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You Are Not Your Own (Pt 1)
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
March 11, 2018
Lord’s Day Worship
Sean Higgins
Download the bulletin.
Download the Kids’ Korner.
The sermon starts at 13:30 in the audio file.
Or, Glorify God with Your Heart and Parts
One of the most frustrating things about learning to preach is that you usually don’t get to preach consecutively, that is, your opportunities only come every so often rather than the very next week. That’s frustrating if you have the calling to preach and actually have something to say from your study. It’s also frustrating if you just bombed a sermon and don’t get a chance to try again any time soon.
Preaching regularly doesn’t always mean that you do better. Every-Sunday preachers can still get into a slump. But it’s a great joy to take a good whack at the roots of sin and then get to do it again seven days later. And here we are.
Remember that this time of our service is the consecration part. This is the time when the Word goes to work on us, to lay open our thoughts and intentions, to pull back our necks and go for the throat (Hebrews 4:12-13). We are being dedicated to divine purposes, as individual members and together as members of Christ’s body. The pastor’s work is to pay close attention to himself and to the flock that Christ died for in order to see every man made more and more complete in Christ (Acts 20:28; Colossians 1:28). Is it possible to be made more complete in Christ and never have to give up something you love? Is it possible to be made more complete in Christ and never need to change your mind? Is it possible to be made more complete in Christ without someone saying something to you that a part of you doesn’t want to hear?
The apostle Paul wrote to the saints in Corinth about a garbage truck full of their rotten compromises with unrighteousness. And don’t forget who he started with. The worst offenders were the preachers. It wasn’t Paul and Apollos and Peter, but there were preachers using worldly rhetoric to win a bigger crowd for sake of their own name. One of those tactics might have been going a little soft on sin. Preaching the word of the cross is harsh (on pride). The behaviors that Paul starts to confront in chapter 5 grew in the soil of self-seeking leaders.
I spent a lot of time giving grief to my own kind in the first four chapters of this letter. I do think that pastors and preachers bear a great responsibility for their failures. Some of them will be saved, but just barely, and their work will are burned up (1 Corinthians 3:14-15). And when they are doing their job, it doesn’t tickle the ears.
At the start of chapter 6 Paul addressed how some of the believers were taking other brothers before unrighteous judges. Then he described some of the unrighteous in verses 9-11, the kind of worldly people that shouldn’t be relied on to arbitrate disputes between Christians and the kind of worldly people that shouldn’t be imitated by the Christians. Why pay so much attention to those who have no future? As for us, we will inherit the kingdom of heaven.
In that list are men who sin with money, men who sin with their mouths, men who sin by their failure to be masculine, men who sin with other men, men who sin with women. Four of the ten are sins related to sex, considered either as gender or as practice. The man in chapter 5 was guilty of sexual immorality, the unrighteous are regularly guilty of sexual immorality, and even in the church there is ongoing sexual immorality defended in a multitude of ways. Starting in 1 Corinthians 6:12 and going through the end of chapter 7 the apostle has a lot to say about sex sins.
There is no such thing as safe sin when it comes to sex.
That’s part of the reason why pastors must talk about it. Is this not one of the battle lines in our culture? Are we not being catechized by our entertainers and educators? They used to push toleration, then it was approval, now [...]
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By Trinity Evangel Church1 Corinthians 6:12-20
March 11, 2018
Lord’s Day Worship
Sean Higgins
Download the bulletin.
Download the Kids’ Korner.
The sermon starts at 13:30 in the audio file.
Or, Glorify God with Your Heart and Parts
One of the most frustrating things about learning to preach is that you usually don’t get to preach consecutively, that is, your opportunities only come every so often rather than the very next week. That’s frustrating if you have the calling to preach and actually have something to say from your study. It’s also frustrating if you just bombed a sermon and don’t get a chance to try again any time soon.
Preaching regularly doesn’t always mean that you do better. Every-Sunday preachers can still get into a slump. But it’s a great joy to take a good whack at the roots of sin and then get to do it again seven days later. And here we are.
Remember that this time of our service is the consecration part. This is the time when the Word goes to work on us, to lay open our thoughts and intentions, to pull back our necks and go for the throat (Hebrews 4:12-13). We are being dedicated to divine purposes, as individual members and together as members of Christ’s body. The pastor’s work is to pay close attention to himself and to the flock that Christ died for in order to see every man made more and more complete in Christ (Acts 20:28; Colossians 1:28). Is it possible to be made more complete in Christ and never have to give up something you love? Is it possible to be made more complete in Christ and never need to change your mind? Is it possible to be made more complete in Christ without someone saying something to you that a part of you doesn’t want to hear?
The apostle Paul wrote to the saints in Corinth about a garbage truck full of their rotten compromises with unrighteousness. And don’t forget who he started with. The worst offenders were the preachers. It wasn’t Paul and Apollos and Peter, but there were preachers using worldly rhetoric to win a bigger crowd for sake of their own name. One of those tactics might have been going a little soft on sin. Preaching the word of the cross is harsh (on pride). The behaviors that Paul starts to confront in chapter 5 grew in the soil of self-seeking leaders.
I spent a lot of time giving grief to my own kind in the first four chapters of this letter. I do think that pastors and preachers bear a great responsibility for their failures. Some of them will be saved, but just barely, and their work will are burned up (1 Corinthians 3:14-15). And when they are doing their job, it doesn’t tickle the ears.
At the start of chapter 6 Paul addressed how some of the believers were taking other brothers before unrighteous judges. Then he described some of the unrighteous in verses 9-11, the kind of worldly people that shouldn’t be relied on to arbitrate disputes between Christians and the kind of worldly people that shouldn’t be imitated by the Christians. Why pay so much attention to those who have no future? As for us, we will inherit the kingdom of heaven.
In that list are men who sin with money, men who sin with their mouths, men who sin by their failure to be masculine, men who sin with other men, men who sin with women. Four of the ten are sins related to sex, considered either as gender or as practice. The man in chapter 5 was guilty of sexual immorality, the unrighteous are regularly guilty of sexual immorality, and even in the church there is ongoing sexual immorality defended in a multitude of ways. Starting in 1 Corinthians 6:12 and going through the end of chapter 7 the apostle has a lot to say about sex sins.
There is no such thing as safe sin when it comes to sex.
That’s part of the reason why pastors must talk about it. Is this not one of the battle lines in our culture? Are we not being catechized by our entertainers and educators? They used to push toleration, then it was approval, now [...]