Body and Sex

[0:00] Throughout history, humanity has had a love-hate relationship with their own bodies. On the one hand, what we might call ascetics, they renounce and punish their own bodies for the sake of spiritual gain, what they consider to be spiritual gain, whether it's through self-flagellation, whipping their own bodies, or self-imposed poverty and begging.

[0:23] On the other hand, the hedonists, they embrace and indulge their bodies as if it had no effect on their spirituality. Whether it's through gluttony or sexual immorality, they think that they could do whatever they want to their bodies, but it wouldn't have any effect on their spirituality.

[0:41] And both views are well-attested in the history of religion, and they share a common error. They have the same error. And that's that they both discount the importance of the body and view it as something that's unnecessary and extraneous for their spirituality.

[0:57] The ascetics believe that the body needs to be subdued and overcome for the sake of spirituality, while the hedonists believe that the body can be indulged to whatever they want and it wouldn't have any effect on the spirituality.

[1:09] Scripture, however, the Christian scriptures, does not discount the importance of the body. Rather, it teaches that we ought to glorify God in our bodies because our bodies have been united with Christ in his death and resurrection.

[1:22] That's the main point of this passage. And at first, I'll talk about how our bodies will be raised by God in verses 12 to 14. And then I'll talk about how our bodies are members of Christ in verses 15 to 18.

[1:34] And then finally about how our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit in verses 19 to 20. There's a Trinitarian outline here that Paul gives us. So the Corinthians were actually guilty of both errors, both the ascetic error and the hedonist error, and you'll see both of that as we go through the book.

[1:51] But here, Paul's concern particularly is with their hedonistic error because they were indulging in sexual immorality, thinking that it wouldn't affect their spirituality and their standing with God in any way.

[2:03] So some of the men were blatantly hiring prostitutes and sleeping with them and then rationalizing it afterward using certain slogans that we see here in verse 12. It says, All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful, says Paul.

[2:19] All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything. The clause in quotation marks, the all things are lawful for me. That's the slogan that the Corinthian believers, some of them were using to rationalize their immorality.

[2:33] And they were taking really the spiritual freedom that they have in Christ, which Paul teaches elsewhere, and then to use that twist that it distorted to say that all things are permissible and lawful for them.

[2:44] I mentioned this a couple weeks ago, that that's kind of what they were doing. And it's true that while Christians, because we have been freed from the law, we're not under the law anymore because Christ fulfilled the law on our behalf.

[2:57] So we are not legally bound to it in a sense that we're going to be punished according to the law. However, that doesn't mean that what the Corinthians are trying to make it mean, was that all things are lawful for me and you can live however you wish.

[3:10] And so Paul sharply qualifies their slogan in verse 12 by adding his own kind of qualifications to the saying, all things are lawful for me. He says first, All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful.

[3:24] Sure, you might have the right or authority to do such things, but that does not mean that such things are helpful or beneficial. So for Paul, it's not merely a question of what can we do, but it's a question of what should we do as Christians.

[3:40] This issue comes up again in chapter 10, and apparently some of the Corinthian believers were eating food that had previously been sacrificed to idols. And that in and of itself is not a problem because it's just good steak that Paul knows that Christians have the freedom to enjoy.

[3:56] That's okay with him, but it's a problem because Paul is saying that for the sake of Christian brothers and sisters who have weaker consciences, who do not think that eating meat that had previously been sacrificed to idols is okay, that Paul says we should abstain from such things.

[4:12] And in that context, in chapter 10, verse 23, Paul says a very similar thing. All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful, but not all things build up.

[4:24] So that explains really what he means by not all things are helpful. It doesn't build up. It doesn't build up the church. It doesn't build us up as believers.

[4:36] Because the Christian life is not about our rights, but about the things that benefit and build up the church. Our decision-making process, then in all that we do, all that we're thinking about, it shouldn't ever be purely self-focused, self-centered, but it should be oriented toward glorifying God and edifying the church, building up the church.

[4:57] That's Paul's first qualification. The proper Christian attitude is not one of entitlement, but of selfless service. We should ask ourselves not merely whether or not we have the right to do something, or permitted to do something, but whether or not what we're about to do is helpful and edifying.

[5:15] And Martin Luther, the reformer, once wrote in his famous treaty on the freedom of a Christian, quote, A Christian is a perfectly free Lord of all, subject to none.

[5:27] A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all. Yes, we have freedom in Christ, but with that freedom, we don't use it to abuse our own rights, but to serve others, to build up others in Christ's name.

[5:43] And most of us probably do not go to the same extreme that Corinthian believers were going in justifying fornication and prostitution with the pretext of Christian freedom. But this still remains a helpful principle for us because it has a very wide-ranging application.

[6:00] So think about it for a second, and I'm not giving you guys any conclusions at this point, but ask yourselves, yes, right, it is lawful for us to smoke cigars. It is. Yes, it is lawful for us to binge-watch TV shows on Netflix.

[6:15] It's lawful for us to do that. Yes, it's lawful for us to spend hours every day on video games. It's lawful for us to drink heavily caffeinated energy drinks every day.

[6:27] Yes, it's lawful for us to partake in extreme sports that have exceptionally high degree of risk. It's all lawful to do. But let me ask you, is it helpful?

[6:38] Does it really tend to the glory of God? Does it really tend to the good of the church? Is it good for you?

[6:51] I'm not going to answer those questions for you specifically because this is a general principle here, and I don't want to err by overreaching with specific applications that are not warranted by this principle.

[7:01] But this principle is clearly here, and I think each of us needs to at least wrestle with it, asking ourselves, is what I am about to do helpful? Is it edifying? And I want you to do that, to ask that question prayerfully, and then do only what your conscience allows.

[7:17] Because speaking of, right, in Romans 14, speaking of whether or not Christians are able to eat foods that are ritually unclean, he says, I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean.

[7:34] For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. This is a really helpful principle. If you're not fully convinced that whatever you're doing is lawful, and you do it nonetheless, then your action does not proceed from faith, and therefore it is sinful.

[7:55] Do you guys follow me? And now, even if you are fully convinced that what you're doing is lawful, but you deem that it is not helpful for building up your brothers and sisters in Christ, and you do it anyway, then your action does not spring from love, and it is therefore sinful.

[8:14] Do you follow that? This is an extraordinarily high call for the Christian. It's the Christ-like road of sacrifice and servanthood.

[8:26] And Paul also provides a second qualification to the Christian, to the Corinthian slogan. He says, All things are lawful for me, still in verse 12, but I will not be dominated by anything.

[8:37] The word dominated is a word play on the word lawful. They look and very sound similar in the Greek. And so this is kind of, so he's saying that while all things may be permitted to you, they are not to be controlled by it, by anything.

[8:52] And this is really echoing Paul's teaching elsewhere in Romans 6, 12 to 16. He says, Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

[9:15] For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace?

[9:26] By no means do you not know that if you present yourself to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness.

[9:39] Right? So this is Paul clarifying really his teaching on the freedom of the Christian. He's saying that while it is true that those who are in Christ, because Christ fulfilled the law perfectly on our behalf, are no longer under the law, and we're free from the law and its legal demands, but this did not mean that they could go on sinning, because to do so would mean that we are still dominated by sin, under its authority, and slaves to sin.

[10:05] Christian freedom, right? Far from permitting sin, it's supposed to preclude sin, because Christian freedom means servitude to God. That's what Christian freedom means. So it is a contradiction in terms to say, oh, I'm spiritual and I have freedom, and then to be dominated by sin.

[10:21] And even if the activity in view is not sinful in and of itself, even if it is lawful, if our appetite for it becomes inordinate, and it begins to dominate and control us, then we violate this principle.

[10:34] That we would not be dominated by anything. So let me ask you, is there a practice, or a preference, or a substance in your life that dominates you?

[10:48] If you are unwilling to give it up for the sake of glorifying God, and for the sake of edifying the church, or if you are willing but unable to do so, those are sure indicators that your appetite for this thing has grown inordinately to idolatrous proportions.

[11:06] And when it comes to conquering the desires of the flesh, and the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life, we have to be decisive and ruthless, and we can do it in the power of the Holy Spirit, with the loving accountability of the church.

[11:19] And then in verses 13 to 14, Paul challenges another one of the Corinthian slogans. Read with me, verses 13 to 14, food is meant for the stomach, and the stomach for food.

[11:31] 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. And God raised the Lord, and will also raise us up by His power.

[11:45] The saying, I know we have some real foodies in the house, in the church, so this might be discouraging to some of you, but it's food is meant for the stomach, and the stomach for food.

[11:58] So this is a saying that dealt with the irrelevance of food restrictions, and there was no longer, well I guess this is good for some of the foodies for now, is that there is no longer need to fret about what you're eating, whether some kind of foods are clean or unclean, ritually speaking, whether it's appropriate for you to eat, or inappropriate for you to eat it.

[12:16] And note that Paul doesn't dispute this fact, he agrees with the Corinthian slogan at this point, yes, the food is meant for the stomach, and the stomach for food. But their ultimate fate, ultimate fate for both the stomach and food, is God will destroy both one and the other.

[12:30] So food and the stomach are intended for our sustenance in this life, here and now, and they will not be the means of our eternal sustenance in the resurrection life.

[12:41] So that they are destined for destruction, that's what Paul's speaking of here. And this is similar to what Paul teaches, Romans 14, 17, it says, For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

[12:56] It doesn't make sense in light of that for us who are destined for heaven to be so consumed by our physical appetites, or to be overly concerned with what we eat or drink, because these are earthly things that will pass away.

[13:09] Their ultimate destiny is destruction. The Corinthians were right in this regard. They understood this correctly, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was that the Corinthians adapted this line of reasoning, and they were arguing by analogy that the body was meant for sex, or sexual immorality in this case, and sex for the body.

[13:29] So our bodily organs, this is kind of how they were thinking and reasoning, our bodily organs, our brains, our bodily chemicals, all of these things worked together to make sex pleasurable. So clearly, the body was meant for sex.

[13:41] It was designed for sex, and the sex for the body. So what harm is there in doing, in fulfilling, in indulging this basic biological desire? That was the Corinthian reasoning. That's their rationale.

[13:53] So they're justifying sexual immorality by saying that, well, just like the stomach, and just like food, they all pass away. Same thing with our bodies. They will all pass away. So why not indulge in sexual immorality while we still can, and we still have our bodies?

[14:07] But Paul exposes the critical flaw in their logic by formulating a counterpoint in exactly the same parallel format to the Corinthian argument. Verses 13 to 14, look at it with me one more time.

[14:18] The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by His power.

[14:29] While it is true that food is for the stomach and stomach is for food, it does not follow from this that the body is meant for sexual immorality and the sexual immorality for the body. Instead, Paul argues, the body is meant for the Lord and the Lord for the body because, and this is his reasoning, the ultimate fate of our bodies is not destruction, but resurrection.

[14:51] You guys follow that? This is the reason that Paul gives in verse 14. God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by His power. That's Paul's logic.

[15:02] The Corinthian believers are wrong to assume that our bodies, like our stomach for food, will be destroyed with death. They believed in the redemption of their souls, but not the redemption of their bodies. And they were wrong.

[15:15] And Greek philosophy, along with all the other really major religions, extant at this time when the Corinthians were written, taught the doctrine of the immortality of the soul.

[15:25] You guys have probably heard of it. A lot of people would believe it nowadays as well. And where in the immortality of the soul, after death, the disembodied soul without the body will either travel to the afterlife to be subsumed to this divine being or the nature, whatever it might be, or it will be reincarnated into a new bodily form.

[15:46] That's kind of what immortality of the soul would teach because immortality of the soul believes that the body is gone. It's just the soul that's immortal. But the Christian doctrine is not that because the Bible doesn't teach that the soul is eternal while the body is temporal.

[16:00] Instead, it teaches the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. This was so radical for its time when this was first formulated. Their bodies will be raised and perfected at the second coming of Christ and we will be made whole again, soul and body.

[16:16] That's the doctrine, the Christian doctrine. And the final consummation of God's salvation is not some heaven up there that's separate from earth where just our souls dwell, but it will be the new heavens and a new earth.

[16:28] Revelation 21. The heaven up there for our soul is merely a layover. The final destination is the new heaven and new earth here where we in our embodied souls, with our bodies raised again as Christ was, will live in eternity with God.

[16:43] And this Christian teaching about the resurrection of the body imbues our physical bodies with unprecedented dignity and significance. Because our bodies are not some burdensome shells, right, that we're just going to shed or discard for eternal life.

[16:58] No, God the Father will raise our bodies by His power just as He raised Christ's body by His power. For that reason, our bodies have eternal significance.

[17:08] And it's wrong to indulge or abuse our bodies like it's inconsequential because what we do with our physical bodies have spiritual consequences according to what Paul is writing here.

[17:20] Because the body is meant for the Lord and the Lord for the body, right? Christ died and rose again to give us spiritual life in here and now to guarantee our resurrection life in the future to come.

[17:34] He gave Himself to ensure the resurrection of our bodies and that's why the Lord is for the body. He gave Himself for our bodies. And likewise, because Christians are those who by faith have been united with Christ in His death and resurrection, our bodies are meant for the Lord, not for ourselves or for anyone else.

[17:52] Our bodies are consecrated to Him, set apart for Him. And it's not our prerogative to do with it whatever we wish. This is the first theological reason that Paul gives for why we ought to glorify God in our bodies.

[18:05] That our bodies will be raised by God the Father. Then in verses 15 to 17, Paul elaborates on the second theological reason why we ought to glorify God in our bodies and that's this, because our bodies are members of Christ.

[18:20] That's my second point. That's really an expansion of Paul's point that he made earlier when he says, Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? He writes this in 15, 17. Shall I then take the members of Christ and make the members of a prostitute?

[18:34] Never. Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For as it is written, the two will become one flesh, but he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.

[18:47] So verse 15 is Paul's exhortation that Christians who are members of Christ should not become members of a prostitute. And then verses 16 to 17 provide the explanation for why sexual intercourse with a man, for a man becomes a member of a prostitute.

[19:03] So this is a really important teaching. And in Ephesians 5, 22-33, Paul teaches the famous passage you guys know of that the union between a husband and a wife points to the consummation, that it points to the union with Christ of the believers, the union between Christ and the church.

[19:21] And after saying that in that passage in Ephesians 5 that we are members of Christ's body, Paul cites Genesis 2-24, which he also cites here as proof of the same point.

[19:33] And he says this, Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. So Paul's teaching that that one flesh union between husband and wife points to the union, spiritual union between Christ and the church.

[19:48] And it's significant that this is a metaphor, of course, but this is not just an analogy. It's actually pointing to a spiritual reality, that church really is the body of Christ.

[19:59] Matter of fact, we're speaking, but in a real spiritual way. And we know this because in Ephesians 5, Paul consistently uses the language of comparison and analogy to refer to other things. So he says, for example, he uses the comparative particle as, when he says, Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.

[20:17] In other words, husbands are not the lords of their wives, but the wives are called to submit to them as to the Lord. So that's the comparative language. It also says, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church.

[20:31] Meaning, the husband is not the head of the wife in exactly the same way as Christ is the head of the church, but it's comparable, even as, right? It's true in an analogous way.

[20:42] Similarly, it says, Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies as Christ does the church.

[20:56] Meaning, the wife is not literally the body of the husband, but they do form a one-flesh union, but this doesn't mean they don't have separate bodies. Nevertheless, the husband should love her as if she were his own body.

[21:09] Right? You guys follow me? It's a comparison. It's an analogy. So consistently, he uses the language of analogy throughout Ephesians 5, 22 to 33. But notably, in verses 30 to 32, when he's speaking of how the church is the body of Christ, he discards the language of analogy and comparison and uses the language of identity and being.

[21:29] He says, We are members of his body. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

[21:40] So in the same way, the real way husband and wife really become one flesh in their union, the church and Christ become one through the spiritual union.

[21:51] So it's not just an analogy. It's a reality, and that's what kind of grounds Paul's argument here. Unless we think that crudely that our union with Christ is similar to sexual intercourse between a husband and a wife, he qualifies it in verse 17.

[22:06] He says, He who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him, right? Which is different from the man who sleeps with the prostitute becomes one body with her, right? So that's different because this is speaking of a spiritual union, but it's not just a figure of speech.

[22:22] It's real. It's a real spiritual union between Christ and the church because Christ didn't just save our souls, but he saved our bodies. And when we renown our sins then and believe in Jesus Christ for salvation, we're united with him, Christ in his death and resurrection.

[22:38] And through that, we are given spiritual resurrection life in the present and we'll be given physical resurrection life in the future. And Christ's bodily resurrection is the guarantee of that. He's the first fruits of the resurrection.

[22:50] So then, to take the bodies that we have been given to unite it with a prostitute in sexual immorality, to do so is tantamount to joining Christ, the Holy One, the righteous Son of God, with a prostitute.

[23:07] And just the thought of it is so revolting to Paul. He exclaims, never. Absolutely not. May never be so. The two options are mutually exclusive.

[23:20] Of course, Paul's not arguing that sex in general is forbidden, right? In the next chapter in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul writes that in order to avoid temptations for sexual immorality, that the husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband.

[23:35] For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. So sexual union between husband and wife is a good thing because that picture that is a one-fleshed union is a divinely appointed picture of Christ's union with the church.

[23:53] However, sexual immorality, sexual union with the prostitute, profanes the sanctity of marriage, and it's a flagrant contradiction and violation of our membership in the body of Christ.

[24:07] For this reason, Paul writes in verse 18, flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

[24:20] And what does Paul mean by that? Every other sin a person commits is outside the body. What about sins like gluttony, drunkenness, drug abuse?

[24:31] Aren't these also sins against our own bodies? By this, I don't think Paul means that only sexual immorality affects the body. Other sins affect our bodies as well.

[24:43] But in a particular way, sexual immorality is against one's body because it brings about a profane, one-fleshed union and makes one's body an illicit member of another person's body.

[24:55] And in that way, it's unique, it's singular, and it violates the spiritual union of the believer with Christ. So in that sense, it is a unique sin. And this exposes really the foolishness, right, of the hookup culture that we live in.

[25:11] Not only is sexual immorality a sin against God, you're sinning against your own bodies. This is the second theological reason that Paul gives for why we ought to glorify God in our bodies.

[25:22] Our bodies are members of Christ. And then in verses 19 to 20, Paul gives his third and final reason why we ought to glorify God in our bodies. And that's that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.

[25:35] He writes, 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, for you are bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

[25:48] Right, earlier in chapter 3, Paul spoke of the fact that the whole church, right, is the temple of the Holy Spirit, right? But now Paul tells us that what is true of the church corporately is also true of believers individually.

[26:02] And so we could say it's appropriate to say if we are together as the church, the temple of the Holy Spirit, it's appropriate to say that each of us individually is a temple of the Holy Spirit. And this is also pointing to a spiritual reality, right?

[26:15] And it runs counter to the Corinthians' misunderstanding that whatever they do to their bodies, it doesn't matter, that it's inconsequential, because the body is destined for destruction and therefore has no eternal significance.

[26:27] Because they believe themselves to be so spiritual that they were above such encumbrances, that they can do whatever they want to their bodies. But Paul corrects them saying, if you are indeed spiritual, if you really have the Spirit of God like you claim to have, then you should be all the more careful what you do with your bodies because your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

[26:48] And the consequence of that reality is you are not your own, right? When the Bible speaks of being filled or being indwelled by the Holy Spirit, it's speaking of our possession by the Holy Spirit, that we are owned by Him.

[27:03] Remember what we learned from Ephesians 1, right? That when we believe in Jesus Christ for salvation, we are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit who is a guarantee of our inheritance, right?

[27:14] The Spirit of God seals us, right? He is, we might say, He is Himself the seal as well as He seals us. So He's the one that declares over us that we are His, that we are His, God's treasured possession.

[27:27] So we could think of the Spirit as God's inscription, His signature. The Spirit is God's mark of ownership over us. And indeed, sexual immorality is a sin against one's own body, but this offense is made worse by the fact that, properly speaking, the Christian's body is not even our own.

[27:45] It belongs to God. So do you live then as if your body's, indeed your whole life, your every decision, rightly belongs to God?

[27:57] Or, life is not about eating what I want, buying what I want, doing what I want.

[28:08] The true Christian posture is to ask always, Lord, what would you have me do? And to labor every day to try to keep in step with the Holy Spirit. And why do we belong to God?

[28:21] Why does God own us, as Paul's talking about? Paul's reason is given in verse 20. For you were bought with a price. This is the language of the slave market.

[28:35] And this, of course, makes us feel a little bit uncomfortable, right? Because, for one, our nation's history is stained with the heinous evil of race-based and kidnap-sourced, greed-driven, lifelong slavery.

[28:49] So when we think of slavery, that's what we think of. But the Bible knows of no such slavery. That's not what's in view here. And then secondly, here in the U.S., we're also all about independence and the right to self-determination, right?

[29:01] So we have a natural aversion to any language of being owned. In fact, that's like a, it's not like a punchline, like you got owned or something, right? So it's like, so it's like, so we don't want that.

[29:13] We dislike that. Just have a natural aversion to it. But being the slaves of God is not oppressive or restrictive. Rather, it's when we are truly free. God is our creator.

[29:24] He designed us, right? And His will is perfect and good. And it's within His will and not outside of it that we experience true freedom and joy. In his book, Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton writes about this paradoxical aspect of Christianity.

[29:40] He says, the more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a role and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.

[29:56] The freedom to sin to freedom to disobey God is no freedom at all. It's what derails the good things in this world to run headlong into cliffs.

[30:07] So it makes us fearful and then it forces us to put artificial, man-made boundaries that's even more restrictive than what God had for us. Perhaps you're not yet a follower of Jesus, right?

[30:22] And you've always felt that Christianity is like a straitjacket that just restricts you and tells you what to do. This is the paradox of Christianity.

[30:32] It's that Jesus Christ, the only person in the history of humanity who did not deserve to be punished by God, his whole life, he had perfectly obeyed God the Father. Yet he willingly died for our sin, for our rebellion.

[30:47] He died on the cross so that we can be saved and forgiven and freed. And that righteous one, he died so that the guilty ones can live and because Jesus humbled himself by becoming obedient even to death, to death on the cross, therefore God exalted him to the highest place, gave him the name that is above every name, right?

[31:08] Jesus rose again from the dead, ascended to his Father's right hand and now reigns with him. His death brought about our life and his humiliation led to his exaltation.

[31:18] That's the ultimate paradox of Christianity. It's what we call the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. And that same principle now applies to us. Those who submit themselves to Christ will find that they are truly free as they never were before.

[31:35] And those who die to themselves and to their selfish desires and pursuits find that they are now truly alive as they never were before. So stop living for yourself.

[31:48] Start living for God today. So we can run wild together in the goodness of God's will for us. And if you are already a Christian, then let this remind you at what cost you were purchased by Christ for God.

[32:05] 1 Peter 1, 14-18 says, When Christ ransomed us for God with His own blood, He purchased our bodies as well.

[32:37] That's why Paul says in verse 20, You are bought with the price, so glorify God in your body. We were all once slaves to sin, but as Romans 6-18 says, we are now slaves of righteousness.

[32:48] Think about it this way. So Hannah and I, we often buy things cheaply off Craigslist or we get it for free off websites like Buy Nothing Cambridge in Cambridge.

[33:00] You guys know about that. And so one of the things we got off of Buy Nothing Cambridge for free was a rocking chair that Hannah used really well for nursing our second daughter. It was a serviceable chair, but the fabric on it was wearing off, and the rocking mechanism had gotten rusty.

[33:18] It was really old, so it would creak really loudly, and sometimes it would wake up the baby and just put to sleep by rocking her. So it worked most times, but it didn't work all the time. But we weren't dissatisfied with it.

[33:30] And why? Because we got it for free. I mean, it was worth the price we paid for it. But imagine if we had paid $200 for a new rocking chair at Babies R Us, that thing better glide like it's on ice.

[33:44] Right? I mean... It better be worth the price we paid for it. Do you know your worth as a Christian?

[33:59] That you were bought not with perishable things like silver or gold? That's rubbish compared to what he paid for us. He bought us with the precious blood of Jesus Christ.

[34:12] Do you know your worth? If he gave his very life up for you and we have been united with Jesus in his death and resurrection, we better live up to our worth.

[34:25] Would you squander a life that Christ purchased with his very own life? So let's remind ourselves of this truth daily so we can live up to our billing.

[34:37] We ought to glorify God in our bodies because our bodies have been united with Christ in his death and resurrection. Let's pray together. God, you love us so dearly and we cannot fathom how precious you treat us, how precious we are to you that you would pay for it with the blood of your own son, Jesus Christ.

[35:17] We pray that that truth would motivate us into holy living and we pray that that truth would motivate us into evangelism. we pray that you would conform us to this truth with which you have addressed us this morning from your word.

[35:44] In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.