Flee Temptation, Run to Christ

0:55My undefeated record can be attributed to exactly one thing: I've never ever gotten into a fight. And here's some great advice: if you don't want to lose a fight, don't get into one. On the playground, bullies pick on kids that they outweigh by 100 pounds and convince them that they're cowards if they won't fight. But let me ask you this: if you refuse to get into a fight with a kid who weighs you by Outweighs you by 100 pounds, are you a coward?

1:33Or are you a pretty smart guy? Today in 1 Corinthians 6, Paul is going to address a big problem in the church at Corinth, which was a big problem in the surrounding culture as well. And that problem is sexual immorality. Paul's counsel is simple, and we find it in verse 18. He says very simply, flee sexual immorality. The problem for many of us is that we aren't putting Paul's counsel into practice. Instead of fleeing sexual immorality, instead of running away, we keep getting into fights that we're almost certain to lose.

2:19Then we lose the fight, and instead of saying, I should have run away, we spend a lot of time and energy trying to come up with a strategy to beat the kid who outweighs us by 100 pounds. And so what we're going to learn today, church, in 1 Corinthians 6, 12 through 20, is that we must flee sexual immorality and run to Christ our Savior. Now, before we jump into the text this morning, it's important to reconsider the background or consider the background if you've missed the first part of this series. So the background to the city of Corinth and the church there, that's critical to understand. Understanding where Paul is going in this passage.

3:03The first thing that we have to understand is the influence of Greek philosophy on the ancient world. One of the most widely accepted tenets of ancient Greek philosophy was that the material world was evil and the spiritual world was good. And so, what that meant was that most people did not believe in a physical resurrection from the dead. If the material world is evil and the spiritual world is good, why would you want a resurrected body? You wouldn't even want that kind of a thing.

3:36Death meant that you were free from the prison of the human body, finally. And so, what this did is it pushed people in one of two directions, a religious direction or an irreligious direction. So, if you took the religious direction, what that meant is that you would deprive the body of food, of pleasure, sometimes even committing suicide, because what's the point? If the body is evil and it's not going to be resurrected anyway, then you just want to get out of this body as quickly as possible.

4:10So, that was the religious direction. People would beat their bodies and would pound them into submission because the spiritual was good and the physical was bad. But people also went in an irreligious direction with this belief as well. And the irreligious direction was that people pursued pleasure without reservation. They reasoned that the spirit and the body are two. Separate things, so what's the point of denying the body any pleasure that it desires? It's evil anyway, and it's not going to be resurrected, so who cares?

4:40So, that's the influence of Greek philosophy on Corinth and this culture, and the church as well. The second thing that we have to consider are the religious beliefs and practices of the surrounding culture. And one thing that you need to know is that the city of Corinth was home to dozens of pagan temples, but especially the grand and greatest Temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. That temple was served by hundreds, if not thousands, of male and female prostitutes who then would see people, locals and those who came into the city, it was a port town, to worship.

5:19And many of the Corinthian believers were likely to have been former worshipers at the temple of Aphrodite who were regularly interacting with those prostitutes. And then, third and finally, we have to understand and remember that, in contrast to other world religions, Christianity is a religion of freedom. The message of Christianity is that Jesus came to keep God's law on our behalf, that he came to fulfill all that the law requires, and then he laid down his life for our sin and failure to keep that law. He took up his life. Again, on the third day, so that we could be reconciled to God the Father. And through faith in Him, we are now free, free from the requirements of the law, free from estrangement from God. We are now sons and daughters of the King. Jesus came to set us free so that we could obey God and we could obey His commands from a position of love and acceptance rather than from the position of trying to earn His love and acceptance through our obedience.

6:34So, the Corinthians' problems then were just like ours. They had a hard time breaking free from the cultural conditions around them and the way that society thought. They had a hard time breaking free from the way that people thought about religion around them. And then they had a hard time walking out what it meant to be a Christian, what it meant to be free in Christ. They had a hard time walking that line between license, where you can just do whatever you want, even if it's sinful, and illegalism, which is forbidding things that God doesn't forbid out of a desire to be holy. That is a hard line to walk, isn't it? And the Corinthians struggled in those same ways.

7:20And so, with that background, we're now ready to jump into the text today. So, let's take a look here at verse 12 again: all things are lawful for you. For me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be enslaved by anything. Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy both one and the other. So Paul begins by quoting this phrase that's obviously making its way around the Corinthian church: all things are lawful for me.

7:55Well, if you're a professing believer in Jesus, you may have thought that yourself, or you may have said those words at some point. You've almost certainly heard another professing believer express that kind of opinion. All things are lawful for me. We're free in Christ. We can do what we want. Well, Paul responds to that in two ways. His first response is this: all things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. According to Scripture, all things are lawful for the believer in the sense that anything not forbidden is allowed. Right? To say otherwise is to add additional commandments on top of the scripture, just like the Pharisees, which is legalism. All things are lawful. That is a true statement, depending on how we define it. But friends, just because something isn't expressly forbidden in Scripture doesn't mean that it's a good thing to do.

8:55And that's why Paul says, but not all things are helpful. Friends, every day we are faced with decisions that would be made so much easier if we filtered our decisions through this very simple grid. Is it helpful? Are you free to watch what you want on Netflix? Yes. Are you free to drink alcohol? Yes. Are you free to go dancing? Yes. Are you free to play video games? Yes. Are you free to listen to Kanye's old albums? Yes.

9:39You are free. But is it helpful? Is it helpful to watch certain shows? Is it helpful to listen to certain music? Is it helpful to go to the club? Is it helpful to play certain video games? We have to ask ourselves: are these things helping us to know God, to worship Him, to make Him known? Are these things helping us to become more holy people? Or are they hurting us in our pursuit of holiness? A lot of you may remember the original Jurassic Park movie. Not the new junk that's out, the original and the best from the 90s. In that movie, there's a mathematician named Dr. Ian Malcolm, played by Jeff Goldblum. And he is questioning the wisdom of creating an island that is inhabited. By dinosaurs. And he says this to John Hammond, who is the owner of the park. Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn't stop to ask whether they should.

10:46Church, I don't think I can say it any better than Ian Malcolm. So many Christians are hung up on whether they can do something that they don't ever stop to ask whether they should do that thing. All things are lawful for the believer, but not everything is helpful. Second, Paul responds to the phrase, all things are lawful by saying, but I will not be dominated by anything. Some choices are not only unhelpful, but they can end up dominating you. That word can also be translated enslaving you, or mastering you, or ruling over you.

11:38No Christian creates a social media account thinking, one day, I will not be able to go even a couple of hours without checking this. No Christian buys a video game system thinking, one day, I will become so addicted to this. To this, that it will affect my schoolwork and all of my relationships. No Christian begins searching the internet for lewd pictures and videos, thinking, one day I will become so addicted to this that every waking thought will be how I can satisfy my lust.

12:22What starts off as something that you might be free to do as a Christian turns into something that is unhelpful for you. And then what happens is that if you don't recognize that and cut it out of your life, the thing that was unhelpful for you now begins to dominate you, now begins to enslave you, to master you, to rule over you. And in 2 Peter chapter 2, Peter writes that you are a slave to whatever overcomes you. You're a slave to whatever overcomes you, to whatever you cannot resist. And so Paul says, Look, all things are lawful, but I will not be dominated. I will not be mastered. I will not be enslaved by anything.

13:09And after Paul responds to this misapplication of that phrase, all things are lawful for me, he moves on to another saying that appears to be making the rounds in the church. Food is meant for the stomach, and the stomach for food. But one thing you need to understand is that there are no quotation marks in the Greek text. Text. And so you have to decide contextually where do the quotation marks begin and end? Where's the end of this phrase? Well, I think the quotes actually belong after the end of the next phrase, and some of your translations may have it that way. The majority don't. I think they belong at the end of the next phrase. So the quote should read this way: Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy both one and the other. See, I think that's part of the quote that's making its way around the church. I don't think that Paul would have responded with that statement. Why?

14:05Well, first, Paul doesn't believe in or teach annihilationism. Paul doesn't believe that our bodies are going to be destroyed. He believes that they're going to be resurrected physically. He's going to say that very thing in verse 14. But secondly, that full sentence represents the kind of syncretism that seems to be present in the city of Corinth and in the church. Syncretism is when you blend a bunch of different religious beliefs together. It's what we have dominating our modern landscape in America. It's what dominated the first century landscape in the Greco-Roman world, syncretism. And so what you see here with this phrase is a blending of Christianity.

14:49There's reference to God, but there's also this reference to the idea that our bodies are going to be destroyed, that they're not going to be resurrected. And so you have to be aware of the results. This syncretistic idea that yes, God is going to be the judge and God does exist, but that our bodies are going to be destroyed. And so, here's what they seem to be saying: when we feel hungry, we satisfy ourselves by eating food, and when we feel stimulated, we satisfy those cravings by satisfying our lusts.

15:30That's the same thing that was said during the sexual revolution of the 1960s. That's the same thing that is still repeated in many circles today. It's the idea that sexual urges are no different than the urges to eat food when we get hungry. So, in the rest of the passage, Paul is going to refute that logic. And he's going to give us five reasons that sexually immoral behavior is sinful. First, sexually immoral behavior is sinful because our bodies are meant for the Lord. Take a look there at the second half of verse 13.

16:14The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. You see, when Paul uses the word meant, he's talking about God's original. design for men and women when he created them in his own image and likeness. Contrary to Stoic thought, that Greek philosophy that we've been talking about, God created all things, including men and women, the crown of his creation, and pronounced it all very good. So God's material world that he created, including human beings, is not evil, it is very good. That is very important to remember. And what that means is that our physical bodies are also very good. They were created for God and for his glory because they were created in his image and likeness. Therefore, they're supposed to be used for his glory.

17:14So when we use our bodies in sexually immoral ways, we dishonor God because we are using them in ways that go against his created design. Second, sexually immoral behavior denies the reality of the resurrection. Look at verse 14. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. According to the gospel accounts, many women, all of the apostles, more than 500 believers at one time saw Jesus' resurrected body. Body. A lot of those people not only saw him, but touched him and watched him eat. See, Jesus wasn't spiritually raised in the hearts of believers, as some people will try to argue. Jesus was physically raised from the dead in the exact same body that he lived in for 30-some odd years and was crucified in. He was raised in that exact same body, which fulfilled both prophecy and his own promises.

18:29And so later this year, we're going to come to chapter 15, and Paul is going to make it very clear that if Christ has not been physically raised from the dead, the gospel is a lie. And there is no hope for us. Christ was raised physically from the dead, and that means we will also be raised physically. Because the scripture again and again calls him what? The first fruits. He is our older brother who has gone before us and been raised from the dead.

18:58So, friends, when we use our bodies in sexually immoral ways, we dishonor God by denying the reality of the resurrection. That these physical bodies that we live in are going to be raised from the dead one day. Third, sexually immoral behavior involves Christ in our sin. Now, I want to read a longer section of the passage, so we're going to read verses 15 through 17 and then part of verse 19. Look at verse 15. 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. Now look at verse 19.

20:02Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? See, when we receive Christ by faith, we are also filled with his Holy Spirit, and we are joined to the Lord. We're now a part of the body of Christ, His church. So, what Paul argues is that when two people come together, perhaps in a pagan worship service involving temple prostitutes, they become one flesh. But believers are already one with Christ through faith in him. So, that means we are bringing Christ into that union, involving him in our sin. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.

20:50So, when we use our bodies in sexually immoral ways, we dishonor God by involving Christ in our sin. Fourth. Sexually immoral behavior is a sin against our own bodies. Look at verse 18. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. When we commit other sins, sins like theft or murder or gossip, those sins are committed outside of our bodies. But what Paul says is that sexual sin is different. And it's different because it is a sin that we can only commit with our bodies, our minds or our physical bodies. And God designed our bodies to be united with our souls. They're not separate and distinct things. Contrary to Greek philosophy, the body and the soul are united. So what we do in the soul affects the body. And what we do in the body affects the soul.

22:13You see, that's why the fall, when Adam and Eve rebelled against God, that's why the fall and its results and death are unnatural. They're not the way that God intended us to live. God designed us to live forever in living with living. Souls and living bodies. But think about this for a minute. After the fall, you have spiritually dead people united to physical bodies that are alive but are eventually going to die. Then, after people are spiritually regenerated and made alive through faith in Christ, you have spiritually alive people united to physical bodies that are wearing out and are going to die.

23:03Then, at death, you have a spiritually alive person who is separated from his physical body that's now dead. Only when Christ returns will you have spiritually alive people reunited with physical bodies that are also alive. Now things are as they should be. Now things are natural in the sense that they are the way that God designed them. Spiritually alive people connected to physical bodies that are spiritually, that are physically alive forever. So when we use our bodies in sexually immoral ways, we sin against our own bodies because they're going to be united to our souls for eternity.

23:46And then fifth and finally, sexually immoral behavior denies the Lord who bought us. Take a look at the second half of verse 19. You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. See, because all of us are Adam and Eve's children, when we were born, all of us inherited both their guilt over their rebellion, and we inherited their sinful nature, which means that from birth we are enslaved to sin, and we can only expect the wages of sin, which the scripture calls death.

24:37But Jesus ransomed us, he purchased us back at the price of his precious blood. Look on the screen at 1 Peter chapter 1. And if you call on him as Father, who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you are ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

25:19See, because Jesus ransomed us, he is our Lord and Master. He bought us. He has the right to our lives, and we must live in our lives. Ways that honor him. So when we use our bodies in sexually immoral ways, we deny Jesus who bought us with his precious blood. Church, the Corinthian struggle should sound familiar to us because the Christian faith runs counter to our culture as well. And just like the Corinthians, we struggle to know how to live out our Christian freedom without falling into either legalism, as the Galatians did, or license, as the Corinthians did.

26:09So Paul tells the Corinthians to flee sexual immorality. And that's what you and I must do as well. If you read through the scripture, you'll find again and again there are all of these admonitions to fight against sin, to fight against temptation, to make war on the flesh. You hear that over and over again in the scripture. But one thing that you also continually see in the scripture is that time and time again, we are told to flee sexual immorality. Flee it. Run away from it.

26:46And the historical account of Joseph in Genesis 39 is a great example. If you're not familiar with that story, Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers and he makes his way over to Egypt. He's taken into The house of this high-ranking official named Potiphar. And Potiphar's wife is not very faithful. And she notices that Joseph is handsome, and so she tries to persuade Joseph to have an affair with her. But the scripture says that he won't even listen to her. He is fleeing her. And there comes this day where she is very forward with him and grabs hold of his garment. And you notice in that text that he doesn't try to resist her with his words, he doesn't try to fight against her with his own strength and self-discipline. He doesn't start singing some reverse version of Baby It's Cold Outside. He runs away. He runs away. He flees because he knows how dangerous that situation is. He's not going to get into a fight that's almost impossible to win.

27:52So, friends, we can choose to keep fighting the schoolyard bully who outweighs us by 100 pounds day after day after day. But why would we be surprised when we end up with a bloody nose most of the time? A better strategy than trying to fight the schoolyard bully who outweighs you by 100 pounds is to say, you know what? I'm just not going to get into that fight in the first place. I'm going to flee. I'm going to run from it.

28:31And when we run from sexual immorality, when we flee sexual immorality, we can't just take off in some random direction. We've got to run to Christ, our Savior. That's our only hope. He is our only hope. The Bible calls him our high priest, who was tempted in every way. Do you know what the word every means? It means all. And I think sometimes that we think that Jesus was tempted in kind of some low-key ways, you know, like we all are. You're in the line at Lowe's and there's those huge candy bars and you haven't eaten anything all day and you're like, you know, they don't notice. Maybe I'm just a shoplifter and that's how I think of things.

29:22We think about those things, but the Bible says that Jesus was tempted in every way, every way, and yet was without sin. What that means, the Bible says in Hebrews 4, is that he is a high priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses. And we can run to the throne of grace to find mercy and receive grace to help us in our time of need. And we do need him, don't we? If you're not yet a follower of Jesus and you're here today, This passage of scripture may have been very hard for you to listen to as you think about choices you made a few years ago or a few months ago or even a couple of nights ago.

30:15Earlier in chapter 6, Paul said that those who live contrary to God's design and intent regarding human sexuality will not inherit the kingdom of God. And so, what you need to hear today is that your hope cannot be placed in you starting now fleeing sexual immorality because that's not going to make up for everything that you've thought and everything that you've done to this point. What you need is a Savior, and you need to run to Him. You see, Jesus of Nazareth was perfectly pure in every way, He never sinned, and He gave Himself up for you. He died for every one of your sins and failures and rose again so that through faith you could be alive in Him, you could be forgiven and reconciled to God, and so that you could resolve with new power from His Spirit and by His grace to live a life that is free from sexual immorality. You no longer have to be enslaved to that sin, and you no longer have to worry about the penalty that's coming for that sin because Jesus took it on Himself for you. And so, I urge you, if you're not. Yet, a believer in Jesus, turn from your sin and receive Him by faith today.

31:38If you're already a follower of Jesus, then today's text is a great opportunity to remind you of what we learned last week. Through faith in Christ, we are washed, we are sanctified, we are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus. We are not who we were. And because that's true, we have to live in ways that honor Christ our Savior, who ransomed us with His precious blood. And so, I want to leave you with a long section from 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. So, look on the screen. This, I hope, will encourage you and challenge you.

32:19Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that as you receive from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God, that no one transgresses. And wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore, whoever disregards this disregards not man, but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.

33:25So, church, let's resolve together to flee sexual immorality and run to Christ our Savior. Let's pray. Father, this is a sin issue that was so pervasive in that culture, it seems to have affected nearly everyone. And I'm thankful that in your infinite wisdom, you inspired Paul to write these words so that 2,000 years later, in a culture that is almost exactly the same, we could read them and be challenged to flee sexual immorality and run to Christ.

34:25Father, I want to pray for those who. Are losing the battle here, but also have given up and have made peace with their sin. I pray that you would bring conviction to them and that you would give them the grace and the power that they need to turn from it and honor you. And I pray for those who are losing the battle with this sin, but who have not made peace with it. And they are doing all that they can, all that they know to do, maybe except for running to Christ.

35:23I pray that they would have great strategies. Strategies are good. But in the heat of the moment, strategies will fail us. And you, Jesus, you never will. So I pray that you would encourage them this morning. I pray that they would meditate on the gospel. And that even as we take the Lord's Supper together, they would be reminded that they are accepted and loved, not because of anything that they've done or because of anything that they will do.

36:00But because Jesus' body was broken and his blood was shed, so that they could be a part of God's family. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.