WWUTT 1501 Do Not Be Deceived (1 Corinthians 6:9-11) Part 1

1 Corinthians 6 in Context: Sexual Immorality, Church Discipline, and Lawsuits

1 Corinthians chapter 6 verses 9 and 10 are verses that are often used to confront sexual immorality. And there's a right way that we are to do that, indeed. But oftentimes we don't think about the context when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is committed to teaching sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it. Visit our website at www .utt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you Becky. We come back to our study of 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and we're picking up this week in verse 9. Now I'm going to be coming back to talking about sexual immorality. That'll be the subject matter this week and the next, just to let you know what we'll be discussing here.

I'm going to begin by reading from verse 9 to verse 20 in the Legacy Standard Bible. The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the 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, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable.

All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. Food is for the stomach and stomach is for the food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.

Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?

May it never be! Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For he says the two shall become one flesh. But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with him.

Flee sexual immorality! Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?

For you were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body. Now the section that we begin with today certainly looks rather familiar to you, right? You've heard this many times, especially in the context of the direction our Western culture has been headed with regards to sexual morals, in the direction of homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and even to the point of men believing that they can become women or changing little boys into little girls.

It is dark, the depravity that our culture is sliding deeper and deeper into. And in the context of what we've been seeing going on in the culture, these are passages that have been spoken many times.

As the church has been warned against going the way of the culture, we have heard it said from 1 Corinthians 6, 9, Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals.

Now, if you have the English Standard Bible, that verse reads, those who practice homosexuality and effeminate is not mentioned there. We're going to talk about that as we go through this particular verse, why the ESV reads that way, why the New American Standard and then the Legacy Standard read a different way.

So going on into verse 10, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. These are those who will not get to heaven. In fact, at the judgment, they will perish in hell, eternal punishment forever.

That's who Paul is listed out there in verses 9 and 10. But then he turns that around to say to the Corinthians, you were this way. Some of you were just like this. You were in these sins. You were among those who would not inherit the kingdom of God, but you have been washed.

You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God. So it's not just law that's mentioned there in verses 9 and 10, but we have the promise of the gospel in verse 11 that has rescued us from these sins and the judgment that is coming against these sins and given us a kingdom with Christ where we will reign with him forever.

Now, as we come into this here, as we look at verses 9, 10 and 11, these are not stand alone passages, right? It's not that Paul just decided he wanted to make some kind of a confrontation about homosexuality.

In fact, we were talking about sexual immorality previously in chapter 5. There was a specific sin that Paul was confronting, but then he later said, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people.

That was in chapter 5 verse 9. So he addresses how all sexually immoral, anyone who bears the name of brother and would be in your midst, in your church, but he is guilty of sexual immorality. Remove that man, remove the wicked man from among yourselves.

So anyone who's guilty of sexual immorality is to be removed from the church and sexual immorality is sex outside of marriage. That's who God created sex for, to be enjoyed between a man and his wife and not just for intimacy, but he meant it also to be procreative, that as a man and wife are able to have children, they should.

The two become one flesh. They become a new family and they are fruitful and multiply. And so this is why sex is meant for a husband and a wife. Anything else outside of the context of marriage is sexually immoral.

It is sin. It's wicked. It's lawless. Of course, it's contrary to the law of God for in the law, sex is meant only for a husband and his wife. But we can observe this even in natural law, like you would not need the law of Moses, the law of God, the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible.

You wouldn't need that law to know that sex is meant for a husband and a wife. Just by natural observation, it can be understood that sex is meant for intimacy and procreation and that when a woman gets pregnant and has children without a husband or a father in the home, that that's actually destructive.

It's bad for those children and it's bad ultimately for a culture, for a society. So we can observe, even by natural law, that sex outside of marriage is destructive. God has promised that he is going to judge those who break his law, even going against the natural law, which he has created.

Hebrews chapter 13 verse 4 says the following, marriage is to be held in honor among all. Not just the married, but even the unmarried. And the marriage bed is to be undefiled. Sex is meant for the marriage bed.

It's not meant for any other context, but between a husband and a wife. The marriage bed is to be undefiled. For the sexually immoral and adulterers, God will judge. Again, that's all in one verse. That's Hebrews 13 verse 4.

So knowing that sexual immorality is this serious, the church is to take this seriously. And if there is anyone in our midst that is living in a sexually immoral way, church discipline is supposed to be done upon that person, that they would repent and they would stay in righteousness.

Those who are guilty of even greater sexual sins, that which has become a public affair, if you will pardon the expression, they are to be removed from the church. You're to go immediately to excommunication, which was what Paul laid out there in chapter 5.

So we talked in chapter 5 about sexual immorality. We talked about a man who was sleeping with his father's wife, his stepmother, and the church was not doing anything about this guy. So they had become puffed up and complacent.

They become tolerant of this man's sin. And so Paul had said to them, you instead should have mourned so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst and not just so that he would learn not to sin, but so that the old leaven would be removed and that we would be or that the church would be a new lump.

Going back to chapter 5, verse 8, therefore, let us celebrate the feast, not with the old leaven nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. After we finished talking about sexual immorality in chapter 5 and the discipline that this church in Corinth was not doing as they were supposed to do to cleanse out the old leaven.

So we talked about confronting the sexually immoral person and also not having anything to do with anyone who is greedy, an idolater, a reviler or a drunkard or a swindler. These are sins we come back to in verses 9 and 10 here of chapter 6.

So we have the sexually immoral man that needed to be dealt with in chapter 5. Then in chapter 6, Paul makes a confrontation regarding those who were suing one another. They were taking each other to court.

And when we started that in chapter 6, I had mentioned to you that Paul is not really like jumping into a new topic. He's not going, okay, I've dealt with the sexual immorality issue. So now let's talk about the fact that you guys are suing one another.

These were all together. There's probably other sins that the Corinthians were guilty of that we don't have addressed in this particular letter. There's a lot going on here, a lot that Paul confronts.

So it makes you wonder where there's some other things going on or that Paul mentions it in the vice list that he gives there in verses 9 and 10 here of chapter 6. But there may not be a section in first Corinthians that deals with that or deals with that specific sin.

Does that make sense? So there may have been some other things going on in the church in Corinth. The Corinthians were clearly not loving one another as Christians should love each other. We'll talk about that when we get to chapter 13.

But as he confronts those who are suing one another here in chapter 6 verses 1 through 8, this was in the context of chapter 5 because they were not judging the man who was guilty. Instead, they were judging one another over things that they should have been able to come to an agreement on.

They should not have had to go before unbelievers to get their opinion on these judgments or to make sure my buddy over here gives me the money that he owes me, make sure my friend over here is not building a fence too high in my yard that I can't see over it, that it doesn't go against city regulations or something like that.

It was an illustration that I gave last week. Anyway, so point being that they were suing one another, making judgments against each other over silly things, things that they should have been able to work out their differences over.

And they were taking those matters before unbelievers to let themselves be judged by those who don't have any standing in the church at all. They are not going to be issuing judgments in the end, at the end of all things.

And so why are we subjecting ourselves to them now to receive their judgment? Instead, God has called the house of God to make particular judgments. And those things needed to be done there in the church in Corinth and were not being done.

They weren't dealing with the man that needed to receive judgment for his sake and for the sake of the church. And instead, what they were doing was suing one another, which was causing further division.

The fact that this sin was going unconfronted was causing division and that they were suing one another was causing divisions. So we were going from one topic into the next topic, still in the same line of thought.

And then when we get here to verse 9, we've sectioned these verses out so often, talking about 1 Corinthians 6, 9, and 10. We've singled these verses out by themselves that we don't really ever think of the context.

It's not that it's wrong to single those verses out, because I've done it many times. But just consider the flow of thought here. Just consider where Paul is going. So he goes from confronting the matter that's going on in the church of Christians suing Christians, and he comes back to talking about sexual immorality, which he addressed in chapter 5.

That's verse 9, where it says, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals.

That's all sexual sin there, right? Then verse 10, look at what verse 10 says there. Nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. Well, those are things that would be judged by the local magistrates.

So that's kind of what Paul was addressing there in chapter 6, verses 1 through 8. But even more directly than this, okay, Paul is describing those who will not inherit the kingdom of God. Who was he telling the church not to subject themselves to the judgments of?

The unrighteous, who will not inherit the kingdom of God. Don't let them judge you when we're going to be judging them at the end. Look back at verse 4. So if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint those who are of no account in the church as your judges?

I say this to your shame. Is it really this way, where there is not one wise man among you who will be able to pass judgment between his brothers? On the contrary, brother is tried with brother, and this before unbelievers, those who will not receive the kingdom of God.

Actually then, it is already a failure for you that you have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not be defrauded? On the contrary, you yourselves wrong and defraud. You do this even to your brothers.

That's the end of verse 8. And you're doing this to your brothers before unbelievers, and letting unbelievers judge between you as a follower of Christ and your brother who is a follower of Christ, king of kings and Lord of lords, Christ who reigns over all.

He is the judge. He is the king. He has authority over everything. Whose authority are you turning to? Not Christ's. You're turning to the authority of unbelievers who will not even inherit the kingdom of Christ.

And so then Paul comes to remind them of who these people are, who you once were a part of, you're not part of them anymore. So therefore, you need to be judges as Christ has called you to judge. As Christ is judge over all things, and as we are even going to make judgments in the end, reigning with him on his throne, as Christ promises in Revelation chapter 3, since we're going to be judging even angels, do not subject yourself to the judgments of men, but rather you should be able to come to an agreement over these things.

Come to an agreement regarding these particular matters on your own. There should be someone among you, a wise man among you who is able to pass judgment between his brothers. Don't subject yourself to the judgments of unbelievers.

You once were among them, Paul says, when we get to verse 11, such were some of you, but you were washed. So you're not part of that kingdom of darkness anymore. You were washed. Washed in what way? You were baptized.

You were washed by the water of the word, as talked about in Ephesians chapter 5. So we're baptized with Christ, buried with him in his death, risen again to new life. We are washed by the water of the word when we heard the gospel of Jesus Christ and we've received the word of God and we believe it.

We've been washed by the water of the Holy Spirit who has cleansed our hearts and made us new. You were sanctified, Paul says. So you are being made into new creations. You are being conformed to the image of the son.

You were justified. Previously, you were guilty. Now you're declared innocent before God. So why are you taking your brother as if he's guilty before the guilty to be tried? That's what Paul is saying here.

That's the context of verses 9, 10, and 11. Oftentimes, we're looking just at verse 9 and we're singling this out as a verse to confront sexual immorality, which again, is okay when it's used in that context because like I said, I've done it many times and you can find that in what videos?

Where sexual immorality is being confronted and the warning is that the sexually immoral will not inherit the kingdom of God. That's very good to use the passage that way. I'm just coming back to this again to help you to recognize we just don't often think about the context.

And the context here is that we are not to subject ourselves to unbelievers, to be judged by them. We will reign with Christ. And in fact, even now, as it says in Colossians chapter 3 verses 1 through 4, we are seated with Christ in God in the heavenly places.

When Christ who is your life appears, we also will appear with him in glory. So there's an already and a not yet to this. We're already reigning with Christ, even though we have not come into that final consummated kingdom just yet.

We reign with Christ even now. We're making judgments even now. That's the direction that Paul gave to the church in chapter five. You're not making judgments that you should be making among yourselves.

Instead, you're taking these frivolous matters before courts to be judged by unbelievers. You're not among those unbelievers anymore. So stop subjecting yourself to their judgments. You've been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God.

Now, I spent the time today looking at chapter 6 verses 9 through 11 so that I could help you recognize the context. There's some other things that we have to talk about here. So as we go through verses 9 and 10 and 11 in more detail tomorrow, right now, we've just kind of done an overview to recognize the context of verses 9 through 11.

But tomorrow, we're going to come back to these passages again, and we'll look at the finer details. As I kind of mentioned to you earlier, there's in the NASB and in the LSB, we have nor the effeminate nor homosexuals, and in the ESV, it just says those who practice homosexuality.

Why that distinction? Why is it so different between the two or three translations, however you want to interpret that? Anyway, so we're going to look at that tomorrow. That's what we'll come back to.

So looking at more of the specific things regarding these sins here in these two passages and the conclusion that Paul gives in verse 11, that you once were some of these, but now you are washed. You are sanctified.

You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God. Let's rejoice in that. I'll end up ending these two lessons the same way. This way today with verse 11 and tomorrow, we'll conclude the lesson that way as well.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for these passages. Thank you for leading us and guiding us in this and reminding us of who we are, that in Christ Jesus, we are fellow heirs of the kingdom of God, that we will reign forever.

So let us not continue in sinful, idolatry and lawlessness, which the children of judgment are continuing to practice to their destruction. But now being called out of this world to live righteously before you, may we pursue that righteousness that we have been given in Christ and grow in sanctification and holiness and desire to live as children of God unto your name.

Let us not subject ourselves or our brothers and sisters in the Lord to the judgments of this world, but give us sober judgment that we may know the will of God and the right way to go. And we're helping one another do that in this life.

In this very day, today, be with us Lord Jesus, we pray in your precious name, Amen.

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