Grace Transforms Both Body & Spirit

Transcript

GR 1315
01-29-06
Grace Transforms both Body and Spirit
I Corinthians 6:12-14
Gil Rugh

This is our maker's world and as such He is sovereign over all. And we are here by His divine appointment and privileged to look into the riches of His Word. Think about it, the living God who is sovereign over all has spoken. And what He has said has been recorded under the direction of His Spirit so that we can read it, study it, memorize it, but above all be obedient to it. A privilege that we should never take lightly or for granted, that we should look into the Word of God and read and hear what God has to say.

Turn in your Bibles to I Corinthians 6. As you are aware, those of you who are regular at Indian Hills, the backbone of our Sunday morning study, Sunday evening as well, is moving through the Bible book by book, verse by verse. Since God has given it, the most important thing we can do is study it to be sure we understand what He has said so that we can properly submit to it and put it into practice in our lives. This is what the Apostle Paul is concerned about with the church at Corinth, that as the church of God in the city of Corinth, they are to be putting into practice the truth of God. In reality they are to be manifesting God's character in all that they do. Believers have always lived in a hostile world. John wrote in I John 2 instructing believers that they were not to love the world, neither the things that are in the world. For all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life. Yet we have the world pressing in on us all the time. The danger is that believers begin to lose their perspective and they fail to keep before them the stark contrast there is to be between a child of God who has been redeemed by God's grace, and a child of the devil who is living his life according to the world in rebellion against God. And the Corinthians were making unbiblical adjustments. They were allowing their lives to be shaped by the world, and we would like to think that we today aren't struggling with the same things that the church at Corinth did. But we are. As the world becomes more and more accepting and tolerant of certain practices, as it promotes them more aggressively, we find more people in the church finding it acceptable. And pretty soon the standard comes down, down, down and conduct that at one time would have been totally unacceptable, becomes okay.

We fight this in our homes as well. You raise children and they get older and become teenagers and you're always battling—what can they do. And what do they want to say? Well my friends all do it, everybody is doing it, everybody is wearing it, everybody is going there. You say, it doesn't matter. And then you struggle and as parents you sit down and say, you think it's all right they go here, they do this.

Paul is drawing some lines for the church at Corinth. We have been saved by God's grace. We live our lives daily in light of God's grace. However, there are restrictions even in grace. Paul's burden through this whole section that we are in, beginning with chapter 5 is the subject of immorality. In chapter 5 he talked about a specific case of immorality in the church at Corinth, a case that involved incestuous conduct. And the church wasn't even upset about it. Doesn't mean the whole church was practicing it, there was an individual in the church practicing this kind of immorality. But the rest of the church wasn't doing anything about it. They were going on as though this is okay. They probably had their reasons, their line of thinking—don't want to offend them, don't want to drive them away, as long as he's coming he's hearing the truth so let's be glad about that, let's not push him out. Paul warned them that any sin tolerated in the church will spread through the church and pretty soon it becomes an acceptable pattern in the church.

The first 8 verses of chapter 6 talked about lawsuits and it seems like well now we've left immorality and gone to a totally different area. But there's an area of overlap on this, remember. And that is we need to be careful that our conduct is not shaped or controlled by unbelievers, ungodly people, the unrighteous. The man in immorality was functioning like unrighteous people do. And the church was accepting unrighteous behavior as tolerable in the church. In chapter 6 verse 1, does anyone of you when he has a case against his neighbor dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints. The church at Corinth was losing its clarity on the difference between the unrighteous and the saints, the saints are the holy ones. Down in verse 9 of chapter 6, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? How can you come and take your disagreements among believers and ask the unrighteous to resolve the disagreements among the righteous. You don't understand what a terrible chasm there is between the righteous and the unrighteous, between the children of God and the children of the devil. So just another area of conduct overlapping there that the world is shaping the thinking and behavior of Corinthian believers.

In verses 9-11 Paul drew a stark contrast that will lead him back to the subject of immorality, which will be the subject of verses 12-20 of chapter 6, and really the subject of chapter 7 of I Corinthians—immorality. Now some things have been the ongoing problems among God's people. Two thousand years ago the church at Corinth was struggling with issues of sexual conduct, and here today one of the major difficulties the evangelical church has to face today is sexual immorality. It's just become acceptable, tolerable. And if you try to deal with it people think, we need to be careful, this is just going on everywhere. Maybe it's not as wrong. And God's standards for the church have not changed.

He said in verse 9, the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. That's the kingdom that Christ will establish at His return to earth. Anyone not going into that kingdom is going to spend eternity in hell. Verse 11, such were some of you. Some of you practiced the kind of things that characterize the unrighteous. All of them at one time had been unrighteous, but some of them had practiced, and note the things that are involved. Do not be deceived, verse 9, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, effeminate, homosexuals, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, swindlers will inherit the kingdom. Such were some of you. Now note something about the list of sins in verses 9-10—they are all things carried out with our bodies. Now you understand the unrighteous are not going to heaven, the unrighteous manifest their unrighteousness by what they do with their physical bodies. Sometimes believers get some kind of twisted thinking in their mind that the body is not all that important. What really matters is your spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ. And the body is just a temporal dwelling place and it will die and decay and really what matters is you had a right spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ and the living God. It couldn't be any further from biblical truth. The unrighteous are not those that just in their spirit are not what they ought to be, the unrighteous are those who are fornicating, who are adulterers, who lie, who steal. They're not going to be part of the kingdom, people who are doing physical things. Such were some of you, you were washed, sanctified, justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

Paul is not teaching salvation by works here. He is not saying because you stopped doing these things, therefore you became righteous. He's saying, this is what you were until God intervened in divine, saving power. And He washed you clean, sanctified you, set you apart as His holy ones, declared you righteous. So you are no longer thieves, homosexuals, covetous, drunkards, because you were transformed by the power of Christ. The Corinthians had lost sight of this, they had forgot what it means to be truly the redeemed of God. This is not new information. Jesus taught this very thing in the Sermon on the Mount. Back up to Matthew 7, that's a very familiar part of the gospel of Matthew. Matthew 5, 6, 7, we're going to chapter 7, we know it as the Sermon on the Mount. And in verse 13 Jesus said, enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, there are many who enter through it. The gate is small, the way is narrow that leads to life and there are few who find it. We shouldn't be surprised if people accuse us of being narrow, people who say, you think your way is the only way. No, that's not true. I think the biblical way is the only way, I think God's way is the only way to salvation. I believe Jesus when He said, I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but through Me. It's a narrow gate, only one way. Every other way is part of the broad way that leads to destruction. Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. You will know what is produced in their lives. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? So every tree bears good fruit, the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits. Jesus said that in verse 16, it's repeated again in verse 20.

Now you understand the seriousness of this, read verse 21. Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, in your name cast out demons, in your name perform many miracles? Then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from Me you who practice lawlessness, you who practice a life of rebellion against Me and My Father. You know the problem in the church today is we do not believe what Jesus said, we do not believe what the Spirit of God said through Paul in writing to the Corinthians. Well, I know they're not living like they should, I know immorality is wrong. But I'm sure they're saved. Now you make sense out of that in light of just the few verses we've read. We're saying, I know they're in immorality, I know they're saved. I, therefore, don't believe what God says. You say, well I don't mean it that way. Well it doesn't matter what you mean, that's what you said, right? If I tell you I read what this verse in the Bible says and then I say, I don't really believe that. Jesus said the way to life is narrow, but I believe there are many ways to life and it's really a broad way. You say, well you don't believe the Bible. Oh yes, I do, I just don't think that perhaps that's applicable here. But somehow we jump to another area, we know all kinds of people who are living in sin, but I know they're saved. And just how do you know that? Well, they say they are. Well I think verses 21-23 covered that, didn't they? Many people are going to come before Christ and say, look at all I did for you, Lord. And He'll say, who are you? You don't belong to Me, you practiced lawlessness. You say, well isn't that salvation by works? No, don't get confused. Salvation is by grace through faith, but the salvation that comes by God's grace through faith in God's Son brings a change of life and of lifestyle. That is a result of salvation. That's why you can tell a tree by its fruit, that's why those who practice sin are not going to enter the kingdom.

Turn over to Revelation 21, the last book of the Bible, we close out God's Word to mankind, specifically, the message of Jesus Christ to His churches. The first part of the chapter describes the new heavens and the new earth and particularly then we have the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, and that will be the dwelling place of the saints in eternity. Look at verse 7, he who overcomes will inherit these things. And that's the new Jerusalem and the blessings that go with it. The overcomer, John tells us in I John 5, who is he who overcomes, but he that believes that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. The overcomer is one who has come to overcome because he has believed in Jesus Christ. He who overcomes will inherit these things. I will be his God, he will be my son. But note verse 8, but for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. Those are the only two destinies. You're not going to be part of the kingdom, you're going to be part of the lake of fire. And you'll note how they're described—by their behavior, their conduct, what they do with their bodies and the parts of their bodies.

Look down in verse 27, nothing unclean, no one who practices abomination and lying. Keep repeating lying, we don't think of it as one of the big sins like murdering, immorality. But all liars are going to hell? Shall ever come into it, only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. You see characteristic of these lists, we don't deal with the intangible, only the people who in their spirit are not right with God. The Bible knows no such distinction between your spirit and your body. The body expresses your true character. That's why Jesus would say, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Therefore, you will be judged by your words because your words reveal your character, the true condition of your heart.

Look over in Revelation 22:15. Verse 12 says, behold I am coming quickly. My reward is with me to render to every man according to what he has done. And verse 14, blessed are those who wash their robes. Remember Paul said to the Corinthians, such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified. Blessed are those who wash their robes so that they have the right to the tree of life and may enter into the gates of the city, the new Jerusalem. Outside, closed out of the city, another way of saying they're in hell, are the dogs, the sorcerers, the immoral persons, the murderers, the idolaters, everyone who loves and practices lying. I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you these things for the churches. The church at Corinth didn't have the book of Revelation yet, when Paul wrote his letter to them. We have the completed New Testament, there is less excuse for us to be confused, and there was no excuse for them to be confused. So we have less than no excuse. I want you to note the connection between behavior and conduct repeatedly. What you do with your body reveals who and what you are.

Come back to I Corinthians 6. The gospel, which is the power of God for salvation, not only saves you from the penalty of sin, it saves you from the power of sin. It sets you free from the mastery, your master, sin, to serve God. So when you come to I Corinthians 6:12, Paul is going to draw the discussion back to the matter of immorality, and he's going to deal with it in the context of the liberty and freedom that a Christian has in Christ and show that what we do with our bodies is of eternal importance.

He starts in verse 12 by saying, all things are lawful for me. This naturally flows out of the fact that we've been washed, we've been sanctified, we've been justified, we've been set free, we live in the grace of God. All things are lawful for me, I've been set free in Christ. That doesn't mean I should do anything, that doesn't mean the right use of my liberty now in Christ is to rebel against Him or to use my body for sinful purposes. So he's going to narrow it down. First just the general area of liberty—all things are lawful for me. And I take it Paul is using himself as an example. He's not taking a statement that was present in Corinth that was wrong and correcting it. He said this is true for me, he's using himself as an example, as one who has experienced the salvation described in verse 11. I have been set free, now I have authority to do all things. All things are lawful for me as God's child.

But not all things are profitable. There are restraints on my liberty. And he'll talk about some general things first. Not everything I could do is profitable, beneficial. Paul just uses this word in the letters to the Corinthians, and it's always in the context of what is beneficial or helpful to others. In chapter 10 he'll use it as a synonym for edifying or building up other believers. Turn over to chapter 10 verse 23, all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify or build up others. Let no one seek his own good, but that of his neighbor. Come down to verse 31, whatever then you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Verse 33, just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of the many that they may be saved. In other words, I use the freedom I now have in Christ, and my liberty, for the benefit of others, for the salvation of the lost, for the growth and maturing of God's people. So, yes, I have freedom, I have liberty in Christ. But that is not a liberty to do what I please with my body, it is a liberty to do what God pleases with my body. This is where he is going. To do what is beneficial and helpful and edifying for others, that will be effective in bringing others to salvation. We know we have drifted off the track when we start arguing for our liberty and what we are free to do and feel that somehow now we have to prove to others that we know grace and we understand grace. And I'm free to do this. And if it bothers you, too bad. No, I have to consider, I may have liberty in this area, but is it really profitable, is it beneficial for the body and for others.

Come back to chapter 6. One person put it this way, the real question is not whether an action is lawful or right or even all right, but whether it is good, whether it benefits. True Christian conduct is not predicated on whether I have the right to do something, but whether my conduct is helpful to those about me. He repeats himself in verse 12 of chapter 6. All things are lawful for me. But a further qualification—but I will not be mastered by anything. So in the whole general area of liberty, and he'll be back into this when we get to chapters 8-10, there are constraints on our liberty in Christ. We've not been set free to serve ourselves, we've been set free to serve the one who purchased us for Himself. He's going to get to this down in verse 20, you have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body. But he's dealing with the general matters now. All things are lawful for me but I will not be mastered by anything. There is a play on words here, little bit hard to get in English. The word lawful and the word mastered come from the same basic Greek word. So some would recommend that you could translate it to get the sense, all things are in my power, but I will not be overpowered by anything. All things are under my authority, but I will not come under the authority of anything, in the sense of being dominated by it. Sin has an ability to master someone, certain practices can become dominant in my life. I need to be careful. Anything that would become my master is out of bounds for me, anything that has mastered me. Now be careful. We sometimes use this to argue, then, that people shouldn't do something. Some people can do things that I couldn't do or am afraid to do. I want to be careful I don't get mastered by it. Maybe they don't, but maybe I would. I'm not going to take a chance. That doesn't mean, therefore, I can impose that on someone and say, you shouldn't do that because I might get enslaved to it if I did it. Well then, don't do it. Maybe they don't. But I do have to be sensitive to this. My liberty is restrained by what might become my master.

Turn over to II Peter 2. Sin has an enslaving quality. Jesus said, he that sins is the slave of sin. You just cannot dabble in sin. The sin that you indulge in because you enjoy ends up controlling and enslaving and ultimately destroying you. II Peter 2:19. Talking about false teachers, verse 18, for speaking out arrogant words of vanity, they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality those who barely escape from the ones who live in error. Note this, promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption. For by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved. So we get into areas here that we have to be aware of, they have an enslaving potential. Now again, we have to be careful, because we want to add on our lists. And a lot of the things that are dealt with by the church are things and areas.................... I hate to give examples because I get into trouble. Because they are those kinds of areas, some people will say, I was offended by that because I don't think we ought to do it. Well, pick out areas that the Bible doesn't address. I'm going to do it. Charles Spurgeon smoked cigars. Somebody preached against smoking in his church. He got up when they were done and said, I hope to smoke a cigar to the glory of God after the service. And you're familiar with it, when someone asked Spurgeon what would cause him to quit smoking cigars he said, if I find myself doing it to excess. What would be excess? Smoking two cigars at once. G. Campbell Morgan, well known Bible teacher, some of you use his commentaries and writings to this day, he's been with the Lord for many years, smoked cigars. That doesn't mean therefore that I'm up here preaching and I pull a cigar out, light it up and start to have one and say, now turn in your Bibles.................. Some of you would be upset by that. You'd say, I don't think he ought to be smoking a cigar. You know, I just don't need that. I can upset you in enough ways without smoking a cigar, and besides then I'd have the city in here in a closed building, I guess, and it wouldn't be worth it. There are some things that just have to be decided, and a good thing for me, is it profitable and would it enslave me. Some people might argue, Spurgeon might have had better health if he had limited some of his habits. I don't know. The fact is, the Bible doesn't say thou shalt smoke a cigar, or thou shalt not. But I have to remember I have freedom not to do it as well as to do it. And to consider, is this profitable and beneficial, why do I even want to get into it.

I've shared with you, the Board of Elders has certain things that they have agreed not to do while they serve as elders. They have the biblical requirements, then they have the non-biblical things that we have agreed to. We review those periodically to decide if we should change them, drop something, add something, whatever. This is the kind of thing we don't want to become an issue in the church that we lead. We want to be careful to acknowledge these are not biblical requirements, but we as elders have agreed that it is better for our testimony in the body that we avoid these things. There are those things there, but I have to consider personally, will this master me, could this come to dominate me. Some people are so into sports that if they miss the game they were intent on seeing they're all bent out of shape and now they're having an argument with their family that has nothing to do with anything except they're all bent out because they didn't get to watch the game. And I always watch the game, and now.............. Well maybe you ought to not watch it for a few times, just to prove you don't need it.

I used to drink a lot of coffee and I got to counting up. I was drinking more coffee than I thought was good so I knew I ought to quit. I wondered what my life would be without it. I quit drinking it and got a terrible, terrible headache. Finally it went away and I didn't drink coffee for a few years. I don't think drinking coffee or not drinking coffee is good or bad, I drink coffee again now, a little more restraint. But is it mastering me, am I going to be a grumpy old man if I don't have my coffee. I found out coffee didn't have anything to do with whether I am grumpy or not. Marilyn can testify to that, I didn't see any improvement in him without coffee.

Is anything mastering me, becoming a control over me. Sin particularly will be the issue, specific sin that the Bible addresses as sin, we need to realize that's not included in liberty. He says all things are free to me, but obviously he's working down to draw restraints on the liberty.

Come back to Romans 6:12, therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies so that you obey its lusts. You see we've been set free from sin and we've died with Christ. We've been set free. This is what Paul said in I Corinthians 6:11. Do not go on presenting, note here, the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness. Note the connection here, as those who had died with Christ and been raised with Christ, now what you do with your body and all of its parts becomes important. Present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, your members, the parts of your body, as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you. You aren't going to be enslaved by sin. For you are not under law, but under grace. Remember law provided no enabling power, it just gave the command. In grace we have been set free and empowered by the Spirit.

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be. Do you not know when you present yourselves as someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness. Verse 18, having been freed from sin you became slaves of righteousness. I'm speaking in human terms because of the weakness of our flesh. Just as you presented your members, the parts of your body, as slaves to impurity, to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness resulting in sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin you were free in regard to righteousness. Verse 22, now having been freed from sin, enslaved to God, you derive your benefit resulting in sanctification, the outcome eternal life. God's salvation changes my whole life. Don't make a false distinction between your body and your spirit. There is a distinction between the body and the spirit, but they cannot be separated in that sense, that I'm right with God in my spirit. I know I'm not doing with my body what I should do, but I know my spirit is right with God. That couldn't be any farther from the truth. You cannot be right in your spirit with God and be sinning with your body. In fact, persistent sin with the body is an evidence you do not have a relationship in your spirit with God. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious. The one who practices righteousness is of God, the one who practices sin is of the devil, I John 3. So this whole area of slavery and who you are enslaved to is crucial to a whole unfolding of God's plan of salvation.

Come back to I Corinthians 6. What Paul is saying here is the same thing Peter wrote in I Peter 2:16, act as free men and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God. If you have freedom you are free to serve God, you've been set free from slavery to sin, you have been enslaved to God. Now serve Him with your bodies. He draws a parallel. Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food. Pretty blunt here, the word translated stomach is literally the Greek word for belly. Food for the belly, the belly for food. Sounds good to me. And there’s an element, God made the food for the stomach and the stomach for food. And the stomach's purpose is to digest the food and so on, prepare the food for the body to take it in. That's why we have stomachs. But you understand, God will do away with both of them. And we're moving toward the resurrected body in this discussion here. In the resurrected body there will be no need for food to sustain it. Now according to Luke 24 Jesus in His resurrected body could eat fish. So evidently the resurrected, glorified body will be able to eat food, but it will not need to eat food to sustain life. That's true in other parts of the body. Now we want to be careful here. Sometimes in our logic we think we've established a point. Well look, you have a stomach, what good would your stomach be if you didn't need food. So you have the stomach for food and the food for stomach. And that goes with the other parts of our body. So therefore God made the sexual organs of the body, I guess then God intends us to have a sexual relationship and it's necessary and that's distinct. And in the resurrected body we'll neither marry nor are given in marriage, so it's not a big issue. But it's a fallacious analogy. It's true, the food is for the stomach, the stomach is for the food, but God will do away with both of them.

Yet the body is not for immorality. You can't make that kind of parallel consideration. It's for the Lord. So there is an analogy to be drawn, the stomach is for food and the food for stomach. The body is for the Lord and the Lord is for the body. That's the comparison. The stomach finds its fulfillment in taking in food, the body finds its fulfillment in its relationship with the Lord. The body is more than its individual parts, and individual parts of the body will no longer function and serve a purpose in the glorified body. But the body as the body will still continue as part of God's purpose for us. So the various parts of the body will no longer function as they did in these physical bodies. But the body as the body will still be for the Lord and the Lord for the body. In other words, this body was created to serve the living God. And God brought this body into existence as the vehicle through which He would bring glory to Himself. The body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. Now individual parts of the body serving a purpose for the sustaining of this physical life will be done away with. That word in verse 13, God will do away with catargeo means to render inoperative, they will no longer serve a purpose in the resurrected body. But the body as a body will. It is more than an individual part. The body is more than the stomach. When the stomach is no longer necessary, the body will still be fulfilling God's purpose. In a hundred million years that body will still be serving God's purposes. Now various parts in that body necessary for your physical existence will cease to function, but the body as the body will. Are we tracking this?

The body is not for immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. What does Paul say in Romans 12:1? I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your spirits to God. No. That you present your bodies to God as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to Him, which is your reasonable service of worship. You present your body. That's what we read in Romans 6. We used the members, the parts of our bodies as slaves of God, as slaves of righteousness to do what is honoring and pleasing to Him.

Turn over to Philippians 1. Paul is in prison when he writes this, and there is the possibility that he could die if the sentence goes against him and be executed, but he thinks he's going to be released. He says in Philippians 1:20, according to my earnest expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in everything, but that with all boldness Christ even now as always be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. You see where Christ will be exalted? Because the body was for Him, and Him for the body. It was for His honor, for His glory, for Him, to be used in His service in ways pleasing to Him. So this body does serve a purpose in all of its parts.

Stop at I Corinthians 10:31, whatever then you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God. That is a consuming, overarching principle in the freedom I have, I am now free to function in a way that will bring glory to God. So the stomach and food are temporary. That doesn't mean I can just do whatever I want. Now be careful. I am amazed at commentators that got off track on this and wanted to talk about diets and exercise and stewardship of the earth and everything else that had nothing to do with what he's talking about. Jesus did say what you put into your mouth does not defile the body, it's what comes out of the heart that defiles a man. But I then have restraints on myself. I decide I do not believe this is what the Lord would have me do, this is not what the Lord would have me eat, this is not where the Lord would have me go. Then I don't go there, I don't eat that, I don't do that. Now I don't want to get your diet book to tell me, unless I ask. Those are not the biblical things. We think, you have to take care of this body, it's the temple of the Holy Spirit. But Jesus said what I put in this body doesn't defile it. But I have to be careful I don't go off the other edge on that. Whatever I do with this body, I have to glorify the Lord. That doesn't mean I have to weigh this much or eat this kind of diet or exercise this way. It is keeping myself in the biblical path here that is crucial.

Come back to I Corinthians 6. We'll wrap this up with Paul's statements, which will lead us into what follows for our next study. Verse 14, now God has not only riased the Lord. And the whole subject of bodily resurrection and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and what that means for our bodily resurrection will be the subject of I Corinthians 15. You see bad theology always catches up to you. If we're not careful about out theology in one area, pretty soon it is corrupt in another area of our theology. God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power. Now you'll note here, he's talked about our body in verse 13, now he talks about raising us up. Not just our body, but us. Then in verse 15 he'll come back to, do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ. And so what I am and my body are inseparably joined together. They will be separated for a time at death, but you know God's intention is to raise this physical body. I will dwell in this physical body. God has eternal plans for this physical body of mine. He's going to glorify it, it will be this body. Now keep in mind what Paul is backing up and saying here, this should have a controlling influence on what we do with the body. It's part of God's plan of redemption, so that those He saves He transforms so that now what they do with their bodies is consistent with the manifestation of His character in that person. We'll slide down into trouble if we start to think, I know I have a relationship with the Lord and I know I'm walking with Him. And sometimes what I do with my body doesn't show it, but.............. There is something wrong here. Why does what I do with my body not show the character of God? What makes me think that I can make that distinction when God says there is no such distinction? You know He's going to send people to hell and He's going to judge them on the basis of what they did with their body, because that manifests their character. You'll be judged by your words, back to what Christ said, because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. What you do with your body is revealing what you are. That is your character. We like to cover it up like those in Matthew 7 and say Lord, Lord, look at all I've done for you, listen to my testimony, remember when I bowed down and as a young person I kneeled and I asked Jesus into my heart and .................. But something is wrong, I'm not walking with the Lord now, no evidence, immorality characterizes my life, and all the other things. But I know I'm saved. Or we like to think of it for family members, friends, loved ones, oh I know they're saved. God says there is no such distinction. When He saves a person, He saves them in their entirety. Doesn't mean I can never sin as a believer, it does mean I cannot live as the unbeliever lives, I cannot do what the unbeliever does. I am not the same person I was. Such were some of you, but you are washed, sanctified, justified. This is a body that is going to be glorified, it will be raised up. What I do with it matters, an evidence of whose I am.

How are we doing? How are we doing as a church? How are we doing as individuals? Are we fooling ourselves? God is not fooled. Be not deceived, God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. I know I'm saved, I'm into sin, but I know I'm saved. What a sad thing to stand before Jesus Christ and He'll say, who are you? I never knew you. Oh, Lord, remember I did this, I did that. Depart from me cursed ones into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. This is not a matter to be dabbled in. My body and who I am are an inseparable unit for eternity. The separation that will take place at death is temporary. God's plan is a glorified body. Praise God for a salvation that is complete.

Let's pray together. Thank you, Lord, for your work of redemption in our lives. Thank you, Lord, that we are not partially saved, but your work of salvation is complete and encompasses us in our entirety. Even though we have not yet experienced glorification, the provision has been made and it is settled, and we are to be living in light of our ultimate redemption, the glorification of the body. Lord, I pray for any who are here who have deluded themselves into thinking, into believing that they belong to you even though they are living in sin. Others may not know they are immoral, they are cheating, they are stealing, they are lying, they are deceiving, but they maintain a facade that does not fool you. Lord, may the wonder of your salvation be carried to their hearts today through the ministry of your Spirit. May each of us who do know you be reminded the importance of living lives of holiness, doing with these bodies those things which are profitable, that will manifest that we are servants of the living God and it is His character that is seen in all that we do. We praise you for the wonder of our salvation. In Christ's name, amen.