Your Sex Life is Part of Your Spiritual Life (1 Cor. 6.9-20)

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 6.9-20

Translation: ⁹Or do you not know that unrighteous people will not inherit God’s Kingdom? Don’t be deceived! Neither sexual sinners, nor idol-worshippers, nor adulterers, nor effeminate people, nor homosexuals, ¹⁰nor thieves, nor greedy people, not drunks, not verbally abusive people, not robbers will inherit God’s Kingdom. ¹¹And some of you were these things, but you washed yourselves, but you were made holy, but you were declared righteous in the Name of the Lord Jesus the Messiah and in the Spirit of our God! ¹²All things are allowed for me, but not all things help! All things are allowed for me, but I will authorized by anyone/mastered by anything! ¹³Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, and God will do away with this and these. But the body is not for sexual sin, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body! ¹⁴And God raised the Lord and will totally raise us through His power! ¹⁵Or do you not know that your bodies are body parts of the Messiah? ¹⁵So then, should I make the body parts of the Messiah the body parts of a prostitute? May it never happen! ¹⁶Or do you not know that the person who joins himself to a prostitute  is one body [with her]? Because “they will become” it says “the two into one flesh”! ¹⁷And the person who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit [with Him]! ¹⁸Flee sexual sin! Every sin that a human could do  is outside of the body. But the person sinning sexually sins against his own body! ¹⁹Or do you not know that your body is the Temple Sanctuary of the Holy Spirit in you, Who you have from God? And you are not your own, ²⁰because you were bought at high cost, so glorify God in your body!

Interpretation

1.      Structure

a.       Don’t Sue Each Other (6.1-8)

b.      Transition: God deals with sinners, but you are no longer sinners so live like it (6.9-11)

                                                              i.      General Point: Unrighteous People don’t get to enjoy the Kingdom of God (6.9a)

                                                            ii.      Point Detailed: These kinds of sinners are unrighteous people who won’t see God’s Kingdom (6.9b-10)

                                                          iii.      Encouragement: God Saves Unrighteous People, including Some of You in Jesus’ Name by the Holy Spirit (6.11)

c.       Sexual sin is still sin, get away from it, for lots of reasons (6.12-20)

                                                              i.      Response to Misunderstood Freedom (6.12)

                                                            ii.      Response to a Misunderstanding of Human Purpose and Destiny, especially as it relates to Sexuality (6.13-17)

1.      False Belief: “The Body exists for Sex and vice versa, besides God will get rid of sex and bodies” (6.13a)

2.      Corrected Belief: “The body does not exist for sex, but for the Lord and the Lord for the Body, moreover, bodies are not going away, that’s the point of the resurrection” (6.13b-14)

3.      Teaching they should already know: Christians’ bodies are body-parts of Christ’s body (6.15a)

4.      Implication of the Teaching: having sex with a prostitute connects Jesus to a prostitute (6.15b)

5.      Teaching they should already know: Sex unites you to the other person’s body (6.16) and Uniting with Christ unites you to His Spirit (6.17)

                                                          iii.      Explicit Teaching on Sexuality and the Purpose of the Body:

1.      Teaching: Stay away from sexual sin

2.      Nature of Sexual sin: It is against your own body

3.      Teaching they should already know: 

a.       Your Body is the Holy Spirit’s Temple

b.      You Don’t belong to Yourself, because God bought

4.      Main Point: Glorify God with Your Body!

2.      Themes

a.       Sex, Sexual sin (πορνεια, πορνος, πορνη, μοιχοι, μαλακοι, αρσενοκοιται, πορνευων)

b.      Kingdom of God

c.       Grace, the Transformation that God gives at salvation

d.      Misunderstanding

e.       What should already be known

f.       Body

g.      Spirit

h.      Union

                                                              i.      With people you have sex with

                                                            ii.      With Jesus and His Spirit

i.        Purpose

3.      Doctrines

a.       Being a Christian means a life of Holiness, not sexual sins

b.      God saves all kinds of sinners, even sexual sinners

c.       Christians are united with Christ

d.      Christians are part of the Body of Christ

e.       Christians are filled with the Holy Spirit and thus serve as His Temple Sanctuary

Applications

1.      Stay far away from sexual sin

2.      Use your body and life to glorify God

3.      Us belonging to God and being the Temple Sanctuary of the Holy Spirit means that what we do with our body matters, and it means that we should be using our bodies to glorify God. However, it also means that we should be treating our bodies as if they are God’s Sanctuary. And this means more than just staying away from sexual sins, but alls sins, but in particular sins that violate or degrade the Temple of the Holy Spirit! This means for instance, not just that we should not have sex outside of marriage, but that because we are God’s Temple that we should care for it. This is why we should be wise about how we eat, and seek to stay fit and strong, because we exist to serve the One Who bought us and the One Who lives in us. It is also one of the reasons why cigarettes, drugs, excessive drinking, cutting/hurting yourself, suicide, and the like are wrong, because they are self-destructive. And all sexual sin is destructive as well.

4.      Homosexuality and gender identity issues are also wrong, while our culture would decry such things as intolerant and arrogant, what must be understood is that those sins are sins because they violate the purposes for which God created people, and because they are sexual sins, are in and of themselves destructive. Thus, it is not just that we think they are wrong, but that we believe that they are disordered, running contrary to God’s will, and are the kind of sin that does not just destroy others, but are inherent self-destructive

5.      Questions

a.       What kind of person were you before trusting in Jesus? What did He clean you from? What has He continued to clean out of you? What kinds of things need to be cleaned out from our community?

b.      Lot’s times Paul asks them why they are acting as if they didn’t know something that they should have known, so what are some things we are acting like we don’t know? What core Christian teachings are we not living out as individuals and as a community?

c.       Most sins committed are committed “outside of the body”, why then is sexual sin different, why is it against the body? Are there any other sins that are against the body?

d.      What are some other implications of you being the Temple that the Holy Spirit lives in? How can you glorify God with your body? How can we help one another glorify God with our bodies?