Sex As Worship

Speaker 1: 0:09

In some ways, the bridge is like sexuality in our culture it's always the topic of conversation and it's on shaky ground. That's my core attempt at a segue here, as we come to a passage in 1st Corinthians about sex. We are a culture that is obsessed with sexuality. There are all kinds of different views on it. You hear people talk about you know, if it feels good, do it. My body, my choice. Love is love. Sleep with whoever you want to, as long as it's consensual. We even have an entire month on our calendar devoted to a perversion of sex. Have you ever wondered why that is? Why are we in such a sexually obsessed culture? Why is this the battleground, it seems? Well, 1st Corinthians 6, I believe, is going to show us that it's because sex is always an act of worship. Now, it sounds odd to say it that way, but sex is always an act of worship and it's just a question of who or what are we worshiping with it.

Speaker 1: 1:25

In Corinth, 2,000 years ago, they were just as obsessed with sex as we are, if not more. They had all the same kinds of temptations that we have. I mean, they didn't have internet porn, obviously, but I'm sure they had other forms of it. But one thing they had that we really don't have is they actually had a system of temple prostitution, where you could go to a pagan temple and have sex as part of a literal worship service. The Corinthian Christians were constantly tempted by this, by sexual immorality and even by the pagan practice of it. Sexual immorality, by the way, comes from the Greek word pornea, which should tell you a little bit about what this is. I mean, that's where we get the word pornography. By definition, it's any sexual activity that's outside of marriage between one man and one woman. It's about how the Bible defines it, how God defines it. We have to be cognizant that this includes not just our actions. It includes our thoughts and our desires as well.

Speaker 1: 2:35

Jesus, in Matthew 5, 27 and 28, makes this clear as he talks about adultery, he says you have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So even if you in your life have been flawless, you've been an angel physically in this department. I know that you have sinned in your thoughts and in your desires, because you're human. This is an area that we all struggle with, and so I hope that as we approach this text, we will do so with humility, not as those who have no issues here, but as those who are all in some way sexual struggleers. And so we'll just read one verse to start 1 Corinthians 6, verse 12. All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything.

Speaker 1: 3:40

What we're going to see here, I think, in this passage, is that there are two idols that we commonly worship with sex, and the first one is that we worship the idol of human autonomy. Verse 12, paul is quoting a slogan that the Corinthians would use essentially to justify their sexual immorality. They believed that, because they were forgiven in Christ, that they had a license to sin. Like you know, now it doesn't matter what I do. I can just do whatever I want because I'm forgiven. You may have heard people say that, you may have said that yourself, but Paul is saying why in the world would you use your freedom in Christ to sin? That's like going back to serving your old master. You're being dominated by sin again, as if sin was now still your master, and that's just not the case. You have a new master who's Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1: 4:32

But when we treat sexual practice and immorality this way, what we're revealing is that we're worshiping something. We're either worshiping Christ or we're worshiping something else, and when we stray from Christ, that means we're worshiping that other thing, that idol. And this particular idol I think we see here is that of autonomy. In other words, it's a desire to be free from boundaries, from restrictions, particularly boundaries and restrictions that God has given us, and you can say this about really anything in life. But in this case we're talking specifically about sex and about marriage. And I wanna say very clearly God has absolutely put boundaries and restrictions around sex and around marriage. It's very clear in His word, and we believe this is good, we believe this is right, we believe this is for life and for human flourishing.

Speaker 1: 5:30

Some of those boundaries would be that God has created sex specifically for a husband and a wife in the context of a marriage One man, one woman and this is a creation ordinance. We see it in Genesis one and two that God has done this. It's part of how God created the world, just like time or just like gravity. It's woven into the fabric of our creation, and so what we see is we have two equal but distinct persons coming together in a union. They're the same that they're both human, but they're not the same that they're male and female, and together they are a complementary. It's a complementary union, and they enjoy the greatest intimacy this possible in this life. That's what they're celebrating when they come together sexually, and also, of course, it has the purpose of creating new life. So these are God's good purposes that he's given for sex, but in sin, in our idolatry, what we want to do is remove these boundaries, we want to strip away these restrictions, because we want to be able to achieve these types of things on our own, without God. That's what idolatry is.

Speaker 1: 6:50

In his book called Pride, matthew Roberts says "'All the desires associated with sex "'are the ones which image God most potently? "'so they are the ones which have been distorted "'most drastically'". What kinds of desires is he talking about? Well, again, he's talking about these types of things that God has created sex for the purposes he's created sex for which give us intimacy and pleasure in life and the ability to create new life. And what, then, he's saying is that people want these things, and they want them without God, and that's why this has become the battleground. That's why this has become the battleground, because sex is designed ultimately to point us to God in a way that nothing else does, and so, of course, then idolatry wants to say let's point everything away from God. It's like we're saying, look at what humans can do, look at what we can achieve. We don't need God, we have all this freedom, we can remove all these boundaries. And this, of course, it really explains why homosexuality has become such a thing, such a popular thing in our culture.

Speaker 1: 8:09

And that's not to say the homosexuality is the only distortion of sex, it's not All. Sexual immorality is a distortion of sex in some way, but homosexuality is unique because it's the removal of all of the boundaries that God has placed on sex, all of them, it's too equal, but same people coming together in a union of sorts. There is no complimentary thing going on here. It's two same people, and in doing this there is no possibility of producing life. So the purposes that God has given of sex, they're just not there, they're removed, they're flaunted.

Speaker 1: 8:54

And then this is why, in Romans one, it talks about God giving people over to their sin. We don't know who these people are that they're talking about, but it's that he says God gave them over to their sin. He allowed them to pursue their sinful desires however they wanted, gave them that freedom. And then the very next step almost is it says that they pursued homosexuality. Why is that? Why would that be the next kind of logical step? Well, think about it this way Sex in marriage is a picture of something greater. It images the union of Christ and his church, and homosexuality, too, is an image of something greater. It images, or pictures, mankind's obsession with himself. It images or pictures essentially mankind saying I don't need help, I have me and that's all I need, which is another way of saying it's a worship of autonomy. It's a worship of me standing apart from God.

Speaker 1: 10:06

Now again, like CJ said last week, this is not a worst sin than any other sin. I totally agree with that. It's not. And if you struggle with homosexuality or anything associated with that, this is the same is true for you as any other sin. It's to repent. It's to repent, it's to turn away and come to Jesus and follow Christ, and you will be forgiven. There's no like extra step that's needed.

Speaker 1: 10:38

But I guess the other thing I want to mention here is so important is we can sometimes pick on homosexuality as if it is a worse sin. Right, and there's a great quote from Rosaria Butterfield, who herself was once a lesbian. She said don't presume that the worst sin in your gay and lesbian neighbor's life is sexuality. It's not. The worst sin is unbelief. I think that's probably the whole point of what I'm trying to say here is that homosexuality and any other form of sexual immorality is a symptom of unbelief. A symptom is the worship of something else, of human autonomy. A second idol that we worship with sex is that of physical pleasure, and that might be more obvious, but it's no less dangerous.

Speaker 1: 11:35

Verses 13 and 14. 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. So Paul's quoting another slogan here that the Corinthians used. They talk about how food is meant to satisfy the stomach when you're hungry, and in the same way, having sex is just like a biological act that satisfies a biological desire. It's just biology, right? If it feels good, do it.

Speaker 1: 12:14

We had a speaker here, meg Alman from Apologetics Incorporated on Tuesday night, and she talked about how, in our culture today, people believe that there really is this separation between body and identity, almost to the point where people don't think of their bodies as even being part of who they are. And they'll say that my body is like a machine. As long as I spend my time pursuing pleasure, it doesn't matter what I do with my body, as long as I don't harm it. Right. But this is to worship pleasure as an idol, instead of seeing pleasure as a means to an end. It's a means to an end that we might be more thankful to God, who's the giver of pleasure, who gives us. This is a gift, but instead we're worshiping it as an idol, which is not what it's meant to be.

Speaker 1: 13:04

And this also comes from a wrong view of the body altogether. It's saying that the body is temporary, that it's just, that it's not important what we do with it, you know? But God has said no, the body is eternal. He says I've designed it for my glory, that you use it for my glory, and it has. Whatever you do with it has lasting impact because, like he says in 1 Corinthians 15, he's going to raise everyone from the dead at the end, when Jesus returns, and if you are a follower of Christ, you're going to receive a transformed body. In some way, shape or form, your current body will rise from decay and be transformed. It's not like it's just going to be burned up and thrown away and you'll get a completely new body. You know there's something transformative that's going to happen, where we'll then have a perfect body, and so your body is eternal and what we do with it matters.

Speaker 1: 14:03

It's kind of like the difference between paper plates and fine china. Your mom or your wife does not care what you do with paper plates, as long as you don't spill food on her couch, right, but she cares what you do with her china, and lo the day that you find out how bad she likes her china if you break it. You don't want to do that, because why? It's precious, it's valuable, it has, it's meant to last. Okay, and the same, in an even greater way, is true of our body. We have bodies that are eternal, that are meant to last, so what we do with them matters. So those are two idols that we worship with sex, and I'm sure there are many more we could talk about.

Speaker 1: 14:49

But one thing that's common about them is that they, in some ways, they turn us into slaves. We end up becoming slaves of sex. We think this is a free thing we're doing, but really we're just, we're just running into slavery. I mean, if you think about it, like the way that our culture talks about sex is, it's almost as if you you have to have it or you're not human. You have to be sexually active or you're just. You're just, you're lesser somehow.

Speaker 1: 15:21

But what does the Bible say about this? We're going to, we're going to get to this in 1 Corinthians 7, but the Bible says that it's completely good and right and fine. If God has called you to singleness and to and to abstinence from sex, that that's a actually a great way to live. If that's what God's called you to, there is nothing wrong with that. If that's what God has called you to and I hope that that is is very clear because we don't need sex to be human. We're human because God has created us in His image. Again, he has done dolphin in in his words dolphin in some sense and so we worship God just as much with our abstinence, as we do with practicing sex rightly and we will talk now about three ways that we do practice sex rightly as an act of worship towards God. And the first way is by being faithful to Jesus. Verses 15 through 17, read Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?

Speaker 1: 16:22

Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? 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 two will become one flesh, but he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. You know, when you become a Christian, you are no longer an isolated individual out on your own. You are actually united to a body of people, a body of Christians, both spiritually, in other words, you are united to every Christian around the world who has ever lived, but in your head is Christ, but you also. Then you physically express that by professing faith and becoming a member of a local church. And as you become a member of a local church, you take vows, vows of faithfulness to Jesus Christ into his church.

Speaker 1: 17:12

So it's kind of like how we take vows in a marriage we stand up in front of the altar and we vow to love sacrificially and we vow to never go after another person, that you're always going to be mine and I'm always going to be yours. And we take those seriously and we remain faithful to our spouse in the same way we want to remain faithful to Jesus. So if we're united with Jesus and we've made these vows and then we engage in sexual immorality, of course we're being unfaithful to Jesus. Now, could you say that with any other sin? Of course you could. Any sin is idolatry. Any sin is unfaithful to Jesus.

Speaker 1: 17:56

But there's a twofold significance to sexual immorality. And why this matters? Because there's a twofold significance to marriage and sex. We've already kind of hinted at that. You know. We've talked about God's physical purpose for sex, which is essentially it's a celebration of a union between man and wife, of husband and wife becoming one flesh. It's like a sacrament. It's a way that we declare to one another I am yours and you are mine. We're going to in a few minutes, we're going to serve the Lord's Supper and when we do so we're going to say if you are not a Christian, you should not come up and partake of this Supper. Why? Because if you did, you'd be saying something about yourself that's not true.

Speaker 1: 18:47

In a very similar way, if you are participating in sexual immorality sex outside of marriage being a key and obvious one then you are declaring something that is not true. You're declaring that there's a union that isn't there. You're having a celebration of something that doesn't exist, and this is partly why it's so dangerous. It is not glorifying to God. It is the opposite. Whereas in sex within a marriage is absolutely glorifying to God, it is good and it is right and it is for His purposes, it is worshipful to enjoy sex with your spouse. It is the flip side. It is a counterfeit to engage in sexual immorality of any kind and it's dangerous. It's physically and spiritually dangerous.

Speaker 1: 19:44

I heard a trauma counselor say one time that the body keeps score. In other words, if you have anxiety, if you have PTSD, things like that, it's because your body is remembering past trauma and there are things that trigger you to experiencing the feelings you felt during that past trauma again during a new event. And you could say the very same thing about sexual immorality. The body remembers false intimacy. It affects your body, it affects your soul more than you even realize. It makes it more difficult for you to love and to celebrate a future union in marriage. So that's the physical purpose of sex and marriage, but there's also, of course, a redemptive purpose. This is the twofold part. This is the second.

Speaker 1: 20:35

Marriage and sex tell the story of the gospel. They tell the story of the gospel In Ephesians 5,. Paul is talking about marriage and he kind of shifts gears in verse 32. And he says this mystery is profound, and I'm saying that it refers to Christ in the church. He's saying your sex and your marriage are not just about your sex and your marriage. It's about something bigger, something greater. It tells the story of the union of Jesus Christ, the bridegroom, with his bride, the church.

Speaker 1: 21:05

And this explains in some ways why adultery is so destructive, other than the obvious that it is. You know it breaks the vows, we break the vows of faithfulness with your spouse and you cheat on your spouse. But beyond that, it also tells a lie to the world. Adultery is like saying no, the gospel isn't true. Adultery is like saying no, jesus does not remain faithful to his bride, the church, Whereas faithful marriage tells us the story that Jesus absolutely does remain faithful to his bride, the church, no matter what. So we are to remain faithful to Jesus Christ through obedience to his word, and this is an act of worship. And there's a second way we worship God, with sex and with our bodies, and that is by keeping the temple clean. Verses 18 and 19,.

Speaker 1: 22:03

He says flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Paul's not saying that sexual immorality is any worse than any other sin in God's eyes, but he is saying that it's unique among sins. There's something singular about it because in sexual immorality we sin against our own bodies. We use our bodies to sin against God. And then we also use our bodies as the solution to a sinful desire.

Speaker 1: 22:41

The culture would say what harm is it? Why do you care who I sleep with? Why does it matter? If I want to sleep with someone of the same sex or the opposite sex Doesn't harm anybody, as long as it's what I want and they want. But this is saying no, it harms you, harms your body, in addition to the other person you know. You think about pornography like who does it harm? If I look at, well, there are always victims in pornography. Think about who's on the other end of the picture, and for Christians this carries a double significance, right, because he's saying you are the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit resides in your heart if you are a Christian.

Speaker 1: 23:24

In the Old Testament there were very strict laws about who could enter the temple. You had to be ceremonially clean. Why? Because the temple was a holy place. It was set apart for God, and to defile it would be to bring dishonor to God. How much more than our heart the temple of the Holy Spirit, how much more than should we take care not to defile it? How much more than should we be careful to that? It is a holy, set apart place for the Holy Spirit to dwell. If we persist in sin, if we don't repent of our sin, we are creating distance between us and God. We're not going to lose our salvation if we're saved, but we can create distance. We can feel like he's distant, that we're going through a spiritual dry patch. Mostly that is our fault. Mostly that's when we refuse to repent.

Speaker 1: 24:25

And so Paul would say how do we keep the temple clean? Well, we flee. We flee from sexual immorality. We run away from it as fast as we can. This is the best way to keep the Holy Spirit's temple clean. He's saying do not toy with sexual immorality, do not try to figure out where the line is and see how close you can get to that line without crossing it. If you're doing that, then you're already committing sexual immorality and your mind and your heart anyway, do not think that you have the willpower to say no. Most likely we do not. We flee, we run from it as fast as we can, and we don't just run, we run and then we hide. See, that's the key. We have to have somewhere to run to.

Speaker 1: 25:19

In the Percy Jackson books and movies and also shows streaming on Disney Plus, we have a—Purcy is a teenager right who finds out he's a demigod, he's the son of the Greek god Poseidon and a human woman, and he learns there's this camp that he can go to, called Camp Halfblood, where you can go train, learn how to be a demigod and learn how to fight monsters. And you also find out that there's all these monsters that want to kill the demigods and they're always having to battle them. Well, the great thing about Camp Halfblood is the boundary lines are a protective barrier against monsters. They can't get in there. So Camp Halfblood is a refuge. And in the first book, percy and his friend are being chased by a monster, by a Minotaur Cannot say that word Minotaur. There it is, and they are racing away from that monster to get to their refuge.

Speaker 1: 26:17

That is the picture of how we flee sexual immorality.

Speaker 1: 26:20

You race away from it, you run as fast as you can from it and you go find your refuge, which is Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1: 26:25

He is our refuge. How do we do that practically? Well, we pray for protection from temptation. We memorize Scripture so that we will remember in the moment that the promises of God are greater and better and true, and the promises of temptation and sin are lies. When we are tempted, we look for the way out. First Corinthians 10, 13 says no temptation has overtaken you. That is not common to man. God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it. There is a way of escape. When you are a temptation, it feels like there is no way out. There is, but sometimes it takes faith to look for it and to find it and to take it One of the best ways that we might find a way out is by remembering to call a brother or sister in the faith who you know you can talk to about these things.

Speaker 1: 27:21

You can say I'm struggling, will you please talk me off the ledge. Then, when we do fail which we all again are sexual struggleers 1 John 1-9 says If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You see, we get that distance between us and God. Well, confession and repentance is how God removes that distance. He cleanses us. This is how we cleanse the temple confession and repentance.

Speaker 1: 27:51

The final and third way that we worship God with sex is in it with our bodies, is by offering our bodies to God. Those 19 and 20 say you are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. You've heard it said in this culture my body, my choice. But God is saying no, it's not your body, it's my body. So also, it's his choice. What we do with our body it's at his discretion. 1, 2, 3. It's that he wants us to use our bodies to glorify him.

Speaker 1: 28:32

We were on a trip in Colorado recently and we rented a car and this particular company said that it ruled that you could only drive the car in the state of Colorado. You couldn't leave to go to Wyoming or Utah or whatever. And not that we wanted to leave Colorado, but just noting that they had that rule. They have every right to have that rule because it's their car. Now I'm renting it, I'm driving it around and kind of like it's my car but it's really not. It's their car.

Speaker 1: 29:01

Our bodies are the same way. We're walking around in this body as if it's ours, but really it belongs to God and, yes, he's going to give it to us for eternity as a gift, but it's always going to be a gift. It's always going to be a gift. It always belongs ultimately to God, and so he has authority to tell us how to and how not to use our bodies. I think the best way to look at this, practically speaking, is Romans 12-1. It says I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual act of worship.

Speaker 1: 29:49

We recognize that our bodies belong to God, that he has authority over them. And then what we do, god, what do you want me to do with this body? How do you want me to use the capabilities and the gifts? What are the limitations that you've placed in this body showing me about how you want me to serve you? I mean, these are the kind of questions that we ought to be asking that, ultimately, though, what we do with our body is directed by God, and this, of course, does speak to the transgender ideologies of our day that are so prevalent that we, as believers in Christ, to hold to the scriptures, cannot affirm that transgenderism is actually even a thing. We can affirm that people struggle with confusion over whether or not they feel different or whatever, but there's no reality in which you're not the gender that God has made you. It's simply untrue. The Bible says God made them male or female, and it is not for us to think that we can alter that in some way or change that in some way. We are not the authority of our body. God is, and if you're struggling with that and confused by that man, this is a great place for you to be. I want you to feel welcome here. I want you to understand that you are welcome here, but we're not going to support something that's so destructive to the image of God.

Speaker 1: 31:22

Our bodies matter to God, sex matters to God. What we do with our bodies is an act of worship and we're called to present them to God, all of what we do with them to God, through obedience, because we were bought with a price, not just our spirits. God did not just save our souls, you understand. He saved us, including our bodies. We have an eternal body that's going to rise again one day and our eternal body and soul will be forever united and well with Christ, at the cost of our Redeemer's life.

Speaker 1: 32:02

Going back to Percy Jackson, you know the boundary lines of Camp Halfblood were created when another demigod named Phalia died, gave her life to protect some of her friends, and the story goes that Zeus she didn't really die, that Zeus turned her into a tree, and this magical tree then somehow creates these boundary lines around the camp. That protects everybody from monsters and that's what provides the refuge. And, in a far greater way, our Savior, jesus Christ died on a tree and rose again three days later, in part to create a refuge from sin and from temptation. He is our refuge, he is our mediator, he is our great high priest that we can go to in our sin, when we struggle, we can bring our sin to him and lay it down at the foot of the cross and we are forgiven. And he also died to set us free.

Speaker 1: 33:03

Set us free from this bondage. This bondage that our culture is in. Our culture is things that they're pursuing freedom, but really they're pursuing slavery. And Jesus would say no, I want to set you free from that. I want to set you free from this idolatry. Galatians 5 1 says for freedom. Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Jesus laid down his life to set you free, to set me free from the cruel master that is sin and the specific cruel master that is sexual immorality.

Speaker 1: 33:32

We cannot conform to the world's view of sexuality in any way, shape or form. We must run from that, we must flee from that, partly because we had a way better view. This is way better than anything the world thinks they have. Jesus has given us a better view, he's given us a refuge, and when we stumble, when we fail sexually because, remember, we were all sexual struggleers thought, word, deed, desire we go to him. We do the same thing. We run to him as our refuge, we run to him in repentance and we find that his grace is greater than all of our sins. Let's pray together.