Your Body is Sacred, Part 1

Hi, this is the Hymn We Proclaim podcast, season seven. It goes without saying that the Gospel of Good News can bring healing and restoration to every area, including our very personal and private lives. This next message in the Do You Not Know series is called Your Body is Sacred. Sacred means set apart. Did you know that John has a book that goes along with his series and is available now to order?

It's called Hope and Holiness: How the Gospel Enables and Empowers Sexual Purity. We put all the information in the show notes, so please don't forget to check it out soon. We'd love to get this fresh new resource in your personal spiritual growth library. Here's message number six, called Your Body is Sacred. In First Corinthians chapter 6, verses 9 to 20.

The Apostle Paul asked the Corinthians four questions. And Each of these questions begins like this. Do you not know? And each of Paul's questions functions as a rebuke. These are things that Christians ought to know.

So he's rebuking them. In a spirit of exasperation. Yeah. The problem with the Corinthians is that they didn't know the gospel and its implications for their lives. in regard to sexual immorality.

And so, what Paul is doing in this passage is he is reintroducing the Corinthians to the gospel and its implications. Which alone has the power to motivate them to keep the seventh commandment. And Paul tells us, he breaks down for us in this passage what the seventh commandment requires. You shall not commit adultery. And he tells us in verse 18 and verse 20 both what the seventh commandment forbids and what the seventh commandment requires.

In verse 18, he tells them, he says, flee sexual immorality. That is what the seventh commandment forbids. It forbids Sexual immorality, all forms of it, both in marriage and outside of marriage. And then the seventh commandment not only forbids abstinence from the seventh commandment, but it is also requiring something more of believers. Because when you read the Ten Commandments, always read it like this.

It is giving you an illustration not only of what the God forbids, but it is actually telling you the flip side of what He actually requires you to pursue and do. And so in verse 20, the flip side of the seventh commandment, Paul says, is to glorify God in your body. That is, you are to be daily, actively pursuing growth in chastity, purity, and disciplined life, both inside and outside of marriage. And so, in response to these Corinthians unrestrained sexual license, Paul is teaching believers how to obey the law in this passage. He's teaching us what the law forbids.

All forms of sexual immorality, and he's teaching us what the law requires: that is, glorifying God by pursuing purity. And pursuing a disciplined life both inside and outside of marriage. That's the context.

Now, he begins in verses 9 through 11, as we've seen, by taking up the theme of the kingdom of God, and he applies it to the problem of sexual immorality in the church. He says, Do you not know the unrighteous, the serially unrighteous, they're not going to inherit the kingdom of God? That this whole thing is controlled by what does it look like to be in the kingdom of God? This is kingdom talk, this is kingdom language, this is what it looks like to be indwelled. to be indwelled with the living presence of the Holy Spirit.

Granted us through the gospel because Paul says our bodies are literally the temple of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. What does the church look like that is living by the centrality of the gospel, led and indwelled by the living, active, real presence of the Holy Spirit? It looks like this: it keeps the seventh commandment. That's what it looks like. And Paul says that you are now in the kingdom of God, so you need to begin to look like it.

And how do you begin to look like it? He's going to tell us in verses 12 to 20. He's going to tell us in verses 12 to 20. Last week we saw, he says, first of all, Do you want to look like a kingdom citizen in the church? He says then, understand verses 12 to 14, your body, your physical body belongs to Christ because they are destined for resurrection.

And I asked you a question last week and said, did any, has anybody in this church ever in their whole life been taught the doctrine of resurrection and its implications for sexual purity on a day-to-day basis? And not a single hand went up. Do you think the Apostle Paul understands? Do you not know? We don't know the gospel and its implications for our lives.

And so we learned this last week: that the resurrection validates the moral importance of the physical body. A Christian is not free to engage in unrestrained sexual license. All things are lawful for me. Food is for the stomach, stomach is for the food. Those Corinthian slogans used to justify immoral behavior.

Paul says, No, that's not how it works in God's kingdom. It's not how the gospel, through the power and dwelling power of the Holy Spirit, works in the kingdom of God. Calvin says that it is a base thing to prostitute our bodies to earthly pollutions while it is destined to be a partaker along with Christ of a blessed immortality and of the heavenly glory. Those two don't go together. And so the resurrection empowers the believer.

The gospel empowers the believer through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit because the gospel is the ministry of the Holy Spirit, 2 Corinthians 3:8. To flee sexual immorality and to glorify God. Verses 18 and 20, you keep the law.

Now, having appealed to the doctrine of resurrection, having appealed to the theme of the kingdom of God. Paul now does a third thing to help motivate believers to pursue sexual purity to keep the seventh commandment. And what does he do? This is verses 15 to 17. In response to the Corinthians, who were justifying their sexual and moral behavior with their slogans, Paul asks in verses 15 to 17, which is a rebuke: Corinthians and Paramount Church, do you not know that your bodies belong to Christ because they are in union with him?

Paul has appealed to listen, the doctrine of regeneration. to the doctrine of adoption. You have inherited the kingdom. He has appealed to the doctrine of justification. He has appealed to the doctrine of definitive sanctification, which is election.

He has appealed to the doctrine of resurrection, and now he is appealing to the doctrine of union with Christ. As that which motivates the believer to pursue sexual purity and keep the seventh commandment. Do you see this mountain of gospel beginning to grow week after week now? Listen to what he says in verses 15 to 17. Read with me.

He says, Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members?

Now, here's the implication of the gospel. Shall I then take the members of Christ, that is Christ's body? and unite his body with a prostitute. Never God forbid. Do you not know?

He says it again. Do you not know? What do you not know? That he who unites himself with a prostitute. is one with her and her body.

And then he appeals to Genesis 2, 24 and quotes the Old Testament as authoritative, inspired scripture to uphold and establish and ground the theology he's teaching. And he quotes Genesis 2.24 and he says, the two will become one flesh. And then he concludes, verse 17. He wraps up the whole argument, but he. who unites himself With the Lord is one with him.

in spirit.

Now, before we look at Paul's argument, let me give you the context of what Paul is talking about so that you understand his argument. The context is very simple. The problem that Paul is addressing is this: that some of the Corinthian men in the church. were visiting temple prostitutes in Corinth.

Now, admittedly, temple prostitution seems rather extraordinary to many of us today. But it's helpful to understand, though it's not a justification, but it helps you to understand the context of what Paul is dealing with in this church: that temple prostitution was rampant in first century corn. Rampant. Sexual immorality in the form of temple prostitution was so widespread in ancient Corinth that it was generally looked at in the culture as a, quote, lawful act. That's why in verse 12, the Corinthian men, some of them, were still repeating the slogan: all things are lawful for me.

Listen to what one Bible scholar says about prostitution in first century Corinth. He says, prostitution, this is temple prostitution, where you go to Acro-Corinth in a temple and you engage with a union with a woman as an act of worship. Pagan worship. Prostitution was not only legal, but it was a widely accepted social convention. The sexual latitude allowed to men by Greek public opinion was virtually unrestricted.

Unrestrained license in Corinth had invaded from the culture. All things are lawful for me, food for the stomach, stomach for the food. The church mirroring the culture that it lived in. Sexual relations of males with boys and harlots were generally tolerated. Thus, the Corinthian men who frequented prostitutes were not asserting some unheard of new freedom.

Listen, they were merely insisting on their right to continue participating in pleasurable activity. that was entirely normal within their culture. John Calvin says, it is probable that the Corinthians, even up to that time, retained much of their former licentiousness and had still a savor of the morals of their city. That is the problem with people in the church today. They still have a savor for the morals of their culture.

And Paul is saying that the culture of Corinth, rather than the gospel and its implications for the kingdom of God, had gripped some of these men in the church and they still had not, listen, been perfectly sanctified in this area of their life and the gospel had to come sit here so that they could know what the gospel was and its implications for their life. Do you not know, he says. The ethical standards of Corinth, rather than the gospel, drove the motivation behind the Corinthians' behavior, their illicit sexual immorality.

Now, this fact raises a very important issue that you've got to understand in regard to sanctification. The gospel may be sitting central in your life for this particular sin, but for somebody else, they don't know it yet. And it has its implications, has not infiltrated their life through the power of the Holy Spirit. And therefore, Paul says, Do you not know?

Now, even though we do not have a problem with temple prostitution, the first century culture of Corinth does not differ all that much from ours. Men and women in our culture, and in the UK, in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, in South Africa, in Cape Town, or wherever you are from. Frequently visit the temples of sexual immorality in our culture through the internet. cable TV, magazines, books at borders. It books a million.

50 shades of gray, which is called mommy porn.

So, women, you're not off the hook on this sin. Smartphones, tablets, and on and on it goes in our culture. Sexual immorality may not be as widely acceptable social convention in terms of its widespread expression of temple prostitution in our culture like it was in Corinth, but it is nonetheless just as acceptable, accessible, and rampant in our culture as it was in the first-century culture of Corinth, perhaps more so because of the digital age in which we live. The rise of new communication technologies has provided greater, quote, perceived privacy and ease of access without the limiting factors of an inhibiting social stigma. What do I mean by that?

This. The Red Light District has discreetly made its way into the inner sanctums of our homes and lives. The proliferation of new communication technology has radically increased the prevalence and accessibility of pornography in our day. And now the Red Light District is no longer driving across town. It is a click away 24-7, 365.

So How does the Apostle Paul seek to confront the problem of sexual immorality in the Corinthian church? And how does his strategy apply to us in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, Jacksonville, Ponavedra, Neptune Beach, Atlantic Beach? How does it apply to us? 20 something centuries later. I'm going to show you this morning.

And the way that he does it, this is his strategy. Paul confronts And he corrects The Corinthians attempt to justify, as evidenced by their slogans, Sexual immoral behavior, unrestrained sexual license, he does it by appealing to the doctrine of union with Christ. And that's in verses 15 to 17.

Now look at verse 15 and look how Paul begins. He begins with this rebuking question. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? In verse 13, Paul says that the body is for the Lord and the Lord for the body. He takes that phrase in verse 13, the body is for the Lord and the Lord for the body, and he expounds on it in verses 15 to 17.

And he tells you that the believer's body is for the Lord and the Lord is for the believer's body, not only because it's destined for resurrection, verses 12 to 14, but also because your physical body, not just your soul spirit, is intimately united to Christ's body himself.

Now look at this word members that he uses in verse 15. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? The word members, melas in the Greek, was a term used to speak of the physical parts of the body. All the physical parts of the human body.

Now listen carefully. How do you come into union with Jesus? Through the gospel And the gift of faith, the Holy Spirit takes those and unites us, soul and body, to Jesus himself. The Heidelberg Catechism begins in question one with this statement. I am not my own, but I belong with body and soul.

both in life and in death to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. You're a body. And your soul is not yours. It is Christ's. And you are united to him.

You are a member of him. You belong to him and the Holy Spirit is the bond of this union. The Holy Spirit works the gift of faith into our hearts through the preaching of the gospel over and over again, and through this gift, builds up this faith and legally and vitally unites us to Jesus, the glorious risen Son of God. Listen to how Jerry Bridges talks about our legal and vital union with Jesus Christ. He says our legal union with Christ Now get this, entitles us to all that Christ did for us.

I'm going to work these implications out. I just want you to hear this. Our legal union with Christ entitles us to all that Christ did for us as He acted in our place as our substitute. Our vital union with Christ is the means by which He works in us by the Holy Spirit. The legal union refers to his objective work outside of us that is credited to us through faith.

Our legal union refers to the gospel, what Christ has done in his life, death, burial, and resurrection for us. It is outside of us, and we are united to all of that, and it's counted to us as if we did it ourselves. And then listen, our vital union refers to his subjective work in us, which is also realized through faith as we rely on his Holy Spirit to work in and through us.

Now, the Apostle Paul addresses both aspects of our union with Christ in this passage. In verses 15 to 17, Paul is addressing our legal union with Jesus Christ. I'm going to come back to that in just a second, and you're going to be astounded by what he's saying about this. And then, in a couple weeks, in verses 18 to 20, we're going to look at our vital union with Jesus. Whereby the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit comes to live in us and reign in us with His active energy presence.

Because we are his temples and he indwells us. And that's verses 18 to 20, and that's the vital union. He takes all that Jesus has done for us. And by we being His temple, He indwells our physical bodies. And takes all that Christ is and all that He has done and makes us eventually look just like that.

Now listen to Paul's reasoning from verses 12 to 14 to verses 15 to 17. It's very tightly connected. It's a powerful argument that he's building here. This is Paul's reasoning. Listen, verses 12 to 14, the body of the believer belongs to the Lord because of resurrection.

That's verses 12 to 14. Verses 15 to 17, the body of the believer also belongs to the Lord by virtue of his legal union with Christ. Verses 15 to 17. What Paul is saying is this. Because your physical body.

is joined to Christ's body. God the Father Has set into motion the reality of your resurrection, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. You're destined for resurrection. Because Jesus has been raised, you will be too, because you are legally united to him. Paul is simply saying this, because you are united to Christ, His resurrection is now your resurrection.

His glorious destiny is your glorious destiny. You can say that what Jesus accomplished when he died on the cross, you have accomplished. You can say that when Jesus was buried, you were buried. You can say that when Jesus was raised from the dead, you have already been raised spiritually from the dead, and you will one day, because of that first resurrection, be physically raised from the dead in the consummation of God's kingdom. Paul says, all that Jesus is, all that he has done, you are, and you have done because of your legal union with him.

That's how closely united you are to Jesus. He says in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 22, when he comes back to this body resurrection idea, he says, For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

Now, here is where it comes to application for your deadly pursuit of sexual purity. Because of your legal union with Jesus, Paul asks the Corinthians, shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Meganoita, never, God forbid, exclamation point. He's shouting at this point. He's saying, We are not our own, but we are joined both body and soul to Christ.

His argument is very explicit. Very explicit. He's suggesting an unthinkable reality. Totally unthinkable reality. What is he suggesting?

He's arguing. That when some of these Corinthian men visit the temple prostitutes in Corinth They are taking Christ's body and joining it to that prostitute. That's unthinkable. It's a blasphemous prospect. He's saying that the believer's union with Christ is so closely united that the scriptures teach that whatever is done to the believer is done to Jesus himself.

Let me give you an example from Scripture. Listen to Acts chapter 9, verses 4 and 5, where Jesus. Appears to Saul, who he would convert to Paul on the Damascus road. Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he said, Who are you, Lord?

And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are. Or Persecuting. Question. Who was Paul walking down the Damascus road to go persecute? Christians.

In Galatians chapter 1, verse 13. Paul, speaking of his prior life prior to his conversion, He says, For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently. and tried to destroy it. This man had a temper of all tempers. It was violent.

He was a terrorist. He was a murderer and he was filled with hate. His violent persecution of the church, Jesus says to him, was actually a violent persecution of Christ himself. Why? Because Jesus is so legally and vitally united to his people that when you violate and persecute his people, you're doing it to Jesus himself.

There's no distinction.

Now, Paul takes that doctrine of union with Christ and gives you the flip. Of that argument, and it goes like this: and this is his point for sexual purity. In the context of 1 Corinthians 6, Paul says that Christ and his people are so closely united that what ever his people do They are joining Christ to their actions. Whatever you do. You are taking Christ with you to do that.

When you participate in sexual immorality, whether than in action or in thought, Jesus says if you even look at a woman, and he's just giving an illustration, women, you're included in this command. You even look at a woman or a man in your heart with lust, you've already committed adultery. Whenever you do that, Paul says you are taking Christ's members, his body, and joining him to that which is impure, defiled, and unholy. And in this context, it was some of the Corinthian men taking Christ's body and joining them to a prostitute. Who would ever take the sinless, risen, glorious Son of God?

Who has entered into heaven because of his perfect active obedience of living a life of pure holiness and join him to a prostitute, Paul says. It is blasphemous to even think about that. It's utterly unthinkable. And so Paul, to drive this point home further, expands it in verses 16 and 17. And look what he says.

He says, do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? How do we know that happens? Because the scriptures tell us it does. He appeals to Genesis 2:24. For as it is written, the two will become one flesh.

But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Sexual immorality cannot be regarded as lawful. All things are lawful for me. It cannot be regarded as simply satisfying the natural craving and urge of the body. Food is for the stomach, and stomach is for the food.

The reason is because That Immoral action creates an unholy bond between the person and Christ. It's impossible. The physical union of a husband and wife is analogous to, but not equal to, the legal and vital union between Christ and his people. That is why God has given marriage and given the physical union and marriage to be an analogy. of Christ in the church and his union with his people.

The gospel is the fulfillment of the creation design of a union of a husband and wife. Christ's union with his people is far deeper than the union of a husband and wife, which only it serves as an imperfect analogy. And so Paul grounds this bonding. By citing Genesis 2:24.

Now, listen, when Paul says that when a believer, a Corinthian man, joins himself to a prostitute, he's not blessing that by appealing to Genesis 2.24. For example, he's not suggesting that union with the prostitute is equivalent to the union, the joining of a husband and wife in marriage. It's not what he's saying. In creation, God blessed the physical union of a husband and wife in marriage, but in listen, outside of the husband and wife union, he curses and brings judgment to that. It's expressed in the seventh commandment.

Listen to the author of Hebrews referring to the seventh commandment in relationship to the physical union of marriage. Let marriage be held in honour among all And let the marriage bed be undefiled, the cleaving together of a husband and wife in union. But God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. It does not bless this unholy union. The union of a husband and wife in marriage is holy and blessed by God, but the union of a man and a woman outside of marriage.

or before marriage is unholy and cursed by God. And even though Paul says that this unholy sexual immoral union corrupts God's design and creation of the union of a husband and wife in marriage, it still retains a faint resemblance to it. By referring to Genesis 2:24, and here is the point, so that you get how it applies to you daily.

So get the theology, and here it is. All sexual immoral behavior. creates a real bond to that act. thing or person. A real bond.

Because that's how God designed it in creation. And he says this. The two become one flesh is true and proper only in terms of marriage alone, because only the gospel is a fulfillment of that analogy. The gospel is not a fulfillment of the analogy of something before or after. That union in marriage.

And so Paul says, He's look, he's applying this truth of this real bond. To those who commit sexual immorality, because when you join two individuals together, they create, outside of the marriage covenant, they create an unholy and an impure bond. And Paul says this is unthinkable that you could do this. Because you're united to Christ in a holy bond. And so Paul's point Because a believer is united to Christ both in soul and in body.

The believer's immoral actions create an unholy bond between Jesus' body and his or her sin. Do you see that? And so Paul drives this point home in verse 17. He says, He who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Listen carefully.

In verse 17, Paul describes the union with Christ with the same verb that he describes the union with a prostitute in verse 16. The same verb. In fact, if you go and you look at the Greek Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, Genesis chapter 2, verse 24, when Moses writes, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast or cleave to his wife, the verb cleave is the same verb that Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 6 verse 17 and verse 16 to talk about the union between a husband and a wife and the union between Christ and his people. And they shall become one flesh. For example, in Jeremiah thirteen, verse eleven.

The prophet Jeremiah says that the Lord caused the Israelites to cleave to him. To belong to Him, to be in intimate, close union with Him. And so he says this, for as the loincloth clings, and there's the same verb as 1 Corinthians 6, as Genesis 2, 24, for as the loincloth clings to the waist of a man, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, be joined to me in a real intimate bond. Why? So that they might be for me a people.

And they might be a name and a praise and a glory. But they would not listen to me. How tragic. How tragic that instead of cleaving to the Lord, God's people stubbornly followed their own heart and went licentiously after other gods to serve and worship them and fully abandoned themselves to idolatry. And so Jeremiah says that the ruin of Israel and Judah, their pride and their idolatry clung to them like a ruined loancloth.

The point that Jeremiah is making, the point that Paul is making, the point that Moses makes in Genesis 2 is all the same point. Which is this? The essence of the covenant To belong, to cling to, to cleave to the Lord in order to be a people who belong to Him for His name and His praise. We are not to be like the Corinthians who arrogantly followed after the idol of sexual immorality in their culture. We have been set apart by God to belong to God for his name and praise.

1 Corinthians 6:11, we have been sanctified. We belong to him. This is the essence of the new covenant. This is the essence of the gospel to belong to the living Christ himself through the power of the Holy Spirit. God's people have been set apart.

And so Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6, verse 13: the body is not meant for sexual immorality. We do not belong to that. But for the Lord, we belong to the Lord. And the Lord belongs to us through covenant, which is the gospel, bound together by the power of the Holy Spirit forever. You belong to him.

In Acts chapter 15, verse 14, James at the Jerusalem Council confirms Peter's argument that God was now taking the Gentiles, not just the Jews, to take from among the Gentiles, listen, a people for his name. Do you know what that expression is? For his name means for himself. God's Through grace, it is gathering a people into his church and his kingdom to belong to him for himself. And also, this for his name not only implies to belong to him, but it also has the idea for his reputation and praise, for his glory.

1 Corinthians 6:20, glorify God with your body. He has. He has saved you to belong to him so that you cannot belong to sexual idolatry, but to glorify him in your body to do and be what he has created you to be and do. In Romans chapter 1, verses 5 and 6, Paul begins his letter to the Romans like this: He says, I have received grace. in apostleship For the purpose of bringing about the obedience of faith, obedience that flows from faith.

For the sake of his name among all the nations. including you who are called to belong to Christ Jesus. This is his strategy. He begins by reintroducing the Corinthians to a basic and yet vital implication of the gospel, which is that through the gospel and faith, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the believer's body as well as soul is united, they become members of Christ. And because your body belongs to the Lord by resurrection and by virtue of union and by virtue of adoption, you cannot engage in unrestrained sexual license.

Because you would never for a moment say, Jesus, let's go visit a prostitute. Right? The Holy Spirit through the gospel empowers us to obey the seventh commandment, flee sexual immorality, and glorify God in his or her body.

So as we reflect on this teaching that Paul is. Showing us about the doctrine of union with Christ. This is far more than a systematic theology lesson about union with Christ in a classroom. This has powerful, powerful, life-changing implications for our daily life. He's teaching us that union with Christ is our reference point for all our sexual behavior.

I'll say it like this. The believer's union with Christ is the fountain of all sexual purity. I'll say it like this: our bodies do not belong to us, they belong to Christ in a manner that is analogous but not equal to the union of the bodies of a husband and wife in marriage. And so, therefore, those who commit sexual immorality take Christ's body and join it to that which is sexually immoral, impure, and unholy, and that is unthinkable. And Paul says, self-consciously reflect on that, and you'll pursue holiness and flee sexual immorality.

He's teaching us, you can say it like this, he's teaching us that a self-conscious awareness of our union with Christ exercises powerful daily sanctification. You cannot be self-consciously aware of your union with Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit through faith in the gospel and sit there and look at pornography on the computer. Because your eyes are Jesus' eyes, and his eyes are your eyes. And would you ever have the Son of God invited into that vile, impure act and say, let's go do that together? When we talk about being gospel-centered and living by the gospel daily as that which leads to sanctification rather than steps and principles, this is it.

A self-conscious awareness of your union with Christ will lead you to obey the seventh commandment. It will empower you, motivate you to flee it. And to want to pursue the glorification of God through purity and a disciplined life, both inside and outside of the marriage. Incidentally, this is how we're to teach abstinence to our children. We do believe in abstinence, but we believe in teaching gospel-driven abstinence.

Look, let me help you with this, parents. This is how I teach my children in our home. If you're wondering, what do I do for my children? What is my strategy? I'm going to give to you exactly what I teach my children.

We do not teach, Catherine and I do not teach only abstinence to our children because that is only half of what the seventh commandment requires. Abstinence is only half of what the seventh commandment requires. It also requires us not to just abstain, but to pursue. actively holiness.

So first. If we only teach abstinence and don't teach how abstinence is grounded in union with Christ, motivated by the gospel, our young people are going to be far less motivated to pursue sexual purity, and they'll probably and most likely react negatively to it. Second. If we only teach abstinence, flee sexual immorality, abstain until you're married. But don't also teach our children to obey what the seventh commandment requires, which is to live a pure and disciplined life both within and outside of marriage.

You will only raise up a moralistic idolater in your house in the place of a sexual idolater. You'll create a Pharisee instead of a prostitute. I want you to listen carefully. Moralism is the enemy of the gospel. As destructive and defiling sexual sin is to the individual and the community at large in the church and society, and it is devastating, no question.

Read 1 Corinthians 5. It must be weeded out of the church. No problem there, Aaron. But it's as bad and destructive and defiling as it is. You know what?

Ultimately, far more destructive and Christ denying. is moralistic idolatry because Moralism erects all manner of extra-biblical laws that God neither forbids nor requires in His own law for true righteousness. And so legalism and moralism might look like super holiness, but on the inside, Christ says it's full of dead men's bones. Because it is leading people to disregard the law of God and erect the laws of men. And when you substitute, listen, God's law for your own law, you then substitute Christ and his righteousness for a Christ-denying self-righteousness, and you shift the ground of justification from Christ to self.

A sexual idolater has hope of being saved through the gospel because they eventually, if they hear the law, recognize I just ruined my life and I need Jesus. But a moralistic idolater, you can't get them to see their need for anything. Because they don't need Jesus. And if you're teaching your children abstinence without the gospel, you're going to make them a moralistic idolater. and separate them from Christ.

And so Paul begins his letter to the Corinthians by addressing the Corinthians, who are gifted, messy saints. As saints. 1 Corinthians 1.2. But he begins his letter to the Galatians by calling them cosmic traitors. I like that.

And then he pronounces a curse of final judgment on any who proclaim or receive a different gospel.

Now, let's go back to Paul's argument as we conclude this, and let's look at how the implication of union with Christ sanctifies my daily life in this area. Here's how it happens. Every time you're tempted to look at pornography on your computer, Every time you're tempted to watch an immoral program on television, Every time you're tempted to read Mommy Porn, which is 50 Shades of Gray right now, popular book. Every time, guys, you're tempted to lust for a bikini-clad female at the beach when you go surfing. Every time you're tempted to lust for a decked out lady in the gym, Women, every time you're enticed by a sweet word from a co-worker, an email from an old boyfriend, an invitation on Facebook, an alluring smile at a neighborhood get-together cookout.

Every time loneliness fills your heart and passion comes knocking at the door, this is what you do. You need to remember that every time you commit sexual immorality and break the seventh commandment, you join Christ to that act. And you defile the Son of God. Calvin says, While God the Father has united us to his Son, what wickedness there would be in tearing away our body from that sacred connection and giving it over to things unworthy of Christ. Are you beginning to see now how the gospel exercises powerful effects of sanctification on your daily life?

Are you beginning to see how living by faith and living by the gospel produces sanctification? What you believe, your union with Christ, your self-conscious awareness of your union with Christ will govern how you live, fleeing sexual immorality, pursuing purity, a disciplined life in and outside of marriage, seeking to glorify God. Would you take the sinless, radiant, risen, holy Son of God and join him to the sinful, polluting filth of your sexual immorality? Paul says, every single time you commit sexual immorality, that's exactly what you're doing. Are you going to take Christ's fingers, his members, and click on a porn site this afternoon?

Are you going to take Christ's eyes and lust after a man or woman in your heart? Are you going to take Christ's ears and indulge in lewd conversations, or perhaps dial an 800-porn service and listen to it on the other line? Would you take the members of Christ and make them members of an adulterer? And have an extramarital what they call affair, which is adultery. Possessing a self-conscious, gospel-centered focus, Paul says, forcefully leads you to respond.

Here it is, meganoita, may it never be, never, by no means, God forbid, it is utterly blasphemous prospect to be a gospel-centered believer and join Christ to my immoral pollution. But the fact is that every time you break the seventh commandment, you join Christ to that which is immoral, impure, defiled, and unholy. And Paul says, it is only By listening and awakening to a conscious, self-conscious reality, he says in verses 15 through 17, two times: Do you not know? Do you not know? Do you not know that, listen, living by a self-conscious awareness, that I am so closely united to Christ that whatever I do with my body, I take Christ and do it with me?

That is what creates sanctification and holiness.

Now, there's one final thought. Before we close. Paul says that every act of sexual immorality by a believer joins Christ in that act.

Now, I want you to reflect on something this morning as we finish. Have you ever considered how many times in your life, by thought and/or action, You have joined Christ to that which is sexually impure. Just think about this past week where you failed. And even though you are exceedingly guilty of such a reprehensible act, this sin is not held against you. Can you believe that?

I hope you can. This shocking and seemingly almost too good to be true news. It's really true, and how can this be? How can time after time when you continually fail as a believer? and pollute Christ.

Not have the judgment of God come down upon you and consume you. Because Paul's already dealt with that in verse 11 of chapter 6. And this is what he said. Those who are in Christ have been washed. They've been regenerated and cleansed, not only from their past sins, but all their present and future sins.

You are washed and clean. Second. All who are in Christ have been sanctified, chosen, and set apart by God for God to be saints and holy ones. All who are in Christ have been justified, declared righteous, and made declared to be perfect law keepers. Therefore, because you are united to Christ and have received the gift of justification, all of your sins, including sexual sins and failures, though unspeakably wicked and defiling, are not held against you in God's courtroom.

There is no condemnation. There's hope and forgiveness for your failures and your sin. These actions by God simply testify to the unfathomable, unspeakable. grace of God and Christ toward us. This is amazing.

So, if you find yourself this morning, because of your failures in this area, crying out like Paul, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Learn like the Apostle Paul to live in a self-conscious reality of your union with Christ, and like Paul. Turn from looking inside yourself and your failures, and look outside of yourself to Christ and confess. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Yeah.

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