I invite you to open your Bible with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 13. Going to think today about your body, God's temple. Corinth was an ancient city that had once been destroyed actually and then rebuilt about 200 years before the Apostle Paul's day. And so in terms of those days, it was a relatively recently built city. It was a city famous for its temples and shrines. Corinth was a wealthy city. It had two seaports, one to the north that went into the Sea of Ionia.
The port to the south, Sincraea, which is mentioned in the New Testament, led into the Sea of the Aegean Sea. Now the picture that I'm going to show you on the slide this morning is a picture of the road that led from the northern port of Lycaeum into the city of Corinth. You can see how broad the road is. It was some 80 feet wide. It was a road that was surrounded by shops but also by lots of temples and shrines that were present in that area.
And you will notice in the background that there is the Acro Corinth. It's a large rocky hill, 1,800 feet high, that was a very imposing site. It overlooked the city. There's another picture of the Acro Corinth there. On top of that hill was what was called the Temple of Diana. Going to show you a picture of what it looks like up on top of the hill today. The temple is long gone, but you can see that it was an amazing view from up there.
And people say that you could see the Temple of Artemis, rather, to the Temple of Artemis was visible through, not only throughout the city of Corinth, but even far out to sea. Corinth was well known for the temple because there were hundreds of prostitutes who helped people go there and to enjoy worship to the goddess of love. You will notice that there's another temple in the city and that is the temple that was built in honor of Apollo.
Only seven of 38 columns remain still today, but they're still in place. It may give you a sense of the presence of pagan worship in the city. The temple may have been much like this picture, which is from the city of Athens today. There we go. And that is a temple that still stands today near the Acropolis and is somewhat like the Temple of Apollo back in Paul's day.
The thing that I want you to understand here is that the people of Corinth were deeply embedded in their culture in pagan worship. And with that pagan worship came a lot of immorality. Now they understood that their gods lived on Mount Olympus far to the north from the city of Corinth, but they also believed that their gods could be met with and worshiped in these temples. Understand that that's their mindset.
The gods can be here in these temples and we worship them through our immorality, especially the goddess up on this hilltop, the goddess Aphrodite, because there we go and visit the prostitutes and in doing that we worship God. The believers had been saved out of this mindset and this culture. And so it is to them that Paul writes the words that we're going to read now, beginning in verse 12 of 1 Corinthians 6. He says, everything is permissible for me.
Your translation may have quotes around that because that was a statement apparently made by some Corinthians to Paul. Everything's okay, it's all good. Everything's permissible. But Paul says, not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. And then another quote, 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.
For 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 with a price. Therefore, honor God with your body. Let's pray together. Father, I pray that the Holy Spirit will take this pure and wonderful word of God and apply it to our lives.
Because we live in a world something like the Corinthians, a world that is given over to pagan ideas and which incorporates immorality in the very basis of life. And I pray, Father, that as we live in a world like this, we might live as your people. That's in Jesus' name I pray, amen. Your body is an amazing thing. I'm sure you know that. Your body has a heart that beats between 80 and 100,000 times every day. Your blood circulates through your body on a 60,000 mile journey.
Our eyes are able to distinguish up to one million color surfaces and take in more information than the largest telescope that man has ever built. Our lungs inhale two million cubic, excuse me, two million liters of air every day. And we don't even think about breathing. The hearing of our ears is so sensitive that it can discern between hundreds of thousands of different sounds. And our mind understands what we're hearing. Now I could go on and on describing the wonders of our bodies.
You don't need to understand that your body is not you. It's part of you. But the you you is different than your body. Your body is where you live. And when you leave your body, what happens to it? It dies. It dies. It dies, it's no longer functioning. But you live now in your body. The thing that Paul wants us to understand in this text is this. Your body is more than where you live. It's more than that. Because God lives with you in your body.
Now I hope that will trickle down and get into your mindset, into your heart this morning as we look at God's word. Your body is more than where just you live. God lives in your body with you. Now as Paul unfolds this idea, there are some principles governing the appetites of our bodies that we cohabit with God that we wanna look at. And we start with this. It's an assumption based upon what Paul says here, but it's a biblical assumption. It's this, that God gives you physical desires and needs.
God gives you the desires and needs that you have in your body. Therefore they are what? They are good, exactly. The appetites and the needs of your body are good. God gave them to you and it is appropriate to fulfill the needs and the desires that God has given you. You get hungry. It's good to eat. The very first thing a baby does is what? Is to eat. We have a need for rest. It's good to sleep. Not in church. But in other places it's good to sleep. We need that kind of refreshment.
I was going to say the next thing a baby does is sleep, but I'm not sure after he eats that's the next thing he does. But it's right there close. We have a need for exercise. Our bodies need to be exercised more than they are actually. Our bodies have ways of sending us signals when it's time for us to get some physical exercise. It's a good need. It's a good thing to exercise.
As we grow older, as we get in near the adolescent stage of life, there's a natural drive for sexual intimacy that develops in us. That's good. It comes from God. And it's appropriate to fulfill our sexual desires and needs. Some of you may struggle with that. But you need to understand that God, the creator, has given us the desires and the needs that we have. They are good. It's appropriate to fulfill them. That brings me to principle number two. You may freely enjoy your body.
There's no shame in your body. This last week, my wife and I were eating lunch at the chicken coop over here, one of our favorite places. And after we had finished the salads, I said to her, honey, it's my birthday. Don't you think today we could have the chocolate fondue dessert and we'll split it? They have a wonderful chocolate fondue dessert. And you know what? She said something that nearly knocked me off my chair. She said, yes. Today is your birthday. Nothing counts today.
Boy, that was good news. Everything's permissible. I can enjoy this without guilt. And that's what Paul says. Everything's permissible. Now he was reflecting a statement somebody in Corinth had made to him. And so Paul reflects it back to them. He says, yes, there is a place where we can say everything is permissible. One of the lies of the devil, by the way, is that God is a killjoy. That God delights in saying, no, you can't do that to us. No, God delights actually in saying yes.
He loves to say yes. Remember when he created Adam and Eve, he said, you are free to eat of any tree in the garden. Did he not say that? You are free to eat of any tree in the garden. Now he went on to say, but one, because he wanted to set up a test for their obedience. But notice the generosity and how God wanted them to understand that all of this is created for you. And I want you to be free about enjoying what I've given to you. Paul says to Timothy, God gives us all things richly to enjoy.
God is generous. And he gives us these things in life generously so that we might enjoy them. So there's a way we can say all things are lawful. God expects that we will seek fulfillment of our needs. He's given them to us. But as we do that, as you know, we can choose to fulfill the needs and the drives of our bodies in wrong ways too. It's a good thing to eat, but I can be gluttonous. And I'm afraid I have practiced a little of that this weekend. We can be bulimic or anorexic.
These are not good things. We have a need for sleep, but the fact is that we can be lazy. We can get too much sleep and not get our work done. We have a need for exercise. Exercise is wonderful for us. But there are some people that overdo it. That's never been one of my problems. But there are those who overdo exercise. And some of them do it because of an obsession they have with their physique. Take it too far. Sexual intimacy is a good thing.
But we can choose to seek fulfillment of that drive in immoral ways. What Paul wants us to know is that within what is good and what is righteous, we ought to enjoy life. And all of God's good gifts to us. We are free. We are free. But there's a third principle that does come into play and it's this, freedom has its limits. Now this is not only true here, it is true in every part of life. The freedom of speech that we talk about in our country has limits to it.
You can't go into a crowded theater and yell fire when there is no fire. You'll be arrested. You don't have freedom to do that. There are some people who say, oh I just don't want any restraints on me. I just want to do whatever comes natural to me. Well, it may be natural to go to the bathroom in your pants. But that's not necessarily a good thing. There are restrictions to freedom. Freedom is not what you want to do, it's what you should do. That's what freedom is about.
Now there are two boundaries for this freedom that Paul lays out for us here regarding our physical desires and drives. He says everything's permissible, okay, I'll buy that. But not everything is beneficial. So the first question I need to ask when I'm considering, am I free to do this, is this question, is this beneficial? Does it bring advantage to me? Does it bring advantage to others? My freedom is not all about pleasing me. It's about doing what's good for others in their lives too.
So my freedom needs to be limited by this question, at least examined by this question, and perhaps limited, is this beneficial? There's a second question that Paul raises. He says, okay, I'll buy it. Everything is permissible, but you need to ask the question, is it enslaving? Is it enslaving? Paul says, I will not be mastered by anything. Liberty can create a slave if what we're free to do makes us follow an addiction. I'm free to smoke. But I run the risk of becoming addicted to nicotine.
Someone tells the story about a 14th century duke in an area that is now called Belgium today. It's about a man by the name of Reynald III. Reynald was sometimes called by his Latin name, Crassus, which means fat. So if you're going to select a nickname, don't select that one. Crassus. He had a violent quarrel with his younger brother, Edward, and so Edward led a revolt against his older brother and captured him. He did not kill him, though.
Edward built a room around Reynald in the castle and promised him that he could regain his title and his property as soon as he was able to leave the room. Now, this would not have been difficult for most people because there were windows, there was a door, all of these were almost normal size, no bars. The problem was Reynald's size. To regain his freedom, he would have to lose weight.
But Edward also knew his older brother, and so every day he sent a variety of delicious foods into the room for Reynald. And instead of dieting his way out of his prison, Reynald grew even fatter. Now, his brother was accused of being cruel, but he responded, my brother is not a prisoner. He may leave whenever he wills. And Reynald stayed in that room for 10 years until his brother Edward died, and then he was released. But he only lasted another year because he was so grossly overweight.
He was free to eat, or was he? Sometimes freedom can lead to slavery, and Paul says we should never allow that to take place. We must not be dominated by some habit that contradicts who we are in Jesus Christ. We are free to enjoy our liberty, but freedom has its limits. Now, you can apply that to many areas of life. You can apply it to alcohol, for example. There's no command in scripture that says you shall not drink alcohol.
There are other commands that deal with drunkenness and so forth, but as I think about alcohol, I need to ask myself these two questions at least. Or I could apply the same thing to gaming or gambling. I could apply it to spending. I'm free to spend whatever I want to spend. Is it beneficial? You see, Christian freedom does not mean doing what pleases me, but doing what pleases Christ. So the apostle wants us to know these principles regarding our bodies. God gives us drives and desires.
Those are holy and good and righteous. God says enjoy them. You're free to do so, but understand that freedom also has responsible limits to it that are good for you and bring glory to God. And then Paul gets into the next part of the text, which is really the longer part, and the part he really wants to nail, and that is God's purpose for creating our bodies. He's kind of responded to some of their jingo. Everything's permissible. Food for the body, the body for food, and that sort of thing.
Now he wants to deal with God's purpose for our bodies. First of all, he says, God made your body to be used, not abused. Verses 13 through 17. God made your body to be used in a righteous and good way, but not to be abused. He says your body is not just for your enjoyment. He gives two examples of this in verse 13. Some were saying food for the stomach and the stomach for food. But he says both of these are temporal. Remember that.
He says it is true, God made a stomach for you, and that stomach has appetites, and there's food out there, and he intends for you to eat it, but don't get too indulgent. Because both of these, your stomach and the food, are someday going to pass away. What counts is that real you on the inside. The second illustration deals with immorality. When he says in the last part of verse 13, the body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord.
See, apparently some were saying, well, the stomach is for food, and food is for the stomach, and some were taking that to the next step and saying, well, sex is for the body, and the body is for sex, hey, let's have a good time. That fits with our world pretty well. Indulge. Paul says, wait a minute, wait a minute. Sex can be destructive if it's abused, if it's used selfishly, without the God-given boundaries that we find. So your body is not just for your enjoyment, is what he's saying.
But then he follows up to say, your body is for God, and you to share together. The last part of verse 13 says, the body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. God intends for our bodies to bring glory to Him. After all, that's why He lives in us. He lives in our bodies. And our bodies are His permanently. It's not something temporary. It's not like in the Old Testament where God would come into the temple and then would leave. God is residing in you permanently.
He says, just as Christ was raised from the dead, so you're going to be raised from the dead, because God lives in you. Your body is a permanent part of you. God places high value on your body, and He will resurrect it. It's an eternal part of you. And you and God are to share your body. It's not just yours alone. Then he goes on to say, your body is actually joined with Christ, verses 15 through 17. He compares it here to being members of Christ's body.
Just like this finger of mine is a member of my body, and it does what I want it to do. I can wiggle it, I can hold it still. I can use it to point to you or to point to me or to hold a pen. It's my member. And he says that we, our bodies, are members of Christ for His use, in other words, for His control. He says, would you dare take a member of Christ and join it with a prostitute? And then he exclaims, absolutely not. That's just unthinkable that you should do that.
Understand where they've been coming from. All of their worship in the past has been connected to Aphrodite, that temple, and the prostitutes up on the hill. And they still see this as maybe something they can indulge in. After all, everything's permissible. Sex is for the body, the body for sex. There's a place we can fulfill it. Paul says, can you possibly imagine doing such a thing as this?
He says, just as the sexual union creates one flesh, so your faith union with Jesus has created one spirit with Him. That's not that we become Jesus or His spirit and our spirit are somehow co-mingled. That's not the idea. But it means that we are united to Him. Your body is joined with Christ. It is His member. It is for His use, not just yours. So Paul says, look, God's purpose for your body is that it be used for God's purpose in the world and not abused and degraded.
The second thing he wants to say is this, that God made your body to be His temple, verses 18 through 20. God made your body to be His temple and there are two direct commands related to this idea. The first one is flee from sexual immorality. Get away from it. It's in the present tense and it means be continually fleeing from sexual immorality. Run, just as Joseph did when he was tempted by Potiphar's wife, run. Why? Because immoral acts, he says, are a sin against yourself, as well as God.
The Bible warns us again and again of the disease, the depression, the disrespect, and the dissipation that comes with the immoral use of our bodies. Flee from it, he says. Now God has given us sexual energy. It is universal and it's one of the strongest drives that we have. Now what does Satan do? He comes alongside us and he points us to the temple up on the hill, or that pattern of our past, or ways in which we can indulge our sexual appetites outside of God's plan. We call it temptation.
What do we do with temptation? What do you do when you're tempted to misuse this good and holy drive that God has given to you? The bottom line is this. You can fight against it, but one thing you cannot do is coexist with it. The longer you allow temptation just to be in the room with you and you wave at it and you maybe speak to it and you argue with it, the more danger you're in. I like what Swindoll says, and I think I've put this in your notes so that you have a copy of it.
Do not try to coexist peacefully with temptation. If you're weakened by certain kinds of music, you're playing into the hands of Satan himself to listen to it. If you're weakened by certain pictures that bring before your eyes things that build desires within you that you can't handle, then you're not counteracting sin and temptation, you're tolerating it. You're fertilizing it. You're prompting it. If the newsstand is something you can't handle, stay away from it.
And then he says, quit clucking your tongue. Can you cluck your tongue? Yeah, they're very good. We've all had practice at that. Quit clucking your tongue, he says, and shaking your head as you linger over the pages. If you're weakened by relationships with certain people, abstain from them. There's a word for those folks who linger and try to reason with lust. What's the word? Victim. Flee from sexual immorality.
By the way, one way to resist temptation is that when you feel its pull, you feel the desires being aroused within you, invite Jesus to come at that very moment and stand with you. And say, Jesus, would you tell me what you think about this? That's one way to do it because he will tell you. And knowing that he's there will make a difference. Flee from sexual immorality. Secondly, he says, and this is the last phrase in the text, he says, honor God with your body.
Honor God. Why should we do this? Why? Well, there are lots of ways in which we can dishonor God with our bodies apart from sexual issues. We can become addicted to substances. We can get addicted to adrenaline. There's a lot of people who would never think of taking drugs who are addicted to the rush of life and the adrenaline within them. There are those who are addicted to caffeine. I know, I'm stomping on toes now, but let's be honest. We can get addicted to caffeine.
We can get addicted to medications that should be for our good. There are those who dishonor their bodies by a pattern of overeating. Eating is good, but if we overeat, then it's dishonoring God with our bodies. That's one way some people handle stress. When they feel stressed, they go to the refrigerator. God says, I have a better way to do it. I want you to honor me with your body. I think of chronic exhaustion.
There are those who just keep pushing themselves and pushing themselves and pushing themselves to the point that they drop. And I wonder if God isn't saying, what are you running from? You don't wanna face. That's dishonoring God with our bodies when we do that. So he says, honor God with your body for two reasons. Number one, you are his temple. Verse 19, he clearly states it.
He wants them to think back to this temple, back on the hill, or the temple to Apollo, not too far away from where they were. He says, I want you to think about the fact that you used to think God lived in those temples of marble. But he says, God doesn't live there. You are God's temple. Now back in chapter three, he said, you are God's temple, referring to us together as the church when we meet like this. God is with us.
But here he makes it very personal to each one of us, and he says, your body is the temple of God. It is God's holy place. As one commentator says, the Holy Spirit does not choose to abide in temples of marble or granite, but in bodies of flesh. Through them, he can reveal his person and power and convey his message to men. Each Christian can become a channel through whom the Holy Spirit can express some aspect of his message to the world.
To defile the body is therefore sacrilege for a Christian because in defiling his body, he is desecrating God's temple. He says, not only should you honor God with your body because your body is his temple, but because you are his purchase. You are his purchase. He says, really folks, you're not your own. You've been purchased with a price. The price, of course, being the precious blood of Christ Jesus, God's son.
And so Paul lays out for us all very clearly here, living in a culture much like the Corinthian culture, how our bodies play into this. Our bodies are not bad. They're not shameful, they're good. Our bodies have appetites and drives that God has given to them. But we need to understand that those bodies, those drives and appetites should be used to honor God, not abused for selfish reason. Because our bodies are God's temple. Our bodies are to be used, not abused.
Therefore, every Christ follower should make three declarations. Number one, declaration number one, God lives with me. God lives with me. I don't go to a temple somewhere to find God. God doesn't live down in that worship center that we're renovating. God lives with me and with you. Would you say that with me? God lives with me. Declaration number two, my body is his holy temple. Man, that is an amazing thought.
That God does not dwell in any building made with human hands, nor can any building contain him, including our bodies. But nonetheless, it can be said that God lives with me and my body is his holy temple. Say that with me. My body is his holy temple. Number three, I will respect my body and use it to honor God. There are so many ways in which we can abuse our bodies. And our culture really calls for us to do this. But God says, I want you to use your body for my glory.
I live with you, you are my holy temple. I want you to respect what I've given you and I want you to honor God with it. God didn't make any junk. You are not junk, your body is not junk. Now there may be things about your body that you don't like. That's true with most of us. There are things that we would redesign if we were given the choice. But the fact is, God says, your body is my temple. I gave it to you. Honor me with it and respect it.
I don't know how that falls into your life today, what you're struggling with, what the temptations are you're dealing with. But I pray that God will use it in your life. That he will make you a sanctuary. Pure and holy, tried and true. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, thank you for dying for us. By what you did, you purchased us for God. And we live in a world that does not understand the body, your purpose for it, tries to get us to abuse our bodies. And to use them in ways that would dishonor you.
And I pray this morning as we have studied your word so you would write freshly in our heart. What your plan for us is. That you really are living with us every day wherever we go. That we are holy temple, we ought to honor you with our bodies. Lord as we sing this song, I pray that it'll be a prayer unto you. Let's stand together please as we sing this closing song.