Good morning friends, today is Friday June 14 and we’re reading together 1 Corinthians 6.
Sometimes a chapter in God’s Word seems to be so very relevant to our lives and the world we live in. This is one of those days!
Where I live in Central Florida, there are billboards along main highways, inviting drivers to consider the money perhaps available to them, if they have been wronged, or injured in a traffic accident and need a lawyer. One particular brand of these billboards boasts “Dan got me…$750,000” or some such huge financial settlement. There’s almost a fanatical appeal for people to engage attorneys, who will file lawsuits on your behalf, apparently with little concern for truth or justice. The primary motivation seems, unashamedly, to be profit.
1 Corinthians 6 opens with this statement: “If any of you has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the saints…is there nobody wise enough among you to judge a dispute between believers? But instead one brother goes to court against another – and this in front of unbelievers.” (vs. 1-6)
From the earliest days of humanity, God’s purpose has been to demonstrate, in full view of all peoples, the difference HE can make in the life of a normal person, by the power of His Holy Spirit alive in that person. Remember Noah was declared by God to be “a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.” (Gen. 6:8) The world at that time, was a very corrupt place, but Noah somehow was different, he had a hunger to know and follow God. You’ll recall God told him to build an ark, even though no one had ever seen one before, and prepare for a flood, even though there’d never before been a flood. And for many years, Noah led his family in the huge project of building that ark, and later leading all the animals aboard, while the people of the community watched, jeered, laughed and tried to humiliate them, for following God in doing such a ridiculous thing,. . .until it started to rain.
This verse is God’s promise to Noah, and you and me. . .“The eyes of the LORD roam to and fro, across the whole earth, looking to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him.” (2 Chronicles 16:9)
So this is why Paul is so upset that Christians, in the lawsuit crazed city of Corinth, are taking their disputes into Corinthian courts, trying to malign and scandal and cheat one another, rather than resolving their disputes with the help of their fellow Christians, with Jesus as the arbitrator.
Would you agree with this statement: the world is ALWAYS watching those who claim to be Christians? What are they watching and listening for? They want to know if it’s real, if God really makes any difference in a life, a marriage, a family, a business, a neighborhood, a community, a society?
That was God’s ultimate purpose for the descendants of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob, the Hebrew people, the nation of Israel. God’s design was…. That the Hebrews would be God’s people, living in authentic relationship with Him, according to His leadership, lordship and laws, so that the rest of the world could see the dramatic difference God can make, in an entire nation of people, who honor God with their lives.
So the first, of three major topics Paul deals with in 1 Corinthians 6 is the ungodly, selfish, envious, slanderous appetite for lawsuits, and the mistake of bringing disagreements between Christians into the public, pagan courtroom for resolution by non-Christian lawyers, judges and juries, who have no regard for God or God’s Word or God’s principles or God’s holy standards. Paul is not telling Corinthian Christians to leave their disagreements unresolved, rather he’s challenging them to bring their disagreements before their fellow Christians, the people of God, the Church, and let God’s people, led by the Holy Spirit of God, and the authority of the Word of God, bring honest, helpful, God honoring resolution to disagreements.
You’ll see an interesting statement in vs. 3 “Do you not know that we will judge angels?” Now that’s fascinating isn’t it? If you will link 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 1:6 and Revelation 3:21 and 20:4 with this statement, you’ll see a future picture of Christians seated on thrones, along with King Jesus on His throne, during His judgement of wickedness. The fallen angels, known as demons, and Satan will be rightly judged by Jesus and condemned for their evil, and thrown into the lake of burning sulfur (Rev. 20:10) where “…they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” In view of that amazing future reality, Paul challenges us to resolve our differences in a manner which is God honoring, and shows to the watching, skeptical world, that God’s truth and Jesus’s life changing power, really do make a huge difference in our lives, our relationships and even in resolution of our disagreements.
The second major issue Paul deals with in 1 Corinthians 6 is our Jesus earned FREEDOM! We are no longer enslaved to the Old Testament law and sacrificial system. Jesus is our Savior, the Word of God is our guiding Authority in living life honorably for God’s glory,. and the indwelling Holy Spirit is our Counselor (John 14:26) for every word, choice and our behavior.
Look closely at vs. 9-12. “Everything is permissible for me – but not everything is beneficial… I will not be mastered by anything.” This Freedom in Christ principle is so important, Paul will repeat it again in chapter 10. God gave us minds to think and reason; His Word to teach us God’s perspective on how to live life for His glory; and the indwelling Holy Spirit to teach us, counsel us, guide us, convict us. Therefore in any situation in which we find ourselves, we should be able to know what course of action, what attitude, what words will be God honoring… or not.
Paul says we can live free from addictions, free from being mastered by any lust or desire or envy that might lead us into attitudes or actions, which would be sinful and dishonoring to God. Paul writes “…you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (vs. 11) and therefore we are, down to the deepest core of our being, radically different from who we were before we met Jesus, and our daily lifestyle should be tangible evidence and proof of our vibrant relationship with Holy God.
Finally, the third topic Paul addresses in 1 Corinthians 6 is temptation to sexual immorality. This was a very big deal in Corinth. In fact it was a major part of their society. because in that city was a huge temple for worship of Aphrodite, the supposed goddess of love & war. About 1000 male and female prostitutes were available around that temple because sexual expression, of every deplorable imagination, was celebrated as part of the worship in this temple. The city of Corinth was saturated in corruption, greed and sexual addiction.
Sadly all three had not been completely eradicated from the lives of the Christians in Corinth and so in vs. 13-20 of this 6th chapter, Paul speaks directly and powerfully to an issue that has plagued humanity from our earliest days… sexual temptation. By the way, it’s not just a male thing, and it’s not only a teenage problem… it’s one of the dark kingdoms’ most powerful schemes and it targets men, women, children, elderly…every human being, everywhere in our world, in every generation.
Do you see the core of Paul’s challenge? “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ Himself…flee from sexual immorality…do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God?” (vs. 15, 19) When we trust Jesus Christ to be our Savior, while our physical bodies do not normally change, our souls & spirits DO change. God births a new Spiritual nature inside us (John 3:3-7), which enables us to have holy relationship with God. Our souls, which I understand to be our emotion, our intellect, our passions and our will, are all cleansed from sin and anointed by the Holy Spirit of God (1 John 1:9). We are brought into a living union with God, my friends! That’s why Paul is so strong here, that if we then engage our minds, our emotions, our passions, our wills, our bodies in sexual sin, we are defiling God and mocking God. Do you see that?
So Paul’s answer is simple yet difficult. . .“FLEE from sexual immorality…You are not your own, you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” (vs. 18-20). Now link that with what Paul wrote to the Roman Christians in Romans 12:1,2 “I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then, you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will.”
I contend, my friends, that sexual temptation is fundamentally a spiritual battle, not a hormone or testosterone issue. It’s the devil and his demons seeking to draw us away from holy God, into sexual sin which defiles us and our relationship with Holy God. Why does Satan hit us so hard here? Because sexual intercourse is designed by God to be the only human act, which engages two human beings intimately with God, and a new human life is conceived! Satan hates that…because every human life is made in God’s image with a SOUL and SPIRIT which can be REDEEMED by Jesus Christ and enter into a living relationship with God and spend eternity with Him in heaven! Satan is livid about that…because he once was there, in heaven, in relationship with God, as one of God’s highest ranking angels, but he rebelled, he rejected God, and God threw him out of heaven, Jesus mentions that in Luke 10:18. And allowed him to establish a kingdom of evil opposed to God (Is. 14:12-15; Ex. 28:12-17).
So friends, as you can see, I’m pretty passionate about this chapter and the three great topics there-in. May I invite you read 1 Corinthians 6 carefully, looking closely into your heart and mind, and thank God over and over that with Jesus…
* Resolution to our differences IS possible as HE leads us;
* Living in God’s freedom is wonderful and we need not be mastered by anything;
* We can live victoriously over sexual temptation.
Have a great day my friends…the weekend begins soon!
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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