Sermon Transcript November 7, 2021 Cultivating a Christian ...

Sermon Transcript

November 7, 2021

Cultivating a Christian Sexual Ethic

Cultivating Christian Thinking

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

This message from the Bible was addressed originally to the people of Wethers?eld Evangelical Free

Church on November 7, 2021 at 511 Maple Street, Wethers?eld, CT, 06109 by Dr. Scott W. Solberg.

This is a transcription that bears the strength and weaknesses of oral delivery. It is not meant to be a

polished essay. An audio and video version of this sermon may also be found on the church website at



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Sermon Text

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

12 ¡°All things are lawful for me,¡± but not all things are helpful. ¡°All things are lawful for

me,¡± but I will not be enslaved by anything. 13 ¡°Food is meant for the stomach and the

stomach for food¡±¡ªand God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant

for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 And God raised

the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.

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! 16 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 ?esh. 17 But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one

spirit with him. 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. 19 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, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in

your body.

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Introduction

I ?nd the topic of cultivating a Christian sexual ethic to be a challenging topic to

address. I ?nd this topic challenges our thinking, our living and our loving.

First of all, it challenges our way of thinking. It challenges how we think about sexual

ethics. Kevin DeYoung observed this summer that when it comes to sexual ethics¡ª

what is right and what is wrong when it comes to matters of sex and sexuality¡ªthat

¡°the world is catechizing (forming our minds) us whether we believe it or not.¡±1 He

quoted David Wells who said that ¡°worldliness is whatever makes righteousness look

strange and sin look normal.¡±2

From every corner of our culture: money, power, media, sports, big business, big tech,

education and entertainment; the minds of a generation are being shaped and

conformed to a way of thinking about sex and sexuality that is contrary to Scripture.

And so the idea that sex should be con?ned to marriage between a man and a woman

and that our bodies, created male and female, re?ect the purpose of God for us, is at

best seen as repressive and at worst, it is considered evil. According to a recent WSJ

article, this is the number one reason why people under 40 are staying away from the

church.3 It is the disconnect they feel with what their culture says about sex and what

the church holds up as God¡¯s ideal and purpose. And so, if we want to cultivate a

Christian sexual ethic we need more than just patronizing and simple answers. We

need to cultivate the mind around a biblical framework of the gospel and who we are in

Christ. This is challenging. Kevin DeYoung closed his article by saying, ¡°The world is

already busy promoting its catechism. The only question is whether we will get busy

promoting ours.¡±4 It starts with how we think.

The second thing I ?nd challenging about this topic is that it challenges the way we live.

Ethics are moral principles that govern our behavior. But isn¡¯t that part of the

problem? The church has not done a good job at living out the sexual principles we say

we hold dear. Statistics tell us that pornography, sexual abuse, cohabiting before

marriage, divorce, homosexuality . . . these things are not just present in the church,

but they are prevalent. We have all seen the headlines. So out of one side of our

mouth we say one thing about sexual ethics and yet, on the other side, we do the

opposite. And Gordon Fee is good to pick up the idea that at the end of the day we are

not just talking about resolving ethical issues. Rather, he says, ¡°the gospel itself is at

stake.¡±5 Carl Trueman put it this way. ¡°We witness to those outside by being the

church¡ªa doctrinally formed, God worshiping, and loving community.¡±6

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We are going to hear Paul say in our passage this morning that ¡°the body is not meant

for sexual immorality.¡± That is a strong statement that suggests that sex has purpose

and if we live according to the purpose of God it leads to human ?ourishing. So, one

of the best things the church can give to our culture is a counter-culture¡ªa new

sexual revolution¡ªthat forms a community around what God has designed for sex.

We, the church, need to embody what we believe. The church, then becomes a place

of support, accountability, authority and discipline as we seek to be discipled and live

in obedience to Christ. That too is a challenge because we don¡¯t always welcome that

kind of accountability. If we want to cultivate a Christian sexual ethic we need to

cultivate an environment of discipleship around these issues.

The ?nal challenge I feel as we begin this mini-series on cultivating a Christian sexual

ethic is that we all know the struggle with sexual temptation. As we formulate our

arguments, we can forget that there are real people who need to be loved. The church

has not done a good job at loving people who struggle with sexual temptation.

Preston Sprinkle has spent a lot of time helping us to understand how to argue for a

sound Christian sexual ethic. At the same time, he has called the church to do a

better job at loving people. His title to his book on homosexuality issues this

challenge. The book is called People To Be Loved. In this book he says, ¡°I am

disheartened to say that the Christian church has often played an unintended yet

active role in pushing gay people away from Christ . . . They don¡¯t leave the church

because they are told same-sex behavior is wrong. They leave because they were

dehumanized, ridiculed, and treated like an ¡°other.¡±7 How do we hold to a Christian

sexual ethic and at the same time create space in the church to love people?

Cultivating a Christian sexual ethic means that we also cultivate space for people who

are wounded and struggling with issues of sex. This is a challenge. In fact, the next

two Sundays, during the Sunday School hour, I want to dialogue about this. Next

week we will talk about deepening our thinking around a Christian sexual ethic. Then

the following week, we will talk about creating space for those who struggle.

Our guide through this series will be Paul¡¯s instructions in 1 Corinthians 5-7. What

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6 will help cultivate our thinking so that we know how to

live in these times. What Paul says in chapter 5, will help cultivate our life together as

a church as we seek to embody a Christian sexual ethic. Then in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul

speaks of real people facing real temptation. It helps us cultivate an environment that

doesn¡¯t just catechize the mind, but also ¡°provides a strong and supportive

community where they feel loved and know they belong.¡±8 We can¡¯t just argue our

way forward. We need to also love our way forward.

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Cultivating Christian Thinking

We are going to begin our conversation in 1 Corinthians 6. Paul¡¯s main point in this

passage is stated in verse 13. Here he says, ¡°The body is not meant for sexual

immorality.¡± To make his point, he asks the same question three times . . . ¡°Do you not

know.¡± This is a question Paul asks nine times in 1 Corinthians and Gordon Fee says it

is a rhetorical device that suggests ¡°by the very nature of things¡± you should readily

know these things.9 In other words, there is a distinctively Christian way of thinking

about the body that impacts our understanding of sex. ¡°The body is not meant for

sexual immorality.¡± The word Paul uses for sexual immorality is the word porneia

which is a catch-all for any sexual activity outside of marriage between a man and a

woman. So what is it that we need to understand about the body that would cause Paul

to urge us in verse 18 to ¡°?ee sexual immorality.¡±

I would like to suggest four ways we need to cultivate Christian thinking with regards to

the body.

Body of Purpose

Do you notice at the beginning of our passage there is a statement in quotes, ¡°All things

are lawful for me.¡± This statement, which Paul mentions two times in verse 12, was a

popular slogan in the church at Corinth. It is possible they picked up this slogan from

something Paul had said, perhaps when talking about being free from the restrictions of

the Old Testament Law. In 1 Corinthians 9 he actually says that to the Jew he becomes

like the Jew and to the Gentile he becomes like the Gentile, he concludes, ¡°I become all

things to all people, that by all means I might save some.¡± But this slogan repeated by

the Corinthians to champion their sexual freedom, takes Paul out of context and

becomes a way of thinking that is translated this way in the NIV, ¡°I have the right to do

anything.¡± Does that slogan sound familiar? ¡°Be true to yourself.¡± ¡°Live your own

truth.¡± ¡°My body, my choice.¡± And it really gets down to this question: ¡°What does it

mean to be free?¡± Is freedom de?ned by doing what I want? Or, is freedom de?ned in

doing what God wants? Which one really brings me freedom?

It all depends on your view of the body. If our bodies are created by God with purpose

then we experience freedom when we live under the intent for which they were made. I

like the way Nancy Pearcy puts it. She looks at science and says, ¡°eyes are for seeing,

ears are for hearing, ?ns are for swimming, and wings are for ?ying . . . An eye is good

when it is ful?lling its purpose. A wing is good when it is functioning the way it is

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