Purity, Unity, and Using Our Spiritual Gifts

We glorify God by moral purity. We glorify God by moral purity.

And this is an absolutely essential truth. You cannot be growing spiritually with an impure lifestyle. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. On today's broadcast, John continues his study of the fundamentals of Christian living, titled, Back to Basics. When you think of the basics of the Christian life, some actions might seem obvious, like studying Scripture or prayer or giving people the gospel.

You might even plan out routines to make sure you're faithful in those areas. But today, John's going to address an issue you might have overlooked—purity. He'll show you the importance of honoring God by remaining pure, and the devastating dangers of neglecting this vital discipline.

So follow along now with John MacArthur. So spiritual growth, then, is a process. It is not something instantaneous and it will go on all your life. And it is a process that needs for its growth and its development and its fulfillment a glorifying God mentality. We have to commit ourselves to glorifying God in order to be growing. And that's just another way, as I said in our last lesson, of living the Spirit-filled life, walking in the Spirit, obeying the Word of God, letting the Word of Christ dwell in us richly, being conformed to His will, yielding our bodies as instruments of righteousness.

In other words, all of those things really are different ways to say the same thing. We are then to live to God's glory. How do we do that? So far, we've shared 10 ways to glorify God.

Let me run them by you very rapidly. Number one, we glorify God by confessing Jesus as Lord. That's where it all begins, Philippians 2 11. When we confess Jesus as Lord to the glory of God, you have to be born to grow.

You have to come into the family. You have to come under the lordship of Christ to begin the process of spiritual maturity. Secondly, we give glory to God by aiming our lives at that purpose. You'll never glorify God unless you aim at it. Thirdly, we learned that we glorify God by confessing our sin.

Joshua 7 19 says, give glory unto the Lord God of Israel and make confession of your sin. You see, we glorify God when we admit our sinfulness and confess it and turn from it, repent of it. Fourthly, we learned that we glorify God by trusting Him.

Romans 4 20 tells us that Abraham staggered not at the promise of God but was strong in faith, giving glory to God. Fifthly, we learned from John 15 8 that we glorify God by bearing fruit. We glorify God when there's a product to our lives, when there's something visible about what God is doing in us, when our good works show and glorify our Father who is in heaven, as Jesus put it. And then sixthly, we said that we glorify God by praise. Who so offerth praise glorifieth me. As we recite the attributes of God and His wonderful works and say thanks for both because they both are operative in our lives, that also keeps us along the path of growth.

And then seventh, we said we grow by being obedient out of love, by loving Him enough to obey what He asks us to do. We also said that we glorify God by prayer. John 14 says that if we ask anything in His name, He will do it that the Father may be glorified in the Son. We are to pray so that God can be on display when He acts.

That gives Him glory. So prayer is a very essential way in which we glorify God. Then we said ninthly, we glorify God by proclaiming His Word. 2 Thessalonians 3, 1 was our verse and it talked about giving the word free course that God might be glorified. And then the last one which we discussed in our last study was that we glorify God by bringing others to Him. We saw that in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 15, the Bible says that God is glorified when we add another voice to those saying thanks to God. When you win somebody to Christ, you double the potential for glorifying Him.

Now I want to give you just a few as we close our study in this particular session that will sort of round out and sum up what this tremendous area of spiritual growth must say to us. An eleventh point and this one very, very essential. We glorify God by moral purity. We glorify God by moral purity.

And this is an absolutely essential truth. You cannot be growing spiritually with an impure lifestyle. Let me show you 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and I want you to turn to it because we're going to dwell on it for some time. 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 19 and it says this, Now what Paul is saying is this, you must recognize that the Spirit of God dwells in you. You're the temple of the Holy Spirit.

For ye are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's. Now here we are commanded to glorify God in our body and spirit.

Both internally and externally we are to live to the glory of God. Now what Paul precisely has in mind here is the area of personal morality. To show you that I want you to back up to verse 12. 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 12 and I want us to flow through this text a little bit because this is so important.

And frankly today it's as essential as anything we could talk about because we live in such an amoral kind of society. Even in the church of Jesus Christ there is a tolerance for sin, particularly sexual sin that has not been true of past days in the church's history. We seem so permissive in this society and Paul has a very good word for us in that regard. Look at verse 12 of chapter 6. Paul says, All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient.

All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. Then he says, Foods for the body and the body for foods, but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication but for the Lord.

Now you get the idea of what he's talking about. Fornication is a Greek word porneia from which we get pornography that means sexual sin. It is a big word like a blanket covers every possible sexual sin.

Paul is saying we are not to be engaged in sexual sin. And he gives three reasons in this text and I want you to see them. Number one, it harms. Number two, it controls.

And number three, it perverts. First of all, look at verse 18 of 1 Corinthians 6. Flee fornication. Why? Well, because you're sinning at the end of the verse against your own body.

It's going to harm you. Flee from it. You know, people say, well, you know, I can live any way I want. I'm a Christian and I am under grace and God forgives everything and I've been set free. I'm free from the power of the law because Christ bore my penalty. I'm free from the power of sin because he paid the price. I'm free from eternal judgment because he bore the judgment of God in his own body.

I'm free. But Paul says, yeah, that's right, but you're not free to do things that will harm you. You know, the book of Proverbs has a lot to say about how immorality harms us. In the fifth chapter of Proverbs, in the sixth chapter of Proverbs, in the seventh chapter of Proverbs, and in the ninth chapter of Proverbs, there is quite a long list of very practical things to show us that fornication is harmful. In 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 8 it says, neither let us commit fornication as some of them, that is the Israelites, committed and fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Sin has a devastating effect, particularly the sin of immorality. I think back, and this one in Psalm 51 comes to mind, of David who had committed the sin of immorality with Bathsheba. And in that very, very terrifying and terrible situation that resulted from that, where the man Uriah, her husband, was killed and David lived with this incredible guilt.

Psalm 51 says he became sick and he became weak and he became lonely and he became sad and he became guilty. The horrible harm that came to David, you even have it in Hebrews where it says that the marriage bed is undefiled but adulterers and fornicators, God will judge. There are some things that harm us and so we are to avoid it. Secondly, sexual sin not only harms, it controls.

The second part of verse 12 says, all things are lawful for me but I'll not be brought under the power of any. One of the things that this particular sin does like all other sin is that it makes people a slave. It becomes a terrible, terrible bondage. Now, we see then that just from the very beginning, sexual sin has a powerful effect on us. It harms us and it controls us. But there's another thing and that is it perverts us. Look at verse 13. Sexual evil perverts us. Just to show you this, there are three distinct purposes and designs for our bodies that get perverted by sexual sin. First of all, our bodies are as Christians for the Lord. Let's look at that in verses 13 and 14.

Foods for the body and the body for foods. But God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. And God hath both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His own power.

Now Paul makes his point. He says the body is for the Lord. In fact, it ought to be obvious to you that our bodies are for the Lord because someday He will raise our bodies. Someday as He raised His own body, He will raise our bodies to dwell in glory. That's how much our bodies belong to His plan. The body is not for fornication. It is for the Lord.

He kind of mocks them because they had a little phrase and he uses it at the beginning of verse 13. Foods for the body and the body for foods. By the way, in the Greek there are no verbs in it. It's just foods, body, body, foods. You say, well, what does that mean?

Well, what they're saying is, well, that's a slogan. Food for the body, the body for food. That's a natural function and it was a little byword that they could use to speak of sex. And what they really meant was, well, sex is just like eating, you know, the body for food and the food for the body. The body for sex and sex for the body. It's simply a natural phenomenon.

It's just the function like anything else. And that's what people are saying today. Oh, why do you get upset about sex? I mean, we're all sexual beings, you know, big deal. We just go out and express ourselves. We eat, we drink, we sleep, we walk, we run, we do these things.

Why not have sex? It's only biology. But Paul says your little byword, food for the body and the body for food, it's only biological, misses the point. God's going to destroy food and your body. God's going to destroy sex and the body. The body is for God. Secondly, it is one with Christ, even here and now. Look at verse 15. Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ?

Do you know that your body right now is a part of the body of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot? Oh, no, no, no. May genetah, the strongest negative in the Greek language, God forbid.

Can't do that. What? Know ye not that he who is joined to a harlot is one body? For to Seth he shall be one flesh. But he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.

Do you know what happens here? If you are one with Christ, you hook up with a harlot, you've made Christ one with that harlot. That's what he's saying.

You can't act like that. And by the way, you want to know who a harlot is? That's anybody who has sex outside of marriage, even if they're engaged. You prostitute God's purpose for sex.

That's all it means. So our members are members of Christ. Our bodies are part of his body. And we are one with him and we cannot drag him into some vile relationship without affecting the purpose he intended. And that's why in verse 18 he says, Flee fornication, for every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he that commits fornication sins against his own body. Every other sin approaches from the outside, but this sin rises up from the inside and reveals a corruption internally.

So Paul is really hitting hard. He says, you can't do this sin because you're one with Christ. You can't do this sin because God has another purpose for your body. And then thirdly, he says, you can't do this because your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Verse 19, don't you know your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, whom you have of God?

And you're not your own, you're bought with a price. So you see, because the Spirit dwells in us, because we're one with Christ, and because God has planned a glorification of our bodies, we have absolutely no business getting involved in this. Therefore, verse 20, here's the key for our study, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, internally and externally.

Don't do it and don't even want to do it. That glorifies God. So as we glorify God in our bodies, we grow in His grace. Then what are we saying in our eleventh point? Spiritual growth involves glorifying God by purity in our lives.

Let me give you a twelfth. We glorify God by unity, and this is very important. We glorify God by unity. Here's another very important element in spiritual growth, another key, and it's this.

We grow, now mark this, faster when we don't have to grow alone, when we are stimulated. As it says in Hebrews, that we are provoking one another to love and good works. We have in the body of Christ spiritual gifts, right, to minister back and forth to each other, to stimulate growth. Let me show you this in Romans chapter 15.

God is glorified in the unity of the saints. In Romans 15 and verse 5 it says, Now the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded one toward another according to Christ Jesus. In other words, I want you to get along with each other.

I want you to feel the same about each other. I want you to have the same like-mindedness in the body of Christ, a wonderful unity. Verse 6, In order that, and there's that purpose clause again, that ye may with one mind, think alike, and one mouth, talk alike, glorify God. You see, God is glorified in the unity of the church, in the unity of the believers.

Oh, this is an essential thing. We glorify God in our unity, a great, great thing. God doesn't expect us to struggle along the path of spiritual maturity all alone. But He expects us to move along in the company of one another.

That's how we glorify one another. Therefore, He says in verse 7, Receive ye one another. Don't bar anybody.

Don't have any clicks. Don't hold anybody out. Don't keep anybody at a distance. But receive one another. After all, Christ has received all of us, hasn't He? Are we better than He?

Do we have a higher standard for our group than He does? Why? To the glory of God. Now, this is very important. We are to be interacting. Nobody grows in a vacuum. We desperately need each other. We grow by unity. You know why?

For example, an illustration. In my life, I have found that the closer I am to the circle of people around me, the easier it is for me to live a righteous life. You know why? Because that circle holds me accountable, right? When I have a circle of godly friends that I love who are close to me, they make me accountable. They keep my life in their perspective, in their view.

And if something isn't right, they point it out. And that forces me into the line. And so God is glorified when there's a real loving unity. When we grab arms with each other and love each other and serve each other and hold on to each other. When we have a one-mindedness.

You know, when Paul wrote to the Corinthians in the very beginning of his first letter, he pointed to this problem in their midst. He says, I beseech you, brethren, chapter 1, verse 10, by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, that there be no division among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. And then he goes on to say, and cut out all the contentions and the factions and the little cliques and all the rest of it and get together. You all need each other. And so I say we grow faster, we grow stronger, we grow more mature as we commit our lives to fellow brothers and sisters.

Grow in a group, not alone. This is the strength and the impetus that you need. Now the last point I want to give you ties into this one.

It's part of the 12th, or it could be the 13th if you choose so. But I would like to have you look with me for just a brief moment at one other passage of Scripture. And that is at the end of 1 Peter in chapter 4. And it points to one other way we glorify God really related to this concept of unity.

It is this. We glorify God in the use of our spiritual gifts. We glorify God in the use of our spiritual gifts.

1 Peter 4, 10. Now he says, as every man has received the gift. I believe that every Christian has received the gift.

And what gift is it? It's that giftedness that the Spirit of God has given you. It's that combination of spiritual gifts that are boiled down to that unique gift that you receive. And as you and I minister that gift, we apply to the body of Christ a unique ministry that is unequaled by anyone else.

That's why we're strategic. So he says, as you've received the gift, even so minister the same one to another as good stewards of the multicolored grace of God. If God has been so gracious to give you a gift, use it.

Now verse 11. If it's a speaking gift, then speak as the oracles of God. If it's a serving gift, then do it with the ability that God gives. Don't just give human wisdom if it's a speaking gift and don't do it in the flesh if it's a ministering gift.

Why? Why should we speak the oracles of God? Why should we serve in the power of God? That God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ to whom be praise and dominion forever and ever.

Amen. In other words, use your gift not for your own glory but for God's. So one other way that we glorify God is in the use of spiritual gifts. And as we use our spiritual gifts ministering to one another, that brings about the unity of the body. And in that unity of mutual ministry, we are stimulated to spiritual growth, you see? So we're really summing up our whole thought with this.

All the way along we've been dealing with individual elements. We've been saying, for example, you grow spiritually by confessing Jesus as Lord. You grow spiritually by aiming your life at that purpose. You grow by trusting, by fruitfulness, by praise, by prayer. You grow by witnessing, by proclaiming the Word. You grow by moral purity. You grow by all of these things. But when it all comes down to this final thought, you don't grow alone.

You don't grow alone. You need the environment of accountability and mutual ministry to bring about the kind of growth that the Spirit of God would see in your life. And so the Bible tells us then that we are to grow. That's where it all begins. It begins with a command, 2 Peter 3.18, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

That's a command. We say either yes to that or we say no. If we say yes, Lord, I want to grow. I don't want to be stunted. I want to mature.

I want to know the fullness of blessing. I want to comprehend you as one who is mature and can conceive as much as is possible for my limited mind. Lord, I want to be as useful as I can be. I want to be seeing your power in as great a display as is possible. I'm not content with the lowlands.

I want to be on the peak. If we say that, then we say, how do I get there? The Bible comes to us and says, live your life to my glory, and gives us a path to follow. As we follow that path and are encouraged by fellow believers, we will come to the place of real spiritual maturity, and that's what God is after in our lives. That's John MacArthur, the featured Bible teacher here on Grace To You, as well as pastor author, and chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. Today's lesson is part of a study focused on the fundamentals of Christian living.

It's titled, Back to Basics. Well, John, in this study, we've been looking at some basic aspects of Christian living and Christian doctrine, and I'm wondering, considering all the territory Scripture covers that goes beyond what's elementary, is it ever a chore for you to take our listeners back to the basics? No, and we sort of talked about that the day that we started this, that we knew this would be appealing to mature believers.

It is even appealing to me. I go back to the basics all the time. I think the Lord wants us to go back to the basics. I was thinking, as I was reading this morning in my Bible, I was reading the first chapter of Ephesians, which goes over in that one long 14-verse sentence that Paul gives.

He goes over all the basics, from election to glorification, and everything in between how many thousands upon thousands of times have I read that, and it was taking my breath away. I read three verses, and I had to sit back and say, whoa, so this is so profound, and the longer you live in the reality of those truths, the more wonderful they become. They don't lose their power. They don't lose their charm.

They don't lose their beauty, so we are so happy to have done this series. We're finished, Back to the Basics, the ABCs of Christian Living. I would just let you know, you can order these messages on a six-CD album, only from Grace to You, or you can download the lessons in the Back to Basics series in MP3 format. Just go to gty.org, and you can have a transcript or you can hear the audio.

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Be a great thing. So if you order a MacArthur Study Bible or the Daily Bible, we'll send you a free copy of a hardcover book called One Foundation, a collection of essays on the sufficiency of Scripture that commemorated Grace Tiu's 50th anniversary. Yes, and friend, you can still get all of those items before Christmas. Our customer service team will help you find the right shipping option. In the U.S., just call during regular business hours, Monday through Friday, 730 to 4 o'clock Pacific Time, to pick up Back to Basics, a Study Bible, or the Daily Bible, Get in Touch Today. Our toll-free number here, 855-GRACE. And remember, with every MacArthur Study Bible, Daily Bible, or Topical Bible you purchase, we'll include a free copy of the commemorative book called One Foundation.

Again, to place your order, call 855-GRACE or order online and choose second-day shipping to ensure delivery by Christmas. Our web address, GTY.org, and when you visit GTY.org, make sure to take advantage of the thousands of free resources that can help you dig deeper into God's Word. You can read daily devotionals, helpful articles on our blog, you can watch episodes of Grace Tiu television, and you can download 3500 of John's sermons. To tap into these free Bible study aids, visit GTY.org, and to keep up to date on the latest news from Grace Tiu, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson, encouraging you to tune in tomorrow. John's going to show you the vital role the local church should have in your life and what it really means to be committed to the body of Christ. Be here, won't you, for another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on the next Grace Tiu.