Cross City Church
In our In Not Of series, we will continue our journey with the Corinthian church as Paul rebukes them for tolerating sexual sin under a misapplied definition of love. Paul explained that in order to be different than the world that sin cannot be tolerated in the Church. In our culture today, tolerance is seen as one of the highest ideals, but just as Paul explained to the Corinthians, we are called to live differently in every aspect of our lives, including how we as believers address immorality.
1 Corinthians 6:12-17
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, 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.
The Problem
All things are lawful for me…v. 12
1 Corinthians 6:12
Yes, all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable.
1 Corinthians 6:12
Yes, all things are lawful, but I will not be mastered by anything.
Why would you continue something that brought conflict, confusion, or was out of control?
The Principle
…the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. v. 13
1 Corinthians 6:18
Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.
You were made for more than pleasure and certainly more than immorality. You are made for the Lord.
2 Timothy 3:1-4
But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God…
Are you pursuing the “MORE” that God has made you for? Or are you settling for so much less than His life for you?
The Power
God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power. v. 14
God never calls us to something without enabling us to do it. Have you learned to walk in the power of His Spirit over temptation?
The Pointed Questions
Do you not know your bodies are members of Christ?
Shall I instead make them members of a prostitute?
Do you not know that immorality makes one united with another person?
1 Thessalonians 4:3-8
For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification. So, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.
The Powerful Conclusion
But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. v. 17
As a believer, how should your oneness with Jesus affect your sexuality?
Discussion Questions
Why would you continue something that brought conflict, confusion, or was out of control?
Are you pursuing the “MORE” that God has made you for? Or are you settling or so much less than His life for you?
God never calls us to something without enabling us to do it. Have you learned to walk in the power of His Spirit over temptation?
As a believer, how should your oneness with Jesus affect your sexuality?