Biblical Sexuality
Download MP3Invite you to open your Bibles to 1st Corinthians chapter 6. 1st Corinthians chapter 6. We've been working through the book of 1st Corinthians for the last month or so, and we are not going to go through all of it. Just through a few select chapters that I think are especially pertinent to who we are as a church. As to our calling to be a a alternate city within the city of Birmingham.
Joel Brooks:Last week we looked at excommunication, always a fun topic, but that was brought up in chapter 5. And we looked at what that should look like as a church. And really, when you begin studying chapter 5, you really you realize it's not so much about kicking out somebody because they had sex with their stepmom. That's not so much about what it's about. It's really about the power, the protective power of the church, and how God has created this church.
Joel Brooks:And within the confines of this community of faith, you should see it as shelter. You should see it as rest. And to move yourself out from beneath the the protective powers of the church leads you in a very vulnerable place, where joy will run away from you and where you will fall over and over again to temptation. To not devote yourselves, continually devote yourselves to the fellowship of the church is actually, as we looked at last week, a form of self imposed excommunication, voluntary excommunication if you will. If you only attend a a Sunday service once a week, and that is your church, attending once a week, what you have actually done is really voluntarily placed yourself in excommunication.
Joel Brooks:Because you already are denying yourself the fellowship, you already are denying yourself the times of meeting and prayer. And what you're doing is you're putting yourself in a very vulnerable place, and that's what Paul would have us look at. If you weren't here last week, we're going to actually start podcasting hopefully sometime soon, maybe at the end of this week, if you want to check on our website. I I think it's an important message for who we are as a church. Now in chapter 6, which we're going to look at, Paul is going to build on this theme of community.
Joel Brooks:He's going to build on this this idea of being this alternative city within a city. And let me read from chapter 6, and we'll look at it more closely. When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases?
Joel Brooks:Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more than matters pertaining to this life? So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no, no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, but brothers goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers?
Joel Brooks:To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud, even your own brothers. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?
Joel Brooks:Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. All things are lawful to me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be enslaved by anything.
Joel Brooks:Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food, and 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. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by His power. 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?
Joel Brooks:Never. Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For as it is written, the 2 will become 1 flesh. But he who is joined to the Lord becomes 1 spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality.
Joel Brooks:Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 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, for you were bought with a price, so glorify God in your body. Pray with me. God, we ask that You would speak truth in this place.
Joel Brooks:No one needs to hear from me, we need to hear from you. My words are death, your words are life. So I ask that my words would fall to the ground and they would blow away and they would not be remembered anymore. But Lord, let your words remain, may they change us. And I pray this in the strong name of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Amen. As I said, in this chapter, Paul is actually building on the idea of community or being a city within the alternate city, or being an alternate city within the larger city of Corinth, and for us, the larger city of Birmingham. And it might not seem that at first, because it looks like he's talking about 2 completely different subjects. In chapter 5, he talks about the sin of someone who's having sex with his stepmom, and then he goes to lawsuits, and then he goes to other sexual immorality in it. You kind of think of the lawsuits as almost being this interruption of Paul dealing with sexual sin, but that's not the case.
Joel Brooks:Because the heart of the issue is both of these are about relationships. They're about relationships within the church. I cannot talk about both of these in detail, so we're briefly going to look at the lawsuits, and then we're going to look at what Paul has to say concerning the nature of sex. The Corinthians, in looking at the lawsuits, they were taking one another to court. Now these were not criminal cases, these were trivial cases.
Joel Brooks:You know, your fence is on my side of their property. No, it's, you know, or actually in our neighbor one of one of our neighbors in Crestwood had complained to another neighbor because their fence, they said, was blocking the sunset and they wanted it taken down. And so you know there's this is what it's talking about here, trivial cases. Trivial cases. The way civil cases work during this time is a jury wasn't randomly selected.
Joel Brooks:You didn't get a little letter that say, Report to the courthouse. Jurors, they were elected, not selected, They were elected by the people and only the wealthy could run for it. These were people of very high status. And so civil cases, they would always be brought by a person of high status against somebody of a lower status, and they would the the juror the jury was supposed to be bribed, that's how they were paid. Really you're not seeking justice, it's just to clarify who's the man when you go before the the jurors in this.
Joel Brooks:It's to establish your status, it's to shame your opponent. And Paul is saying something like that has no business in the church. You're not about justice, you're about breaking relationships, you're about shaming others, and you can't have that in the church. And then he gets kind of sarcastic in this stinging rebuke, in which he says, You guys keep telling me about how wise you are, and and how you're just so wise, and yet you can't find anybody in your church you could judge between a fence dispute or something like that? Come on, I thought you were wise.
Joel Brooks:Find somebody to do this. And he then reminds them of who they are as a church, what their glorious future is going to look like when to judge angels. I had a friend of mine in seminary, and, he had 3 kids, he lived in a trailer, and he drove what we called the lead sled. It was put together by duct tape. And he he was about 35 years old at the time.
Joel Brooks:And you ask him how he got there, he says, Well, I came here because of 1 Corinthians 6. Said, I was actually in a business deal with a pastor, and the business went south and we lost all our money, and the pastor just left. He left me with the bill. And, I guess I could have sued, I could have taken it to trial, and he said, But why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be wrong?
Joel Brooks:So he sold his house, he sold his cars, paid off the debt that wasn't even his, lived in a trailer, and he drove the lead sled and he went to seminary. But what he had was this amazing perspective. It's like, I can let go of all that because I know what is to come. I know my glorious future. It's not much for me to let go of this.
Joel Brooks:One day, I'll inherit the world. I will judge angels. I can let it go. Paul, after this, he goes to the issue of sex. And but first, right right saddle between this lawsuits in our glorious future, and sex, are all these sins.
Joel Brooks:Look at verse 9. It said, Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do you not be deceived neither the sexually immoral, nor adulterers, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindler, you get the picture, on and on, will inherit the kingdom of God. And what Paul is doing here, he's not giving you a checklist. Here's a checklist of things you cannot do, and if you don't do those things, you're gonna go to Heaven.
Joel Brooks:Paul doesn't even mention heaven. The kingdom of God is something different, and we're gonna look at that in a few weeks, what Paul means when he says, inherit the kingdom of God. He's not talking about a checklist of getting heaven. And he says, inherit. You don't do anything to get an inheritance.
Joel Brooks:You're born into an inheritance. This isn't a checklist. I have a grandmother who's 97 years old. And you know I hope she lives a 120, but she's she's probably not. I'm certain I am going to get something when she dies from her.
Joel Brooks:I've done nothing to earn that. I don't go over and say, Hey, can I can I rake leaves in your yard and will you give me a little bit more inheritance? You know, you don't do that. You, you're born into it. We're born into an inheritance of the kingdom of God, of the redeemed world.
Joel Brooks:And what Paul is saying is, Don't you know, the people who will have this inheritance act like this. This is what they're like. This is what the children who have this inheritance act like. They don't do these things. He's not saying, you you don't do them so you get an inheritance.
Joel Brooks:He is saying, if you have this inheritance you're not like this. And he's asking to look, do you think you will really inherit the kingdom of God? If so, you'll start acting like you belong in the kingdom. And we love to to focus in on all of these sexual sins, but Paul, he he says a lot of other sins. You know, greedy, wow, okay, knocked us all, basically.
Joel Brooks:You know, swindlers, there's, Paul gives lists like this all throughout Scripture, it'll include things like gossiping, bitterness, or bickering in there. And the thing that all of these sins have in common and it's the thread that goes through here is all of them all of these sins put the individual before the community. That's the heart of it. All of these sins put the individual before the community. That's the theme of 1 Corinthians chapter 6 all the way to chapter 14.
Joel Brooks:Sins that put the individual before the community. Paul's going to discuss a whole lot of things, but that is going to be the thread. I don't know if you've ever wondered why Paul in his letters, he has to always address things like quit fighting with one another, quit gossiping, quit slandering. And the reason he does is because the church is full of people, and it's gonna happen. And it's not just full of any kind of people, it's full of very, very different people.
Joel Brooks:People who would never normally be together. And you got to understand this if you're gonna understand why Paul always addresses this and who we are as a church. A church doesn't decide its membership. You know, a country club, you have these filters. Everybody's got to be of a certain income, maybe of a certain political persuasion, a certain education, and they all come in and said, They're all like you.
Joel Brooks:The church is not like that. God chooses the church. And He chooses people, okay, from this education, from this education, this bleeding liberal here, this ultra conservative person here. And he pulls people from all different groups and he makes the church. It's almost like an experiment, you know.
Joel Brooks:You're pulling all these different people together, you're putting them putting them in a room, and just kind of watching what happens. And of course, there's going to be slandering. There's going to be bickering. There's going to be all of these things in the church, because God chooses a very diverse group of people, and he puts them together. He does the picking.
Joel Brooks:If this was any kind of corporation and 2 people didn't go get along, the boss would either put them in separate assignments or he would fire 1. We don't do that in the church. We take people in of different personalities. And actually we get people who are typically angrier, more unkind, more selfish than the rest of the world. Because Jesus said he came to save the sick, not those who are healthy.
Joel Brooks:And so we pull in actually the people who have all of those issues, who have all of those problems, then we throw them all together. And if you are not completely dependent upon the spirit, things will go crazy. That's why Paul is always saying quit bickering, quit gossiping, because that's what we've inherited. If you look at even the disciples that Jesus chose, and we don't have that link to go through all of them, but you know, you have 2 very extremely different people. Matthew, a tax collector.
Joel Brooks:He works for the Roman government. You have one of the Judases Judas the Zealot. He is part of a political party that kills Romans people who work for the Roman government. So you have one who works for the Roman government, one who's belongs to a party that kills people who works in the Roman government. And Jesus is like, Great.
Joel Brooks:Both of y'all follow me. I mean, could you imagine how those guys butted heads? But that's why Jesus said, if the world can see you guys actually love one another, that's the biggest testimony we'll ever have. That's why he addresses this. He is always going to be adding to our mix people that we would not choose.
Joel Brooks:Actually, I would tend to think, if Satan was building a church, this is the kind of people he'd bring in. But actually, it's how the Lord brings in the church, and then he changes us, then he sanctifies us. And so Paul, he's he's talking about all of these these issues about people putting their sins of their self, putting their self above others, and then he brings in sex. And that is that is the the lead way into this. Now the Corinthians, they held 2 very dominant view of sex.
Joel Brooks:Two main views. They they had others but these are the 2 main views. One view is this, when it comes to sex anything goes, anything goes. What one did with their physical body had absolutely no relation at all to their spiritual life. You could do whatever you want.
Joel Brooks:Then you had other people who are more stoic in their philosophy and they said, No, no, no, sex is is is dirty. It's, you know, you got to promote abstinence. And some of the Corinthian Christians were even promoting abstinence within marriage. And they're like, No, you don't. That is a completely defiling thing that corrupts your mind.
Joel Brooks:These two things could be found if you want to look at 6:13, you'll find one of these views. Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food. That's a quote, that's what he Paul is quoting them saying, Hey, if you're hungry, you eat. When I get hungry, I go down to the fridge and I eat until I'm I'm satisfied. If I have sexual desire, I go, and I partake until I'm satisfied.
Joel Brooks:I mean, I you just got to listen to your body. My doctor is always telling me, Listen to your body and that's what we're supposed to do with sex. That's one of the views. And these Corinthians were very Roman in their thinking, in which you had a wife just to have legitimate children, but then you had all these other women for sexual partners and to please you in that way. And even in this society they had something whenever they had dinners together called after dinners, in which a host was supposed to not only provide the food, but then the sexual favors afterwards.
Joel Brooks:It was a sex dominated society. But if you want it, go for it. That's one of the views. The opposite view is found in chapter 7 verse 1. Now concerning the matters about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.
Joel Brooks:And he's quoting them there. It's good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman. And this is the view that sex somehow corrupts your minds, it corrupts your spirit. That, you know God might have invented it, but man He kind of regrets that now and he looks at it and it's just this dirty thing. This was the philosophy of some of these early Christians.
Joel Brooks:It's actually the philosophy of a lot of people in the early church. Here's just a few quotes that I was able to find. This is from John Chrysostom. He said that, virginity stands as far above marriage as the heavens above the earth. St.
Joel Brooks:Augustine said, All who have not remained virgins are polluted. He even went on to say that sex within marriage is only good if you compare it to adultery. John Calvin, for those of you don't know, I admire him so much I name my cat Calvin. He said that marriage is a necessary remedy to keep us from plunging into unbridled lust. A necessary remedy.
Joel Brooks:A few years ago my wife was reading through a book written by a pastor's wife. This is about a 100 years old on the subject of sex. And, the woman, the wife felt that sex was so degrading and so defiling that she gave a week by week or day by day program as to how to wean your husband off of of sex. And this was something that she gave out to the people in her church. And I mean, what a happy, happy marriage that they must have had.
Joel Brooks:And so you see these two main views here. Sex is just an appetite that that you have, and the other is, no, it's defiling, it should be avoided. And, these two views are still dominant today. They might take slightly different forms, but they're still dominant. Paul, however, has this radically different view of sex.
Joel Brooks:It is off the radar his view of sex when he brings this in. Look at 6:16, Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For as it is written, the 2 will become 1 flesh. Paul is talking about casual sex here, about as casual as you can get sex with a prostitute. And what he says here is that even in this, something profound happens.
Joel Brooks:Just because of the way God created this. He he says, when you're joined with a prostitute, you become one with her. And now what what does Paul mean when he uses this these words joined or one body? Joined here obviously the act of sex, that is what being joined with a prostitute means, that there's, that they're having sex with these prostitutes, likely temple prostitutes. So so far it's easy to understand Paul, that's what he means by joined.
Joel Brooks:But then he uses the phrase, one body with her. And this is a little more difficult. He is not saying a parallel phrase or just the same thing, otherwise it'd be a worthless statement. Can you imagine if I got in front of you and said, do you not know that when you have sex with someone, you are having sex with someone? That's that's a worthless statement, and it is not what he means.
Joel Brooks:What he means is something profound, and he explains it by quoting from Genesis 2. When he says, The 2 shall become 1 flesh. One flesh and one body, those are synonymous. And this is a pretty bold thing for Paul to do to compare it very casual sex to marriage, to becoming 1 flesh. Yet he does.
Joel Brooks:And what he is saying is that the very nature of sex, it creates an enduring bond, an enduring bond beyond just a mere physical attachment. That's what one flesh is. The word flesh or sarx in Greek, it means more than just your physical body, it denotes the entire person, your heart and your soul. Not just the physical aspects of who you are. So becoming 1 flesh with someone is, is, there is a fusion, almost this shared personhood.
Joel Brooks:And when persons are joined together they should not be taken apart. Now this sounds, you know, somewhat mystical. As I was reading this, I kept thinking of different Harry Potter things, and like dividing your soul, and all this stuff. But it's not as as mystical as you think. There's definitely that element to it.
Joel Brooks:But you've seen this, and people who are in a sexual relationship but they know they should break up, and they just can't break up. It's just so hard. Once sex has been introduced into the equation, it's like they they they keep going back to one another. Even though they know they shouldn't be together, a lot of times they don't even like one another, yet they they still they find themselves back together. There's been some union there.
Joel Brooks:We see that in people. Paul hears their their arguments that sexual desire is just an appetite that we need to meet, and then he hears arguments that, no, that's not the case, sex is actually just something really dirty, avoided at all costs. And he says, You're both wrong. You're both wrong. Then he elevates it.
Joel Brooks:He elevates it to something far, far superior. He said it it says it's much more rich, much more rich than just casual cheap sex, and it is so much more pure and beautiful than any defiling view of sex that you have. He says sex has this fusing transformative power to it. That's the way God created this. Yes, it's physical.
Joel Brooks:Yes, it's emotional, but it is more than that. There's, in some unique way, a shared personhood. People become 1 flesh. And that is why this needs to only happen in the confines of a lifelong commitment to another person. This is a radical, revolutionary view of sex that Paul is presenting here.
Joel Brooks:There was no culture, no concept of this. This is unique to Judeo Christianity, how we view this. And I bet you were not taught this in your sex ed class, were you? But it needs to be taught, because this is what God created. Now the reason that Paul goes to all of this great length to discuss the nature of sex here is because he sees the church as a city on a hill.
Joel Brooks:The whole world's watching us. You're to be a city on a hill, an alternate city within the city, pointing to Christ. And our sex lives, both for those who are married and who are in a sexual relationship and those who are abstaining from a sexual relationship, both of those things point to Jesus. Both of them do. How we pursue sex, enjoy sex, or deny ourselves sex points to Christ.
Joel Brooks:When we believe these things, and when we hold on to these things, we're going to declare to the world what God is like. Look at verse 17. But he who is joined to the Lord becomes 1 spirit with Him. I'll just stop right there. Paul has used this word joined before.
Joel Brooks:Remember he talked about when you're joined to a prostitute, it's talking about sex here, a very intimate, intimate relationship. But look how he uses it, it kind of makes you feel uncomfortable. Says, it says, But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. He uses that same word to describe our relationship with God. And sex is just this representation of our relationship with Christ.
Joel Brooks:A relationship that's much more than physical. When you encounter Christ, it is emotional, it is spiritual, and it is physical. It affects your whole being. And when His spirit comes inside of you, there's in a sense this kind of shared personhood in a sense. It transforms you when you come to know him.
Joel Brooks:And this is a lifelong change that Christ has given you, and it demands a lifelong commitment. And so when we're joined to Christ, when people understand that, and when we show the world that, we point to Him and are longing for what we would call our ultimate wedding day. And for those of you who are single, single in the city, I would imagine that would be pretty hard. But you need to commit yourselves to sexual purity. Commit to it because the world's watching.
Joel Brooks:And and just Paul's amazing. He says, sex is this great. It's this transformative. It's far superior than you ever can imagine. And then in chapter 7, he goes, it's okay if you never experience it.
Joel Brooks:He said, because if you do experience it, let that point you to the love of god. If you don't, let it create in you a hunger for his return. Jesus was a virgin when he was here on earth. Jesus is still waiting for his wedding day when he comes again, and saying that should create in us that stirring in us, longing for him. So whether you experience sex within the confines of marriage, or whether you abstain, creating in you a hunger for that time, both teach teach you about the Lord.
Joel Brooks:And that's why Paul has this here. Because he says, You are an alternate city within the city. The way you view power, the way you view wealth, the way you view sex must be radically different than the way the rest of the world sees it. Pray with me. Lord, I do ask that You would communicate truth.
Joel Brooks:Some of these things are complicated and above us, and we need you to teach our hearts and spirits. Thank You for the amazing gifts You give us, for the longings and the stirrings You put in our heart. You're a good God. I pray we would be a city on a hill. People would look at us and wonder.
Joel Brooks:And I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
