Let's read a paragraph from 1 Corinthians chapter 6. I'll be making reference to phrases in this paragraph, points in the paragraph, but trying to underline and Trying to highlight verse 20. I wish it could be preached the way it has been sung. 1 Corinthians 6, verse 12. All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, not for sin, but for the Lord. And the Lord is for the body. Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be. Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For he says the two shall become one flesh. But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with him. Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? Now verse 20, for you have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body. You have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body. In the middle of August, I came down with a back spasm. had never had one before, a muscle spasm, and for about three weeks was basically flat in bed. And things like that make you appreciate the strength that you have even to hold your head up. Our bodies are Very instrumental, aren't they? In trying to do anything for the Lord. I'd like to look here at this, at three things. Number one, a great exhortation. Glorify God. And then a particular location. in your bodies. And third, a very powerful motivation, you have been bought with a price. First this phrase, we're taking them out of order, glorify God. What an exhortation. I mean it's like in this one verse and more particularly in this one phrase is a compendium of the Bible. The call to glorify God. I can remember when 1 Corinthians chapter 10 came to the doorstep of my heart. Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. I was a senior in college and I began to wonder why I existed, where I was going, where I had come from, why I was here. My brother had been saved by the grace of God two months before me. He came down to share the gospel with me, and one of the questions that I had was this, why am I here? And he shared with me two tracts. One of them was the real purpose of life, and it was highlighting 1 Corinthians 10.31, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to His glory. And I thought, there it is. That's why I'm here. That answers everything from now on to the casket. to live for the glory of God. This will hold me way down to the wheelchair. 1 Peter, it says, as each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Let him who speaks, speak as it were the oracles of God. Let him who serves do so as by the strength which God supplies that God in all things may be glorified through Christ to whom belongs the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Mother, Sam is it? Mentioned that verse from Matthew 5. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and what? Glorify your Father who is in heaven. And verses could be multiplied. The old confession says, the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him, yes, for time and for eternity. That is the chief end of man. That's the way the son of man summed up his life. Father, I have glorified you on the earth. Don't you want to end up being able to say that like Jesus? I've glorified you on earth. That'll be the end of the human race. Whether they want to or not, whether they've done it or not, the Lord Jesus will come back and raise them from the dead. And then every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. They will glorify Him in the end. They didn't do it by faith, they'll have to do it by force. They didn't do it by love, they'll be forced to do it anyhow. The Lord will make their tongue wag and say, yes, you're Lord and I should have served you. And that right there, this right here, the violation of this, brethren, you know, it is the crime of all men's crimes that they did not glorify Him. When they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God. Neither were they thankful. Oh, that's the crime of all men's crime. Belshazzar, that God in whose hand is your life, breath, and all your ways, you didn't glorify. And he was dead that night and in hell. That devil does not want any glory to go to God. He doesn't want you to give him the glory. He wants you to keep on living for self. And that's one great element of the Gospel call is death to self and all to Christ. That's part of the Gospel. It says in Revelation 14, I saw an angel flying through mid-heaven, having the everlasting Gospel. Crying out, fear God and give him the glory. If we miss it right here, my dear friends, if we miss it here, your life will amount to no more than a hayfield mouse running around. A lot of action, a lot of activity, but utterly pointless. And so we have this great exhortation, glorify God. So simple, so beautiful, so profound, so wonderful. Answering a thousand questions, all of the questions we need. Ultimately, all the questions we have right here in this life. Let's go to the third phrase. Glorify God in your body. I'm taking them out of order. You understand? Glorify God in your body. First we have this great exhortation. And then we have a specified particular location. Glorify God in your body. wonder why is it that the Apostle Paul specifies the body? Paul says to the Romans, I serve God in my spirit, in the gospel of his son, in my spirit. A lot of emphasis on the heart, the heart of the matter. You've got to get your heart right and then everything else will take care of itself. So why is Paul saying the body here? Well, the Bible does that sometimes because our bodies are a vehicle for our soul. And it's just very practical to talk about the body. That's where, as they say, the rubber meets the road. Our bodies are very closely connected to our soul, and the devil knows that. And if he can get a hold of a society, my way of health care, He's got them. You go to any society, whether it's aboriginal or whatever, and the medicine man and the witch doctor, they are the big, the powerful men in that society. And so it's a big thing. The devil knows it. And he came, you know, against Job and he said to God, if you just let me touch his body, he'll knuckle under. So the body is very important in the economy of God in our lives. I say it's a vehicle for the soul, and the body and the soul are just so intimately tied together, so strangely tied together. You can't explain it. One can affect the other. The soul can affect the body. When I was a new Christian, I needed to have an electric seat. I had a lot of driving to do in my job, and it was affecting my tailbone. And so I needed an electric seat to raise the seat way up high to take the pressure off. And so I had to buy a new car. And so I bought a new car. It cost $5,400 at the time. And I went and did a little to do it. And it said I ended up, I started getting an ulcer. It bothered me so much. This mental thing affected my body. It says that envy will rot your bones. The soul can affect the body, and on the other hand, the body can affect the soul. You drop a weight on your toe and you don't feel near as cocky. It affects your inner man. And so, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh, not to the body, And yet, on the other hand, God is for the body. We read that up here in verse 13. The Lord is for the body. So much for the body that He sent His Son. In the likeness of sinful flesh, He sent His Son to take on a body just like ours. The Lord is so much for the body that He's going to raise your body from the dead and fashion it like unto His glorious body, if you're a believer. Sown mortal but raised immortal. God is for the body. I can remember as a new Christian when that dawned on me. What? The Lord is going to raise my body? It was just a marvelous thing in my sight and we forget about it easily. So we are called, you know, to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. Our bodies a living sacrifice. Take my life, my body, my hands, my feet, my lips, my all in all, a living sacrifice for you. We're going to be judged by the things we have done in our body, every thought we've thought, every word we've spoken, every step we've taken, every penny we've spent, every bite we've taken. The body is specified here. So a glorious exhortation to glorify God and a specific designation in our bodies. Now, third and the first phrase, for you've been bought with a price. Here we have a very binding, gripping motivation. You've been bought with a price, therefore, Glorify God in your body. You have been bought with a price. Notice this. Paul puts this motivation before us. It's not law, it's love. You've been bought with a price in view of what the Lord has done for you. Therefore, glorify God in your body. Love so amazing, so divine demands my life, my soul, my all. He says a price. You've been bought with a price. What is that price? Peter calls it. He says you've been redeemed, not with corruptible things like silver and gold. They seem so valuable. They seem so precious. They seem so incorruptible. But yet he says, not with corruptible things like silver and gold. Ultimately, they are corruptible. Ultimately, they are nothing compared to what he mentions in the next phrase. He says, but with the precious blood of Christ. The precious blood of Christ. In August, we We sent our second son, Zachary, off to college about two hours away to study to become a mechanical engineer. And Zach, he'd been with us for 20 years, lived in our house. He was with us for 20 years. And we sent him off. And I knew I was going to feel it. I came back and the room, all of his furniture, we'd moved it with him and his room was empty. The only thing that was left was a mirror on the wall with the old scripture verse that Zach had written on that mirror and I was brought to tears. If that's the way a father feels on earth, what was it for the heavenly father to send his son? I mean, I'd been with Zach, he'd been with me for 20 years, but the Son of God had been with the Father from all eternity. And thankfully, so thankfully, Zach and I, we'd had hardly even a rift of difficulty. Real good fellowship, real good friendship with my dear son. But that's nothing compared with a heavenly father and his son. There was absolutely perfect fellowship, perfect love, the love which I ever had with you before the world began. I sent my son off to get a degree in mechanical engineering when the father in heaven sent his son off to be made sin. It was very real, very real. It was no piece of theater, it was very real what happened. We're talking about the price. And think of what the Lord Jesus, we can only imagine really, what it was for Him. The immortal dies, the infinite becomes finite, He upholds all things by the word of His power, was now upheld by a mother's arms, You are so great the heavens could not contain him, yet squeezed down into a mother's womb. God of light in the darkness of a mother's womb. You built the heavens, now fiddling around in a carpenter's shop and growing up the patience of the Lord exercised for 30 years, knowing he was the savior of the world, yet saying almost nothing. waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting until the time appointed by the Father when He could open His mouth and go forth, repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. And then began more severely the sufferings, the shame, the rejection, the neglect, and then the scoffing, the spitting, the slapping, the spike, the spear, the thorns, dying as an apparent failure and being forsaken by the Heavenly Father, having been made sin for us. We have no idea what the Lord went through, the price that was paid. You've been bought with a price. Look at this other word, you've been bought. Sometimes scripture describes it in terms of justification. Formerly we were condemned, but now we are right with God. Sometimes it talks in terms of forgiveness. For once we were in debt, but now it is canceled. Sometimes it talks in terms of adoption. For once we were strangers, but now we are sons of God. Sometimes in terms of reconciliation. For once we are enemies, but now we are friends. Sometimes in terms of redemption. For once we were slaves, but now we are free. But here the term is bought. Just so simple, isn't it? You know, everyone knows what the word bought means. Jesus paid it all. He paid our sin debt. I like that simple term. You've been bought with a price. Acts 20, shepherd the church of God which he purchased with his own blood. You've been redeemed, not with corruptible things, but with the precious blood of Christ. Worthy are you to take the book and to break the seals for you were slain and you've purchased with your blood men from every tribe, tongue, people and nation. You've been bought. Was the body bought? It surely was. Romans chapter 8, it says we're waiting for the adoption to with the redemption of the body. The Lord has bought our soul, he's bought our bodies, bought it all. Jesus paid it all. For who? For whom? It says, you have been bought for the price. You have been. Talking about the Christian, who is a temple of the Holy Spirit, a Christian, that is the saints of God, you have been bought for the price. You know, I believe the Bible teaches a particular effectual redemption. You have been bought. The Lord laid down his life for the sheep. It says in Galatians that he was made a curse for us. It says in Ephesians that he loved us and gave himself for us. And if you don't know who the us is, you go on a few more verses. He loved the church and gave himself for her. Paul makes it all the more personal. He says, he loved me and gave himself for me. You have been bought with a price. Matt Graham was put in Isaac's place. That Passover lamb was slain for Israel, not Egypt. I tell you, if you don't come to see that the Lord Jesus personally died for you personally, you're not going to find the comfort and the assurance that you could have. You have been bought with a price. Now, let's make some applications. What do you think of? What should we think of if we have been bought? One thing that we ought to think of is that we're not our own. And that's the previous phrase in verse 19. You are not your own, for you have been bought for the price. You're not your own. Ownership, it settles a lot of issues, doesn't it? I mean, you might see in your neighbor's driveway, look at that. He's bought a new car. I bet that'd ride better than mine. So you go over there and think, well, I'd just like to drive that thing. I'd like to just go ahead and use that. And then you're reminded, of course, that's his, not mine. He owns it. And you better not even put your sticky fingers on it. And so we have been bought with a price, and we're not our own. Hands off. Don't touch it. You're not your own. Don't touch your life. The Lord bought it, you're not your own. Everything belongs to Him. Away, just away with self and all of its many manifestations. You belong to Jesus and He belongs to you. It answers a thousand issues in your life, doesn't it? All of your time, all of your money, everything you do. Like one brother, he had the attitude, he'd be out there in prayer, Lord, it's breakfast time, can I go eat? You're not your own. You're not your own and you're not anybody else's. Look at that over here in the next chapter. Chapter 7, verse 23. It says, you were bought for the price, do not be slaves of men. That's another application of this matter, this fact of being bought. Don't be slaves of men. This country is being run by a bunch of politicians, low-down little no-good Burmese men-pleasers. But the Christian has been bought with a price, and who is a Christian? He is not a Jew. His praise is not of men, but of God. We've come to realize that we answer to God. We're serving Him. And the power of the fear of man is broken. What liberty we have that we've been bought with a price. We are not our own. So when you think of being bought for the price, be reminded you're not your own. You belong to the Lord. He paid for you. A lot of issues, I say, are solved by this matter of ownership. Here's a couple children fighting and squabbling over a toy and you come up and you say, well, whose toy is it? Well, it's mine. Well, that settles the matter. A second. The truth that we should think of if we've been bought with a price is usefulness and purpose. First of all, ownership. Secondly, use and purpose. It says in verse 19, do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit? That speaks of use and purpose. Same way up here in verse 13. We are for the Lord. It speaks of use and purpose. A temple. Sam was just talking about that from 1 Peter an hour ago. What happens in a temple? That's the place where sacrifices are made. That's the place where there's communion between God and men. God meeting with his people. And so if we are a temple of the living God, we ought to think, We ought to enjoy communion with the Lord continually and progressively. Communion with God, walking with God, a temple of the Holy Spirit. We ought to think in terms of not grieving the Spirit, not quenching the Spirit, not despising the Spirit, not rejecting the Spirit. These are Bible terms. We ought to think of being led by the Spirit, sowing to the Spirit, walking in the Spirit, the love of the Spirit, fellowship of the Spirit. These are Bible terms. We are a temple of the Holy Spirit of God. We've been bought with a price. We're not our own. The Holy Spirit of God, we ought to think if we've been... I mean, when a carpenter buys a tool, he buys it for a purpose. When a landlord buys a house, he buys it for a purpose. He puts you in charge as a steward and he comes back, what, you've not rented it out? You're not using it? I bought it for a purpose. And that purpose is not sin. Negatively speaking, it says here in verse 13, the body is not for immorality. It's not for sin. Here you bought this Grace House, and here's James in charge of it. And a month down the road, my Tim goes over to take a look and, James, what have you done? You filled it with chickens? We didn't buy it for that. Turned it into a hen house. You've been bought with a price. It's for a purpose. Not for sin. That's beneath the dignity. Brethren, do not. I mean, it says in Romans 6, do not let sin reign in your mortal body. Don't do it. Don't let sin reign in your mortal body. You've been bought for a purpose. What sin is too big for the living God, who is with His people like the horns of a wild ox? What sin is too big for King Jesus? He came to save His people from their sins. What sin is too big for the Spirit of God? What sin is too big for the new birth? The Lord has wired us up differently. Any sin you permit or entertain, it is not going to fulfill you. It's not going to satisfy you. You've been wired up for righteousness. And now that is hypocrisy. What sin is too big for the Spirit of Christ in our heart? You know, the Lord Jesus was raised by the Spirit of God. Raised by the Spirit of God in that same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is the same spirit that raised you from the grave of your sins. It's a wonder we don't blow up like an overpowered tractor. The resurrection spirit living in our heart, the power of God. What sin is too big for that? Paul says in verse 12, I'm not being mastered by anything. You know, my father, he purposed many times to quit smoking cigarettes. And then Jared, my son here, got to be about four years old. And one day they were sitting at the kitchen table and my father saw Jared pick up a toothpick and imitate him smoking a cigarette. And that did it. My father said, I'm not going to smoke anymore and he didn't. And my father was not born again. We put up with a lot of sin, that we wouldn't have to, that we get victory. The way to get victory over it is greater determination. And Paul says, I bruise my body, I buffet my body and make it my slave. I'm not going to be mastered by anything. That is mere Christianity, walking with a clear conscience, a no known sin between me and the Lord. Your body is not for immorality, not for sin. Don't let the pigs of fantasizing thoughts walk through your mind. Your body is not for that. He loved us, he gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself a people for his own possession. So first, we ought to think of ownership. Secondly, we ought to think of usefulness and purpose. And let me point this out also. One man said, oh, Vader Zupke, he said, we can thank God that he has made the wages of sin so high. I mean, sin, God has made it so sin is hard on the body. That's what we have here in verse 18. A man sins against his own body. Sin does not fit your body. It says in Romans chapter 1 that they dishonored their bodies among themselves. Sin will get you to hurt your body, it dishonors your body. It'll get you to eat food that is not healthy for your body, drink drink that is not healthy for your body, take risks that is not healthy for your body. Sin is hard on the body. They say something like 90% of cervical cancer is a result of sin. Sin is hard on the body. Envy is rottenness to the bones. 1 Corinthians 11, it says, for this cause many among you are weak and sick and a number sleep. Sin is hard on the body. Demons are hard on the body. Sin is hard on the body. God has made it that way. Drugs are hard on the body. Sin does not fit us. False religion is hard on the body. I mean, it speaks in Colossians chapter 2 of self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, false religion. Well, Robert Flockhart He lived in about the middle 1800s. He was a street preacher, and before he was a street preacher, he was in the British Navy and ended up in India. He says he saw folks down there that were going around for weeks at a time with their arm in the air due to some religious vow, some Hindu vow. Their arm was withered right down to a stick, seeing his heart on the body. The Muslim beats his head against the wall till the blood runs down. Sin is hard on the body. Those priests up on Mount Carmel, they cut themselves till the blood ran. I'm saying sin is hard on the body. They offered their children to Moloch. Yeah, sin is hard on the body. I've seen pictures of the aborigines. They put rings, progressive rings, around their neck until their neck gets stretched out to about nine inches long. You know, sin is hard on the body. It'll get you to put bolts in your body, stain your body. Sin is hard on the body. The Chinese, they used to put the little girl's feet in boxes so that the feet wouldn't grow and cripple them for life. What a thing. The bungee jump started out as some religious thing. Sin can be pretty hard on the body. Finally, when we think of being bought for the price, we ought to think of care. Ownership, purpose, and care. Growing up on a farm, I can remember my dad saying to my brother and I, boys, we paid a lot of money for this implement or this tool. I want you to take care of it. And so God wants us to take care of our body. I mean, there's a balance, isn't there? On the one hand, you can protect your body pamper and pet your body, and that unrighteously, but on the other hand, there's another ditch, and that is not caring for your body. I mean, we care for our cars, we care for our houses, why do the saints not care for their bodies? We ought to pray, Lord, teach me how to feed my body, how to work my body, how to rest my body, how to exercise my body, to get the most trouble three miles out of our body we can, for the glory of God. Our bodies are pretty frail. We're compared to not trees but grass. It says the Lord will do away with both of them. We read that in verse 13. The body is a pretty weak instrument. Just a little invisible bug can bring us down. But you know, that's more glory to God as well. Maybe some of you have been down there to Silver Dollar City or theme parks like that, and you know people travel for miles to see these fellows, these craftsmen, building this or that with some very primitive tool. But the more primitive, the more weak the tool, the more glory goes to the craftsmen. And so here God gets glory through our bodies. When I was back in college there was a power lifter, Pete Weaver was his name. He wasn't much to look at, he was just 130 pounds, but yet there was some glory about him because he could bench press twice his body weight. And so God takes the little likes of us to get glory all the more through his name. We have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of ourselves. You've been brought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.