Our Bodies Are Not Meant for Sexual Sin

Hi, this is the Hymn We Proclaim podcast. Followers of Jesus have a new identity. That means we belong to Christ and are destined for resurrection. That's really good news, right?

However, as life goes on, it's easy to forget about our new identity and gospel calling and fall into the same old traps of sexual sin. That's not what we're made for. Today, we're going to reinforce our new identity in Christ and the gospel's power to overcome those traps. In just a moment we'll hear John Fawnville with message number five called Our Bodies Are Not Meant for Sexual Sin. It's from the Do You Not Know series.

Be sure to check out the links in the description today. John has been hard at work in the background on a new book called Hope and Holiness: How the Gospel Enables and Empowers Sexual Purity. It comes out this fall and was based on the current series. We hope you'll take the time to pre-order and invest in your Spiritual Growth library. Here's John.

Okay, you can take your Bibles and turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 9 to 20. Let me just give you some review if you haven't heard where we've been, and then we're going to go into verses 12 to 14. In 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 9 to 20, Paul. He's asking four questions. And each one of these questions begins with.

The same question. Do you not know? Each of these questions, first of all, functions as a rebuke. Because as Christians, you should know this, he says, but you don't.

So it's a rebuke. Second What had happened is that the problem with the Corinthians is they did not know the gospel nor the gospel's implications for their daily pursuit of sanctification. And so Paul is seeking, listen, to reintroduce the Corinthians to the gospel. And to its implications, which alone has the power to motivate them to flee sexual immorality. That's verse 18a.

And To glorify God with their bodies, that's verse 20b.

So, first, in verses 9 through 11, what we saw is that the Apostle Paul takes up the theme of the kingdom of God. And he applies the theme of the kingdom of God to the problem of sexual immorality in the church.

So, just very quickly, in verses 9 through 11, this is what Paul does. He says, This is the first point. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? That's the first point. He points them to a basic fact concerning the kingdom of God, and he warns that in the consummation of God's kingdom at the resurrection, When Christ returns and the new heavens and the new earth are here, The serially unrighteous will not be there.

But then in verse 11, in this amazing and almost instantaneous change, he brings this first argument to a climactic conclusion. And he reaffirms the Corinthians' conversion, their status now as citizens of the kingdom of God. He says, Such were some of you. You were excluded, but now he says, Listen. This is not who you are.

So, Paul did two things in verses 9 through 11. First, by directing these believers. to the consummation of God's kingdom. He's driving home the point that unrighteousness cannot inherit the kingdom of God. And because unrighteousness cannot inherit the kingdom of God.

And because God's kingdom is now already present in this world but not consummated, it must not be tolerated in the church now. His ethic is simple. The ethics of the kingdom yet to come. Determine the ethics of the church now in existence. Second.

He not only warns with the law in verses 9 through 10, but then look what he does in verse 11. He reaffirms the Corinthians' conversion, spiritual transformation now as citizens of the kingdom of God. And he exhorts them on the basis of who they now are to live lives of sexual purity. For example, this is what he says. God the Father in Christ by the Holy Spirit is a Trinitarian work, he says.

Has cleansed you. He has washed you from your former defilement of your past sins. That's regeneration. We looked at that. He has set you apart from your former sins to belong to him.

That's definitive sanctification, election. He's chosen you to be his, to belong to him. And then, third, he has already forgiven you and given you a right standing with himself that's justified. No longer, not only not guilty, but forever declared a perfect lawkeeper, even though you're not. Justification.

And Paul says, All of that. Has given you a glorious inheritance. You've been adopted as a son and daughter of the living God. He takes all of these gospel realities in one verse and says, Look, because all of this is true of you. Stop living like you're excluded from the kingdom of God.

You're a citizen. Be who you are. Be who you are. Now that was his first argument. Here's the second.

The second argument that Paul makes to help believers flee sexual immorality and glorify God with their bodies is found in verses 12 to 14.

Now, listen to what Paul says. Let me just summarize, and here's the point. Do you not know that your bodies belong to Christ? Because they are destined for resurrection. Listen to what Paul writes.

Look at verse 12. Let's read verses 12 to 14 together. There are three slogans in this passage. One's repeated twice and then it gives a second. The slogans were being advocated by the Corinthians, so Paul quotes their slogans and he responds by giving his counter-slogans.

to confront and correct their false theology. You'll see this in a minute. Look at verse 12. Here's the first slogan. All things are lawful for me.

This is what the Corinthians were running around saying, all things are lawful for me. And Paul says, here's his slogan, but not all things are helpful. Second. All things are lawful for me. And Paul says, But I will not be dominated by anything.

Food is meant for the stomach, and the stomach for food, and God will destroy both one and the other. Paul's slogan is here. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord. And the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Verse 15a. This is one of the most stunning, powerful truths I have ever encountered in terms of how to live my daily life of sanctification. It is absolutely. stunned me this week as I've thought about it.

There are two words that dominate Paul's arguments in verses 12 to 20: sexual immorality and body. He repeats it over and over in verses 12 to 20, sexual immorality and body. And what we're going to come to see is this, is that because of a radically flawed understanding of Christian freedom, some of the Corinthians were maintaining that they were free to do whatever they wanted to with their bodies in regards to sexuality. And Paul wants the Corinthians to reflect on a gospel-centered view of their body and of Christian freedom. And so 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 12 to 20, is first of all this.

It is one of the most important theological passages in the New Testament about the importance of the believer's physical body. By appealing to the gospel and its implications, Paul is going to show us that our bodies belong to Christ the Lord. The king and his kingdom. And because of that, we are not free to do whatever we want sexually with our body. The gospel-centered reality is what will motivate us to obey verse 18A and 20B, flee sexual immorality, and glorify God with our body.

Now, listen carefully. This is one of the most important truths you're going to learn about Scripture and the New Testament and the ethics of Christian faith and life. This is, what I'm going to tell you is the ethic of the Christian faith in life. Here it is. And this is exactly what Paul's teaching us.

When the gospel is central in your life. You can refute license without becoming legalistic. That's what he's teaching us here. Paul issues two commands in verses 12 to 20. Everything else is gospel and its implications.

How many Imperatives do you typically get in a church for a practical Christian living on overcoming sexual sin? I just got an email this week, and this was the title: Seven Performatives. Practical steps on how to overcome sexual sin in your life. Never mentioned one hint, not even a sentence of the gospel. This is so counter to what Paul is doing here.

There are two imperatives in here: flee sexual immorality and glorify God with your body. Everything else is gospel and implication of gospel. He issues Flee sexual immorality and glorify God on the grounds of the truth of the gospel.

So let's see in verses 12 to 14 how Paul takes up the doctrine. Listen, he takes up the doctrine of the resurrection. And he applies it to the Corinthians sexual immorality as the way to overcome sexual immorality. And to glorify God.

Now, how many of you have ever been taught the theology and doctrine of resurrection as the way you pursue daily sexual purity in your life? Is there anybody in here? Just show me your hand. Has anybody ever showed you the doctrine of resurrection as the key to sexual purity? There's not a single hand raised.

Do you not know? No. I don't know, and you don't know, and the Corinthians don't know, people don't know the gospel. The Corinthians, let me give you some background. The Corinthians were under the pretense of wisdom.

And they were arrogantly claiming with their wisdom That their body was temporary and unimportant. They concluded, therefore, it doesn't matter what you do in your body because physical matters have no lasting existence. It's going to die. And what really matters and is eternal is the immortal soul. The spiritual part of man is what matters.

The physical part is not important. This faulty theology is reflected in the slogans that they were advocating and living by, which we read. And there's one more slogan in verse 18, which we'll come to later.

Some suggest that the Corinthians had drawn upon the philosophical tradition of the Stoics about their ideas of freedom. Whatever the precise background of the Corinthians. was what their problem They were using these slogans to express, listen, a radical misunderstanding of freedom in Christ to justify their immoral behavior. The human heart has a remarkable ability in its fallenness to justify anything. Self-justification is alive and well daily in the hearts of people.

And so, what Paul does is he enters into a dialogue in verses 12 to 20. You are getting, listen, a true dialogue from the first century church of Paul speaking with the Corinthian believers. And in this dialogue, he is confronting and correcting their false theology expressed in these slogans.

So let's look at the first one. The first slogan is verse 12. Look at verse 12. They were saying this: All things are lawful for me. This was one of their favorite slogans that were running around in the church.

All things are lawful for me. By this slogan, listen, they were arguing that they had the right. That they had the authority. That they had the freedom to act without any restraints in the matter of human sexuality. Basically, you can translate it like this: I'm free to do anything in regards to sexual behavior.

That's what they were saying.

Now as we previously pointed out, there was a crisis of authority in the Corinthian church. Paul says that the Corinthians were arrogantly opposed to him as an apostle. Can you imagine arrogantly opposing an apostle? A big A apostle. They were opposed to him with arrogance, and they were opposing his sound teaching that accords with the gospel, and in their pursuit of self-gratification and self-indulgent sexual license, they were demonstrating this faulty theological justification by their so-called right to engage in sexual immoral behavior.

All things are lawful for me. Can you believe the arrogance of that? And so Paul is confronting and correcting their false views, and he offers two counter-slogans.

So listen to his response, but not all things are helpful. What is Paul saying here? In the context, it's sexual sin. The word helpful is the Greek word which means to be advantageous, to help, to confer a benefit, to be profitable and useful. Here's Paul's point.

Living by the philosophy, I'm free to engage in unrestrained sexual behavior because it doesn't matter what I do with my body, because the body's just gonna slump off like a husk and die away. Paul says that is exceedingly destructive. It's not helpful. Not all things are helpful. Self-indulgent sexual license does not, Paul says, contribute to my good.

Neither to the good of the covenant community, which is the church. It destroys it. This is what Paul is saying. This is the gospel ethic of the kingdom of God. No sin, listen, just Paul's thinking, Corinthians, no sin is advantageous.

Is sin helpful? Has sin ever benefited your marriage? Ever Paul says, Corinthians, unrestrained sexual license is exceedingly disadvantageous, unhelpful, unprofitable. It is detrimental to yourself and to the whole Christian community. It destroys everything, it is not helpful.

We see this in scripture, just a couple of examples, and you don't have to harp on it. You know what I'm saying. The scriptures, for example, clearly set forth the destructive effects of sexual sin in King David's family. His family for generations and generations suffered from his moral failure. Proverbs chapters 5 and 6.

Go home and read it this afternoon. It vividly sets forth the destructive effects of sexual sin. In chapter 6, verses 26 to 31. The Proverbs warned that succumbing to sexual temptation leads to disaster and that adultery for the one who commits it can even lead to murder and be fatal. In Proverbs chapter 6, verses 32 to 34.

It says, he who commits adultery lacks sense. He who does it destroys himself. Oh, not all things are helpful. He will get wounds and dishonor, and his disgrace will not be wiped away. For jealousy makes a man furious, and he will not spare when he takes revenge.

You've seen it on the evening news. You've seen this. Every time a lover, you have a lover's quarrel back because somebody cheated on another, they come in, or the Jerry Springer show don't watch Jerry Springer, but I know those come up, but the point is this. They get up there and fight on stage and say, I'm going to kill you. It's exactly, exactly what the writer of Proverbs is saying here.

Yeah. Oh boy. The barrage of sexual freedom in our culture that is promoted by the internet. Television. Movies, magazines at the checkout stand and the grocery store.

Music It has devastating physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual consequences. Not all things are helpful. Sexual freedom in our culture has led to broken marriages, increase of divorce, shattered homes, and the widespread increase of disease. Does that sound helpful? It leaves men and women crippled with shame and guilt.

It makes people feel defiled and dirty. It leads to crushing emotions of guilt and constant accusing conscience that puts you under suffocating loads of regret. It's not helpful. And so, like Paul and Corinth, we live in this sex-obsessed society that suffers from the incredible, devastating. and destructive effects of unrestrained sexual license.

Paul says, it's not helpful. And so Here's the Christian ethic. Paul says, All things are lawful for me. No, timeout. Here's what you're supposed to ask.

The real issue in regard to Christian freedom is this: not whether an individual is free to do anything he or she chooses. Listen to me very carefully, and I do mean this when I say it: freedom of choice. which is celebrated in our fallen culture. Paul says, ha-uh. Time out.

There is no freedom of choice if you're a believer in the kingdom of God. Because he says the real question to ask is: Is this behavior helpful to myself? And in chapter 10, verse 23, he repeats this slogan: all things are lawful for me. And he joins it to the idea of building up the community. He uses this word of edification, building up the whole community.

Christian conduct that is properly in accordance with the gospel, and in this context, resurrection. Paul says, leads you in a space to ask. It leads you to ask this: not, I have the right to do whatever I choose, freedom of choice. It leads you to ask. Is my conduct spiritually beneficial to my relationship with Christ and to others?

Does it build it up or does it destroy it? That's what Paul's teaching here. Not all things are helpful. Second, Second, Paul replies to this: all things are lawful for me again. By stating that Christian freedom must never become a means of bondage.

Look what he says back in chapter 6, verse 12. He says, all things are lawful for me, but I will not be enslaved, dominated, and mastered by anything. Here's the second part of the Christian ethic in regards to freedom. Here's the true view of Christian freedom. Paul says, Christian freedom is not intended to lead to enslavement to anything or anyone.

It's a play on words that he's using here. If you don't read Greek, don't worry about it. But it's a play on words in the Greek. And the Greek word is basically exousia, which means authority, power. And Paul says I will not be enslaved to anything.

And he's referring in this context to sexual sin.

Now, just really quickly, just to get very frank here, there is hardly nothing more enslaving in our life and all-consuming than sexual sin. And Paul says in this context, I will not be dominated by that. I will not. It's like, and I was trying to think, how can I illustrate it? And so here it is.

Here's the illustration. It's like the lay's potato chip slogan. Do you remember that slogan? And here's how it goes. Bet you can't eat just one.

And then it shows the guy eating the whole bag of laced potato chips because he's just like, whoa, Rock's gotta have it. I gotta have it. It's exactly what happens, Paul says, with sexual sin. The more you indulge in sexual license, the more control it has over your life. You can't just have one chip.

Now, Paul was the champion of Christian freedom, especially to the Gentiles. You're just going around preaching. You're free from the Mosaic law. You and I spent four and a half years in the book of Galatians, so I'm not going to give you the context for that. But you know what I mean.

You're free. And Paul taught this. He said, We're free to live in the grace of Christ, but he also qualified the freedom in Christ and said, your freedom is in Christ. Your freedom is never to be an occasion to become enslaved by anything or anyone, particularly in this context, sexual sin. He says that in Galatians 5:13, you are called to freedom, brothers, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.

Listen, you can be sure that Christ and the transforming power of the doctrine of resurrection will dominate your life, or listen, you will be dominated by the fallen passions and desires of your flesh. Listen carefully. Here's your point. Here's your application. We do give application in paramount.

Here it is. You want to talk about gospel centrality applied to your daily life? Let me tell you what Paul is saying here. When he says, I will not be dominated by anything, enslaved to anything, do you know what he's saying? He's saying, I will not allow myself to be mastered by anything except the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Christ will master me, nothing else. The gospel will control me. The resurrection will be my all-consuming. control of my life, nothing else will dominate me. And I promise you, as Paul is telling the Corinthians, if the doctrine of the resurrection is dominating your life, you know what you're going to do?

Pursue sexual purity. Mm-hmm. It will lead to sexual purity.

So, how often does the slogan that Paul gives, I will not be mastered by anything but Christ, influence your daily life? You can't pursue sexual purity because you don't know what the doctrine of resurrection even is. And if you don't know what theology is, you cannot pursue the Christian life. Because Paul says it is the resurrection that will dominate me, which leads to sexual purity. And so, this gospel-driven slogan was the all-controlling reality of Paul's life when it came to sexual sin.

What is Paul teaching us? He's teaching us this: the Corinthians failed to understand how harmful and damaging sexual sin is to everybody involved. Not all things are helpful. And second. They failed to understand how sexual sin gains control of and dominates those who indulge in it, which is what they were doing, because they were not dominated and controlled by the resurrection of Christ.

Now look at verse 13. Paul confronts and corrects this false view of Christian freedom, and now he confronts and corrects a false view of the body. Look at verse 13. Here's the second slogan that the Corinthians were advocating to justify their sexual license. They were saying.

Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food. And God's going to destroy both one and the other.

So it doesn't matter what we do, because it's going to be destroyed. What matters is the immaterial part of me, my spirit. The slogan represents the Corinthians' belief in the moral irrelevance of the body, and this is basically how you can understand this. Just as food is meant for the stomach, And the stomach for food, so God designed the body for sexual activity, and sexual activity for the body. Because God's going to destroy both the body and the stomach, it doesn't matter what we do with our bodies, and our behavior and our physical bodies is of no moral consequence.

This is what Paul's attacking. These Corinthians were influenced by Greek philosophy, which held to a body-soul, material, immaterial dualism. You don't understand that? Don't worry about it, but that's where it's coming from. Just to give you the context.

Greek dualism scorned the physical world. And exalted the quote higher knowledge and wisdom of spiritual existence. And because the Corinthians were influenced by their culture rather than the gospel, they were wrongly reasoning that their acts of the body had no eternal significance or value. And so Paul responds by stating a basic fact of a gospel-centered life that they ought to know but didn't know. And this is it.

Look at verse 13. The body is not meant for sexual immorality. But the body is meant for the Lord. And the Lord is committed to the body. That's how you can paraphrase it.

He's for the body.

Now, note the comparison: food for the stomach, stomach for the food. Paul replies. The body for the Lord, the Lord for the body. You see the comparison there? Food for the stomach, stomach for the food.

That's paganism. The body for the Lord, the Lord for the body, that's gospel-centered reality. That's Christianity. The reason believers cannot live by the philosophy: I'm free to do whatever I want in regard to sexual license, the body doesn't matter, God's going to destroy it. The reason that's not true, and you can't live like that, Paul says, is because, verse 13, your body.

Body is for the Lord and the Lord is for your body. Your body was not created for sexual indulgence in unrestrained license. Your body was created for the Lord. And so, verse fourteen. This brings us to verse 14.

Paul corrects and confronts this false view of Christian freedom and the false view of the body. And listen in verse 14, he gives us a gospel-centered, resurrected-centered view of the Christian body. And this is what leads to daily sexual purity.

So look at verse 14. Paul says in verse 14, and God raised the Lord. and will r also raise us up. By his power. Let me give you the context.

Paul in verse 14 is confirming the truth that he says forth in verse 13: the body belongs to the Lord, the Lord for the body. The body for the Lord, the Lord for the body. How do we know that the body belongs to the Lord? How do we know that God? Is forever eternally committed to the importance of this physical flesh.

Because he raised Christ bodily from the dead, and he's going to do the same thing for you. That's verse 14. And Paul will later in chapter fifteen devote an entire chapter. To the reality of the believer's physical bodily resurrection. And here he's given a foretaste.

But here in this context, he's using the argument of physical bodily resurrection of the believer applied to the context of refuting sexual immorality.

So I wanted to help you learn. What is in Paul's mind so you can learn how to do this in your daily life?

So here we go. The doctrine of resurrection confirms the fact that the believer's body belongs to the Lord and not to sexual immorality. The gospel teaches that the believer's body has a glorious destiny. Glorious destiny. But many of the Corinthian believers thought salvation did not involve the body.

They only thought salvation was for the soul. And so Paul emphatically states that salvation involves, listen, the whole person, body and soul, spirit, material and immaterial, the whole thing. In fact, in Romans chapter 8, listen carefully. Our salvation, body and soul and resurrection, is going to be the salvation of the whole universe. That's Romans chapter 8, verses 18 to 23.

Paul says that all who are presently citizens of the kingdom of God, that's verses 9 through 11. Are moving toward a consummation in the future of God's kingdom. and they're going to get there through resurrection. Our destiny What is your destiny? Here it is.

A new heavens and a new earth in a glorified physical body where righteousness will dwell forever and ever, with the King at the center. I'm going to come back to that in just a minute. Listen to this author. This is very helpful. He says, the body belongs to the Lord Jesus.

And God has confirmed his concern for Jesus' body by raising him from the dead. This act of power declares God's ultimate promise to also raise us from the dead because remember, you're united to Christ, which we're going to see next week. And everything that has happened to Christ, and everything that Christ is and has accomplished is ours. His destiny is my destiny. His resurrection body is my resurrection body.

Whatever happened to him is going to happen to me, and that's what Paul teaches here. No one who understands the fundamental content of the gospel can suppose that our bodies are irrelevant. If you get the gospel and you understand resurrection, you'll never say again, I'm free to do whatever I want to with my body, and my body doesn't matter because it's going to die off. No, it's headed for a glorious resurrection. And you cannot say that the gospel implies this stuff doesn't matter.

The body is not simply a husk to be cast off in the next life. The gospel of Jesus Christ proclaims that we are to be redeemed body, soul, and spirit. Salvation is not and can never be understood as an escape from the physical world. It's not a flight of the soul to heaven. Rather, salvation.

Is a resurrection of the body, and this is an integral component of the gospel story.

So integral that in chapter 15, Paul says: if it's not a bodily resurrection of Christ and of us, forget it. The gospel is not true. And so, those listen who live within that story, those who make the resurrection central and are dominated, I will not be dominated by anything but the reality of my glorious destiny and the consummation of God's kingdom as a glorified, resurrected body, just like Jesus. Those who don't do that, Those who don't live within that story They'll never understand what it is they're supposed to do with their bodies in this present time. Did you get that?

Gospel leads to ethic. Theology leads to practical daily living. I want you, listen, Paul's emphasis on the resurrection of the body should forever silence the implicit dualism that you often encounter. In Christian circles. I just heard it this morning coming to church on the radio.

This lady was singing a beautiful sappy little love song to Jesus Heaven is not my home. This world is not my home. This world is not my home. This world is not my home. And I was sitting there thinking: you don't know the gospel.

You don't know the gospel. You don't know the gospel. You sound like a Platonic dualist from Greece. Listen, take for example the well-known gospel song, This World Is Not My Home. Listen to the first verse.

This world is not my home. I'm just a passing through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue. Don't know where, but somewhere out there. The angels beckon me from heaven's door, and I can't feel at home in this world anymore.

That's not Christianity. That's Greek paganism. That is Greek dualism. There's no gospel in that song. None.

This song is an example of how implicit Greek dualism has infected Christian thought. It expresses a Greek view of the world that places little to no value on the creation that God pronounced in Genesis 131 very good. The belief that the spirit is immortal, but the body, along with the rest of creation, is destined for destruction, the stomach for food, the food for stomach, God's going to destroy both the one and the other, that kind of thinking is totally pagan and foreign to all that the scriptures teach about. The body.

So, too many believers in the church have been influenced by this implicit dualism, illustrated in this well-known gospel song that people sing ad infinitum and ad nauseum, and they're repeating Greek pagan philosophy in the church. And they don't even know it. And so, as a result of repeating Greek paganism over and over and over, here's what happens. They get the notion that when they die, they're going to be in some kind of... Place in the blue, beyond the blue, some ethereal place where they exist in some kind of disembodied state, and they wonder: well, am I going to be a human being?

Am I going to be a spirit? Am I going to be floating around on clouds? When I was a little boy and I was growing up in the church with this kind of stuff, I used to hate it with a passion. And I would sit there in church as a little boy going, I don't want that, I don't want anything to do with that. I hate that.

I I like going to play football and baseball with my daddy. I love going to eat my mama's Sunday roast. I love This world. And then people who are super spiritual go, oh, you're so unspiritual. Loving this world.

Get your mind on the higher things of God, way beyond the blue. And I never could get my mind on it because I didn't know what to grasp. I didn't want to be some ghost. And so, as a little boy, I would just sit there and go, I hate this. Could I please just get to the baseball field?

Paul won't listen. In contrast to that pagan, wretched view of existence, Listen to what Paul, listen to what the Christian confesses in the Apostles' Creed. I believe in the resurrection of the body. I love that. Listen to question 57 of the Heidelberg Catechism.

What comfort does a resurrection of the body offer you? What comfort? Here's the answer: Not only shall my soul after this life immediately be taken up to Christ, my head. But also this flesh Raised by the power of Christ, shall be reunited with my soul. And made like Christ's glorious body.

That's beautiful. That's comfort.

So, to answer to the question of believers who are wondering, due to the influence of pagan philosophy rather than the gospel. What am I going to be like? What's my eternal destiny? Listen very carefully. The answer according to Paul here in 1 Corinthians 6, the answer according to the gospel is you're going to be just like Jesus.

In a glorified, risen body, perfect. In a new heavens and a new earth. And where people say, This world is not my home, I'm just passing through.

Sorry, you're going to pass back by here and you're going to be recreated here forever. And I can't wait. I can't wait for the resurrection. Your soul and your body will be made like Christ, and this is the hope of the gospel.

Now, how does all of that theology apply to your daily life when you're sitting there in front of your computer going, Should I punch it or should I not? Here's the answer. Because so many believers have been influenced by an implicit Greek dualism, they can't get their arms around such an ethereal state.

So, you know what they don't do? They don't long for resurrection. The hope of the gospel doesn't fill, doesn't dominate, doesn't Paul say enslave them. And when the hope of resurrection, when the gospel doesn't dominate you. You don't grow in sanctification.

It's so simple. When the resurrection remains central in your thinking, it will purify your life and it will move you along in your daily pursuit of holiness. How do I know that? Paul teaches it, and so does the Apostle John. Listen to the Apostle John in 1 John chapter 3.

Verses 2 and 3. Beloved, we are God's children now. And what we will be has not yet appeared, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him. Because we shall see him as he is. And what's the effect for the present?

and everyone who thus hopes in him. Purifies himself. as Jesus is pure. When you hope in the future bodily resurrected state that you're going to have through the gospel, it will purify you. I didn't say that, John said it, and Paul said it because Jesus taught him.

Placing, here's your application, placing your hope in your future resurrection has a purifying effect in your present sanctification. That's how you can say it. Placing your hope. Being dominated with your hope, being mastered and enslaved by the centrality of resurrection pronounced and promised in the gospel now will have a purifying effect in your present daily sanctification. That's what Paul's teaching is believers, and this is what they did not know.

And now you know. Moreover, listen, there's a sense in which you have already been resurrected. Did you know you've already been resurrected? Spiritually? Let me just give you a couple of examples.

And listen, your present resurrection as a believer has been signified and sealed to you in baptism. Colossians chapter 2, verse 12, having been buried with Jesus in baptism. In which you were also raised with him through faith and the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead. You've already been raised spiritually. Listen, Paul makes the same argument, Romans chapter 6, verse 4.

We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism and to his death. In order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Do you know what Paul's saying here? He's just doing what he did in verse 9 through 11. Be who you are.

You're already resurrected spiritually with Christ. Christ's resurrection power is already at work in your life as a citizen of the kingdom of God now.

So, therefore, live like it. How many of you knew that all of Christ's resurrection power is at work in your life right now? And how many of you really believe that right now? To the degree that you believe the resurrection of Jesus and his power is at work in you now, is to the degree that you will pursue sexual purity. You have been raised to walk in newness of life.

You have been raised to live as a citizen of the kingdom of God rather than as those who are excluded from the kingdom, verses 9 through 11. And so, therefore, walk in newness of life. Flee sexual immorality and glorify God, which in the context just simply means don't give your body to sexual immorality. That's all it means.

So here's Paul's point. The final resurrection proves that the body is not meant for sexual immorality. The final resurrection proves that the body is for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. The final resurrection validates and confirms the moral importance of what the believer does in his or her body.

Now, there's just one simple final question here that's just a Good news punchline for the whole thing. How's it going to happen? Yeah. How in the world am I going to be resurrected? Because it's impossible.

Now Look what Paul says. Look at the end of verse 14. And God raised the Lord. And because God raised the Lord. He will also raise us up, hell.

By his power. It takes God's power to do this. The believer's resurrection will be affected by the power of God. We say in our church, we've come here to be served by Christ. We've come here to be served by Christ.

Nowhere. Is Christ's service, is God the Father's service to us more vividly made apparent than in resurrection? Because you're separated from your body and it is decaying in a casket in the ground. And how is your body going to be reunited with your soul to be like Christ's glorious body? It's impossible.

Because you have no more. natural resources to do this. You cannot do this. You can't do the gospel. It is God's power that will reunite your body and your soul together in the consummation of his kingdom.

The resurrection, Paul states over and over throughout all of his letters, is the greatest demonstration of God's power. Christ's resurrection and yours. This is the hope that the gospel gives us. All of God's power. Power.

is given to me because the Lord is for my body. He's for me. He's not against me. And he's going to exercise all of his omnipotence to raise me from the dead. And you know what that does?

That is precisely, Paul says, what gives meaning, responsibility, and significance to my bodily existence now and in the future. Therefore, I can't, all things are not lawful for me. My body is not going to be destroyed. It's going to be resurrected. And this final consummation that looks forward to this new heaven and this new earth with this new body that is raised will experience the final wholeness.

That everybody has always longed for, but have never received, it's going to come. This is what Paul's teaching us. This is just, is this not remarkable? Does anybody in here this morning except me just feel like dancing? This is just so amazing.

Let me just summarize. This is what preaching does. Just sit and listen to this. And just let it. Whack you.

Stop taking notes. Just listen. Your body is not your own. It belongs to the Lord because it is destined for resurrection. Therefore You're not free to selfishly indulge in unrestrained sexual license.

Your behavior has important, moral, and significant consequences. Christ is the Lord of your body. He is the ruler of his kingdom. You are now a citizen of his kingdom. You have been given a new identity.

You have been given a new sexual ethic, and you have been granted a new eternal destiny. Therefore, in light of this gospel truth, live according to the standards of kingdom righteousness rather than persist in ungodly worldly righteousness from verses 9 and 11, from which you have been saved. This is Paul's argument.

So We just come back to what we come back to every Sunday. Yeah. Do you know why the Corinthians were living in sexual immorality and justified immoral behavior? Because they didn't know the gospel and its implications for their life. Once again, we see that the gospel is what is at stake, not simply the resolution of an ethical question.

Gordon Fee, just right there. Just easy. The gospel, the resurrection, has direct ethical implications for the way we are to walk, conduct ourselves, and live our lives. The gospel, the resurrection, is to serve as the plumb line for all our thinking, speaking, teaching, living, behavior, attitudes, everything. It is the power of God for salvation.

Thanks for listening to the Hymn We Proclaim podcast with John Fawnville. Him we proclaim as a ministry of John Fondill of Fairmount Church in Jacksonville, Florida. You can check out his church at paramountchurch.com. We look forward to next time.