Sermon Tone Analysis

Good morning and welcome to CCC.

I am so very glad each of you are here this morning.

If you joined us for our final Men’s breakfast of the year what a wonderful morning that was yesterday.

Men I think that needs to become a yearly tradition, the Men serving their Brides on the last Men’s breakfast of the year!

What a blessing it was to fellowship with everyone yesterday!

If you are not a member of Groupme yet I put the QR code on your notes page.

All you have to do is scan that QR code with your phone.

It is best to download the free app but Groupme will walk you through what you need to do.

If you need help please see me and I will help you.

The only reason I mention this is because the idea of the Men serving their Brides at yesterday’s Men’s breakfast came later in the week and we announced it through Groupme as well as facebook.

Let’s Pray

START OBS

My original plan this morning was to cover I Corinthians 6:12-20.

I had a sermon written over the entire thing but it just was not sitting right in my soul.

As I prayed about it and sought God He began to show me this morning’s message is only to cover verses 12 and 13 in I Corinthians 6.

This is because we must understand the truth God through Paul is addressing here.

There is no way to grasp the rest of the passage without understanding the truth in 12-13.

So that is what we are going to wrestle with today.

The 1st thing we need to understand is some background on Corinth and the Corinthians.

Corinth was a very important and wealthy city.

Many people in and out with trade and business.

With many people in and out many different cultural ideas flowed in and out of the city and people.

Sounds familiar doesn’t it.

Most of our major cities here in the USA can relate and fit this description some more than others.

NYC or LA come to mind.

Corinth was a wealthy city…humans don’t seem to handle wealth very well.

We tend to become prideful and dependent upon money instead of God and wealth corrodes our idea of rules and responsibility.

The culture the Corinth church was in was like our own but probably worse.

When it came to sex any and everything was acceptable and celebrated.

Our own culture is approaching this but is not quite there yet as there are a few things still illegal or off limits in most of our society.

In Corinth anything was acceptable....if you felt it you could do it.

The Corinthian church was born out of this culture.

The Corinthian Christians were once a part of this culture and they were struggling with leaving everything behind, especially their ideas and thinking about sex.

They were struggling with being in the world not of the world.

Sex and sexual acts and, I believe, more importantly thinking about sex and sexual acts were a part of everything that they did.

I want you to notice something, this is one of the devils classic plays out of his playbook.

He understands just how deeply sexual sin corrodes people.

It penetrates everything that a person does and is.

It dominates their thinking and brings them far from God and true fellowship with their brothers and sisters because everything is filtered through a sexually corrupted mind.

Look around.

Our culture is not quite where the Corinthian culture but you don’t have to look very far for sex or sexual thoughts.

If we do not awaken from our slumber our culture will soon be just as bad as the Corinthian culture and shame on us because we have the Bible.....God’s Word to guide us, the problem is we are not looking to it to guide us but to make us feel better or to check a box.

God’s Word must define you and me as Christians.

I believe this morning God wanted us to fully look at, think about, pray about and respond to verse 12 and 13 because He talks directly about renewing our minds.

He talks directly about conforming to the Word instead of conforming to the world when it comes to our thoughts and beliefs.

I Corinthians 6:12-13

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“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.

“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.”

I believe most of today’s Christians don’t understand how to discern their thoughts.

They think they do, they may even be able to quote you the scripture about taking thoughts captive but they truly don’t know how to discern their thoughts because they have never, through the Holy Spirit, applied that scripture.

II Corinthians 10:5

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“We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,”

Take every thought captive to obey Christ.

That is something we are told to do but how many of us truly understand and apply that truth?

We have and will continue to talk about that verse and its truth because here in I Corinthians 6 we see it applied and Paul gives very real and practical advice on how to do just that.

We all struggle.

Maybe you are here today or watching online and you struggle with killing the old you

Maybe you are struggling with leaving culture behind and walking in the Spirit

Maybe you have a worldly view or belief when it comes to sex

Maybe you are struggling with leaving some other world view behind, abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism or confusion, addiction, etc etc etc there are too many to list here this morning

In verses 12-13 Paul gives us a wonderful, practical way to evaluate our thoughts, take them captive to obey Christ

Paul starts by using a Corinthian slogan, way of thinking, way of life really that should have died with their old self when they were saved but it was alive and well inside the Corinthian church

All things are lawful for me

What did/does that mean?

What’s the big deal?

You do you

You only live once

Do what feels good life is short

Inside the church it could look like this

God’s grace and mercy are endless so how I think or talk or live doesn’t matter

We are free in Christ to do what we want when we want to do it

God’s forgives so why try to obey?

These are spiritually deadly and physically deadly thoughts.

Inside the Corinthian Church and culture it meant in regards to sex

It is biological so do whatever fells good

Our bodies are temporary so it doesn’t matter

This is the belief Paul was attacking here.

God is holy.

God is righteous.

God’s grace and mercy are limitless and we are free in Christ but our actions have consequences and obedience is commanded and expected.

We demonstrate our love of God and Jesus by our obedience

John 14:15-24

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15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.

You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me.

Because I live, you also will live.

20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.

And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” 23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.

And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.

Jesus is clear here.

If you love me keep my commandments.

Here is where the struggle begins.

So many of us struggle to keep Jesus’ commandments on our own.