WWUTT 1506 All Things are Lawful For Me But (1 Corinthians 6:12)

The Apostle Paul said to the Corinthians, a line that they like to say to each other, all things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable, and I will not be mastered by anything.

Christ is our master 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 I want to make clear again that the subject matter we're addressing as we go through chapter 6 is sexual immorality.

We have the second half of the chapter we need to get through, but I'm going to start in verse 9 to keep things in context, and I'll read to verse 20.

This is out of the Legacy Standard Bible the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth.

And such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, 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 the stomach is for 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.

I want to come back to verses 9 through 11, because I kind of rushed verse 11.

We spent most of the time on verse 9, a little bit on verse 10, rushed verse 11. So once again, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Paul's saying that these are among those who should not be in your church. You should not allow yourself to be under their judgment.

Talking about those who were suing brothers in the church and taking them before local magistrates who were unbelievers.

And so you had disputes between brothers that were being tried by those who are of no account in the church, as Paul had said in verse 4.

So he makes clear to them, these are those whom you are to discipline out of the church, purge the evil person from among you.

That was back in chapter 5, verse 13. And do not let yourself be judged by these.

Also, that you would not be among them. So flee from these sins.

Let it not be named among you. Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals.

And we talked about the Greek word that's used there, malakoi for effeminate. And homosexuals is the

Greek word arsenokoite, which literally translates as man better.

So don't let any of the myths or conspiracy theories out there fool you into thinking that the term homosexual was never in the

Bible until 1946. That's like the big myth that's going on right now. I even know where that came from. It's Ed Oxford and Kathy Baldock are two of the false teachers that have propagated this particular myth.

And they're trying to popularize it to insist that this word homosexual wasn't used in an

English translation of the Bible until 1946. That's true. But they claim that it was put in there to to propagate homophobia.

And that's and that's just simply wrong. There was there were other words that were used there before homosexual became part of the

English lexicon. That's why it doesn't appear in an English Bible before 1946, because it didn't even come into use in the

English lexicon until the early part of the 20th century. There has always been the prohibition of homoerotic behavior in Scripture.

You just go back to Sodom and Gomorrah. And it says in Jude that because of their unnatural desire, the fire of the judgment of God came down on those cities to serve as an example of those who will undergo a punishment of eternal fire.

If they don't turn from their sin and turn to Christ. Now, we're going to talk about as we go through chapter six here, we're going to talk about the uniqueness of sexual sin.

There are some that say that there is there's no difference between these sins.

God views all sins the same. There's a yes and a no to that. So we're going to talk about how sexual sin is unique.

And even homosexuality is more unique than that. That's as we go through chapter six here.

We're going to discuss that a little bit more. But just to recap some of the things that we talked about there in verse nine.

So we go on to verse 10 and it's nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

So you have sexual sins in verse nine. You have other sins that Paul had mentioned in chapter five, but expounds upon them a little bit more in verse 10.

Even these sins must not be named among you. These should not be part of the church because they will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Therefore, they have no place in Christ's church. They're not members of Christ's body.

So they must be cut off, confronted, disciplined, hoping that they will repent.

But if they do not remove the wicked man from among yourselves, once again, chapter five, verse 13.

So then in verse 11, we have, and such were some of you, but you were washed.

You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the

Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God. My friends, that's chapter one and chapter two together at the conclusion of that verse.

Remember that Paul had confronted the Corinthians about how they were associating themselves with different teachers.

And it was creating divisions and factions among them. Well, I'm of Paul. I'm of Cephas. I'm of Christ, you know, and they're not really of Christ.

They're just using that name to try to one up the other guy. And this is how important I am or how much better my teaching is, the teaching that I follow than the teaching that you follow.

And so they were causing divisions among themselves because of this. I follow this person.

I follow that person. Paul is saying here, you're justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Remember his rebuttal to them back in chapter one was, were you baptized into my name? No, but you're baptized into Christ.

So it's in Christ that you have been justified in his name, in nobody else's name, no other teacher's name,

Jesus Christ. You've been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he says in the spirit of our

God. We'll remember chapter two, chapter two was that we don't come into this knowledge except by the spirit of God.

So the knowledge that you've come into, don't boast in this knowledge because it's not of yourself. You're boasting in this teacher and that teacher.

You're creating divisions among yourselves. Boast in God. Don't boast in you. Don't boast in the teacher.

You boast in God. So the conclusion of chapter one, by his doing, you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

And how is it that we, that we read it here in chapter six, verse 11, you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified.

See, it throws right back to chapter one. So that just as it, as it is written, this is one 31 here.

Sorry, I'm jumping back to chapter one, verse 31. So that just as it is written, let him who boasts boast in the

Lord. And so then you have the, uh, the preaching that came not in persuasive words, but in the demonstration of the spirit and of power.

That's chapter two, verse four. So we've come into this knowledge of God by the spirit of God.

For as it says in chapter two, verse 14, a natural man does not accept the depths of the spirit of God for they are foolishness to him.

And he cannot understand them because they are spiritually examined for who has known the mind of the

Lord that he will direct him. But we have the mind of Christ. So all of this has come about by the spirit of God.

So Paul is reminding them of that, of what he had laid out in chapters one and two, as he comes to the conclusion of this section here in verses nine through 11, you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified.

By the way, those three addresses there, you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified. We kind of lose a little something in the

English translation, but in the Greek, all three of those words rhyme, they all have the same ending to them.

And so the, the, it's like, you know, it's, it's alliteration, but it's, it doesn't start with the same first letter, right?

So we as good Baptists, I, as a Baptist pastor, anyway, we, we love alliteration.

We love to make three points in the sermon and all three of those points start with the same first letter. That's alliteration.

This is an alliteration. This is rhyming. So each of these three words conclude with the same sort of a sound to them and to us in English, sanctified and justified in the same way.

So Paul is making three points here that would have stuck in the minds of the Corinthians because of the, of the similar sound that all three of these words have.

So you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified, not in anybody's name, not in my name, not in anyone else, but only

Christ in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God.

So if you are in Christ, flee from these sins. If you are filled with the spirit of God, then be one with those who have this spirit.

Don't be one or subject to those who are not of the spirit of God. So that's the point

Paul makes then as he pulls out here versus nine through 11 and concludes at least that section, at least the first half of chapter six, we go into the second half of chapter six and we come back to the address of sexual immorality.

He talked about that in chapter five. We've certainly had that here so far in chapter six with what he mentioned there in verse nine, but the rest of this versus 12 through 20 is committed to confronting or at least warning.

It's not confronting a particular sexual sin that was in chapter five, but warning the

Corinthians to flee from sexual immorality. Most certainly because that's in verse 18.

And when we get to verse 18, that's where I'll explain that there's a uniqueness to sexual sin and even more so to unnatural sexual sin than there is to any other kind of sin.

And you can already see that when you look at verse 18, every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral man sins against his own body.

So see there, there's something unique about sexual sin, which is why Paul confronts this so heavily, but it's not just that he lays down to the

Corinthians. Don't do this. He is instructing them to be united to Christ.

You've been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our

God. So he's directing their attention, their focus, their passion to Christ and not to the flesh and the things of the flesh, the desires of the flesh and, and wanting the stuff of this world, like uniting yourself to the world that is most exemplified in sexual immorality.

A person who is, who wants the world, they want what their flesh wants.

A person who is carnally minded, fleshly minded, worldly minded. It's going to be most demonstrated in sexual immorality.

And that's not to say that any and all fallen persons are going to show themselves to be sexually immoral.

I think to some degree they are, but, but I mean, you can have unbelieving persons who are in faithful marriages.

I knew a man who was a Mormon, so he believes in a completely different Jesus than I believe in, but he was in a faithful marriage.

I knew a guy who was a Catholic. He adds works to the gospel and he was in a faithful marriage.

So it's not that all who are unbelievers or unorthodox, it's not that they are all going to fall into sexual immorality, but more often than not a person who is carnally minded, who loves the world, who does not have thankfulness in their hearts to God.

As it says in Romans one, God turns them over to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

And they burn with unnatural passion and desire for one another. Well, there's sexual immorality. And then as it gets worse and worse, then you have even homosexuality.

This is what you will see demonstrated in a culture where God is not present, where the people do not give thanks to God.

He will turn them over to their own lusts and desires. So the carnality of their minds, the worldliness in which they live will be manifested in their sexual immorality.

Paganism is filled with sexual immorality throughout the history of the world. There is a seriousness to this and an urgency that Paul gives to this warning, which, again, we'll see as we continue on through this chapter.

Consider what Paul says here in verse 12. 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. Now, here's one place where I don't agree with the decision that was made by the editors of the

Legacy Standard Bible or the New American Standard Bible, because both translations come out the same on this.

Now, they read exactly the same. All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable.

If you read that in any other translation, like the English Standard Version, we'll just say, all things are lawful for me is put in quotations.

It's not in the LSB or the NASB. Why is it in quotations?

Because it's understood that all things are lawful for me was an expression that was being made by the

Corinthians. It was like a saying that they were using. It was a creed of theirs of some sort. They were saying, all things are lawful for me.

As a Christian, I can do this, and it is not wrong. Now, there are certain things that that definitely applies to.

Just consider, for example, what Paul says to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4. This is verses 4 and 5.

Paul says to Timothy, for everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

Now, is everything good? No, certainly not. Because as we're going through 1

Corinthians 6 here, Paul is warning against sexual immorality. So sexual immorality is not good.

But when it comes to certain foods that we can eat, when it comes to those things that we can enjoy to the glory of God, to the praise of his glorious grace, there's nothing wrong.

Even entertainment and leisure. You know, sometimes we tend to think of entertaining yourself as wasting time.

It can certainly go—it can go so far as that. Playing way too many video games, watching too many movies, and you're just wasting your time.

That can certainly be the case, in which case you would be in sin. But it's not inherently sinful to enjoy

TV shows and movies or playing games or playing music or doing any of those things.

There's nothing wrong with that. Even listening to music that doesn't have Christian lyrics in it. Shocker, I know.

But you can still do that, even to the praise of God's name. Or reading a book that's a novel that isn't inherently a

Christian book. Some people will say that these things are sin. Well, it would be sin if your conscience is guilty.

If you have compromised your own conscience, then you have sinned before God. For as it says in Romans chapter 14, whatever is not done in faith is sin.

So there's certainly a whole bevy of things that we can enjoy that are not inherently sinful, and we can do so to the praise of God.

All things are lawful for me. So this became a saying among the Corinthians, to kind of permit themselves and each other to just enjoy life.

And the Corinthians were certainly doing that. But in excess to a sinful measure and degree, we'll see that some more as we continue on with the entirety of the letter.

So Paul is confronting this saying here, this tendency that the Corinthians have to excuse everything by saying all things are lawful for me.

Paul says, though, but not all things are profitable. Is it profitable? Is it beneficial?

Can it be done and enjoyed to the praise of God's name? And in fact, when you do these things, are you doing it to the praise of Christ?

Are you doing it, giving consideration to your brother or sister in the Lord? Or are you doing things that are leading them astray and causing them to stumble?

That's something else that Paul's going to confront as we continue on with the letter. So all things are lawful, but not our thing.

Not all things are profitable. And then he repeats the saying again, all things are lawful for me again,

I believe should be in quotes, but in the LSB and the NASB, it's not all things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.

See right there. It's almost like he's confronting enjoying these things in excess, like wine.

If you're drinking wine unto drunkenness, then you're being mastered by the wine. You've lost control over your faculties.

You're kind of out of your mind because you have consumed so much wine. So now you've become a drunkard.

Not all things are profitable, and I will not be mastered by anything. Sex itself is even good, but only when enjoyed the way that God intended for it to be enjoyed between a man and his wife.

So as Paul is going to talk about these things here in first Corinthians chapter six, and he's going to go on confronting sexual immorality.

It's understood sex is a good thing for a husband and a wife. But if you have sexual desires outside your marriage, then you're being mastered by those lusts, or you might be you're on your way to being mastered by those lusts, and they will consume you if you do not keep your thoughts in check and submit all thoughts unto

Christ. As Paul will say with the Corinthians in second Corinthians 10, five, take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ.

But again, even all of this here, all these instructions that we're reading here through chapter six, it's all meant to draw the

Corinthians focus to Christ, to desire Jesus and to honor him.

And if your focus is on Christ, then you don't have to worry about all these other lines in the sand that we have a tendency to draw.

And as long as I'm not crossing that line, then I'm not sinning. But your attention and your focus is still on the line, and it's not on Christ.

You're you're flirting with that sin because you want to see how close you can get to it without crossing the line. Then your attention still on the sin, and it's not on Christ, and therefore not all things are beneficial, and you're probably being mastered by your sin.

The greatest benefit that we have is Christ, and our master is Christ.

So do all things to the praise of his name. Let's finish with prayer.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the good word that we have read here and this reminder that we were once dead in the sins and transgressions in which we once walked, but we have been washed.

We are sanctified. We are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our

God. So teach us today how we may live our lives to Christ and do all things to the praise of his great name, in which we pray.

Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website, www .wutt

.com, and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page. Join us again tomorrow as we continue our

Bible study, When We Understand the Text. Good night.