1 Corinthians | Session 11 | Once Were, and the Consequence of Sexual Immorality 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 & 6:9-20 Big Ideas: • Why this conversation? • The pain of Porneia • Where do we go from here? Why This Conversation? ● Much of the church has become silent on this topic and/or complicit in behaviors that the Bible clearly labels as sin. Calling evil good and good evil. Revile you simply for speaking the truth. There is a resurgence of watering down and changing biblical texts to align with the cultural norms of porneia. ● Our church is deeply convinced and convicted of the traditional conservative Christian interpretation of the bible. This does not equate to us being mean, divisive, judgmental, or cruel in our expression and dialogue with others. We refuse to ignore biblical, scientific, and psychological truths to affirm people’s changing feelings. ● The Bible (God's revealed truth to us) has much to say about this topic and should be the foundation of our worldview. To love a person in sin is to reject the sin they are participating in while simultaneously loving them as an image bearer of God. (I was born this way) (Identity) ● I’ve had people walk out when sharing messages like this. Gotten hate messages. Lost friendships. People left the church. People label me and us all kinds of bad things. Do you know what I’ve gotten multiple times more? Broken people who have been negatively affected by porneia come to find hope and healing in Jesus. I’ve seen many more people find freedom from the pain of porneia. From Previous Messages: ● Where have we allowed a little sexual immorality leaven to spread throughout the body and take over? ● Are we willing to take the biblical command to purge this sin from our camp? Some Stats: ● In a study conducted by ChristianMingle.com, Christian singles between the ages of 18 and 59 were asked, "Would you have sex before marriage?" The response? Sixty-three percent of the single Christian-identifying respondents indicated yes. ● In a recent Pew Research Poll, half of Christians say casual sex – defined in the survey as sex between consenting adults who are not in a committed romantic relationship – is sometimes or always acceptable. 57% say sex between unmarried adults in a committed relationship is sometimes or always acceptable. ● Other recent polls show as high as 80% of professing Christians say that sex outside of marriage is ok in committed loving relationships. The Pain of Porneia Porneia- Fornication, immoral person, cultic prostitution, illicit sexual activity. Some Greek uses of porneia- adultery, incest, rape, sodomy, prostitution, bestiality (all forms of sexual promiscuity). 1 Corinthians 5:1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife! 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 9 I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. 10 Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 11 But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person. 12 For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? 13 But those who are outside God judges. Therefore “put away from yourselves the evil person.” 1 Corinthians 6:9-20 9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. 12 All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. 13 Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power. 15 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 harlot? Certainly not! 16 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For “the two,” He says, “shall become one flesh.” 17 But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. 18 Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price; therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. Why are we still here? 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5 not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; 6 that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. 7 For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. 8 Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit. God did not say to be heterosexual, for I am heterosexual. He says to be holy, for I am holy. That should be practically applied in every area of our lives. 1 Peter 1:14-16 as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; 15 but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.” The redeemed believer is not just salvation but clear behavioral changes as a fruit of a transformed heart. If you are no different than before, then maybe you were not saved. God’s Design and Hope Matthew 19:4-5 And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? You cannot control the majority of your first thoughts. However, you can control the first response and second thoughts. Matthew 5:27-30 27 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. Luke 6:47-49 47 Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: 48 He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. 49 But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.” One of Britain’s most gifted writers of the nineteenth century delved into sexual sin and ended up in prison and disgrace. “The gods have given me almost everything. But I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease…Tired of being on the heights, I deliberately went to the depths in search for new sensation…I grew careless of the lives of others. I took pleasure where it pleased me and passed on. I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore what one has done in the secret chamber, one has some day to cry aloud from the housetop. I ceased to be lord over myself. I was no longer the captain of my soul, and did not know it. I allowed pleasure to dominate me. I ended in horrible disgrace.” Oscar Wilde (who left his wife to engage in homosexuality) James 2:14-26 14 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! 20 But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? 22 Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? 23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God. 24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only. 25 Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? 26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. Take Away: 1. Be intentional to make the Bible your foundation of faith and morality, including the topic of sexuality. 2. In what ways has your worldview and belief system been polluted by the system of the world? (especially in the area of sexuality) 3. If I am struggling in the area of sexuality, what practical steps must I take towards freedom in Christ? Resource Page: https://www.catalystnwa.com/painofporn Biblical Sexuality Sermon November 5th, 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeFDLT0gnho&list=PLjqxoESBIKWXZagw6jKhZeTWLG4WJwmM1&index=12