The Second Sunday After Epiphany
January 15, 2012 - Pastor Adam Moline
1
Samuel 3:1-20 1 Corinthians
6:12-20 John
1:43-51
1 Corinthians 6 - 12 “All things are lawful for me,”
but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not
be dominated by anything. 13 “Food is meant for the
stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the
other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the
Lord for the body. 14 And God raised the Lord
and will also raise us up by his power. 15Do
you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the
members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16 Or
do you not know that he who is joined[a] to a prostitute becomes one body
with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But
he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. 18 Flee
from sexual immorality. Every other sin[b] a person commits is outside the
body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 19 Or do
you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you
have from God? You are not your own, 20 for
you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
Grace, Mercy and
Peace to you from God the Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Our text today comes from the Gospel lesson for today, especially these
words, You are not your own, you were bought with a price. So glorify God with your body.” Thus far our text.
Dear friends in
Christ, the epistle lesson appointed for today is one that makes the hair rise
on the back of our neck. It is one that
makes us uncomfortable, and to be honest, I considered trying to preach on
either the Old Testament or the Gospel lesson and avoid the epistle lesson all
together. But friends, there is a reason
that St. Paul wrote these words to the Corinthian church almost 2000 years
ago. And more importantly, there is a reason
that these words are so important to us today.
2000 years ago, the
ancient Roman city of Corinth was similar to our modern city of Las Vegas, only
on steroids. There in Corinth’s town
square and even in their religious centers, prostitution ran rampant. If you liked girls, they were available. If you liked boys, they too were available to
you, all for a price. What is more, this
practice was one that was acceptable to the people of that day. It was a normal every day practice in the
Roman Empire for these sorts of things to go on, things that would make us
squirm, things that make us blush, things that we would not want to talk about
in front of our mothers.
And into this
world of vice and sin, into the world where “what happens in Corinth stays in
Corinth,” the Word of God came. The
church grew, as those people sought to escape those things that infected their lives,
and as they heard the message that Christ had set them free from their sin,
that they no longer needed to live in the debauchery of their world. But that they could have something more,
something better, something eternal – a gift freely given to them by God
through His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
It was not easy to
do. The lure of all of those sexual sins
of that day was great. St. Paul in 1
Corinthians 5 speaks of a man, a Christian, a member of the church, sleeping
with his father’s wife – something that the pagans didn’t even do. There were people, Christians, who thought
that homosexuality was ok, that sex outside of marriage was just an everyday
part of life, and that everyone was doing it anyways, so why couldn’t
they? Why did God have to care? Why did God have to make these rules? Why did God have to stick his nose in to
business that wasn’t even his?
And so, St. Paul
writes the Corinthians a letter. St.
Paul tells the Corinthians just why God was concerned about them, why he cared
about what went on in the dark of the night.
And the answer was simply this – your body is not really your own for
you were bought with a price. Their body
were not their own, the Holy Spirit dwelt there. Their bodies were not their own, they
belonged to God, who would raise them from the dead and give them back to the
person forever apart from sin, sorrow and the world. They were bought with a price – the blood of
Jesus.
So you see, these
words are important for us to hear as well, aren’t they? Yes, when we think about it, we do want to
blush, we want to ignore it, we want to feel ashamed of the topic for
conversation. We may even want to storm
out frustrated at what the text says.
But what Paul says to the Corinthians, he says to us as well.
We too, live in a
society inundated with sex. It is on our
TV’s. It is in the news. It is all around us. We hear stories of the fight over whether or
not homosexuality is right or wrong, and on a purely human level we wonder if
it is our business or not? We know that
here in our own town, people are having sex outside of wedlock, we know what has
happened and been recorded on video in our own town. We know that pornography enters our own
homes. Yes, even the pastor is aware of
many of these things happening. And when
we know what happens in our own lives it makes us ashamed and afraid. It’s awkward.
It’s gross. It really is
shameful.
Don’t talk about
that pastor, it’s a secret. Don’t
mention that topic, we want to keep it to ourselves. Just live and let live, right? But Paul writes “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 prostitute? Never! The
body is not meant for sexual immorality.”
Friends, you are
bought with a price. Who you are cost
something. You were set free from sin,
so how can you let it rule your lives any longer? God sent His own Son here in our flesh, in
our body, with all the body parts you yourselves have. He sent him to a cross to die for your sin,
to take it away from you, so that you would not need to feel the need to return
to it as a dog returns to his vomit.
You belong to
Christ. He has purchased and won you,
not with Gold, not with Silver, but with his holy precious blood, innocent
suffering and death, that you may be his own, and live under him in his kingdom
forever. God bought your body on the
cross. That means it belongs to him,
that means on the last day He will raise it forever into glory. That means it is not a slave to sin of any
kind. That means you are free to be his possession.
Dear friends, I’m
not going to cut corners here. I know
that each person here has sinned sexually in one way or another. Jesus himself write, “If you so much as look
at a woman with lust in your heart, you have already committed adultery with
her.” You’ve done it, I’ve done it, we
all have. Today’s text is not written to
just make you feel guilty, to drive you from the church or to make you
angry. Today’s text is a beautiful
message of hope and promise.
You don’t need to
be burdened by your sin any longer. You
don’t need to let it weigh you down, you don’t need to let it make you feel
guilty or sad. Your free. Here it again, and know that these words are
for you dear child of God. YOU ARE
FREE! You were bought with a price. Jesus has taken the bullet for what you have
done. It’s gone. That sin is behind you, and all you have
ahead are God’s gracious promises of forgiveness. It is as far from you as the east is from the
west. Jesus has given up his life in
your place so that all of your sin, each and every part of it has been wiped
clean. That sin no longer belongs to
you. You were bought with a price, your
body is not your own. If God can forgive
the perverted Corinthians, how can he not forgive you.
So glorify God in
your body. Glorify God, as you keep your
body free from that sin, as you shade your eyes from filth, as you become one
flesh with only your spouse. And when
you fail, when you sin, don’t stubbornly continue in that sin, but repent and receive
the grace of Jesus – grace that covers all guilt forever.
Glorify God with
your body, for he has given it to you clean and undefiled in the blood of
Jesus. What a blessing! What a gift.
A fresh start in the forgiveness of Jesus. Amen.
