1 Corinthians 6 verses 18 through 20. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. Let's pray. Gracious God and Father, Lord, we pray that you would take hold of our mind at this moment, Lord. We pray that as we walk through these final verses of chapter six, as we continue to deal with some very difficult but yet extremely important and applicable topics, Lord, we pray that by your Holy Spirit, you would teach us. We pray that you would be our primary teacher and instructor by your Holy Spirit and through your word. Lord, I pray that you would simply use me as a vessel through which to communicate your truths. Though I am a miserable excuse for a vessel to be used of God, broken and damaged with more flaws than I care to acknowledge, Lord, I pray that you would enable your people, your sheep, Lord God, to know that the words that I speak from Scripture are not my words, but yours. I pray that you would enable them to see not the man, to see through the man and beyond the man, to see your glory. and the beauty of your son. Pray that they would hear not my voice, but that they would hear the voice of God spoken through scripture. And through it all, I pray that you would make all of us more like Christ, even just a little. And we pray this in Christ's name, amen. We live in a culture that is saturated with sexual immorality. That probably goes without saying, but just as a way of illustrating my point, spend about 30 minutes surfing through channels on television, and you will likely see more sexual images than a boy growing up in a village in South America will his entire life. I mean, there was a time, I think, in this country, in the United States, probably not that long ago, maybe the 1950s, when a man could live his entire life Most men, the vast majority of men growing up in early America could live their entire lives, and the only woman that they would ever see without clothes on would be their own wife. Today, even if a man or a woman tries to keep their eyes pure, it is nearly impossible. With internet ads, television commercials, billboards, magazine covers, halftime shows, you name it. The list goes on and on and on ad nauseum. It is everywhere. And it impacts our mind and our soul more than we realize. Far more than we realize. We are a half-step. As a society, we are a half-step from becoming the Greek Empire. In some ways, we've probably surpassed the Greek Empire. But I say that because at the zenith of the Greek Empire, under the reign of Alexander the Great, homosexuality was completely accepted as normal. Now, in one way we've gone beyond them because they recognize that they were only two genders. But they believe that whatever gender you decide to engage with sexually was irrelevant. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. This life is all we have. Do whatever brings you pleasure. In fact, it was so accepted that it's a little known fact that Alexander the Great actually encouraged homosexuality among his troops. He encouraged it because he believed that a soldier was more likely to fight harder and willing to give his life for his lover than just a fellow soldier. So develop those relationships, he said. At the zenith of the Greek Empire, pedophilia was commonly accepted. The idea of an adult man or woman engaging in sexual relations with a 12-year-old boy or girl was normal. They're just two human beings, and if it's consensual, why does it matter? Sadly, there are people in the political world pushing for that today. They wanna get rid of statutory rape laws in all 50 states. Because if there is no God, why does it matter if it's consensual? Sex with temple prostitutes was normal, it was a given. If you're a religious person and you wanna please the gods, this is what you do. Having concubines and mistresses was as common as Americans having several televisions in their home and two cars in their driveway. If you didn't have these things, you were seen as kind of odd. In fact, it was so common, here's an example. The famous second century Greek rhetorician, Athenius, who lived and wrote and taught during the time of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius once said this in describing his culture. Athenius said this, quote, we keep mistresses for pleasure, concubines for daily concubinage, but wives in order to produce children legitimately and to have a trustworthy guardian of our domestic property, close quote. In other words, in the mind of the Greeks, they viewed sexual activity as just any other physical activity like hiking or fishing. It's just something you do with someone else, like going fishing with someone else or hiking with someone else. It is just a human activity that brings people joy and pleasure. I think it's probably an understatement that the sexual revolution of the 1960s has not only fully matured, but is now on steroids. Because we are not only fast approaching the Greek empire, but we are fast approaching the days of Noah, where chaos and evil reigns supreme. I say that because it's not just the problem with sexual immorality in the United States. There is a problem with simply being human. I was watching a news report not long ago and they were talking about the rising crime problem in the United States, certainly in your major cities. But understand, if you're a part of the United States, there's a ripple effect. Crime is rising everywhere, including Belton and Temple and Central Texas. But during this particular news story, they showed a video of an event that took place in New York City just to sort of demonstrate how bad things have gotten in our country. And it was a video that was shot by street cameras. So this is a street camera that witnessed this event. And what the event was is that a car ran through a red light trying to catch the green light, I suppose, ran through a red light. You know, there's no sound. You just see what's happening. But there is a pedestrian crossing the street, and this car runs this pedestrian over. And the person, this man, flips up in the air, lands on the ground, and is unconscious. And of course, you're shocked by what you see. That's horrible to witness. But the video catches a passerby who witnessed the event. And from what you see, he's obviously shocked. Oh my gosh, I can't believe what just happened. And he runs over there. And you think for a brief moment, oh, here's a guy who's going to help this poor man who's been run over by a car, and he flips him over onto his stomach, and he steals his wallet and runs down the street. This is the country in which we now live. We are fast approaching the days of Noah. And it is hard to believe that it will be much longer before Christ's return. But that decision is obviously above my pay grade. Christ can tarry as long as he sees fit. But, you know, there was a time when Christians would read the book of Corinth, 1 Corinthians, and they would read chapter 6, and they would think to themselves, how horrible it must have been 2,000 years ago to live in a time like this when the apostle had to deal with situations like this. But we can't say that anymore because we are living 1 Corinthians. This is not what things were like 2000 years ago. This is today. This letter could have been written to churches in the Western world today. It is tremendously important and applicable. So what would be the advice that Paul would give for us today? If we ask the apostle Paul, well, Paul, how do we deal with the world in which we live? How do we deal with this culture where we are inundated with sexual immorality everywhere we look? I think this is what Paul would say, verse 18, flee from sexual immorality. Run from it. Flee from it. You know, one of the greatest illustrations of this, what does that look like? What does Paul actually mean by that? Well, it's the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife, right? Genesis chapter 39, you know the story. sold as a slave, and at least as a slave was given the cush job of being a household slave, right? It's a job that every slave hoped to have. I'm a household slave. I get to go into the home and take care of things inside, and I don't have to work out in the field. But apparently Potiphar's wife took a liking to him. And we're told that he was in the Egyptian army. We're told that he was an officer, a captain in the Egyptian army. If you're familiar with military life, officers and soldiers are gone a lot. My first year in the army, my wife and I spent three months of it together. The rest of it, I was training. They train, train, and train some more when there's no wars to be fought. So he was gone a lot. So she saw Joseph a lot and did not see her husband a lot and was the classic definition of a desperate housewife. And so she tries to take advantage of him. And he refuses. He does the smart thing and runs out the door, down the street, around the corner, mostly naked, because his clothing is in her hands, we're told. He probably had his underwear on. But she grabs his outer garment, and he wasn't going to let that stop him. He probably pulls it off, rips it off, and he's gone. Of course, you know how the story ends. She falsely accuses him and he ends up in prison, but at least he has not sinned against God. Because honestly, life probably would have been better for him had he given in, right? He'd still be in Potiphar's house. See, that's the thing about living the Christian life. It's always easier to do the wrong thing. That's one way that you can determine whether or not what decision is right and what decision is wrong. The easy road is usually the wrong decision. The tough road is usually what God wants us to do. But, I mean, forget about the Billy Graham rule. We ought to call this the Joseph rule. Run from sexual immorality and from sexual temptation. There was a time in my own life when I had to apply this rule. When I was a high school teacher, there was a female teacher who was young and attractive and enjoyed coming into my classroom after school when I was by myself just to have conversations. She was quite flirtatious in her personality and the way that she would talk. I learned later that this was kind of how she spoke to all men. She just had that personality. You never could quite tell, is she really interested in me or is she just having fun? What is she really up to? But she came into my room on two separate occasions just to talk. She didn't want anything. She wasn't looking for advice. She would just sit there and want to have a conversation with me. It made me nervous. So that by the third time when she would walk in, as soon as she stepped through the door, I would stand up and say, I got to go to the office to get something. I gotta go look at some papers. And so that I wasn't lying, I would go to the office and I would ruffle through some files and the secretary would say, what are you looking for? I don't know. I'm just looking for something. I'll leave in a few minutes. After a few times, she quit coming into my room. But the reason I did that It's not because I was being tempted, but because I didn't want to be tempted. You know, understand I am fiercely devoted to my wife and to my marriage. But I also know that as a human being, I have a sin nature. We all do. Which means I don't trust myself as far as I can throw me. And neither should you. Because this is the way in which many people get themselves into trouble. They think too highly of themselves. That would never happen to me. I would never go down that road. And so they allow themselves to remain in a situation that then becomes tempting. And then there's a struggle. And sometimes they make the wrong choices. We do that not only in those physical type situations, but so often Christians do that with what they watch. They watch a show where there's nudity. Well, it's just one scene. Besides, it's not like it's nothing I've never seen before. It's not a big deal. I'm a mature Christian. I'm strong. This isn't going to affect me like it will affect someone else. Christians who don't watch these sort of things, well, they're kind of weak in their faith. See, I'm a strong Christian. This won't affect me. But my friends, it will. And it does. Over time, it affects your mind and your thoughts and your soul and ultimately your relationship and your marriage in ways that you are not even aware of. until you find yourself meeting with a divorce lawyer and you're wondering, how did we get here? Flee from sexual immorality. Run from it. Turn it off. Ad pops up. Shut the laptop. Maybe you have a job where you have to use a laptop. Then quit and get a new one. Find a job where the only tool you use is a shovel. Seriously, Jesus said if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off. What he's teaching us is be willing to use extreme measures to avoid sin. If your phone causes you to sin, get rid of it. You know, believe it or not, human beings lived for thousands of years without phones. It is possible. So Paul says flee sexual immorality. Why? He gives us three reasons. First reason is found in the second half of verse 18. There he says, every sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. So here's the first reason. Sexual sins are the pinnacle of illogical. Irrational. Of all sins, they are the most illogical and the most irrational because you are simply harming yourself. You're sinning against yourself. Every other sin is outside the body, meaning every other sin is committed against someone else. Think of it, thou shalt not murder. Who are you hurting? The person you killed. Thou shalt not steal. Who are you hurting? The person you stole from. Thou shalt not lie. Who are you hurting? The person's reputation that you've lied about. Don't take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Who are you hurting? Who are you sinning against? God. Paul says, when we commit sexual immorality, we are hurting ourselves. How much sense does that make? Now, honestly, if we stop and think about it, there are sins that we commit against our own body that are other than sexual immorality, right? If we think about it, I'll give you a few if you can't think of any. Drunkenness. Gluttony, cutting ourselves, suicide, right? These are all sins against ourselves. But here's the difference. With all of those sins and any others that you can think of that fall into that category, we have to use some tool to do it. Drunkenness, we take alcohol and we pour it into ourselves. Gluttony, we take food and we eat too much of it. Suicide, we got to use something to kill ourselves with. But what Paul means is that with sexual sins, we use our own body as the tool against ourselves. We weaponize our own body against ourselves. Thus, sexual sins are the most illogical and the most irrational of all sins because you are harming yourself with lifelong consequences. Lifelong consequences. I say that because of the nature of sexual sins. Because unlike other sins, sex is both a physical and a spiritual event. There's no such thing as casual sex. Thus, sexual sins have a long-lasting consequence, unlike any other sin, because no other sins have a spiritual dimension to it to the level and to the degree of sexual sins. For example, if you live sort of the partying life before you got saved and, you know, you did drugs. Now, unless you did really hard drugs for a long time, you know, you could struggle with physical ailments the rest of your life if you cause damage to yourself. But that's not always the case. If you moderately participated in drugs before you got saved and then you quit those, well then you're fine. There's no long-term effects. If you stole cars before you got saved and then you got saved, you quit stealing cars, you're fine. I mean, unless you got arrested, then you got a criminal record, which is with you. But if you didn't get caught, you stopped doing that, then you're fine. However, sexual sins have lifetime consequences. And I always try to stress this to our young people. Because when you engage in sexual activity outside of marriage, either before marriage or while you're married with someone that you shouldn't, but before marriage when you do that, listen, you damage your future marriage. You damage it. And so oftentimes they buy into the lie that we've stayed pure, now we're engaged, we're going to get married, why does it matter? since we are going to get married. Listen, young people, if you do that before marriage, you have damaged your marriage. And you will struggle with the baggage of that for the rest of your marriage. But that includes other forms of sexual immorality. Pornography that you look at before or during marriage damages the spiritual relationship between two spouses in ways that they don't even realize to the extent that they are unaware of. They struggle in the marriage and oftentimes can't figure out why. It goes back to that. In fact, sexual sins are so damaging. It's interesting that whenever Paul lists a group of sins that Christians ought to avoid, he always lists sexual immorality first. In chapter 5, verse 11, he says, but now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of, number one, sexual immorality or greed or idolater or reviler. Colossians 3, verse 5, Paul says this, "'Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire,' so forth and so on. 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 3, "'For this is the will of God for your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality Paul says, flee from it because it will damage your life and your marriage in far more ways than you will ever even realize. The second reason to run from sexual immorality, according to Paul in verse 19, he says, or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you whom you have from God? Do you not know? This is now the sixth time he has said this in this chapter alone. He says that in verse 2, verse 3, verse 9, verse 15, verse 16, and then here. Don't you know this? You ought to know how bad sexual sins are. Do you not know? Do you not know what? That your temple, that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God. Paul is alluding to the Old Testament. Remember in the Old Testament, the tabernacle first, before the building of Solomon's temple, and then the temple was considered to be the dwelling place of God. It was the throne room of God. Yes, God is omnipresent, and the Jews knew that as well. They knew God is everywhere, but they understood because God had taught it to them that the temple was the embassy of God on earth. The temple, the tabernacle, was a piece of heaven on earth. It was the designated meeting place between God and his people, between the king and his subjects. That was God's home, his tabernacle. And so Paul wants us to know, amazingly, that our bodies are a temple of God, of the Holy Spirit. Let that sink in for a minute. We wash over that far too quickly these days. The God of creation. The God who spoke the universe into existence by the power of his word. The God who is enthroned in heaven and the earth is his footstool. If you're a believer is the same God who indwells you. He's inside of you. Now we need to be careful not to read more into Paul's words than are there. I want to qualify what I've said. Notice that Paul says, your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. He doesn't say the temple of the Holy Spirit. He does not use the definite article. And that's important because Paul does use the definite article elsewhere. For example, 2 Corinthians 6.16, Paul says there, What agreement has the temple, what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we, all believers, the corporate body of the saints, for we are the temple of the living God. In other words, every believer is a temple of God in the sense that God indwells them, but every believer by themselves is not the temple of God. That's an important distinction because Christians take this and they think, oh, I see. So I'm the church. Wherever I am, the church is there. So why do I got to go to a building on Sunday, right? If I'm out on the lake fishing by myself, I'm doing church because I'm the church. You are not the church. Individually, you are not the church. You are a part of the church. You are a member of the church. You are a living stone being built up into the temple of God, according to 1 Peter. Yes, God indwells each believer, and so in that sense, every believer is a temple, but not every believer is the temple. There are enormous implications, by the way, for the importance of the gathering of the saints on Sunday morning, the corporate worship of believers coming together to reconstitute the temple of the living God. Nevertheless, the Holy Spirit does indwell every believer, And he has been given to us as a gift from God. The point Paul wants us to get is that whatever you do and wherever you go, know that you take the Holy Spirit with you. You take God with you. In other words, whatever you watch on television, God is watching with you. Whatever you look at on the internet, God is looking at that with you. However you treat others or how you think of others, God sees those thoughts in your mind like a jumbo television. Wow. Can't believe what I'm looking at. And when you engage in sexual sins, the face that you are looking at is the same face that God is looking at because God is there with you. You know, we tend to forget this, right? Because I'm convinced that most of what Christians do and look at in the privacy of their own room or their own home by themselves, they would not do and they would not look at if their minister was standing right next to them. What are you looking at? What is that? Most of what you look at or much of what you look at on your phone, if you're married, you probably would not look at if your husband or wife was standing over your shoulder. What is that? Am I right? My friends, God is right there with you. Everything you do, every word you speak, every thought you think, and everything you look at, God is right there with you. But this is why 2 Corinthians 5, 7 says, we walk by faith and not by sight. You see, ultimately, it comes down to a matter of faith. Do we really believe the Word of God? Do we really believe that God is omnipresent? Do we really believe that God sees and knows everything? Do we really believe that our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit? Because if we really believe that, I think half of what we do, we would stop doing. The Holy Spirit is with us. The third reason that Paul gives that we ought to run from sexual immorality is at the end of verse 19, second half of verse 19, and then verse 20. You are not your own, for you were bought with a price, so glorify God in your body. Your body does not belong to you. It's not yours. And Paul isn't just talking about our physical body. Remember, he's using the same word, soma. And in Pauline theology, it is the whole of who we are. Yes, the sins that we commit are committed with the body and in the body, but our soul is inside of our body. So whatever sins we commit, we sin with the whole of who we are. Your body does not belong to you because you were bought with a price. Paul makes this so clear in Acts 20, verse 28. There he's giving instructions to the Ephesian elders on how to care for the church and their responsibilities. And he says this to them, and I'm going to cite, I think, the New American Standard, the New King James. It really has a better translation. Acts 20, 28, Paul says to the Ephesian elders, be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of God, listen, which he purchased with his own blood. That is the price that Christ paid for you, his own blood. And not that he just pricked his finger and said, okay, there's the price. He was flogged. He was beaten. A crown of thorns was stuffed onto his head. Blood flowed from his face and from his back. He was nailed to a cross with three nails and forced to hang there for six tremendously agonizing and painful hours. And then at the end, he was driven through with a spear, and blood came pouring out of his side. And this is the price that Christ paid for all of you if you're a believer. He bought you. He bought your body with his own blood. If Christians would grasp hold of this simple truth, the effects would be enormous in how we live the Christian life. Because it means that we do not have the right to do whatever we want with our bodies. We don't have the right to do whatever we want with our eyes. Do you ever think of that? You don't have the right to look at whatever you want with your eyes. They're not your eyes. They're God's. You don't have the right to listen to whatever you want with these ears. They're not your ears. Whether we're talking about sermons, lectures, music, gossip, slander, you don't have the right to listen to what you want with your ears. You don't have the right to say whatever you want with your mouth. So here's a newsflash. If you're a believer, you do not have freedom of speech. I don't care what the constitution says. You don't have the right to say whatever you want. It is not your mouth. You don't have the right to use your hands in however way you want. You don't have the right to use your feet however you want. I have the right and the freedom to go wherever my feet will carry me. Wrong. If you're a believer, get this, you don't have freedom of movement either because they're not your feet. And you certainly don't have the right to do whatever you want with your sexual organs. They do not belong to you. They belong to Christ because he bought them with his own blood. But it also means that we do not have the right to abuse this body. We don't have the right to do whatever we want to this body. to put into it whatever we want, to what extent whatever we want. Yes, the Bible permits the partaking of alcohol, but that doesn't mean you have the right to drink half a bottle of whiskey and get drunk. Yes, God has given us food to richly enjoy, but we don't have the right to eat as much of it as we desire and engage in gluttony. We don't have the right to put drugs into our body without good medical reason. Now, I want to be clear, and I know I've gone long, I'm sorry, but this is not to say, I want to be clear, this is not to say that we ought to become health nuts. This passage is not saying that, look, if you don't go to the gym at least 120 times a week, and you don't look like an Olympic athlete, And you're not just eating food that is grown in the Holy Land and shipped to your front door for $19.95. You're sinning. I personally believe that it can be a very sanctifying experience to eat a Double Double from In-N-Out. That can be debated, but that's just me. But there's a balance. God doesn't want us to be extreme except with one thing, be extreme in loving Christ. Be extreme in wanting to glorify Christ. But we don't have the right to abuse our bodies. God has given us these bodies to take care of them. They belong to him, not us. So to sum it all up, let me close with this. Because verses 12 to 20 is really one section of scripture. It really all goes together. There's a central point throughout all of it, and I wanna wrap it all up with this. Here's Paul's point throughout verses 12 to 20. Christ's resurrection and our future resurrection proves that our bodies have value. And our bodies are not meant for sex, rather our bodies are meant for God's glory. And Christ purchased our bodies. If you're a believer, Christ purchased your body with his own blood, thus glorify God with your bodies. In the end, Christians are not just to live lives which point to Christ, Christians are to live the life of Christ, Christ living in us and through us because this is Christ's body. This is his. Let's use it in the way that he would desire for it to be used. Let's pray. Gracious God, heavenly Father, Lord, we pray, Father, that you would give us all strength. This is something that every believer struggles with to some extent, and we'll see that even as we get into chapter seven, sexual relations within marriage. Sexual immorality is something that we all struggle with. Father, I pray that by your Holy Spirit, you would enable us to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. We cannot do this on our own. We cannot do this by our own strength. I pray that you would enable us to be wholly dependent upon you and that by your Holy Spirit, you would give us the strength, the desire, and the fortitude to live our lives in a way that brings you glory and honor. In Christ's name, amen. I'll just quickly say that the Lord's Supper reminds us