is far more wild than anything this world has to offer. Don't settle for anything less. And I know that when I preach a sermon like this, it's likely to stir up a whole lot of things. Every person in here struggles with one of these things on this list.
Joel Brooks:I want you to clearly hear me say that Jesus offers forgiveness for you. His blood can wash you cleans clean, not just partially, but fully of your sin. Washes whiter than snow. And if you have not reached out to if you have not trusted in Jesus, I plead for you to do so, because there is a new life that you cannot imagine that He offers to you. Once again, His love for you is far more passionate and wild than anything this world has to offer.
Joel Brooks:You would pray with me. Father, I pray we would not settle for anything less than your best. And so, Lord, in this moment where there needs to be conviction, convict us. Where there needs to be healing, heal us. Lord, have your way with us, and may we delight in you and in the gifts that you have given us.
Joel Brooks:And we pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.