Do I Compromise My Purity

A Sermon By Jim Hammond from (1 Corinthians 5 & 6:9-20)

We’ve all seen warning labels. Have you seen these Warning Labels? [i]

1. On Clairol Herbal Essences Maximum Hold Hairspray WARNING: Do not smoke until hair is dry (I’m sorry, but I can’t help but picture that!)

2. On Energizer AAA 4 Pack: If swallowed, promptly see doctor. (I guess so!)

3. (You think that’s bad) On a Mattress Warning: Do not attempt to swallow

4. On Nytol (a sleeping aid): "Warning: May cause drowsiness."

5. On Sears hair dryer it actually says, "Don't use while sleeping." (Should have put don’t use Nytol with this product)

6. On Rowenta Iron - Do not iron clothes on body. (We laugh, but some have tried it! And when you are in a hurry, you’ve been tempted!)

7. On Korean Kitchen Knife- Warning: Keep out of Children. (I should say so!)

8. On Swedish chainsaw - Do not attempt to stop the chain with your hands. (unless you are a child and need to take your mind off the Korean Kitchen Knife stuck into you!)

9. On Boot's Children's Cough Medicine: "Do not drive car or operate machinery." (Yeah I wouldn’t want my 3 year old driving heavy machinery while on that stuff)

10. On Sainsbury’s Peanuts - Warning: Contains nuts. (Maybe I’m missing something here. It just doesn't sound as dangerous as that Korean Knife!)

11. On Marks & Spencer Bread Pudding - Caution: After heating, product will be hot. (Can you say "Duh!!!")

12. On American Airlines peanuts - Instructions: Open packet, eat nuts. (They don’t think I can put on my seatbelt by myself either!)

13. On a string of Chinese-made Christmas lights: "For indoor or outdoor use only." (Okay…)

14. On a Japanese food processor: "Not to be used for the other use." (Hmmmm kind of makes you wonder what that other use is.)

Have you ever noticed that the more dangerous the product, the more extensive the warnings are for that product? It might not be limited to just warning labels, products now come with whole booklets. It seems like every electric appliance has a booklet that give you the warnings for shock hazards. Common sense tells us that the more dangerous something might be, the more careful we need to be to use it as intended. Put another way, the more dangerous something might be, the more carefully we need to train those who use it.

Cars, for example, are very dangerous but incredibly useful. As a result, we go through extensive training before we are issued a license authorizing that we know enough about the laws written to protect ourselves and others while we drive. When we abandon those laws we put ourselves and others in dangerous peril.

God invented sex. It was a good invention. He gave clear warnings about the abuse of his invention. He gave laws that were written to protect us and others from the potential damage that can be done if we abuse God’s invention. Satan is not a creator. He can’t create anything, he only twists good things to make them evil. Our whole society since the fall has become twisted, fallen, bent, broken, and hurting, as a result of sin. Sin twists many things that were created for good. The Christians living in Corinth struggled in the area of sexual purity because of the incredible sexual promiscuity of Corinth.

Let me tell you up front. God wants his invention to work the way he designed it. When his design is honored, what he created is beautiful and reflects his glory. But if you want to make your own rules, and rewrite the manual and twist it all up, he doesn’t stop you. He just gives you fair warning, and he lets you mess yourself up. He says you will be in for a lot of pain and destruction. If you are satisfied with the world’s approach to sex, (sex without a marriage commitment), then you don’t need his book. However, he lets you know that the world’s approach will bring feelings of rejection. It will bring guilt. The world’s approach to this matter will leave broken hearts strewn it its path. It will leave broken homes. The world’s approach will result in adultery, divorce, and children in pain. The world’s approach will leave bodies wracked with problems and premature death. Disregard God’s design and you put yourself in harm’s way, at the risk of AIDs, and hundreds of other STDs. The world’s approach sets up the abortion problem with all the unplanned pregnancies. With the world’s approach you will have difficulty developing a healthy trusting secure marriage. Now if all this is what you want, you wouldn’t be here. If that’s what you wanted, you would have thrown God’s manual away. But since you want something better, and you want to be healthy and wholesome, and you want to be fulfilled and satisfied, you are here to study what God has to say about what he invented.

Focus: God invented sex. Happy are those who choose to follow God’s instructions and warnings as described in the designer’s manual—the Bible.

1 Corinthians 6:12-20 ¹²“Everything is permissible for me”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me”—but I will not be mastered by anything. ¹³“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. ¹⁴By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. ¹⁵Do 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! ¹⁶Do 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.” ¹⁷But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

¹⁸Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. ¹⁹Do 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; ²⁰you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

I. The Wrong Orientation: Aimed for The Edge

“Everything is permissible for me” is today’s attitude, just like it was the attitude and slogan for the Corinthians. In fact the Christians in Corinth apparently bought into this lie based on the twisting of the truth about Christian freedom from the bondage to law. Grace does imply a freedom, but not an unqualified freedom. It is a freedom from sin. It is a freedom to please God. Not a freedom to do whatever we want. Doing whatever we want is an orientation away from the center. It is aiming at the edge.

Sin is missing the mark. Sin is missing the center, the way God designed something. Let me ask you a question. A professional basketball player, when he shoots, what does he aim for? The back of the rim. He doesn’t just throw up a shot in the general vicinity. He has a very small target that he is aiming for precisely. How about a golfer, or a marksman, or someone throwing darts. They are what they are professionally because they have become adept at aiming precisely. What are the chances of hitting the bull’s-eye if I’m aiming for the edge? My chances of hitting the mark have been dramatically reduced, and the chances of missing the target altogether have been dramatically increased. If I’m aiming for the edge of the target, the chances are I’m going to miss the target repeatedly!

The typical approach of public education on the whole subject of sex is the approach of aiming for the edge rather than the center. Nobody talks about doing it God’s way. Here is what you will hear. We know that teenagers are going to be “doing it”, so let’s educate them and give them the proper protections so that they can practice “safe sex”. Because they aren’t going to hit the bull’s-eye, let’s tell them to aim for the edge. Now tell me. With this approach how many are going to miss the mark? Almost all of them who haven’t already decided to aim for the bulls-eye based on education they got at home, or at church.

Let me ask you a question. Does “the protection” the world advocates really promote safety? No. Missing the mark is not safe emotionally, or morally. But that’s not what they are talking about. The safety they refer to is the “protection” against HIV and other STDs. I believe their concept of “safe sex” sounds a lot like talking about “safe smoking”. All cigarette boxes also have warning labels on them. Every box tells you it isn’t safe. Use at your own risk. On every box of protection the “safe sex” people advocate there is also a warning label. The warning labels are based on the statistical norms. The box of protection says the protection is designed to reduce the risk of contracting HIV or other STDs. The box itself will not say and cannot say it eliminates the risk. It does not. Would you call this safe?

Doctors wouldn’t call this safe either. They may advocate it for your kids, but they wouldn’t for their own. So let’s just say you ask a medical doctor, would you be at ease if your son or daughter was practicing so called “safe sex” with someone who is HIV positive? If he is honest, he would say, “No, that would worry me”. Why? Because there is a known, statistical failure rate. He would be very uncomfortable with this because “safe sex” is a myth. You see, the Doctor knows that the practice of so called “safe sex” is more like the practice of playing “Safe Russian Roulette.” You call it “safe” because rather than having just 5 empty bullet chambers with one loaded you have 100 empty bullet chambers with one loaded. Now it might be safer than the deadliest of games, but it isn’t safe.

The only safe sex is saved sex. Sex that is saved for marriage by both partners. Sex that is saved by God’s design. Everything else is messed up, and comes with consequences. There is nothing safe about it. Let me repeat, there is nothing safe about having sex outside of God’s original and intended design. You might think you are safe. You might think you have gotten away with it. But there are always consequences. You will always reap a bit of what you sow.

A. The Wrong Questions: What are the boundaries? How Far Can I Go?

This question came up often while I was in youth ministry. It’s the wrong question. It is like the question “how fast can I go around this bend on the mountain road near the cliff’s edge?” Gina had a friend with a Porsche in college, who liked to ask such questions. That friend used to challenge the warning signs about dangerous curves on a mountain road while he drove his Porsche. The challenge went something like this. If the yellow warning sign says slow to 35 mph, he would not slow down, he’d see if he could safely negotiate the turn at the regular speed limit. After a while, the regular speed limit got boring. The challenge wasn’t exciting enough, so he upped the ante. Soon he was attempting to go around the curves at double the speed of the warning signs. For him, the challenge of the warning signs was the thrill of driving a Porsche. But what about the passenger? Gina was panicked. (And a good thing for me too! You see, I drove a 69 VW square back. Not noted for its power or its cornering ability. She quit dating him!) Now what if a driver always wanted to test the limits. What if he wasn’t satisfied with double the speed? How much faster can he go around this curb and still not DIE!!? His attitude toward the sign (the design) is all wrong. He’s asking all the wrong questions. When you are asking the wrong questions you test the edges, you will go further and further until too late. Eventually there will be a corner that explains in deadly terms why the warnings were there to begin with.

Dating is like the thrill of driving that Porsche. If you are oriented in the wrong direction it won’t be long until you fly off the curb over the cliff. First, you hold hands. Your heart beats fast. After a while, big deal, someone’s sweaty hand is in your hand. What’s next. Then you kiss. After a while, experienced daters think big deal. What’s the big deal about your lips. Things progress. Pretty soon people with this orientation find themselves in very compromising situations asking the question what’s next. Duh! It’s not hard to see where this orientation leads. It’s this way with all sins, actually. When your definition of excitement is “your way”, rather than “God’s Way” as clearly marked on the signs. Duh! You will find out the hard way why the signs were there in the first place!

B. The Wrong Actions (9-10)

The wrong actions are the result of aiming for the edge rather than the center of God’s design. When you keep aiming there, you become a specialist. The specialist is called by the names of your specialty.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 ⁹Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders ¹⁰nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

What was your specialty before you were saved? After we were saved we were given a new orientation, a new aim, a new specialty.

C. The Wrong Results: Distractions and destruction

6:12 “Everything is permissible for me”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me”—but I will not be mastered by anything

The Corinthians were carrying these quotes like civil rights freedom slogans on a picket sign. Paul made some adjustments in their thinking. Liberty, true freedom is always the freedom that doesn’t harm others, or self, and honors God. Everything else has an enslaving power. The sinner thinks he's free, but he is not free to stop sinning. He is mastered by sin.

How Far Can I Go and Still be happy? It’s the wrong question. It’s barking up the wrong tree for happiness. It will only result in destructive distractions in your life.

II. The Right Orientation: Aimed for The Center

A. The Right Question: How Can I Stay Centered for maximum happiness?

There is a purpose and design for my life.

I am meant for something greater!

6:13 “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.

God designed our wonderful bodies. They function best by his design. We need to follow his handbook, his owner’s manual, to fully realize our potential. We are designed to house the supernatural. We spoil the design when we fill ourselves with counterfeits.

B. The Right Actions:

1. Flee “porneia (18)

This word is translated “sexual immorality”. It is the word from which we get our English word “porn”, or “pornography.” It is translated in the older translations “fornication.” The word porneia refers to any form of sex outside of God’s marriage design. It includes pre marital sex, extra marital sex, adultery, and other forms of sexual immorality, it also includes porn. Paul gives you the basic strategy for dealing with sexual temptation. Notice what he does not say. He does not say, “fight it”. He says, “Flee!” Run. Don’t hang around the source of the temptation long enough for you to be caught by that wiggly worm hiding that hook. Where do you run? Run to the Lord, and God’s design for your life.

¹⁸Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.

When you don’t flee, when you participate in sexual sin, you are messing up the way you are made. You begin to rewire yourself with wrong desires when you play with sin. You make it more difficult for yourself not easier. Wrong desires are fueled, like a fire to which you keep adding fuel to an illicit passion, feeding the wrong desire. You can watch that wrong desire grow as you feed it. The one who feeds his passions finds himself doing things he never thought he would do because the illicit passions were fed and activated beyond what he thought possible. He has been mastered by sin. Don't sin against your own body. You begin shaping yourself in the wrong image, the image of Satan, rather than the image of God. You begin to look like the image of the lie, rather than the image of the truth.

In our culture today people need to heed this warning more than ever before! People are being mastered by sin. They need to run! Run away from the slave master before it is too late.

2. Honor God with your body

The following comes from TASK (Teens are Saying kNOw), abstinence based curriculum commitment card:

Don’t take unnecessary changes with your life. Play it smart – say “No” to drugs: say “no” to alcohol: Say “no” to premarital sex. It’s your health; it’s your body; it’s your self-respect. Protect it with your life!”

Believing that true love waits, I make a commitment to myself, my family, those I date, and my future mate to be sexually pure until the day I enter marriage. (signature)___________________________

Date___________________

“Love is patient, love is kind. . .”

Isn’t it great that public schools are considering Abstinence based curriculum?

I do think this is great. Yet, this curriculum doesn’t go far enough for our purposes. The commitment says nothing about a commitment to God, our maker. I understand why. The most it can say is, “Play it smart – say “No” to drugs: say “no” to alcohol: Say “no” to premarital sex. It’s your health; it’s your body; it’s your self-respect. Protect it with your life!” But I want to go a step further, even correcting the statement. If you are a Christian, it is NOT your body. Your body is the Lord’s. And he gives you more than simply your life to protect yourself. He has given you his life to protect yourself. He has given you his power to protect yourself. The curriculum is bold enough to quote from the Bible however, and I liked what it was trying to do. I hope they adopt it. The principles of saved sex, come from the Bible. Save it for something better. Follow God’s design and it will be saved, it will be beautiful without all the problems when it is not saved.

C. The Right Results:

1. The Empowered Life (Confidence)

6:14 By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also.

It is by His power that we can have the right orientation and the right actions and the right results. When you live by his power, you have confidence.

2. The Intimate Life (Closeness)

17But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

3. The Filled Life (Fulfillment)

19Do 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;

We are not our own. We have been designed for honor, not dishonor. Let me illustrate this.

THE WAGER

Imagine a High School pep rally before the first game of football season. You know how sometimes a donated car is bashed up with baseball bats just to psyche up the players at a pep rally. Usually it is a junked car worth only a couple hundred dollars, or less. Imagine a high school with this pep rally tradition gathered outside for the car bashing tradition, but the junked car isn’t there. Just as the crowd begins to ask what’s going on, the coach drives up in a beautifully shiny waxed racing yellow Porsche. It sparkles in the sun as the coach gets out and grabs the baseball bat off of the passenger seat. Everyone is oohing and aahing over the car. The coach hands the bat to the captain of the Football team and says, “As the captain, you get to make the first 10 dents. Have at it son”.

“Have at what coach?”

“At the Porsche,” replies the coach.

The captain gulps and is thinking, No way. What a waste. I can’t bash this car. Besides I’ve seen this car before, I know whose Porsche this is. He says so, “Coach I know whose car this is, we can’t bash this car.”

The coach replies, “This is a donated car. In fact, the owner and I had a bet. He said he really didn’t think any football player would have the nerve to bash this car. The bet was he’d give the car and something more to the football program if I could get you to take the first swing. I think he knew how much you liked his Porsche.”

“So it is my friend’s Porsche,” the captain replies.

“No, it’s not. He donated it, and more, if you will bash it. Just bash it, son. If you do, you win something for the football program, and there’s something else.” Here he paused for effect, “You will win something for yourself as well. The bet is, that if you take the first 10 swings, there’s something in it for you. All I’m allowed to say is that it’s very valuable. If I say any more the bet is off. Go ahead.”

“I knew that guy was rich. But he must be crazy rich to allow this.”

“He is rich and crazy,” the coach reassures. Then extends the bat to him again.

Reluctantly the captain accepts the bat. You can see it pained him when he took the first few swings. He was obviously feeling guilty, while thinking how awful it was to see the shiny new surface so crumpled under the blows of the bat. After the first three swings, though, he kind of gets into the emotion of the pep rally crowd. His last 7 swings were quick and furious. In fact he wasn’t ready to stop when it was someone else’s turn.

After the whole team had their turn with the bat. The coach walked up to the captain and says. “I won the bet. I told you, you would get something valuable for taking the first swings. Here it is.” The coach smiled wickedly, handed the captain the car keys to the Porsche and said, “the car is yours.”

“What!?”

“Yup. The bet was, if you take the first swings you get the bashed car. If you refused you get the unbashed car. That friend of yours must have really liked you. But now he owes me a new car and you get this one. I’m not sure he’ll like that very much, but I sure do.”

What a wicked coach! What a wicked trick! Satan the coach of this world is duping people just like this all the time. Every time you compromise your sexual purity you are taking a bat to your own Porsche, and the wicked coach (Satan) does the damage he wants to do. We destroy our own bodies, which were made in God’s image. We still have the keys. It still runs. But what a mess compared to the Porsche’s former glory. It is now totally dishonored. We certainly wouldn’t choose this had we known. We certainly do not want this to be the car we take out on a classy date. The car has been dishonored.

Now lets rewind that scene for a moment and change the story. Let’s say the captain was given the bat. Let’s say he says. “Wait a minute coach. We can’t bash this car. I know whose car this is. This is my friend’s car. He lives just up the street from me. I won’t let anyone touch it!”

Just as the captain defends the car, the owner steps out from behind a tree in back of the crowd and walks up to him. He says, “Here are the keys son, take her for a spin. You’ve proved you will honor this car just as you have honored me, so I am giving it to you as an early graduation present! Go honor it, as you have honored me.

The captain says, “ALRIGHT!”

That friend is our Heavenly Father. When you treat him with honor, by not allowing HIS possession (your body) to be dishonored, he gives you the keys of joy.

4. The Honorable [useful] Life (Purpose)

²⁰you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

Honor Him with it! Take him places. What an incredible privilege we have. We are little earth units designed to house the glory of God. We are designed to touch people's lives with honor, to point them to our glorious Father. My body is my heavenly father’s polished, waxed, shiny vehicle. He loves to clean and polish me. He loves to go places in me! He loves to show off to others the restoration job he did on me! Do you need a restoration job done on you? He’ll do it if you give yourself to him.

Prayer:

Dear Lord Jesus, we have all compromised our purity in some way. We have taken a bat to your shiny Porsche, the honored bodies that you made and paid for. We bring ourselves before you to the body shop to ask you to restore the honor and fix the damage we have brought upon ourselves. Help us to orient ourselves to you as the center of our lives. Help us to turn our hearts away from lust and the distractions we have embraced. We want to fully embrace you. We want our desires to be shaped by your holy desires. Help us to want to aim for the center of your design. You have promised deliverance from our enemies, Lord. You have never promised to deliver us from our friends. Lord, if lust is a friend that is coddled here by any of us, we ask that by your spirit you would help us see what distraction and destruction we are embracing. Help each of us to turn away from “My way” and to willingly embrace “Your way” as it relates to our purity and our passions.

In Jesus’ Name, Amen!

[i] http://www.dumbwarnings.com/index.htm with my comments