Our scripture this evening comes from 1st Corinthians 6, 12 through 20. 1st Corinthians 6, 12 through 20. 1st Corinthians 6, 12 through 20. Hear now the very words of God. Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. By His power, God raised the Lord from the dead and He will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ Himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never. Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, the two will become one flesh. But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit. Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body. But he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit? Who is in you whom you have received from God? You are not your own. You were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your body. Here ends the reading of God's Word. People of God, do you have a motto that you live by? A motto. Well, growing up, I could think of a motto that I often heard in high school and such. Something that the company Nike took on as a slogan. The motto, just do it. Even today, we can think of a more Christian motto. WWJD. What would Jesus do? Or one even more recent. Not of this world. Well, in the text before us this evening, Paul quotes two Corinthian mottos. Everything is permissible for me, is one of them. Food for the stomach, and the stomach for food, is the other. Now, there's nothing wrong with mottos in themselves. But when we misapply a motto and we allow it to steer us wrong, then that can lead to trouble. In the church of Corinth, that's exactly what was occurring. They had taken these mottos and misapplied them. They had taken these mottos and mixed them with philosophy. And so everything is permissible for me. You can see how that motto, misapplied, could lead to a number of evil things. Food for the stomach and the stomach for food. Now this one's a little more difficult. However, what they saw or what they expressed in this motto was that just as the body or the stomach had an appetite or a desire for food, Well, the body has an appetite or a desire for sex. And so they misapplied this motto in the sense that they thought, well, they're both just appetites. God's going to destroy them. And so it doesn't matter what we really do. Well, Paul reminds them in this text that the body, their body, our bodies, belong to the Lord. That's what I want to focus on tonight. That our bodies belong to the Lord. And Paul lays out three reasons why our bodies belong to the Lord. Our first reason comes from verse 15. Paul asks, Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Our bodies are members of Christ. The Greek word here that Paul uses for members refers more than just the idea of members of a group. I heard Dr. Godfrey actually made reference of this word this morning in Sunday school. The word could actually be translated literally as limbs. And so Paul is talking about us as body parts of Christ. The same word is used in Romans to refer to the physical body when it says, Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness, leading to holiness. That word parts is the same word here, members. Paul uses the same word again later in the book of Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 12. The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts. There's our word, members. So Paul is saying with this word that you are a part of Christ's body. Just as the hand is a part of the body, so you are a part of Christ. Now Paul is using this term to express and to teach our union with Christ. The union that we have with Christ. Certainly Paul is not saying that we are part of the physical body of Christ. Christ right now is in heaven and he has a resurrected physical body. We are not part of that body. But what Paul is expressing here is the close, intimate union that the believer has to Christ. He can express this close union, which is so close that he expresses it in this way, as the body, as the parts of the body are unified together to make the body. So we are in union with Christ. It's interesting that he even points to the resurrection in this passage. He speaks of Christ being resurrected by the power of God. And since he's been resurrected, so will we. He points out again the union that we have with Christ. The resurrection has occurred. Christ has been resurrected and we will be resurrected also. It's one and the same. He's pointing out the union that we have with Christ. he speaks of the relationship, that close, intimate union that we have. And we should note, people of God, that this union is made possible only by the work of Christ, only by His work. John Murray states it this way. He says, Christ was united to His people and His people were united to Him when He died upon the accursed tree and rose again from the dead. Paul is speaking of the union that we have with Christ through His work. People of God, in Christ, you have forgiveness. In Christ, you have a new life, righteousness. All these are given to us through our union with Christ, by His work. So we see here the unity we have with Christ as the body is united, so we to Christ. And Paul points out your bodies are not your own. They're in union with Christ. And so it's no wonder then that Paul, after mentioning this union that the believer has with Christ, that he brings up the command of taking something or the prohibition of taking something and unifying it. Taking our bodies and unifying it to something sexually immoral. Paul asks in the second half of verse 15, he says, Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? People of God. Our bodies are not our own. Now, we could easily get over this passage by saying, obviously I've never done such a thing, such a wicked thing. But I think the principle that Paul is laying down here is much broader. You see, the word that he uses here for sexual immorality is the word porneia. And porneia can mean exactly that, sexual immorality of any kind. He uses this word three times throughout the passages that we read tonight. And so this implies that our bodies, which are in union with Christ, should not be united to anything, anything that is sexually immoral. Men, your eyes, your eyes do not belong to you. They belong to the Lord. Use them in a way that glorifies Him. Women, your bodies belong to the Lord. Do not use them in ways that provoke or incite sexual thoughts. Use them to glorify the Lord. Young people, young people, I know that there is this consensus, this idea today that as long as you don't engage in sex, the act, that you can do anything before that, that there's a line after that act, and you can do any number of things before that. And we find this in statistics that young people believe that anything is fair as long as they don't do that, and they're being sexually pure by acting this way. But any sexual immorality, any at all, is forbidden. Your bodies are not yours. They are in union with Christ. Paul answers his very question here of whether he would do such a thing by saying, never, never, we too need to think this way. Never will I enter into such a union. We are united to Christ. By His work of redemption, how could we take what is rightfully His? But Paul not only points to our unity with Christ to demonstrate that our bodies belong to the Lord, he also points out that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. And that is our second point. Our bodies belong to the Lord because they are the temple of the Holy Spirit. He says this in verse 9, 19. Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit? Now, this should remind us of the Old Testament temple. There are two words that Paul could have picked in order to use, in order to convey the idea of the temple. Two words. The first word refers to the temple as well as the outer court. the whole temple area. The second word that he could have used refers to the temple itself as well as the inner holy of holies. And so in our passage, Paul, when referring to our bodies as being the temple of God, he speaks of the inner temple, the holy of holies. That is what our bodies are. So Paul is speaking here of the dwelling place of God, where God's Spirit dwells. And we have Old Testament descriptions of what occurred when God came down from heaven and dwelt in His temple. We all remember when Solomon dedicated the temple to the Lord and he sees the glory cloud of God come down from heaven and enter the temple. There's fire and there's glory and there's this huge cloud. The text says, when Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices. And the glory of the Lord filled the temple. The priest could not enter the temple of the Lord because the glory of the Lord filled it. When all the Israelites saw the fire coming down and the glory of the Lord above the temple, they knelt down and they worshipped. We have a similar reference in Ezekiel 43 where Ezekiel sees a very similar situation. He says, I saw the glory of God of Israel coming from the east. His voice was like that of a roar of rushing water and the land was radiant with His glory. The visions I saw was like that vision I had when He came to destroy the city and like the vision I had seen by the Kibar River and I fell face down. And now, in the text before us, Paul says that we, our bodies, are that temple. That same God whose glory filled the temple in the Old Testament, that same God whom fire came down from heaven, that same God who compelled Ezekiel and the Israelites to fall and worship Him, that God dwells in our physical bodies. Yes, our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Now, someone may ask, someone may ask, how can that be? How can it be that God, Spirit, can dwell in me, especially in light of what we just heard from the Old Testament. God coming down in His glory. Well, Solomon asked a similar question concerning the temple. He said, Will God really dwell on earth? God, whom the heavens cannot contain, will He dwell on earth? Christians, brothers and sisters, that God dwells in us now. The Bible tells us over and over that the Spirit, He has given us His Spirit and He now dwells in us. Certainly, this is a mystery. Certainly, we don't understand how this can be. And so, instead of focusing on how this mystery could actually occur, we need to focus on the application of it, The consequence of it are bodies of the temple of the Holy Spirit. And what this means is that wherever we go, whatever we do, whatever we say, He's right there with us. This means that whenever we partake in any kind of sexual immorality, the Spirit is there. And we are defiling His dwelling place. Can you imagine being an Israelite in the Old Testament and walking up into the temple, into the Holy of Holies, and doing some defiled act? God would strike down a man for doing such a thing. How much more responsibility do we now have as the temple of the Holy Spirit? And so we can now see why Paul says in verse 18, flee sexual immorality. Flee it. All other sins a man commits are outside his body. But he who sins sexually sins against his own body. What I think Paul is getting at here is that he's saying sexual sins are directed at the body in such a way that it defiles the very place that the Spirit dwells. So people of God, we ought not to defile the Lord's place. We ought not to defile what the Lord has sanctified to himself. Our bodies are not meant for such things. And this points us to Christ. Christ, who by his work made us the temple of the Lord. Obviously, God could not dwell in a defiled or wicked temple, an evil dwelling place. But Christ cleansed us. We've been washed by His blood, renewed and made holy. Holy enough that now the Spirit of God dwells in us. People of God, your bodies are not your own. They are the temple of the Holy Spirit. But, as if appealing to our bodies being the Holy Spirit or them being in union with Christ is not enough, Paul makes one more reference here as to why our bodies belong to the Lord. It's found in the second half of verse 19. He says this, Do you not know... I'm sorry. You are not your own. You were bought at a price. You are not your own. You were bought at a price. Your bodies are not your own because of Christ's work of redemption. He has purchased you. Now the word that Paul uses here, the word bought, It comes from the idea of a slave being purchased in the slave market. When a slave was purchased, this same word was used. And so Paul is picking a very precise word here in order to convey what Christ did for us. And what that means for us. We've been bought. Been bought as slaves. slaves. Slaves to sin. And that's exactly what we were or are apart from Christ. We would be enslaved by sin, consumed by it and taken over by it. The third head of Article 3 of the Canons of Dorit speaks of it this way. It says, therefore, all men are conceived in sin and are by nature children of wrath, incapable of saving good, prone to evil, dead in sin and in bondage thereto. And without the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit, they are neither able nor willing to return to God, to reform the depravity of their nature or to dispose themselves to reformation. It's not difficult. It's not difficult to think today of examples of people who are enslaved to sin. I don't know how many of you watch golf. I personally don't myself, but I know my brother does, and he really enjoys it. And he used to really look up to Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods, who just a year ago or so, Seemed like a pretty decent guy, but more recently has shown himself to really be enslaved, enslaved to sin. So much so that he himself admitted himself to an addiction center. It's sad. It's sad, but apart from Christ, we would be enslaved to sin. But we were bought. We were bought. This same word here that Paul uses that speaks of being bought as a slave also refers to being bought to be a slave. Now, what does this mean? It doesn't mean that we were bought from slavery to sin to now be slaves to sin again. What it means is that we were bought from the slavery of sin to now be slaves of righteousness. Slaves to righteousness. Our bodies were bought. Purchased by Christ. To now be His. And what does this mean? What does it mean for us now to be slaves of righteousness? It means that we are able now to do righteous things. We are not just enslaved to sin where we could not do anything good. We are now able to do righteous things. The fact that we are here tonight, that we desire to worship our God, That's an example, an illustration of us exercising the righteousness, the ability to practice righteousness. The fact that we pray to the Lord, that's an exercising of our righteousness. We heard this morning a sermon on fasting. Apart from Christ, apart from Christ, fasting doesn't make any sense. But we now can do such things and we desire to do such things because we can exercise righteousness. But this freedom from sin, this freedom from sin and our ability now to practice righteousness, it came at a price. And it was no small price that Christ paid. The price of our redemption was His life. Both His life on earth and the life that He gave up on the cross. The Catechism in Answer 37 puts it this way, that all the time He lived on earth, but especially at the end of His life, He bore in body and soul the wrath of God against the sin of the whole human race. In order that by His suffering, as the only atoning sacrifice, He might redeem our bodies and soul from everlasting damnation and obtain for us the grace of God, righteousness, and everlasting life. We should note well here that Christ did not purchase us for a measly 30 pieces of silver like a slave would have been purchased. Christ paid much more. Christ paid much more for you. The Apostle Peter tells us in 1 Peter 1, For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty ways of life handed down to you by your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. Was your life worth Christ's life? Whether it was or not, Christ paid the price. Christ redeemed us. He bought us, and at no small price. Purchased with the perfect life He lived on earth. The suffering that He underwent in His life. the blood that He shed upon the cross. People of God, the next time, the next time you're tempted, the next time you find yourself struggling with sin, look to the cross. Remember the price that Christ paid for you. And if you find, even today, if you find that you are in sin, I say the same thing. Look to the cross. The same thing that should motivate us to live pure lives should also remind us that when we fail, our failure has been atoned for. We've been redeemed. There's forgiveness in Christ. Forgiveness because of the price that He paid that none of us could pay. Christ's life was more than enough. We were washed by that price. Sanctified and justified. So in closing, in closing, I leave you a new slogan. And it's the last words that Paul says in this passage. The new slogan is, glorify God with your bodies. Glorify God with your body. Paul leaves us with this command after teaching us that our bodies are not our own. Our bodies are in union with Christ. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Our bodies have been bought at a price. So I say again, now that we know that our bodies belong to the Lord, glorify Him with those bodies. Amen. And let us pray. Lord, Father in God, we thank you for the work of Christ, his redemption, and how he redeemed both our body and soul, that we might be the righteousness, that we might be righteous before you. Lord, remind us of this. Remind us that our bodies are not our own. They belong to you. Remind us of the gospel. The gospel, when we don't live lives worthy of your calling, remind us of the gospel that Christ has purchased us. We thank you and we pray these things in his name. Amen.