1 Corinthians 6:12-20 | "You Are Not Your Own"
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· 106 viewsSunday, July 18, 2021. 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 | “You Are Not Your Own.” What does it mean for Jesus to be “Lord”? This text makes it clear. To call Jesus “Lord” means I am not my own! Jesus owns me because He purchased me. In response, I worship God with all my heart, soul, mind and body.
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I. Reading of Scripture
I. Reading of Scripture
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 joined 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 sin 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.
If you receive this as God’s Word, will you say with me “Amen”? Amen!
[Title Slide]
1 Corinthians 6:12-20 “You Are Not Your Own”
1 Corinthians 6:12-20 “You Are Not Your Own”
II. Introduction
II. Introduction
Church, When we call Jesus “Lord,” that means something.
Have you ever thought about what that word means?
What does it mean when we call Jesus our “Lord”?
The word “Lord” is not a familiar word in our vocabulary today, except when we speak about our relationship to Jesus. And yet, I would guess that many of us would struggle to explain what that one words means if we were asked.
Listen as I return again, and read the Greeting to this letter of 1 Corinthians. Notice this time, the repeated use of the word “Lord.”
1 Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes,
2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Did you hear that word repeated?
Why is Jesus called “Lord”? What does that mean?
At the opening of this letter, the apostle reveals that calling Jesus Christ “Lord” was not only necessary to be included in the community of all the saints of God in every place, but it also identified who the worshipers of God were!
Just Listen!...for the ones who call Jesus Christ “Lord” and call upon His name!
Just Look!...for those who live with grace and peace from a higher place.
And there you will find, the Church of God in Christ Jesus, who is their Lord!
What does it mean to call Jesus “Lord”?
Why do we call Jesus “Lord”?
If I were to ask you: “Are you saved?” I hope you would say “Yes.”
But if I were to then ask you “How do you know?”- What would you tell me in response?
This is the answer I hear the most —
“I’m saved because I trusted Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior”
That response necessitates an even stronger question in reply: What does THAT mean?
The reality is, the word “Lord” shouldn’t have to be defined for someone to understand what it means, because it should be obvious.
In simple terms, the word “Lord” means this — and this is the title of today’s message, lifted directly from the text in verse 19.
The word “Lord” means:
[Title Slide]
1 Corinthians 6:12-20 “You Are Not Your Own”
1 Corinthians 6:12-20 “You Are Not Your Own”
“You Are Not Your Own”
The word “Lord” is a possessive word. It conveys ownership.
The “Lord” is the possessor, the OWNER, the “one who has full control of something” (BDAG).
To call Jesus “Lord” means that Jesus possesses me, Jesus owns me, and Jesus has full control of ME!
This ONE word, describes in such a powerful way, the relationship we have with Jesus - He is “Lord.”
And to call Jesus “Lord” means that we must also, by necessity, LIVE as He is Lord.
How do we do that?
We can begin by looking up the word “Lord” in the dictionary (and I’m not talking about Webster’s)! But God’s dictionary, God’s Word! How God defines the word, because —
God set the terms of our relationship with Him and used that word “Lord” to define the relationship.
God gave that definition to Jesus, not to us!
Jesus is Lord, we are not.
The apostle is going to expound this for the church in Corinth because they needed help understanding the nature of the relationship they were in with Jesus.
I would say that WE TOO, need help understanding what kind of relationship we are in with Jesus, especially this kind in which Jesus is called our “Lord.”
We say it, but do we understand it? Do we believe it? Do we live it?
What does it mean to live with Jesus as “Lord”?
III. Exposition
III. Exposition
The apostle writes:
6:12
6:12
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.
Already, this theme of lordship, or ownership bubbles to the surface in this statement: “All things are lawful for me.”
This phrase is repeated twice in verse 12, and the apostle will take it up again later in this letter.
“All things are lawful for me.”
This was likely a slogan, representing a group’s belief in the church. Perhaps it was a group’s philosophy or way of life.
We aren’t told who said it, but someone was saying it, and clearly someone in the church was saying it! And by itself, this statement is not of God. There is not a Scripture reference to be attached to this unrestrained permissibility.
When we hear that word “lawful,” we think back to the Jews and the Law of Moses. But that is not the kind of “lawful” that is referred to here. This word “lawful” is a word for permission.
One translations renders it this way:
“All things are permitted for me” (LEB)
All things are permissible for me.
What is wrong with that statement?
That statement leaves the permissions all about ME!
Church - Do we live as a people who are all about ME? No!
The Gospel always teaches us to to love God supremely and then to love others. No instruction in the Great Commission or the Great Commandment makes room for my permissions and my rights because life in Christ is never about ME.
This is the issue or what is or is not permitted is the root issue recorded in Scripture about the first temptation and the first sin.
Listen back to Genesis 3.
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
Did GOD actually restrict what is permissible for you?
2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,
Now look closely at what she says next: “but God said.”
That’s what is missing from the statement in Corinth.
What did God say?
3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”
The statement “All things are lawful for me” / “All things are permissible for me” is incomplete.
The serpent in the Garden discredited the phrase “but God said” so that once removed, what remained what a lie.
“We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden.”
“All things are permissible for me.”
When Jesus is Lord, we are not granted such unrestrained permission for ourselves.
We like to quote Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things.”
That’s a lie if we leave it incomplete. For the whole verse says:
13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
Through Christ.
Our culture wants us to believe that we have permission to do whatever we want.
To use whatever gender pronoun we want.
To hookup and date and marry and divorce whoever we want.
To use whatever bathroom we want.
To do whatever with our body that they want.
But what about God? What has God said?
This same mentality easily infiltrates the church too.
We can organize ourselves however we want.
We can lead ourselves however we want.
We can sing for ourselves whatever we want.
We can program ourselves however we want.
But what about God? What has God said?
This is why God gives His Church pastors. To guard correct doctrine. To teach the Word of God! This is why God gave Corinth the apostle who wrote:
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.
The apostle brings in the restraint needed that shifts the focus away from “ME” and draws attention to that which is greater than me.
Not all things benefit. Not all things bear together (BDAG 1 ?). In Christ, we do not live to ourselves any longer! (see GCM).
And the apostle takes it one step further —
“All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.
Here is the reality we must realize:
What we have permission to do has the power to control us.
What we have permission to do has the power to own us!
You can watch the first show in that Netflix series. How long do you think it will take for you to become addicted? Before the story and the screen owns you?
You can bet that first dollar in a game. How long do you think it will take before you become addicted, and gambling owns you?
You can entertain that first word of gossip. “Did you hear?” “Hear what?” How long then, do you think it will take for you to become addicted? Before you are on the phone chain, and gossip owns you?
You can eat that first donut or drink that first cup of coffee. How long then, do you think it will take for you to become addicted?
You can look at that first pornographic image! How long do you think then, it will take for you to become addicted? Before pornography owns you?
What we give ourselves to, without restraint, will become our idol.
Even the things of our body!
6:13
6:13
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.
Church — What will be the future of what you are giving yourself over to?
Is it something temporary and transient? Is it something that God will destroy?
The apostle repeatedly instructs the church to view their present in Christ light of their future with Christ. To care for what is eternal. Consider the outcome of your way of life!
Look at the future of food and the stomach. What WILL happen to them? Answer — “God will destroy both one and the other.”
And the apostle says this as a way of returning to a theme already mentioned. The problem that soiled their witness. The sin of sexual immorality prevalent among them, among the church.
He says —
“The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the LORD, and the LORD for the body.”
You see the use of that word “Lord”?
The apostle is introducing ownership into this conversation of permissibility.
Do you want to know what you are permitted to do? Your permissions are determined by who owns you.
The church in Corinth used these slogans as permission to sin.
We do the same thing. It is really no different when we say things like “Everybody does it.” Or, YOLO - “You only live once.”
When we hear these sayings, most of the time something stupid is about to happen, is it not?
We give ourselves permission to do all kinds of things and justify them! We give ourselves permission to sin.
BUT Jesus does not gives us that permission. Jesus is our OWNER. Jesus is our LORD.
And even our bodies, and what we do with our bodies, belongs to our Lord. Our Lord has a purpose for our bodies.
21 So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours,
[…]
23 and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.
Our bodies belong to Christ.
1 Corinthians 6:9 said this —
9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,
…will inherit the kingdom of God.
The first sins listed are sexual in nature and the practice of them prohibit inheritance in God’s kingdom.
The word for “sexual immorality” is the word [ πορνείᾳ ]. It covers sexual immorality of ANY KIND (LN). Fornication. Prostitution. Sex beyond God’s design and outside the commitment of covenant marriage between a man and a woman.
Someone may wonder - well, sexual sins are done in the body. God saves me soul. What does my body and the things I do in my body have to do with the saving of my soul?
And the apostle answers that.
6:14
6:14
14 And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.
Christ was not raised in spirit only. Christ experienced a bodily resurrection. The body matters! The body will be raised!
What we do with our body matters - because in Christ our body will be raised!
And here is what the church did not know, and what you might not even know as you hear this today!
Look at verse 15:
6:15
6:15
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!
To say it in a positive way - CHURCH: “Your bodies are members of Christ!”
What a wonderful truth! God did not purchase part of me. God did not save part of me. He saved ALL of me. My mind, my spirit, my body.
37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
Everything that I am commanded to love God with, God has saved, God has purchased, God owns and has made new!
This means that God redeems what God created. My body is a “Divine creation” (GCM). It is not something that has been given to us to do whatever we want to with it while on earth. It is so much more. It is a member of Christ.
This is counter-cultural teaching, is it not?
Not to press the issue, but our culture says “I own my body and can do with it what I want.” But Christ says — “No you don’t. I DO!”
“your bodies are members of Christ.”
So give careful consideration to what you do with your body.
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!
Preben Vang, a commentator says it frankly —
1 Corinthians Interpretive Insights
Never! Paul answers his own question with the strongest negation possible—mē genoito! The best modern English translation may be “no, not ever!”; “that’s insane!”; or simply, “heck no!”
Our bodies will be members of Christ in glory, and by the work of Christ that future hope is realized now.
We are to steward our bodies as that which belongs to Christ already and forever.
“Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?”
Leon Morris points out that the word “take” means to “take away” - and that the horrible thing about this sin is that the members of Christ are taken away from their proper use (the service of Christ) and made ‘members […] of a prostitute’) (TNTC).
When our bodies are not viewed as members of Christ, they are not in right service to Christ. Instead, they are in service to whoever or whatever they are joined to.
6:16
6:16
16 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.”
The apostle appeals to the Scripture. This is what God said!
24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
They are joined together, in intimate relationship as one.
This is what Jesus does. He brings two different things together, and makes of them One in Him.
The body and the spirit are two different things, but Jesus makes them one.
6:17
6:17
17 But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
That word “joined” means to associate with someone. To become a part of someone (LN).
Our relationship with Jesus, defined by His ownership as our “Lord,” means that we are permanently associated with Him and become part of Him. We become one spirit with Him.
Romans says it this way:
9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
And so the command given to the church that is not of the world, but living in the world, is simple and yet forceful:
6:18
6:18
18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.
“Flee from sexual immorality”
Avoid it at all costs! Escape it. Don’t go that way! (see LN).
“Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.”
This is a difficult statement to make sense of in light of other sins that affect a person’s body like drunkenness, and gluttony. But the unmistakeable point is clear —
Sin doesn’t just affect you. It affects others. It wreaks havoc on the outside. It involves outside things.
And sexual sins will do the same on the inside. Sexual sins are committed with our own bodies, against our own bodies.
Sexual sins, committed against our own body, stay with us forever. They can be forgiven, but they cannot be undone (Bruce). Our body is the instrument of that sin.
Sexual immorality profanes our bodies and makes them unholy.
IV. Conclusion
IV. Conclusion
But there is good news. And the apostle clothes his final instructions in this good news —
A. Gospel Proclamation
A. Gospel Proclamation
6:19
6:19
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,
This is what it means for Jesus to be “Lord.”
We belong to Jesus! And Jesus transforms our body into a temple for His Holy Spirit within us. The gift of God resides in our bodies. This means that God is present with us, in our bodies!
And our bodies are made “holy” by the blood of Christ so that the “Holy Spirit” may reside therein.
“You are not your own.”
As we live in the body, we live to God.
And God paid the price for us.
6:20
6:20
20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
This does not mean we were bought with a price and set free, to do whatever we please.
This means that we were bought with a price, and belong now to a different OWNER.
And that owner is the God who took on flesh, the flesh of a human body. Who served God wholly with that body. And who allowed His body to be broken for us. Who allows His body to be nailed to a cross for us.
To enable his blood to flow from His body, to wash away OUR sin. To cleanse us from ALL sexual immorality that we have done.
By the authority of God’s Word, I proclaim to you today, that by the blood of Jesus Christ you may be forgiven and washed clean from your sexual sins done in the body. Christ bore them in His on the cross. Only Christ can forgive them and He will!
Christ’s body was buried - where our sin is now buried.
And on the third day, Christ’s body was raised, as God raised Jesus in power. And when we receive by faith God’s gift of salvation, our spirit is united with Christ’s spirit and our body becomes the dwelling place of God.
And we are free to worship in the body. We are free to glorify God in our bodies!
How do we do this?
9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Who owns you?
I’m here today to tell you that God paid a costly price for you so that you may be in relationship with Him and you may worship Him.
A day is coming where “every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:10-11).
That WILL happen.
Jesus said
22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’
23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
Church, it means something when we call Jesus “Lord.”
But know this too — it means something when Jesus calls us “mine.”
Are those two things the same, for you?
He owns us! Let us not lift our souls to another.
Amen.