As a church we have been looking at a letter in our Bibles that was written to a group of people who claimed to be Christian, yet lived their day to day lives in a way that failed to reflect Christ or follow His teachings. And in this letter the writer addresses a topic that many would want to either tune out or walk out on.
As soon as this topic is mentioned in a sermon, you can almost immediately feel people want to shrink in their chairs or their pews in fear. “Oh no, he isn’t going to talk about that today. No, please don’t talk about that today. I brought a friend to church and I don’t want to be embarrassed or have to spend our entire time at breakfast or lunch after this trying to defend or justify what you said that offended them”.
Or as soon as a pastor begins to speak about this topic, the response is “oh, here we go again. Another pastor telling me to live in a way that is not even realistic or practical in today’s society. Does he really expect people to actually follow what he saying? I mean really, who would want to live life that way, anyway? That is so old fashioned and outdated. Does he think people will actually do that”.
The topic that I am talking about is the topic of sexuality and sexual freedom. And at the risk of being viewed as old fashioned or irrelevant, as we look at this section of this letter that Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, we will discover two things. First, we are going to discover that the situation that was occurring at this church is so strikingly similar to what we experience today that the counsel that Paul provides is incredibly relevant and practical to our lives today.
Second, I will go out on a limb and say that there is not a single person who would ever say that they regretted following the counsel that Paul provides about this topic. There is not a single person that would make the statement “I really regret following Paul’s advice here”. On the contrary, for many of us, whether you are a follower of Jesus or not, maybe the greatest regret in our lives involves failing to follow the timeless truth that Paul provides us in this passage.
Paul begins to address this issue of sexuality and sexual freedom in 1 Corinthians 6:12:
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.
Paul begins this section of his letter to the church at Corinth by repeating a statement that the members of the church of Corinth had made in defense of their unchristian behavior: “all things are lawful for me”. The members of the church at Corinth had written to Paul with a set of questions that they desired answers to and with statements about how they believed that they should be able to live life as followers of Jesus. And one of their statements was that, as followers of Jesus, they now had the freedom to engage in wide range of sexual activities. “All things are lawful for me when it comes to how I express myself sexually” was their position before Paul.
You see the topic of sexuality and sexual freedom of expression is not a new debate: the topic of sexuality and how we should be able to express our sexuality has been a debate that has been raging for thousands of years. And the culture of Corinth so mirrors the culture in America that the churches question and Paul’s response is especially relevant for us today.
Paul points out two timeless realities to the church in his response to their claim of sexual freedom. First, Paul states that while we may believe that all things are permissible, not all things are profitable. While we may believe that we have a great deal of freedom to express ourselves sexually, not all of these behaviors are advantageous or benefit our well being.
Second, Paul states that while we may believe that all things are permissible, he, for his part will not be mastered by anything. The word mastered here conveys the sense of being controlled or enslaved by something. Paul’s point is that while we may believe that we have a great deal of freedom to express ourselves sexually, we can run the risk of being controlled or enslaved by many types of behavior.
And this morning, the reality is that while God gives us the freedom and free will to make choices when it comes to how we express ourselves sexually, those choices can have consequences that are neither advantageous or beneficial. And while God gives us the freedom and free will to make choices when it comes to how we express ourselves sexually, those choices can, and often do, enslave us in a lifestyle that ends up moving us away from God.
But Paul is just getting started. For the rest of this week we will not only look at what God has to say about sexuality and sexual freedom: we will look at why God says what He says about the issue of sexuality and sexual freedom.
So, how have you been doing in managing the freedom and the responsibility that God gives us when it comes to our sexuality?
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