Sermon for January 18th

In past sermons, I have mentioned, once or twice, that God intends to use your hands and your feet to serve your neighbors and to show them love. Today’s passage from 1st Corinthians reveals that God intends to use even more than just your hands and your feet. “The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.” Yes, God is the God of everything . . . even the God of sex. Sexual activity can either benefit your neighbor or hurt them. Your spouse, your partner, or a complete stranger, can either be loved or hurt depending on your choices and how you use the body God has gifted you with.

Paul says, “The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord . . . .” But what is fornication? What is Paul talking about? What does fornication mean? Does it mean all sexual activity? No. Fornication is any sexual activity outside of the blessing and relationship of marriage.

In the first chapter of Genesis, God created a man and a woman in the image of God and then he gave them their first command, “Be fruitful and multiply.” Did God say, “Go take a cold shower?” Or, “Look, but don’t touch?” Or perhaps, “Now stay away from each other?” No. “God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply.’” Let me be very clear about this: God commanded the first man and woman he created to go have sex and have babies. This is not a God who hates passion! This is not a God who is unfamiliar with desire! This is not some prudish God who despises flesh! He made flesh! He designed all the parts involved! He created pleasure! He desired passion for those he created.

But he didn’t create sex and pleasure as simply some object to obtain like just another apple from a tree in the garden. In God’s creation, sex is placed within a specific context. God created sex within a particular kind of relationship. God created a man and then, for a partner, he created a woman. The text conveys that this difference in gender is part of the created order and is something good. Sexual relations are put in this context—into this relationship. Sex is a gift, but not just for the man and not just for the woman, but for and with one another.

In Genesis 2, God makes it clear that sex is even more than a gift though. It defines this relationship in a new and glorious way, “Therefore, a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.” Marriage is not defined by having children because we, as God’s creatures, are not able to have them apart from God’s creative work. Moreover, just having a child does not a marriage make. Sometimes, through scientific methods, a child can begin life apart from any relationship or marriage at all! Even within a marriage, sexual activity might cease “for a set time” as scripture says.

So what defines a married relationship? Marriage, in the Bible, is not defined as such but is described as being between men and women in a relationship where sexual activity is given boundaries. You don’t HAVE to have sex in order to be considered married, but you have to be married in order to consider having sex. Sex in any other manner, for whatever other reason outside of this special kind of relationship, is considered fornication, something God did not create human beings or their bodies to do. God created you to love and serve your neighbor, your spouse and complete strangers EVEN when it comes to your sex life.

As with any command from God, there are a several different ways we might respond to it. I’m not telling you three ways that you might WISH to respond, but I am describing three ways that sinners, like you and I, tend to respond. For instance, you may just disagree with God’s Word and seek some other words that seem to make more sense to you, be more tolerable or feel better. When you hear that you should “shun fornication”, you might decide that fornication is an outdated rule that shouldn’t apply to you for some reason or another. You are not changed and God’s Word is not changed, but life continues on more or less the same. On the other hand, you may agree completely with God’s Word and attempt to follow his rules perfectly while pointing out how others are not doing so well. But, if you are more interested in meeting God’s demands than loving your neighbor, this is called legalism. In this case, when you are told to “shun fornication”, you might believe that you aren’t fornicating with anyone that you can think of and thank God that you are so holy. Believe it or not, no one is changed in this scenario either, not you and not God’s Word.

But there is a third way to hear God’s command. The law still doesn’t change (I hope that you are getting the gist of that) but, in this case, you are changed. When you are told to “shun fornication”, you might realize that this Word from God is talking about you. You are the one being judged. God is pointing out your sins; you can’t escape them and you can’t blame someone else.

Our society has condemned, oppressed and despised many people of the world and used the Bible, or other religious books, as justification for doing so. Prostitutes are treated like dirt by those who use them for their bodies as well as by those who disagree with their lifestyle. Homosexual people are victimized by hate crimes and mocked by stereotypes. People who have affairs are shunned by their closest friends and relatives for their poor judgment and mistakes. Child molesters are beaten and sometimes even killed in jails.

On the other hand, people living together before marriage is quite acceptable in our society today. Premarital sex is just fine . . . as long as you don’t get pregnant that is. That can sometimes be embarrassing. You can look at pornography from the comforts of your own home if you stay up late enough and have cable TV or a satellite dish. And, the cute blonde down the street? Well, you can imagine a late-night rendevouz with her without anybody ever even realizing you are thinking about it.

We view these things differently don’t we. No one would ever equate the seriousness of child molestation to a little fantasy about a movie star. However, in God’s eyes, according to his law, they are both sins. They both need to be stopped. Everything I just mentioned would be considered fornication, sex outside the boundaries of God’s blessing in marriage. God speaks the same way about it all: “Shun fornication! The body is not meant for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. For you were bought with a price; therefore, glorify God in your body.” You may not even have done anything, you may only be thinking it, unintentionally, or in your dreams! But throughout the Bible, God is no more lenient with men or women sleeping around with various partners than he is with people sleeping around with other gods, with other words or with other moralities. God wants us all to be perfect. And we all fail miserably. Not only in how we act in public, but even in the privacy of our own minds and bedrooms.

As I said before, God’s Word does not change, but there is a chance that you might and that is why he speaks at all. God’s law always condemns. God’s law is not compassionate. God’s law judges you and me and every single person on this earth. He tells you to shun fornication because he wants you to love and be loved without the risk of harming or being harmed. He gives his final word to all forms of sex outside of the relationship of marriage . . . and his word is “NO!” His word is final. It is difficult and sometimes gut wrenching for us to hear this. If it weren’t, we wouldn’t need a Savior.

But, in fact, we do need a Savior. You NEED a Savior. Jesus died not only for your sweet little sins that you can’t help but for the sins that you never wanted saving from. He saves you from yourself and he even died so that you might have a blessed sex life, believe it or not! So that sex in your life might be a gift, not just in the eyes of you and your partner, but in the eyes of God and your community as well.

God doesn’t tolerate your excuses. He doesn’t accept your arguments. Instead, he does something completely unexpected: he forgives you and promises that your sins, even your sexual sins, will never separate you from his love. He doesn’t just want you to feel bad, to feel guilty or to repent of your sins; he wants you to repent and then believe that he has forgiven you once and for all. So you can love and be loved freely and without fear even in your most intimate relationships. He tells you to flee fornication so that you might run into his open arms. He calls you out on your sins so that he might forgive you completely. No matter how far you have fallen, God is right there to pick you up.

Sex is a gift from God for his creatures. But it can only be considered a gift within the context of a relationship blessed by God where it is given its proper purpose. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But now, hear this: you are forgiven and I pray that God might help you glorify his name even with your body. Amen.