This week, we are having a
frank conversation about sex. And to have that frank conversation about sex, we
are looking at a section of a letter that is recorded for us in the Bible that
was written by a man named Paul to a church that was located in Corinth Greece,
called the book of 1 Corinthians.
Yesterday, we saw Paul reveal
for us the reality that while God gives us the freedom
and free will to make choices when it comes to how we express ourselves
sexually, those choices 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.
Just like eating, sex is an appetite that is only
satisfied when it is fed, and that satisfaction only lasts until the appetite
reappears. For the members of the church at Corinth, their desire to have
sexual freedom had become an idol; their pursuit of pleasure through sex was
more important than their pursuit of their relationship with Christ. And it was
this worship of the sex that was moving them away from their worship of their
Creator. And in the same way today, we commit idolatry when we place our sexual
appetites and pleasure over our relationship with Christ.
Today, we will see Paul continue by revealing for us
a second reason why we can find ourselves believing that we should have sexual
freedom and license in 1 Corinthians 6:15-17:
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.
In verse 15,
Paul uses a rhetorical question in order to introduce the well known and
generally accepted fact that, as followers of Jesus, we are mystically and
spiritually united with Christ. God right now sees us in Christ. This morning,
if you are here and you are a follower of Jesus, God sees you in Christ. God
does not see Dave Arnold, out here; God sees Dave Arnold in Christ as part of
His body.
And in light of the reality that we are united
mystically and spiritually in Christ, Paul asks the members of the church at
Corinth if they should take the members of Christ and make them members of a
prostitute? Paul then answers the questions with the strongest possible
negative statement possible in the language that this was written in. In our
culture it might sound like this- no way! But what does Paul mean when he asks
whether they should take the members of Christ and make them members of a
prostitute?
In verse 16, the apostle provides the answer for us
by introducing another well known and generally accepted fact that the church
should know: “do you not know that the one who joins himself with a prostitute
is one body with her?” To back up his point, Paul quotes part of Genesis 2:24
‘the two shall become one flesh’. To understand what Paul is communicating
here, we need to understand what happens when we have sex.
When we have sex with someone, the very act of
sexual intercourse causes two separate bodies to become one. The act of sex
physically, emotionally, and even spiritually fuses two people together. It’s
kind of like this cardboard box I received in the mail this past week. This box
came to church from UPS and contained a book that I had ordered. But to get the
book, I first needed to open the box. Like many boxes, this box was closed with
glue as an adhesive.
Now here is a question for you: have you ever been
able to open a box that was glued together without destroying the box? Have you
ever been able to open a box that has been glued together in a way that the
individual pieces remains as they were prior to being glued? No. Usually what
happens is the glue is so strong that part of one part of the lid ends us
remaining on the other part of the lid as you rip the box open, doesn’t
it? We never end up with a clean break
or separation of the parts of the box when we open a box, do we?
And just like that cardboard box, when we have sex
with someone, pieces of us remain attached to one another. So, a piece of every
person that you have ever had sex with has become a part of you. And because of
the powerful nature of sex to connect us physically, emotionally, and
spiritually, God designed sex for one specific environment, which is one man
and one woman united in a monogamous marriage relationship for one lifetime.
Let’s look at the entire quote of Genesis 2:24 to see this reality:
For this
reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife;
and they shall become one flesh.
God created and designed sex to occur when one man
leaves from his home to commit himself in a covenant relationship with one
woman for an entire lifetime. Any sex that occurs outside of one man and one
woman united in a monogamous marriage relationship for life is outside of God’s
design.
The members of the church at Corinth, however,
misunderstood God’s design for sexuality and the powerful nature of sex as God
designed it. Parents, one of the biggest mistakes that we can make is to try to
tell and convince our children that sex is bad. This is a mistake for two
reasons. First, all our children have to do is to go look in the mirror to see
that sex is not bad. Seriously. All a child has to do is say, “if sex is bad,
then why am I here? And what about all my brothers and sisters? I mean are you
going to try and convince your child that you just had sex one time and decided
it was bad? How is that argument going
to go over?
Second, and unfortunately, many of the friends of
your children are already experimenting with sex. So when you tell your
children that sex is bad and then they hear their friends talking about how
great sex is, you have just lost credibility to speak into your child’s life
about sex.
And the church historically has done a horrible job
when it comes to talking about sex. That is why many of you wanted to cringe in
you seats when we began to talk about sex, isn’t it. Many of us have sat in an
environment where a red faced preached pounded the pulpit and spewed
condemnation when it came to sex.
However, the Bible clearly teaches that sex is an
awesome gift from God that is divinely designed to be experienced in one
environment- marriage. In verse 17, Paul then contrasts the one flesh
relationship that occurs during sexual intercourse with the eternal relationship
that occurs with Jesus Christ by stating that the one who unites himself to the
Lord is one spirit with Him.
Paul’s point here is that the follower of Jesus who
are united mystically and spiritually to Jesus Christ will experience a
different type of intimacy that is eternal and unbreakable in nature. The
sexual intercourse that occurs in a covenant marriage relationship that
provides for the open expression of love in the context of total vulnerability
and intimacy is a glimpse of the depth of the intimacy that we will have in our
relationship with Christ for all eternity.
And because of this reality, we see the Apostle Paul
give a timeless command to followers of Jesus that reveals for us a
timeless truth when it comes to love and lasting relationships.
Tomorrow, we will look at this timeless command
together…
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