Hi, this is Josh Montez, and welcome back to Hymn We Proclaim, where we give you Christ-centered truth for everyday life. Today, we're revisiting one of the best messages from the 2020s, a standout from our Do You Not Know series. This is a timeless teaching packed with life-changing gospel truths. Let me ask you, do you ever wonder why, even after turning to Jesus, we still struggle with sin, especially sexual sin, and the guilt that comes with it? It can leave you feeling frustrated and condemned.
But here's the good news. Struggling with sin doesn't mean you're doomed. As Paul reminds us, you've been washed, sanctified, and justified. You're no longer defined by your old identity. You're set apart.
A saint in Christ. In this sermon Pastor John dives into I Corinthians six, nine to twenty, unpacking Paul's passionate plea to the Corinthians and to us to know who you are in Christ and to live in light of that identity. It isn't about trying harder or being better. It's about embracing the gospel as the double cure, saving us from both sin's guilt and power. You'll hear how Paul weaves together the law and the gospel, showing how the gospel empowers us to obey God's commands, not through pep talks or self-help techniques, but through the life-transforming power.
of the Holy Spirit. He reminds us that holiness is first a position and a destiny. and only then a pattern of behavior. This is a message of hope, not condemnation. Whether you're wrestling with sin or just need a reminder of your unshakable identity in Christ, this sermon will encourage and equip you.
After you're done listening, Click on the links to either hear more in this series or check out John's book. We have even an audio book available called Hope and Holiness: How the Gospel Enables and Empowers Sexual Purity, based on this powerful series.
Now, here's Pastor John with partially sinful, partially righteous. What to do with sexual sin. Let's listen together. 1 Corinthians 6, verses 9 to 20 is the text we're looking at. And you've often heard this: it's not what you know that can hurt you.
But it's what you don't know. And this is exactly true for the Corinthians. And it's exactly true for us. And this is what Paul is addressing to them in 1 Corinthians chapter 6. It's actually what he's addressing to him throughout the whole letter.
But really, really laser focus here in chapter 6. This saying is true because, in the case of the Corinthian Christians, they were a theological and moral mess. In 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 9 through 20, Paul is revealing that the problem with the Corinthian believers. was they didn't really know the gospel. And they did not understand the gospel's implications for their daily life in the area of sexual purity.
In 1 Corinthians, in the letter, Paul asked the question: Do you not know ten times? Six of those questions do you not know occur in chapter 6 and 4 of those questions occur in verses 9 to 20 of which we're studying. Let me just give you the purpose. for this qu these questions. First, on the one hand, Paul's question His questions throughout this whole letter serves as a rebuke.
It serves as a rebuke, and it also evidences the intensity of the apostle's feelings about the matters in which he is addressing.
So you could kind of look at as Paul saying, sort of in an exasperated tone, surely you know this. That's what he's really saying here. Do you not know this? Surely you know this. Second, his question is intended throughout this letter to draw the Corinthians' attention to cardinal truths of the Christian faith that ought to be self-evident.
and that should never escape their thinking.
Now in chapter 6, in the passage that we're looking at, verses 9 to 20, what should not have escaped the Corinthians thinking was the gospel and the implications of the gospel in regard to sexual purity. But since this was not the case This is what Paul does: he reintroduces the gospel and its implications for the believer's life. As the remedy for living a life that glorifies God and flees sexual immorality. He reintroduces the gospel to them. Notice, we're going to go through this this morning.
You're going to see that this is highly counterintuitive, the way that the fallen heart and human mind thinks.
So we'll come back to that, but let me just review from last week the gospel truths and implications, the fruit of the gospel that he's reintroducing to them to get them to live a life that glorifies God. That's verse 20. and flee sexual immorality. That's verse 18. He reintroduces to them the doctrine of adoption.
And that is implied in verse 9 in the word inherit. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Second, he introduces to them the doctrine of regeneration. You have been washed. He introduces to them, and what you're going to look at today in quite detail because people miss this, but he introduces to them definitive sanctification.
You have been sanctified. He introduces to them the doctrine of justification. He reintroduces the doctrine of resurrection. He reintroduces the doctrine of union with Christ. He reintroduces the doctrine of redemption, atonement.
And he reintroduces the indwelling gift of the Holy Spirit, which is the fruit of the gospel. all as a remedy for sexual purity. Paul's heavy emphasis on the gospel. must not be understood as an exclusive emphasis. In other words, when he emphasizes the gospel so heavily, he's not neglecting the role of the law.
In chapter 6, verse 9, when we come to it the next time we're together, you will see that Paul issues a very strong warning against all who are characterized by serial unrepentant sinning. He says, don't be deceived. The unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. If your life, Paul says, is characterized by open rebellion against God's law and you have no inward delight or desire to follow God's moral requirements for your life, you have never ever tasted the gospel. Is that crystal clear?
And also, not only that, does he issue these warnings, but we're going to see in verse 9, in verse 18, and in verse 20, that he issues three very powerful. Powerful imperatives to believers that are to be followed and obeyed. Is that clear? He does not give suggestions for Christians whether or not you can follow or not follow these laws in regard to sexual purity for your life. Clear.
But what we learn, listen from Paul's pastoral strategy. for liberating a heart from deep and complex enslavement to sexual sin is that he interweaves through wise pastoral application both law and gospel. And he gives this law for two purposes. to warn us and to direct us. Both are to be heated.
But he gives us the gospel now, listen, to refocus us, to show us our identity, and to give us the power to do what the law demands. Clear? It is most telling that as Paul weaves this tapestry of law and gospel together in chapter 6, listen carefully here. As he weaves his tapestry of law and gospel together, he unloads on the immoral Corinthians. And you and I.
A Mount Everest of gospel truth. Which all serves listen as the basis for all the imperatives that it gives. Do you know why he does that? It is because the law can tell us what our gracious Father calls us to do in our Christian life, but the law, even for believers, can never animate our hearts and motivate our hands to do it. Only the gospel is the power of God for salvation, which is God's means of saving us totally.
And this is what the Corinthians had lost sight of. This is what they did not know. This is what you and I do not know. The gospel way of holiness is not self-evident to us. It is not self-evident.
It is, do you know what is self-evident to the fallen human heart? Religion. And religion says this: the role of religion in a fallen human heart is to give people moral instruction. pep talks, self-help therapies, behavioral modification seminars so that they'll no longer be dominated by their sinful habits. It is not what the scriptures prescribe.
It's not the Christian faith. Paul reminds us in this chapter that the Corinthians did not know the gospel. And he tells us that the answer To listen, not only their guilt and their condemnation, but the answer to their corruption and their slavery to sin was the gospel. Augustus Toplady spoke of the gospel in his great hymn. He said, The gospel is the double cure.
It saves us from both sin's guilt and power. Paul is going to argue that the gospel applies not only to the forgiveness of our sin, but the gospel also applies to the total transformation of the whole person beginning with regeneration, which gives to us a whole brand new identity, not a moral makeover. It gives us a whole new beginning, a whole new starting point. And he says, through this new identity, it leads to new obedience. Oh, you obey.
Believe me, you obey. We don't downplay the third use of the law in this church. You do obey. But it's how do you obey? And that is the part that is so counterintuitive to all of our way of thinking.
Ezekiel and his prophecy said it like this, in Ezekiel 36, 25 through 27, the counterintuitive gospel way of holiness goes like this. God will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness and from all your idols, sexual immorality included, I will cleanse you. You don't cleanse yourself. I will give you a new heart, not a moral makeover. I will give you a new spirit and put it within you.
And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a new heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you. And when I put my spirit within you, listen very carefully. I will cause you to walk in my statutes and listen and be careful to obey my rules. Did you hear that?
The Holy Spirit will. cause you To walk according to his law and keep it. Carefully. And he doesn't do it by coercion, and he doesn't do it by lamb blasting you, he does it by grace. The Holy Spirit in the gospel gives what the law demands, but it's so counterintuitive.
The Holy Spirit doesn't give us moral pep talks. Be better, try harder. It's not what he does. We're going to come back to that. The point that I'm trying to make you see is this: that the only source of life, the only source of power for living the Christian life and for giving obedience to the law, which you are to give, Is to know the gospel and its implications for your Christian life.
The Corinthians' ethical failures stem from a fundamental problem of their lack of knowing who they are in Christ. The Corinthians were suffering from an identity crisis. Paul knew that what the Corinthians needed was to be given a fresh knowledge of the gospel and of its implications for their daily life. And so, in chapter 6, verses 9 to 20. He asked the Corinthians four questions.
And he begins each question with the question: do you not know? Because they didn't know. These four questions are intended to reintroduce the Corinthians and to reintroduce you and me to the gospel and its implications, which alone produces holiness and obedience in our life. We do not teach license in this church. We teach the gospel way of holiness, and it is utterly counterintuitive to anything most people have ever heard.
Paul is calling on the Corinthians, know who you are in Christ, and then act like it. Live in accordance with your new identity, your new state of being. This is Paul's gospel philosophy. What is the gospel way of holiness? This is it.
Become who you are. Be who you are. That is what Paul is teaching here. That's what he teaches in every letter in the New Testament that he wrote. That's what Peter teaches.
That's what every apostle in the New Testament teaches. That's what every author in the Old Testament has ever taught. That's all the scriptures teach. Be who you are. Now the gospel philosophy of become and be who you are is infinitely different from religion which calls you to be something that you are not.
Religion is saying, be better, do better, try harder, break this habit, do all this stuff, and you're not that. The scriptures teach: know who you are and be that. Let me just give you an example here from 1 Corinthians 6, verse 9. When we come to it, Paul's going to tell the Corinthians: you once were serially unrepentant. Sexually immoral idolaters.
You once were adulterers. You once were men who practiced homosexuality. You once were thieves, greedy, drunkards, revilers, and swindlers. But you are no longer these things.
So here's the therefore. Because you are not this identity anymore, but now you're this, the therefore is, in light of that, be who you are. Stop living and behaving like what you were. Cause you're not that anymore. You have been washed, that is, regeneration brought to life and made a new creature in Christ.
You have a whole new identity. You have not been given a moral makeover. You have been given a whole new identity. You have been washed. You have been sanctified, which we're going to come back to.
You have been justified. You have a completely new identity. You are now saints. You are now citizens of the kingdom of God. Therefore act like a citizen of the kingdom of God.
That is what the scriptures teach is the gospel way of holiness.
Now for the rest of the morning, I'm just going to help you understand this gospel philosophy of be who you are. Because you might be thinking How could Paul Call the Corinthians, who were an absolute theological and moral mass, saints. I thought Hussein is somebody who has lived an exceptionally holy life and therefore worthy of that title. Are Christian saints or sinners? I'm going to help you with that.
The answer is found in the scriptures in terms of how the Bible uses the terms saint and sanctified. For the rest of the morning, we're just going to look at these two words because this has everything to do with what Paul's teaching here in this chapter.
So let's look at the word saints for a second. In 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 2, Paul begins his letter by calling and addressing these theological and morally corrupt Christians saints. In fact, he would often begin all of his letters just about by addressing his readers as saints. Do you know the only letter he did not address his readers as saints as? I hope you know, because we spent four and a half years in it.
The only people who are not worthy of being called saints are legalistic, self-righteous people who think they're earning their righteousness by what they do. Paul doesn't address those people as saints, he addresses them with a warning. You don't know the gospel. The Greek word for saint is hagios, which literally means this: to be separated unto God. A saint in this context refers not to your character, but to your state of being.
This new state of being is not based on anything that you have achieved. This whole new identity and state of being is all based upon God's act of setting us apart from the world and from the dominion of our sin for Himself. It's all based on God's actions, not yours. It's God's achievement, not yours. Jerry Bridges says, in respectable sins, which I hope you pick up and read, and I got a lot of this from Jerry, and I got the rest of it from Michael Horton, because they're both very helpful with this.
But he says, we are made saints by the immediate supernatural action of the Holy Spirit alone, who works this change deep within our inner being so that we do, in fact, become new creations in Christ. You are a new creation in Christ. You have been set apart by God for God. Paul describes this change in Acts chapter 26 like this. He says, turning from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins in a place, listen, in a place among those who are sanctified.
By faith in me. Colossians chapter 1, verse 13, Paul says like this: He says, He has delivered us from the domain of darkness. And transferred us to the kingdom that is God's rule and blessing of His beloved Son. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 17, Paul says: If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away.
Do you hear that? It's never coming back. We think it hasn't passed away. We think it's going to come back and stay with us forever. It has passed away.
And behold, the new has come. And so every believer in this Serance is a saint. From the most, quote, mature to the most immature in the church, everybody, every believer is a saint. in this sense. Let's look at the word sanctify and go back to 1 Corinthians 1, verse 2.
And look how Paul says this in verse 2. He says, to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus.
Now, if you read the whole book of 1 Corinthians, the last thing you would think would these group of Christians were sanctified. And Paul begins this letter. saying to those sanctified and Christ Jesus. Called to be Hagios. Holy ones separated unto God, saints.
Now here Paul uses both terms in this verse.
Now sanctification is most often thought of as a process or this ongoing work within believers whereby you are progressively and inwardly being renewed and conformed to Christ's likeness. And that is true. There's an aspect to that and we'll come to that. But that's not what Paul's talking about in 1 Corinthians 1.2 nor in 1 Corinthians 6 verse 11 when he says you've been washed, you've been sanctified. The scriptures use the term sanctified in a much broader way.
Theologians make a distinction between what is called definitive sanctification and progressive sanctification. We this morning are talking about definitive sanctification and listen carefully. There will never be any progressive sanctification unless there is first definitive sanctification on God's part. And that's what Paul is trying to teach us. And we'll come back to that, and you'll see the implication.
So, what is definitive sanctification? The term sanctified means to be set apart. Means to be separate. God, in the scripture, when he sanctifies stuff, he separates people. Utensils.
Clothes, animals. Whole nations. from their ordinary common use. Listen, for his own special use.
So let me give you some examples. In Exodus chapter 40, verses 9-10, the utensils in the tabernacle and later the temple were said to be holy.
Now, how could that be holy? is because God took them from their ordinary common use and set them apart for a sacred purpose of use in the tabernacle and temple.
So they became holy. They became set apart. In Exodus chapter 28, verse 4, the priests' garments, what they wore, were called holy. In Exodus 28, verse 26, the priests were said to be holy unto the Lord as they ministered before God in the tabernacle and temple because God had set them apart for a specific purpose for his own use. In Leviticus chapter 23, verses 19 through 20.
The animals used in sacrifices were called holy. And the reason an animal was called holy was not because of its intrinsic nature. But because of its being set apart and designated by God for a divine specific use. In Leviticus chapter 20, verses 24 through 26, the entire nation of Israel was set apart from other nations and declared by God to be holy. Listen to what God says.
I am the Lord God who has separated you from the peoples. Do you hear that? Separated you from the peoples, separated from the world. You shall therefore separate the clean beast from the unclean and the unclean bird from the clean, which has nothing to do with dietary habits of eating. It has all to do with being holy, this idea of definitive sanctification.
You shall not make yourselves detestable by beast or by bird or by anything with which the ground crawls, which I have set apart for you to hold unclean. You shall be holy before me, for I am the Lord, am holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine. Do you hear that? He took them from the world. He set them apart so that they would be his.
Therefore, he says, you should be holy. The New Testament carries over this same meaning. And shows that sanctification is first of all God's act of setting us apart from the world. for himself.
Now, do you know where we find this definitive act of sanctification in its originating source? We find it first and foremost in our election in Christ. In Ephesians chapter 1, verse 4, Paul says this: He says, Even as he chose us in him. This is just going back to like Leviticus 20. There's no difference.
Even as he chose us in him before the world, that we should be haggios. Holy ones. Saints set apart. In Colossians chapter 3, verse 12, Paul says, Put on then as God's chosen ones electas Holy and beloved. Because you have been chosen by God and set apart, you are now a holy one and you are beloved by God.
You are His. You are set apart for Him. You have been taken from the world and set apart for his unique purposes and service. You belong to him. You have a new identity.
You are now a saint, a separated one, set apart, sanctified in Christ Jesus for God's own purposes. Paul, in his farewell address to the Ephesian elders, he said this: He says, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace. The word of his grace is the gospel. And what was Paul commending them to the gospel for? Because he says, it is able to build you up.
The gospel, the word of his grace, is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. In other words, those who are separated by God for God's special use. The author of Hebrews in chapter 10, verse 10 says, By that will, by the will of our heavenly Father. We have been sanctified, that is, set apart by God for God. Through the offering of the body, of Jesus Christ once for all.
No, uh This quick tour through the whole Bible shows us this. Every Christian is a saint, a separated one. Why? Because you have been sanctified, you have been set apart by God. For God.
You understand this? This is what Paul is teaching in 1 Corinthians chapter 6. And until you begin to understand that, Paul says there is no hope for you to ever, ever pursue holiness in your daily life. You have to know this. And you don't know this.
You don't know who you are. I don't know who I am enough. That's why we have to be reintroduced to this refocusing, re-identification gospel all the time. Because if we don't, we'll default like the Corinthians and go back to our pagan past and be driven by that rather than driven by being set apart for God for his use. Do you understand me?
Now, we must not think that because our state of being has changed, that we are now sinless and perfect. Our personal experience this past week. Uh failure. Yeah. Our crippling habits Our endless addictions and constant frustration to do the good that we long to do but don't do clearly testifies that we're not perfect.
And Paul says in Galatians chapter 6, verse 3: if anybody thinks they have perfectly kept God's law, they're deceived. Who this morning can honestly claim to have perfectly fulfilled the great commandment? Perfectly loving God and perfectly loving your neighbor this past week. I'll just give you one example. We'll take the seventh commandment, which is do not commit adultery, which is not just pertaining to adultery.
That's just an example that God gives. To actually show God requires the opposite, which is absolute moral purity. That's the point of the seventh commandment.
So who can believe that who can claim this morning to have perfectly conformed that all that God requires and forbids in the seventh commandment has been perfectly followed by you? Question 62 of the Heidelberg Catechism states that even as believers, our best works in this life are all imperfect and defiled with sin. Again, question 114 in the Heidelberg Catechism asks this question. But can those converted to God keep these commandments perfectly? And here's the answer.
No. In this life, even the holiest. have only a small beginning of disobedience. Nevertheless, With earnest purpose, they do begin to live out not only according to some, but to all of the commandments of God. Do you know what that's saying?
It's saying this, he said, all who have truly been set apart by God do not disregard any requirement in the law that God gives. Every believer who's been definitively sanctified and become a new creation in Christ desires in his or her heart to give. Full obedience to everything that is required in the law. Everything. But the reality is this, is that in this life, saints still struggle to conform to what they really want to be.
So, therefore, Christians are both saints and sinners at the same time. This issue. raises this question.
Well, if we're saints and we've been sanctified, why do we struggle? Why do we continue to sin? Here's the answer. We have already been set apart by God from the world for God. But we're not yet glorified.
And so the remnants of sin, this old Adam, this Adamic flesh, still is with us.
So we live, listen, we live in this already but not yet tension that causes great frustration and struggle. Because our frustration comes from this. It comes. It comes when our experience in life doesn't match who we are in Christ. We live in this tension.
Paul discusses this struggle in Galatians 5, 17 and in greater detail in Romans chapter 7. Martin Luther and the Reformers referred to this inner tension and struggle by using this phrase in the Reformation: We are simul Eustus et Picater. We are similar at the same time, Eustace, just, at, and. Picad or sinner. We are simultaneously justified and yet still a sinner.
Now that's good news. By this phrase, the Lutherans and the Reformers and They did not mean that a Christian who is still a sinner is an unchanged person. They were not denying that you're not a saint. By God's gracious actions, we're made new creatures and dwell by the Holy Spirit, set apart by God, for God. Nonetheless, the Christian is still partially sinful and partially righteous in terms of his sanctification.
He still struggles. In Romans chapter 6, Paul is rejoicing over the fact that he's justified, that he's been definitively set apart from the dominion of sin, and that he's now been raised in Christ. He's alive in Christ. And he comes to Romans chapter 7 and he's agonizing over the incongruity between the gospel truth of Romans 6 and the experience of his ongoing battle with indwelling sin in Romans 7. Even though all of that is true of me, Paul is saying, I still, as a believer, cannot give the kind of obedience to the law that I want to give, wretched man that I am.
But that's not cause for discouragement. And that's not cause to give up in failure and frustration. And the reason is, is because in Romans chapter eight, listen carefully. The struggling believer in Romans 7 is not condemned. He says, there is therefore not no condemnation for those who are in Christ.
And right before the therefore, he was talking about the struggling Christian who's the wretched man, the wretched person who is struggling, not serely unrepentant. But the Christian who is struggling and wants to obey but continually falls short, there's no condemnation for that struggling Christian. And that is what keeps you persevering in obedience and pursuing holiness. Because if you for a second thought you were condemned, you're not going to pursue obedience. Why would you want to serve a God that you can never ever measure up to?
You don't have to, because at the beginning of your Christian life, He's already measured you up. And so Paul says in Romans chapter 8, the struggling believer, he is not condemned. He is alive in the spirit. He is waiting in hope, a certainty of expectation for his resurrection body and the renewal of all creation of which he is already a part is just not consummated. And so in the meantime, until that happens, the Christian's desires always, always exceed his or her practice in this life.
And that is what causes the struggle and tension. And if you lose sight of who you are, do you not know that struggle and tension will cripple you? and then you can't pursue holiness.
So Paul argues, listen, the conflict. This conflict that we experience is not for sub-para Christians, the so-called carnal Christian. There's no such thing as a carnal Christian. He says that this conflict is not. Just for sub-par Christians over against the so-called victorious Christians who are really sanctified.
Rather, he says every believer experiences this constant daily conflict between the flesh and the spirit. Do you know why? Do you know why you experienced this conflict as a believer? This inner tension and struggle. Here's why.
Because the already aspect of the gospel is so true for you that it's causing it. You are already Listen, set apart for God by God. You are already indwelled with the Holy Spirit, and it is the Holy Spirit by virtue of being set apart by God for God that causes this inner tension, this inner groaning that Paul talks about in Romans 8:23. When will it be come? Consummated.
That's what we want. And so in the answer to the question, are Christian saints or sinners? The answer is simply this. Every believer is a saint because every believer has been set apart by God for God, but At the same time, every Christian is a sinner because they continue to struggle with their sin. Every believer is simultaneously justified and sinful.
And it is this reality that causes frustration, but it is also this reality that causes great hope and not discouragement.
So you know what? You know what the last thing is that we need to be told? Try harder.
Well, you don't need to be told that. Paul does, you will read, go home. and read 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 20. And if you find it, I'll repent publicly. But you're not going to find it.
Nowhere does Paul tell these believers, these immoral Christians, try harder. He doesn't do it. We have all tried harder, and we continue to sin. What is so troubling for the Christian is that his or her sinful desires do not simply disappear, even though they've been set apart by God for God. We still live in the aftermath of original sin, and it affects us every moment of every day.
And so, Paul, because of this, doesn't exhort the Corinthians, try harder, be better. He doesn't offer relevant practical steps for overcoming sinful habits in our life. Do you know what those do? They only impose more expectations and more demands as conditions for success. And then, when we fell at those conditions for more success, we just beat ourselves up even worse.
We throw up our hands in frustration and despair. Paul doesn't call us to enter the higher victorious Christian life for spiritual Christians. He reintroduces the Corinthians and you and I to a fresh knowledge of the gospel and its implications for our life. This is how the Bible drives us to sanctification. It is precisely because we have been sanctified, set apart by God for God, that Paul calls on the immoral Christians and us now live like it.
Be holy. Because you have been set apart to be a holy one, therefore be holy. John Piper says it like this: He says, Holiness is first a position and a destiny. before it is a pattern and a behavior. This is what Paul is teaching us.
Do you not know? Do you not know you have been set apart by God for God? This is your destiny. This is your state of being. Therefore, in light of that, start to become more and more who you already are.
Michael Horton will finish with this, and it's just so helpful. He says, In spite of the fact that the Corinthian church had become filled with immorality, strife, division, and immaturity. Paul begins both letters to this body by addressing them as saints, holy ones. And he reintroduces the wonder of the gospel. Precisely because their status was defined by the Gospels indicatives, the apostle could call them.
to repentance, which is the only legitimate response. Where most people think that the goal of religion is to get people to become something that they're not, the scriptures call believers to become more and more what they already are in Christ. Because they were definitively sanctified or set apart as holy to the Lord, the Corinthians must re-establish proper relationships, order, and behavior in the church. Their practice must be brought in line with their identity. This is what you and I need to know.
We need to be constantly reintroduced to the wonder of the gospel so that our practice can be brought in line with our identity. We need to be constantly reminded of our new state of being: sainthood. Everybody is trusting in Christ, you've achieved sainthood. Not because of your works, but because of what God has done for you. And then, because you're a saint, live.
in light of this gospel reality. We know that we're not Called to try harder to be something that we're not. What we need to know And what we don't know is that we're saints. Called to be who we already are. We need to know that we're called to become more and more what we already are in Christ.
We need to know that we are already separated unto God. You need to know that you are a saint. You don't know this. Paul says, know this. You need to know, listen.
That while you're a saint and been saved from sin's guilt and sin's power, you are not yet saved from sin's presence. Therefore, you need to know that you'll continue to struggle with your indwelling sin. But you don't have to throw your hands up in discouragement. and give up in exhaustion because listen And this is the good news. Oh.
Legal obstacles that might withdraw your new status as a saint have been forever resolved, and the justifying act of God on your behalf. And you need to know, Paul says, that not only will this justifying declaration never be recalled, your status will never be revoked, but you have been given power not only over guilt, but over sin's corruption and enslavement and tyranny, so that you're free now to obey because the gospel will empower you to obey. You're not helpless. There's hope for your life. You can change.
It's slow, but you can change. Because the gospel is the double cure. This is what Paul is teaching us, so we don't have to fall into despair. We do not struggle from a position of condemnation. But we struggle from a position of hope for the future.
Amen. Himway Proclaim is heard daily on several radio stations, and if you're not near one of those stations and want to hear it live, there's a couple of ways. Go to ilovethetruth.com, or I'll put a link in the description for an app you can use as well. Two more things. Don't forget about our Reformation Conference.
I'll put a link to that as well. And if you like audiobooks, John has a great audiobook that came from his series called Do You Not Know? All the links are in our description. On behalf of Pastor John, thanks so much for listening. See you next time.
