We're at 1 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians chapter 5. I just want to point out to you that chapter 4 verse 7 describes us as jars of clay. Beginning now, 2 Corinthians chapter 5, reading from 1 to 10. Please give your attention to the word of God. For we know that if the tent, which is our earthly home, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent, we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling. If indeed by putting it on, we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened, not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God. who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. First Corinthians at chapter six, beginning at verse 13. I just want to comment that Brumal began going through first Corinthians probably six or nine months before we did. And I want to say that, uh, My colleague Alex Tabaka's sermons on 1 Corinthians 6 and 7 are excellent, so I highly recommend them to you. I recommend that you find them on Serpent Audio and listen to them at your leisure. So that's Tabaka, Brumal, 1 Corinthians 6 and 7. 1 Corinthians 6, beginning at verse 13. I'm gonna begin halfway through verse 13 and read to the end of the chapter. 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? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never. Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, the two will become one flesh. But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. 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. As Christians, we need to have the correct theology of the body. What's this thing for? What am I supposed to do with it? And the world presses two errors on us. A more common error and a less common error. The more common error is to say the body is everything. Some do this in a very mindful way. That is, they say there is nothing. There is no mind or soul or spirit. There is only your body. You might call that mindful materialism. But the more common version is just to say, I don't even think about it. All I think about is eating, and sleeping, and beautifying my body, and pleasuring my body, and displaying my body, and I don't ever think about anything higher than my body. The body becomes functionally my everything, because it's all I think about. And then there's a different group, smaller perhaps, but kind of noisy in certain ways, that says, no, the body is nothing. All that matters is my will on the inside. I'm a man if I say I am, and I'm a woman if I say I am, and the body has nothing to say about it. I, that is my will, is all that says anything. You can call that expressive individualism if you want to be modern, or Gnostic if you want to be ancient. So there's some who say, okay, the body is everything. Some who wanna say, okay, the body is nothing, it tells me nothing. And both those errors have one thing in common. They both say that I am the sole, undisputed owner of my body. Now certainly your body is yours and mine is mine. Let's poke at that. Are you the sole undisputed owner of your body? Did you make it? Yes. You're all going to the gym. You look great. You're making it better. Did you make the body? No. Can you keep your body? No. Can you save your body? No. All right, so in a certain sense, obviously your body is yours. That's certainly true, but the idea that you are the only one that is related to this, well, you know, when you rent an apartment, at least you get to look at different apartments and choose one. You didn't get to do that with your body. If you keep up your payments, you usually get to keep the apartment, but that's not the case here either. We are less than renters. So we are stewards of our body, and as soon as we realize that we're stewards, we gotta start thinking, okay, who's the owner, and what are his plans? We need to write theology of the body. And so we began with 2 Corinthians 5 to point out that the body is not everything. It's a jar of clay. It's an earthly tent. Both these things bring out the body in its weakness. in its mortality if our earthly tent is destroyed. Bodies don't want it to be everything. It's fairly weak. It's also a place of suffering. He says, in this earthly tent we groan. We might wish to exit. He makes it clear that to exit the body is to find an addition, not a subtraction. This is because we don't want to be unclosed, but further closed. Body's not everything. In this body we are, he says, away from the Lord. We don't see Jesus now. Jesus has been raised to heaven in his body and soul. If you would see him in the present age, you must leave your body behind and go in your soul to heaven to see him. So the body is not everything. It's weak, it's mortal, it's groaning, it's away from the Lord. The body's not everything. But, as we already saw at the end of 2 Corinthians 5, the body is very important. He says, in this life, that is, in this body, we make it our aim to please Him. And He concluded that He will judge us for the things that are done in the body. Specifically saying that, in 2 Corinthians 5.10, we'll be judged for what is done in the body. That's the importance of the body. And here in 1 Corinthians 6, He says, the body is for the Lord. Now you'll notice if you read it, sometimes he says Lord, sometimes he says Christ, we're talking about Jesus with both those terms. And when he says God, he means God the Father, and when he says Spirit, he means the Holy Spirit. He says the body is for the Lord. That's a sweeping way to think about it. It appears that we've met the owner. We're the stewards, body is for the Lord, he is the owner. And then he says something amazing. He says, and the Lord is for the body. You see how great Jesus is? That he is for us as we are. That he's for us as we are now. He's not just for a part of us. He's not just for us the way we will be later. He's for us the way we are now. The Lord is for the body and for the soul. We take that for granted. He is for us, body and soul. And we can see that that's true because in the beginning he created us, body and soul. The creation says he's for the body. He looked at all that he had made, and it was very good. We also see that the Lord is for the body because he has one. He took one on, the word became flesh. His incarnation, that's incarnitas, in the meat, all right? When Jesus entered into the body, we see that he is for the body because he took it up so as to save them. If anyone says, well, hang on a second, that didn't go so well for God when He took on a human body. He suffered a lot in His human body. Are you sure He's still for the human body? Well, what's it remind you of next? It says, and God raised the Lord. Yes, He suffered greatly in the body, but He took it back up again anyway. He is still in His body. He was laid in the tomb. That's how it's phrased. not they laid the corpse in the tomb, but they laid Jesus in the tomb. And there he was, without breathing, without a heartbeat, without a brainwave. Eyes closed, lying on the slab. And then by the power of God, the brain began to work, the heart began to beat, he began to breathe, the eyes opened. We can speculate that he worked a hand free and unwrapped himself. And he got up and he left the tomb, because they found the tomb empty. By the way, the Bible's very clear to name several people who saw where he went. So there's no mistake made, because they went back to the same place and they knew where to go. The tomb was empty. And it's Jesus, the resurrected one, who promises us a general resurrection, that is, for all the rest of us. He spoke of the time when all who are in the tombs will come out. Not one, but all. He spoke to the Sadducees in a formal debate, saying, you don't understand the power of God. There is a resurrection. And so he promises the fulfillment of the Old Testament. Isaiah 26, 19, your dead shall live, their bodies shall rise. Or Daniel 12, many who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake. So the body is very important. We'll be judged for what we do in it. The body is for the Lord, the Lord is for the body. they will be raised up. And so he says, your body is members of Christ. He speaks here in a very physical way of our union that we have with Jesus. Jesus talked about it this way. Jesus said, I am the vine, you are the branches. Abide in me and I in you, and you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. Just as a branch, it's not in the vine, it's just a stick worthy of the fire. But in the vine, it produces grapes, much fruit. And the Apostle Paul speaks of this truth in terms of head and body. Jesus is the head. We collectively are the body. And he presses on further on in this book, and to say, in different parts of the body have different functions, hands and feet and eyes, and so it is in here. Different ones of us have different functions. We do this, we do that. I suppose I'm the mouth, because I talk. We have different parts in here. So he speaks here of our spiritual union that we have with Christ, the seal of which is our baptism. And he says, because of this union, we are one spirit with him. Now, there's a point there. He says, we are one spirit with him. We don't need the Lord's Supper. to become literally the body of Jesus so that we can physically be one with Jesus by eating Jesus. We don't need to do that because we become one with Jesus in one spirit, it says. You'll notice that, in one spirit. It doesn't have to be a physical connection that way. It's a spiritual oneness that we have with Jesus. But since we're whole people, our body and souls are so close together that if we are spiritually one, the body is also involved in that union. And as he goes on to say, and if we're bodily one, the spirit comes along in the union. Because he then transfers to talk about something else that is powerful and makes two people one. He goes on there at verse 16 and 15 to speak of sex. Sex makes two people one. Now the world knows sex is very important and powerful. If you doubt it, just turn on the radio. One song after another. Oh, you are so beautiful. Oh, I'm mad at you for leaving. Oh, you are so beautiful. Oh, I'm mad at you for leaving. One song after another, we know the importance of sex through the music. The world, however, does a little trick at that point. The world wants to diminish the importance of sex and say, it doesn't make two people one. It's just having fun. And you say, that's funny. Why would you want to diminish the importance of something that you're always singing about? And the answer is to open up more avenues to have more of it. Which is dishonest. It's not important, give me more. Not important, give me more. Wait a minute, if it's not important, give me less. There's a dishonesty about how the world talks about it. But no, he says sex makes two people one. There in that church, they seem to have had some people saying the body is nothing. But sex feels good, so it's okay if you go to a prostitute. And he says, you are not to do this, because you are members of Christ, and you cannot then also be members of a prostitute. This, of course, is true of all kinds of sexual immorality, because that's really what he's talking about overall. You'll notice 18, flee from immorality in general. Body is not meant for immorality back in 13, back in 9. Immorality, the sexually immoral, will not inherit the kingdom of God. It's not just about prostitutes, but he singles that out and says, you can see how gross this is. How can one who is one with Christ be one in this other way as well? And he quotes Genesis 2.24. What an important verse. The two shall become one flesh. Jesus quotes that to teach us about divorce. Paul quotes that to teach us about marriage. And here Paul quotes it to teach us about immorality. It's an important verse. He says, the two shall become one flesh. And he says, that's referring to the sex part of marriage, because that's what's shared with the prostitute. It's not the vows that make the two one, he says. It's not the promises. It's not the house. It's not the kids. It has to be the sex, because again, that's all that the customer wants to share with the prostitute. And he says it applies, the two shall become one flesh. How can you become one with a prostitute if you are one with Christ? Again, the mode of oneness is different. The one is physical, the other is spiritual. But we are so closely connected body and soul, he says it is repugnant to mix the holy and the profane in this way. He speaks so strongly you might start to wonder if I'm already a Christian and I'm single, I'm one with Christ, am I allowed to get married? The answer is yes, next chapter. But right now, the theology of the body tells us sex is important. It makes two one. And it's the only thing that does that. That's why it's singled out in its own code of category, having a unique effect on the body. So he says, flee from sexual immorality. by which he means all sex outside of the marriage bond of one man and one woman. Flee sexual immorality. Now that's a strong word, flee. After this service, we will all go home, we will all leave, but that's gonna take us 10 or 20 or 30 minutes to get out of here. If we were to flee this room, we'd get out of here in 20 seconds. Flee means move. Flee means if Carl is slowing us down, Mike picks him up and falls down the stairs with him. Flee means we gotta move. And that's what this is saying. You have to flee immorality. And there's two reasons for that. One, the longer you just kind of like think about the glories of drinking that water, and you just look at that water, it's like, boy, it'd be great to drink that water. You know, pretty soon you can't think about anything but the water. I better put it back down there, right? You'd be distracted. You'd probably drink it. But secondly, with sex, Jesus says whoever looks on a woman to lust for her is already sinning. And I don't know how you stay in contact with immorality and have it just stay a temptation. You keep that temptation close to your mind for a couple seconds, I think you've already started to sin. You have to flee it. And we have a biblical example, Joseph. not the husband of Mary, but the son of Jacob. We're told he was a handsome young guy, he was a helpful slave, and Potiphar's wife wanted to take him to bed. Grabbed him by the coat. He was so eager to flee, he left the coat behind, which gave him some problems later, but he got away from the sin. He fled. And we're told of him that he had the spirit of God, and that he would not sin against God. And that is to be true of us, that we have the Spirit of God, and we are also to glorify God. So our theology of the body goes on so far as this. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, whom you have with you? Previously, it had said, y'all are the temple of God. So don't destroy God's temple. But now he individualizes that. He says, each one of you, he extends it to the bodies. You are a temple of the Holy Spirit. You are a temple of the Holy Spirit. Nathaniel, you are a temple of the Holy Spirit, whom you have from God. You see how he exalts them, having previously repuked them harshly. You don't do this because you know how glorious this is that you are a temple of the Holy Spirit. Now, since we are temples, We no longer need to build our cities around temples. So you may not know temple etiquette as well as you need to to really get this. But you can learn it just from reading the Bible, just from reading the Bible about pagan temples. Pagan temples are generally built in honor of one god or one goddess at a time. We hear about the priest of Zeus coming out to offer sacrifice. We hear about the temple of Artemis in Ephesus. Now here's the thing, if it's a temple of Artemis, you don't take an idol of Athena in there. Because if you know your stories, Artemis and Athena had beef. And you don't take an idol for Athena in there. You don't take an idol of Aphrodite into Artemis' temple. This is Artemis' temple. You don't defile it with a rival. You don't defile it in any kind of way. And so he's saying, you are a temple of the Holy Spirit, no rivals. and no defiling. Because when Jesus gave you the Holy Spirit, well, let's think about it. What do you call a structure that has a God living in it? You call that a temple. And since Jesus said, love me, and the Father and the Son will come to you and make our home with you. Well, when he fulfills that promise, God dwells within us. And so this body then, it's a structure that has God living inside it. It is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Now these kinds of considerations can almost be too much. You can get us to the point where we say, well, sins I've committed, how could I possibly be a temple? The defiling I've already done, is there any way forward here? Sounds like this temple needs to get raised. Not with an S, but with a Z. And so he concludes with a little bit of assurance there. You're not your own because you were bought with a price. A price. Yeah, it cost Jesus his life. It cost Jesus his life. Why? To pay the penalty for our sins. So there is forgiveness. So there is hope. We are to go to God seeking forgiveness for our sins. And not just forgiveness for the guilt, but we are to seek help in leaving the sin behind. The slave masters of Egypt, they weren't supposed to come with the Israelites into the desert. They're supposed to stay behind. And so we are to say, we are not our own. We have been bought with a price. How do I go out and leave these things behind? Because the price didn't just remove the guilt, it transferred ownership. God sent Moses to Pharaoh to say, let my people go, that they may serve me. Thus says the Lord, let my people go. That part's a famous song. But there's more to it that needs to make the song. Let my people go, that they may serve me. That's always what Moses says to Pharaoh. And so we have to understand, all right, there's a transfer of ownership. We're not owned by the world. We are owned by the Lord. He bought us. And so his ownership over our bodies is all the more intense now, all the more clear and definite that we are not our own. We were bought with a price. And that's a good thing for us. We need a God, because we didn't make ourselves. We can't keep ourselves. We can't save ourselves. We need a God. And there is no God but the one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And did you notice how all three persons are involved with our bodies? God will raise us. The Lord has bought us. He's for the body. He is one with us by his Spirit. So by the Spirit. We are indwelt by the Spirit, and we are temples of the Spirit. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each with a role in the salvation of our bodies. If we're not your own, it's a good thing, because otherwise it would soon be over for you. But we have an owner, our gracious Redeemer. We have hope for our bodies, hope for us as humans. So he says, glorify God in your body. and your mind, and your mouth, and rest in God in your conscience, but with your body. Because as Jesus said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and strength, and mind. Yeah, he included the body there. The body's included, because he means all that you have. And to review what we've learned today about the theology of the body. Body's not everything, but it's very important. We're to aim to please the Lord with what we do with it. because we will be judged for what we do in the body, whether good or ill. We've seen the body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. So we can see with his incarnation and his resurrection. We're a temple of the Holy Spirit, whom we have from God. We are not our own, because we're bought with a price, the buying being for both the soul and the body. Our bodies are members of Christ. And just as sex makes us members of one another, so we are spiritually members of Christ. And we're not to defile what Jesus has made holy. Because the issue in chastity is ownership. Who owns your body? For every Christian, the first answer is Christ. You were not your own, you were bought with a price. And for some, there's a second answer that we get into next week. Glorify God in your body. And so if this is a problem for you, seek accountability. Put limits on yourself. Do not blithely go on sinning. And rejoice that the body that God has made, he's gonna remake. He's the owner who cares for it. Because the Lord is for the body, and the body is for the Lord. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray for your grace and your strength, for your forgiveness. And we thank you, Lord, that you have made us as you have made us, both body and soul, both physical and spiritual. We thank you, Lord, for the things that we are and that you have made us and caused us to be. So help us, Lord, to bring our whole selves, body and soul, to you for service. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.