We need to know what the Bible says about these issues. It doesn't matter in the slightest what society has to say, or frankly what you have to say, or what I have to say. We need to know what God has to say. And so I ask during this series that you pay attention to Scripture. And in the process, feel free to question me, doubt me, double-check me. Make sure I'm not misrepresenting the Bible. If there is even an ounce of, thus saith Jason, feel free to disregard it. But when you see, thus saith the Lord, you're faced with either conforming to the word of God, are conforming to the world that is opposed to God. This morning we're not going to address a single specific issue. Lord willing, we're going to introduce the series by asking the question, does morality matter? First Corinthians chapter six. Our text is going to be verses 9 through 11, and we are kind of breaking into the context, but I'll explain the context in the process. 1 Corinthians 6, starting at verse 9, know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we just want to begin by praising you for your love and your mercy towards us. Lord, thanking you for your son, Jesus, without whom we would be utterly lost. And Lord, we trust that it's your divine wisdom and will that has placed us in the society in which we live. We thank you for the many blessings that we know that that affords us, but we also ask for your guidance to face the challenges that it brings. As we begin this study, Lord, this week and in the weeks to come, we ask that you would use your word to to speak to us, to help us know that you have spoken on each of these issues that surround us, to help us to understand what your word says, and Father, to help us to care more deeply about your word than those of the world around us. This morning, Lord, I ask that you would please strengthen me with your spirit that I would say all that you would have me to say and none of the things that I just myself would want to say. so that your people would be equipped to face the world in courage and wisdom, standing on your authority alone. Please help us to that end. We ask this in the name of your son, Jesus. Amen. As I said earlier, I struggled with when we should start this series. It was about a month ago that I had prayerfully determined this was the direction that we'd go. And any doubt that I had had about that was alleviated when the next day, immediately after having made that decision, the next day I was greeted by the results of the Gallup polls, 20-year tracking of American opinion about social issues. The annual poll tracks society's thoughts and feelings about just a massive variety of topics, many of which we're not going to deal with. I mean, it tracks opinions on topics from things like drug testing on animals to cloning, and it's not that God's word wouldn't speak to those things, but I just don't see those as issues that are pressing on us. It's a big study determining what percentage of the population finds each of those particular topics to be either morally acceptable or morally unacceptable. The results that I found astonishing are these. Forty-three percent of Americans feel that sexual relations among teens is morally acceptable. 46% believe that gender fluidity, changing one's gender, is morally acceptable. 47% said that they believe abortion to be morally acceptable. Almost 70% responded that gay and lesbian sex, homosexual sex, is morally acceptable. And 73% agreed that sex between unmarried men and women is morally acceptable. Incidentally, those last three, the percentage of Americans who find abortion, homosexuality, and I'll just call it casual sex to be morally acceptable, are each at an all-time high. The polls have been tracking this data for 20 years, and it concluded, quote, from a longer-term perspective, Americans' views have shifted significantly toward more permissive attitudes. No kidding. It isn't that those numbers in themselves are particularly surprising. It's only when you combine that with the fact that they also recognize we live in a country in which two-thirds of adults identify themselves as Christians that it becomes particularly troubling. What source are Christians using to determine what is morally acceptable? Because the very name Christian, by its implication, means that you are a follower of Christ, that you are a believer in the revelation of him through scripture. And these scriptures are not silent about these issues. We have to let the Word of God be our rule of faith and practice. And what we mean by faith and practice when we say that is what we believe and how we behave. We can't just submit to what the world thinks. In fact, you can sort of see that in the context of this passage. 1 Corinthians 6 begins Paul's argument against Christians suing other Christians. And I know that sounds like an odd place to start this series, right? But follow the logic for a moment, and you'll actually see why what he's saying is very helpful to us. He asks up in verse one, how dare you, quote, go to law before the unjust? In verse two, he says the saints are gonna judge the world. And at the end of verse four, he says, look, it's even the least respected saint is better equipped to judge righteously than the unrighteous courts of the world. And in verse six, he's describing that brothers, that Christians are suing each other and being heard before unbelievers. And it's in that context that Paul goes on to say in our text, don't you know that the unrighteous, right, those unbelieving judges that you're going to, will not inherit the kingdom of God. Don't be deceived, don't be fooled about what kind of people they are. He's telling the church at Corinth not to submit themselves to the judgment of the world. The judgments and opinions of the world are not the Christian source of authority. Essentially, he is asking them, why are you submitting your judgment to the very people you know are facing God's judgments? Here's why I think that's very helpful to our study. As the world around us becomes more and more tolerant of what God has called sin, or as the Gallup polls have described it, have shifted significantly to more permissive attitudes, Christians who hold biblical values are being targeted as the bad guys. We're painted as being mean and evil and intolerant and we are just to be despised. And if that pole is to be believed, many Americans who identify themselves as Christians have in fact succumbed to that pressure of adopting the world's values of morality instead of holding the Bible's values of morality. And in that sense, Paul's admonition here rings very true for us today. Why are you submitting to the judgment of the very people you know are facing the judgment of God? The thoughts and opinions of this world are not a Christian source of authority. The Bible is our authority, and since Scripture speaks to these issues, we're gonna try to see what it says. Does morality matter? It does. First, morality matters because eternal destinies are at stake. Listen to verses 9 and 10. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. We read those two verses and we understand that Paul is giving us a big list of issues in which morality matters. He doesn't use the word morality, right? He uses the word unrighteous first and then he gives a long example of unrighteous behaviors. Y'all, we're gonna look at that list in a minute, but I want you to understand that list that Paul gives there, we concentrate just on the list, but that list of unrighteous and immoral behaviors is not Paul's primary concern. The primary concern of Paul is the consequence of those immoral behaviors. How do we know that that's his primary concern? Well, just look at what he says, listen to it. Don't you know that the unrighteous won't inherit the kingdom of God? And then he adds that long list. He says, don't be deceived, don't be fooled. The people who engage in all these behaviors, they what? They will not inherit the kingdom of God. You see how he repeats that? Listen, don't be fooled, morality issues, they matter. The eternal destiny of people's souls are at stake. I don't think I need to prove to you that the Bible teaches that every person born into this world is going to spend eternity somewhere. It teaches you will either turn from your sin and embrace Jesus as savior who died for your sins and spend eternity rejoicing in his kindness in the kingdom of God, or you will remain in your sin, rebelling against God and spend eternity tormented in the fire of hell which he has reserved for rebellious sinners. And so Paul is asking a rhetorical question. Don't you know the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? It's a rhetorical question because he assumes the Christians at Corinth that he's writing to know the answer. They know that the answer is yes. They know that. But if they don't know that, it's not because God has kept it a secret. It's because they fooled themselves. So Paul adds, don't be deceived. Don't be fooled. Heaven is not the destination for people who live and remain this way. You know the word inherit. Inherit is describing what you receive from your father. God, who is the Heavenly Father, is not going to take the kingdom that is meant to glorify His righteous Son, Jesus, and hand it over to unrighteous people. If you have a difficult time accepting that from the Apostle Paul, all you need to do is go read the words of Jesus in Matthew 25, where he describes a day coming where all of humanity will be split into two groups, and he says one group will be told, come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you, and the other group will be told, depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire. That's Jesus saying it. Does morality matter? Yes, morality matters. Don't be fooled. Eternal destinies are at stake. Second, morality matters because our behaviors reveal our hearts. I wanna read these verses again and think about them just a little bit differently because in one way, Paul is giving us a day in the life of the city of Corinth. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. A little background on the city of Corinth is gonna be helpful here. It was a pretty big city. Very important for commerce and business. The city of Corinth was located on the southern end of Greece and it was on this little strip of land with water on either side. So picture a large city that has a seaport on the east side and a seaport on the west side and the equivalent of a modern interstate highway running through it from north to south. Pretty convenient little business hub, right? What happens in a city like that when people come from all directions for commerce reasons is there is not a single dominant culture in that city. But lots of people come to the city and so industry crops up in order to cater to their desires. Just like, you know, nowadays people will do things in Las Vegas that they wouldn't do in their hometown. Corinth was 100 times worse. And they might as well have had an advertising campaign, what happens in Corinth stays in Corinth. The city was filled with sailors and travelers from every part of the world. And what they found was that even though nobody spoke the same language, sex and money and alcohol was the universal language. Public drunkenness was encouraged because drunk travelers lose their inhibitions and they spend more money. If you walked down the streets of Corinth, you could pass by the temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. And priestesses of Aphrodite would come out on the streets and prostitute themselves as sacred sex objects for money. They would draw men in and they would take what was sin and pass it off as worship. You could commit sexual immorality or adultery and be proud of it. If a man preferred a male prostitute, he just needed to walk down past the temple of Apollo and he could find a teenage boy who would cater to his desires. Meanwhile, if you wander the city into the wrong alley at the wrong time, you would get stabbed or clubbed over the head, mugged. That would be the bad option. The preferable option was that there were thieves who were out working and pilfering the pockets of the drunks who were passed out at every corner. Or what they really like to do is sneak into the private rooms of those temples where everybody had dropped all their clothes into a pile and go through the pockets, stealing everything. If you think I'm exaggerating, I'm not. Corinth was so bad, the name actually became a byword for immorality in the Greek language. If you were sex crazed beyond reason, it was said that you were Corinthianized. In short, we see verses nine and 10 as if Paul just sat down and decided, look, I'm gonna make a big list of the most horrific sins that I can think of. When in reality, Paul is simply describing what a day in the life of city of Corinth looked like. This is what you would see when you were walking down the street. So let's go through this list quickly. This is not the day where I intend to dwell on any one issue for long, but let's just make sure we understand all of these so we understand the text. Fornicators, the word fornication is essentially a generic word for any kind of sexual immorality, but very most often it's used to describe sex before marriage. Idolaters, I'm sure Paul is mentioned here because of the close association of sex with idol worship at Corinth, but I'll also remind you that the Bible teaches that anything you put is more important in your life than God is an idol to you. Adulterers, adultery is the word for a married person who has sex with someone other than their husband or wife. The next two are effeminate and abusers of themselves with mankind. If you happen to be looking at a more modern translation, it probably combines those into something like men who have sex with men. Just for a complete and perhaps awkward clarity, Paul's using two Greek words here. The first describes the passive male homosexual, and the second describes the dominant male homosexual. In verse 10, he mentions thieves first. That's the word for someone who sneaks and steals. Think of a pickpocket. That's the kind of word there for thief. But he also mentions extortioners, which is describing a person who uses force to steal. The Greek word here is describing someone who's a robber or a mugger, right, uses violence. He also lists drunkards, getting drunk, using alcohol to excess, causes you to lose inhibitions, and it is condemned here and throughout scripture. And don't miss that word revilers in verse 10. It's the Greek word loideros, which describes a person who is abusive with their words. They're mocking, angry, slinging insults. So let me just say now, in case I forget to mention this in future weeks. If we start dealing with some societal sin that you personally find repulsive, and I'm sure we will, let Paul's inclusion of the word reviler sink into your heart. Because the way that you speak to and about those people could very easily get you included on a list with those people. Now I've purposely left One sin off the list. Did you catch it? Because there is one sin here that I think is as telling of the way God sees the human condition as all the other sins on the list combined. The Apostle Paul actually takes a cue from God himself when he makes a list. Way back in the book of Exodus, God himself made a list too, the 10 commandments. Some of the same sins are on it, right? You shall not worship idols. You shall not commit adultery. Thieves, you shall not steal. You remember the last commandment of the 10 commandments? What was the 10th one? Thou shalt not covet. He even explained that back in the 10 commandments. What shouldn't you covet? It's not just money. You shouldn't covet your neighbor's stuff. You shouldn't covet your neighbor's house. You shouldn't covet your neighbor's wife. Listen, the word of God sometimes speaks to us with this kind of just like quiet clarity. Thou shalt not steal is on the list. And then thou shalt not covet is on the list. What's the difference between coveting your neighbor's stuff and stealing your neighbor's stuff? Well, stealing is something you do on the outside, coveting is something you do on the inside. What's the difference between coveting your neighbor's wife and committing adultery with your neighbor's wife? Adultery is something you do on the outside. Coveting is something you do on the inside. Both are sin, right? Both were on the same list when God made a list all the way back in Exodus. And by the way, Jesus came along in the Sermon on the Mount and gave that perfect clarity when he said, look, if you look at a woman to lust after in your heart, you're guilty of adultery. God judging your heart in these things. And so now Paul, when he writes to the church at Corinth, he sort of subtly reminds them, look, when you look out the window and you see this day in the life of Corinth, it's not just the things you see, but God is judging the things that you don't see. Those thieves, those extortioners, right? The sneaky pickpockets and the violent muggers, they're facing judgment, but so are all of the covetous, all of the greedy. Those sins that we commit on the outside, those sins that our society keeps insisting more and more adamantly that they are morally acceptable. We commit those sins because of the selfish desires that are in our heart. We do it because in our hearts, we are all like petulant children who are stomping our feet and saying, I want it, I want it, I want it. And walking through Corinth, you would see a whole city filled with people whose want it's had just run wild. And so Paul says, look, Don't fool yourself about this. That's not righteousness. Morality matters because our behavior reveals what's in our hearts. Third, morality matters because Jesus demands transformation. I wanna introduce you to what I think are the six most important words in the text. Y'all, I have probably read these words a thousand times, and they have slayed me a thousand times. Look at verse 11 with me, the first six words. You can read them with me if you want to. And such were some of you. Now, obviously, Those are not deep theological words, right? Not compared to the rest of the text. The rest of verse 11 uses words like washed and sanctified and justified, and those words carry these deep theological meanings on their own, but that simple phrase, and such were some of you, carries implications with it that I don't think we allow ourselves to contemplate very much. We talked a minute ago about what the city of Corinth was like. Now I want you to think about what, in such were some of you, means that the church of Corinth was like. People who committed sins from that list were what made up that church. Listen, they were probably meeting in someone's house and it's not entirely unthinkable that some man who had been a reviler, an angry man, a hateful man, abusive, was now using his voice to read the precious words of Paul's letter out loud to the congregation. That over in one corner, a couple of former Priestess prostitutes are quietly sobbing over the sins of their former life. Some newly saved husband and wife desperately trying to rescue their marriage from the damage done by one or both of them having committed adultery. Maybe some young man who had left the temple of Apollo to follow Jesus as Savior, slowly coming to grips with what it meant to put aside the effeminate ways he had been taught and adopted and learn what it meant to become the man God had made him to be. And I like to think that maybe there was some man who was sitting there clean and sober after years of drunkenness and passing out in the streets. and right next to him saying amen together with him was a former thief who had robbed him blind while he was out there passed out in the streets. Was it exactly like that? Surely not, but it was something like that. That's what in such were some of you tells us. And before you look down in the Church of Corinth too much, let me just say, in case you didn't know it, we're kind of a hot mess ourselves. When you look around this room, what would our list of and such were some of you look like? Probably not a whole lot different. Certainly not any better. As we go through this series of issues on our society, I want to encourage you to avoid approaching it from any sense of moral superiority. Always let those words, in such were some of you, lend clarity to what the Christian perspective is supposed to be. Now let's look at all of verse 11. I want you to see something. In such were some of you, but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. Look closely at verse 11, and remember what you know about the word were. The word were is a past tense word, right? The word are, is a present tense word, right? Such were some of you. But you are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified. Jesus came to save sinners, even sinners from a list like this. He took their sin unto himself so that while they deserve death and hell, He took that punishment that they deserved in the father, proved that he accepted that death of Jesus in their place by raising him from the dead. Everyone who has faith in him has eternal life. That's the gospel message that came to Corinth. The message of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus to save sinners. And that gospel transforms us. The gospel changes us. It takes us from what we were and is meant to change us into what we are. We are washed, Paul says, that means we're cleansed from the wickedness of sin through faith in Jesus. We are sanctified, that is we are set apart from the wicked world, set aside to serve God is what that word means. We're justified, meaning even though we're guilty, Jesus has taken that guilt away so that we're justified, literally we're declared innocent by God. The washed, the sanctified, the justified have been made acceptable solely by the work of Jesus. They've been made acceptable to inherit the kingdom of God that the people on the list in verses nine and 10 are not. Because they've been transformed. They've been changed. The reason why the gospel is so repugnant, why it is so hated by the sinful world, is that the world does not want to change. But that's what Jesus demands. Jesus demands change. He demands transformation from what you were into what he will make you. And that's what we're called to proclaim. We're called to proclaim that Jesus has the power to save sinful people of every kind. And for that, we are condemned as being hateful. In fact, this message will very likely be labeled as hate speech. To the point that if this were Canada, it would be a criminal offense. The foolish idea of the world today is that we have to love everyone, which I'm fine with, but the idea is that the only way that you can love someone is by affirming every choice that they make. And the saddest thing to my heart is that many young Christians have come to accept that thinking. Listen, if you love people, You're gonna tell them morality matters because their eternal destiny is at stake. Their behavior is simply revealing the sin that's in their heart and that Jesus came to save sinners and transform their lives, make them into something different. Affirming a sinful lifestyle, just smiling and nodding and acting like sin doesn't matter while that person is on a fast track to eternity in hell, that is not love. Listen, Jesus, if anyone has set a standard for what love is, Jesus has set a standard for love. No one ever loved like Jesus loves. But let me just warn you, don't you dare come to Jesus for affirmation. You come to Jesus for transformation. When Jesus showed his love for us, it wasn't to come into this world and say, hey, you know, the father sent me to come down here and tell you, you're doing a great job. Love you, keep up the good work. He demanded a transformed life from everyone he encountered. With the rich young ruler, Jesus didn't say, hey, you're doing great. He saw into that man's heart and knew selfishness is his problem, so he told the man, look, just give everything away and come follow me. Completely change your life. Jesus came to the Samaritan woman on the well and he did not affirm her in her sexual sins. He looked at that woman and just told her, look, you have had five husbands and the man you're with right now, you are not married to. And it was love, she walked away trusting him and turning from sin to live in righteousness. He met that crooked cheat Zacchaeus and he loved him and he insisted on change when he met the woman who was caught committing adultery. He loved her, he showed compassion to her, but his last words to her were, go and sin no more. You gotta stop that. So you can just forget the idea that Jesus was just so loving that he went around accepting and affirming everyone's lifestyle. I think good grief to listen to some folks today. You would think every sermon of Jesus was closed with the crowd singing, just as I am without one plea, just don't you plan on changing me. Jesus didn't accept and affirm sin, he accepted sinners and insisted that they trust him and turn from their sins and walk in a new life. He left us this word in order to give our lives direction and even warned us, don't pretend to be his disciple unless you're going to follow what this says. John 14 verse 15, he said, if you love me, keep my commandments. If we're his disciples, we are called to that same kind of love and to that same message. We need to know the biblical perspective on these issues because eternity is in the balance. We need to be able to call sin, sin and to call sinners to Jesus. Now, is it hard to stand in a world against the growing disapproval of society in the face of that message? Is it scary? Sure. In fact, if you'd asked the Apostle Paul that question, I know he would have certainly given the same answer. He went to the moral sewer drain that was the city of Corinth and he stood for the gospel and he said, I did it in weakness and in fear and in trembling. Actually, you can see it if you look back at chapter two, the first three verses, here's what he said. "'Susan, I, brethren, when I came to you, "'came not with excellency of speech or wisdom, "'declaring any of the testimony of God, "'for I determined not to know anything among you, "'saver, except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. "'And I was with you in weakness and in fear "'and in much trembling. If you see a similarity between our society and the society of Corinth, then take some comfort from that. But take a lesson from that also. Paul faced that society as a Christian and he freely admitted that it was terrifying. But the solution that God gave him was not to go and engage the society with clever words or appealing to them with dazzling speech, trying to say just the right thing, trying to make friends with everybody, make everybody like me. What did he say? I decided nothing but Jesus mattered. Nothing but the gospel mattered. Facing that society, there was nothing they needed to hear but Jesus. I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. My prayer is that's where we go with this series. Look, I wanna make sure that we understand the biblical perspective of some of the issues our society promotes. but it is not to give you some sense of moral superiority, because we are not superior. And it's not so that you're armed to go out and engage in all day debates about the ethics of these issues, because the world does not need that. The world needs Jesus. They need to be told that they can turn from their sin and come to Jesus in faith and be changed. And so are you guilty of being a thief? Maybe by force? Don't tell me nobody in here was a school bully. Repent of your sin. Put it away. Trust Jesus for salvation. Maybe you'd say, well, I never stole. I kind of wanted to steal. You're on the list too. Covetousness is a sin. God judges your heart in all of these things. Have you violated God's design by having sex without being married? If Jesus is willing to forgive the prostitutes from the temple of Aphrodite, he's willing to forgive you. He insists on transformation. Turn away from it, repent of it. Live a life of righteousness and faith through him. Husbands, wives, listen, adultery is a terrible thing. It means you have broken your promise to your spouse, and you have broken the commandment of God. You cannot live with that sin. Turn away from it. Look, reconciliation for a marriage is possible, but even more importantly, through faith in Jesus, you can be reconciled to God. He'll forgive you. Homosexuality, we're going to deal with that sometime during this series. But for now, the word of God clearly says that it's sin. It is not a cause for pride. God's position that's declared in the Bible has not and will not change. But interestingly enough, that means that the demand that's made by gays and lesbians for acceptance and inclusion was met by Christians long before it was met by the world. We accept and include you on the list of people who just like us can turn from sin to Jesus and be saved and transformed by the gospel. Jesus takes the sexual sins that we commit with our bodies and the lustful wickedness in our hearts and through faith in him. He transforms us to live for him in this life and inherit the kingdom of God after this life. He saves people who've had sex before marriage. He saves people who are adulterers who violated their marriage. He saves thieves and extortioners. He saves gays and lesbians. He saves the greedy. He saves drunkards. He saves the abusive. He saves the abused. And I know many of you join me in knowing that's true because before you knew Jesus, such were some of you.