1 Corinthians 6:9-11

Well, good morning, church.

Turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 9 to 11.

1 Corinthians 6:9–11

We're doing a series this year through this whole book, one of Paul's most lengthy epistles.

And this morning we are at chapter 6, starting at verse 9.

As a parent raising kids and living in downtown New Haven,

I find myself constantly warning my kids about potential dangers.

When they were a bit younger, it was simple things like,

when we're walking to our car, don't cross the parking lot unless we're with you.

Or when we come to a crosswalk, don't walk into the street unless you're holding an adult's hand.

When you're climbing the tree near our front door, don't climb higher than you can climb down without help.

When we're at the playground, don't pick up random pieces of trash,

because you really never know what they're going to be.

Now, after reinforcing all these warnings, what feels like hundreds of times over,

our kids are now 5 and 3, and we can take a walk around downtown without fear of grave danger.

But along the way, we've had the occasional scare when our kids have disregarded our warnings.

One day my wife was home alone.

She gave me permission to share this story, by the way.

And she was changing our daughter's diaper, who had just woken up for a nap upstairs.

Our 2-year-old son was playing downstairs, and for some reason, he decided to open the front door,

which he had just learned to do.

And not only did he walk out onto our front porch and onto the grass,

but he walked down the walkway and toward the street.

And when my wife realized what had happened and found him just a moment later,

he said, Mommy, I saw a bus go by.

Well, let us say that was both an occasion for a stern warning and some strong comfort.

And it hasn't, nothing like that has happened again.

Well, the Apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians, he describes himself in chapter 4 as a spiritual father

who is writing to admonish his beloved children in the church at Corinth.

And so he begins with today with a word of warning, but he ends with a word of encouragement.

So let me read this passage to us, 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 11.

Paul says,

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived.

Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,

nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

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 by the Spirit of our God.

This passage begins with a very strong warning.

Paul says,

Do you not know?

Paul uses this phrase a few times in his letter.

Chapter 3, verse 16.

And several times in chapter 5 and 6.

Most likely referring to basic Christian teachings that he had personally communicated to them

during his visit to Corinth.

Just a couple of years before he wrote this letter.

And he says,

Do not be deceived.

In other words, this should be obvious to you, but I know you are prone to forget or think that you know better.

Don't be deceived.

And twice he repeats himself,

The unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Now you might wonder what motivated Paul to issue such a strong warning.

Was Paul an angry religious traditionalist,

venting his frustrations about all the sinful practices of godless Corinth?

Well, no.

That's not Paul's motivation here.

Paul certainly had his concerns about and criticisms of Corinthian culture.

But Paul was not writing an open letter to the Corinthian parliament.

Or to the city of Corinth as a whole.

Paul was writing first and foremost to the Christian church.

And Paul's burning concern was that the Corinthian church was falling into,

or perhaps running headlong into,

the self-promoting, self-indulgent, and ultimately self-destructive patterns of the culture in which they lived.

So look back at chapter 5, verse 1.

Chapter 5, verse 1, we learn that a man in the church was sleeping with his stepmother.

And the church as a whole thought nothing of it.

In fact, as Paul says in verse 2, they were arrogant.

They celebrated it.

And it seems like they thought as follows.

We have freedom in Christ Jesus.

We're no longer under the law.

We're under grace.

And therefore, everything is lawful for us.

We can do whatever we feel like.

And Paul says no.

In this case, he says, you must no longer treat this man as a fellow Christian.

Because his pattern, his ongoing pattern of life is so far out of line with his profession of faith.

Chapter 6.

Beginning of chapter 6, we learn that some church members were suing each other in court.

Most likely, this involved a civil dispute over money or property.

And again, Paul responds very strongly.

Verse 7 and 8, he says, this is a shame.

Is there no one in the church wise enough to mediate?

If you're hauling one another into court, you've already lost the battle.

You're wronging each other.

This is not how the church is supposed to be.

You see, Paul's underlying belief here is that being a Christian means belonging to the kingdom of God.

In other words, living under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In Romans chapter 14, verse 17, Paul described the kingdom of God.

Romans 14:17

He said, the kingdom of God is characterized by righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

And Paul is concerned that many of the Corinthian Christians' patterns of life were way out of line.

That instead of displaying righteousness, joy, and peace, there was evidence of disloyalty and division and dissatisfaction.

And Paul says, you can't have it both ways.

This is a walking contradiction.

Now, before we dive into the content of verse 9 and 10, let me make two broader observations about these verses.

First, in one commentator's words, that Paul is not talking about isolated acts of unrighteousness,

but a whole way of life pursued persistently.

The words in this list are nouns.

He says, the sexually immoral or idolaters.

In other words, these are ongoing patterns that have come to define a person's character.

Second, this is not an entrance exam for joining the Christian community.

So it's not like a job application where you have to answer a series of yes-no questions.

Have you ever been convicted of a felony?

Have you ever been evicted from a prior apartment?

Are you a U.S. citizen with proper ID?

Did you finish high school?

And if you answer even one of those questions the wrong way, you're automatically out.

That's not what Paul is doing here.

In fact, in verse 11, he says, such were some of you.

Now, what Paul is doing is he's warning against patterns of unrighteousness, what he calls unrighteousness,

that don't belong in God's kingdom.

Paul does this a few places in his letters, most extensively in Galatians 5 and Romans 1 and 2,

more briefly in Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5.

But here, Paul focuses mostly on two categories in this list.

He focuses on sex and he focuses on money.

And that's not an accident because, as we saw, the issue in chapter 5 was sexual immorality,

and the issue in chapter 6 was a dispute over money.

In chapter 6 and 7, Paul gives more extensive teaching about sex and marriage.

In chapter 11, he addresses, among other things, divisions between the rich and the poor and the community.

Paul has already addressed issues of power and status in chapters 1 through 4.

So, the big picture is Paul's concern that the Corinthian Christians are using power, money, and sex in order to gratify themselves

rather than to advance God's kingdom.

And Paul wants to reorient their thinking.

Now, if we think about money and sex,

the prevailing assumption in our world,

which is similar to that of ancient Corinth,

is that money and sex are basically private matters

where each individual should determine what is right for themselves.

All right, so many people would say

that sex is generally okay

as long as it's between consenting adults.

As long as you don't violate someone else's autonomy and privacy.

And similarly with money.

Right?

Nobody else needs to know how much you earn

or how much you give

or how you spend your money.

That's your business, not theirs.

Let me put it this way.

Have you ever raised a serious concern

with someone,

perhaps a close friend,

about their attitude

or their practices

with regard to sex

or money?

And if so,

how did they respond?

Right?

Most of us are naturally very self-protective

in both of these areas.

We think no one ought to tell us otherwise.

It's not an accident

that two out of the three

most common factors in marital conflicts

are sex and money.

The other one is the in-laws,

which is sometimes a power issue.

Right?

Sex, money, and power.

And for the most part,

the only time we seek help in these areas

is when our lives have nearly fallen apart.

If there's an affair.

Right?

Or when we're facing bankruptcy or eviction.

But the Bible has an entirely different vision

of the purpose of money, sex, and power.

You see, in the kingdom of God,

power, money, and sex are not our own

to use as we please.

They're gifts from God entrusted to us

for the sake of building God's kingdom.

So in God's kingdom,

money is a blessing from God.

Deuteronomy says,

it is God who gives you the power to get wealth.

First Timothy says,

God richly provides us with everything to enjoy.

But it's a blessing not just for ourselves,

it's a blessing to be shared

with God's people in need throughout the world.

Paul talks about this in 2 Corinthians,

2 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

chapters 8 and 9, quite extensively.

At that time, he was raising money

to help the famine-stricken Christians in Jerusalem.

And he says this,

he says,

you will be enriched in every way

in order to be generous in every way.

And the result will be thanksgiving to God.

Money, which is inherently temporary and fleeting,

is a tool for serving and blessing

and honoring people who will last forever.

That's the purpose of money in the kingdom of God.

And therefore, greed, when money becomes an idol,

Paul says it's out of place in God's kingdom.

Now, of course, very few of us self-identify as greedy.

There was a pastor who was teaching a Sunday school class

on the seven deadly sins.

Greed is one of those.

Greed was the lowest attendance of all the days,

by far.

Right?

People came when it was pride and lust

and sloth and gluttony,

but not greed.

You see, greed is insidious.

Sometimes it's manifested in envy,

fantasizing as we browse catalogs or store aisles

or internet sites, even if we don't buy anything.

Maybe it's manifested in anxiety,

constantly checking the account balances

or feeling that our security correlates

to our financial status.

Or distraction.

We become so engaged in enjoying and managing

and increasing our possessions

that we ignore the people who are right next to us.

That was an issue in the church in Corinth.

Later on, Paul goes on and he says,

when you gather together to eat,

one of you is going hungry

and the other is getting drunk.

Some of you are so focused on enjoying yourselves

and overindulging yourselves

that you're completely ignoring

the person next to you

who's hungry,

who doesn't have enough to eat.

Greed sometimes blinds us

to the basic needs of our neighbors

who we pass on the street

or sitting next to us in church.

Jesus said,

be on your guard against all kinds of greed,

for life does not consist

in the abundance of possessions.

Now in God's kingdom,

just as our money belongs to God

and God enriches us

so that we might be generous,

our bodies belong to God.

So in God's kingdom,

sex is not primarily a biological drive

or a means of self-expression.

Sex is the embodiment

of God's covenant faithfulness.

Sex is intended to be a physical union

that accompanies a whole life union.

Sex is meant to be a reaffirmation

of the marriage promises,

a way of saying,

I would marry you all over again today.

And so in God's kingdom,

marriage is not just two people

entering into a mutually beneficial

arrangement to please one another.

It's two people vowing to display

to the world something far greater

than themselves.

Paul says,

Christian marriage depicts the union

of Christ and the church.

That is two fundamentally different entities

joined together as one for all time.

And you know,

if you think about it,

the way we think about money

and the way we think about sex,

we tend to think of them

in a self-centered way.

And when we hear about this

God's kingdom way of thinking,

it feels different to us.

Right?

Marriage is not primarily

about the two of you.

No!

Not in God's kingdom.

It's about displaying to the world

Christ's love for his people

and the union between

two fundamentally different entities.

And that is one reason

why the Bible,

including Jesus himself,

always describes marriage

as male plus female.

That is,

our fundamental difference

is inscribed on our very own bodies

and in our unity together

we display the reconciling grace of God.

That's the broader biblical vision

for the purpose of marriage

in God's kingdom.

And that is one reason

why Paul includes

men who practice homosexuality

alongside the sexually immoral

and adulterers in verse 9.

Now,

that is the elephant in the room

we have gotten here.

Okay?

So,

let me take a few moments

to clarify three things

about what Paul is saying

and what Paul is not saying

in including that in the list.

Number one,

Paul is speaking about

sexual practice,

not what we would call

sexual attraction

or orientation.

So,

Paul is not saying

that the only people

who belong in the church

are those who feel

exclusive attraction

to the opposite sex.

If you're a Christian

who experiences

homosexual feelings,

you will have

particular struggles

as well as particular

insights and gifts

to bring to the church.

We need you.

One book that's

particularly insightful

in this respect

is called

Washed and Waiting

by a guy named Wesley Hill.

It's available

on the bookstall downstairs.

I'd recommend it

to anybody

who wants to explore

this topic

and wants to hear

his insights.

So,

sexual practice,

not sexual attraction

or orientation.

Second,

Paul mentions

gay sex

generally

as a practice

that does not belong

in God's kingdom.

Now,

some scholars

have argued

that Paul

is referring

specifically to

prostitution

or exploitation.

But there is

a pair of Greek words

that refer specifically

to sexual relations

between an older man

and a younger boy,

which was one

prominent form

of homosexuality

in the ancient world.

Paul did not use

those words

in this list.

If you look

in the Pew Bibles

or the ESV,

there's a text note

at the bottom

which rightly says

the two Greek words

translated by this phrase

refer to the passive

and active partners

in consensual

homosexual acts.

In particular,

the second word

Paul uses

is arsenokoitai.

It's a compound word

from arsen,

which means male,

and koitai,

which means bed

or intercourse.

It's derived

from the Greek translation

of Leviticus 20.13,

which says,

whoever lies with a male

as with a woman,

they have both done

what is not pleasing

to God.

So that's the second thing.

Third,

though Paul mentions

gay sex

as one among

many practices

that do not belong

in God's kingdom,

Paul does not

single it out.

If the church

preaches

against homosexuality

while tolerating

or ignoring

other sins

in this list,

that displays hypocrisy

and self-righteousness

of which we must repent.

To take one other example

from this list,

along with the sexually immoral

and the greedy,

which are sort of

the true major categories,

Paul lists in verse 10

revilers.

Reviling means

verbal abuse,

slander or gossip

that destroys

someone's reputation,

misrepresenting

someone else's views

in order to undermine them,

treating someone

with scorn

and derision.

Sometimes

the LGBT community

has received this

from the church

and it is wrong.

Our world is full

of reviling,

especially on the internet.

But Paul says,

reviling has no place

in the kingdom of God.

In chapter 4,

Paul said,

when reviled,

we bless.

Chapter 13,

he says,

love is patient

and kind,

is not arrogant

or rude.

So this is Paul's warning.

Paul's warning

is that

to the church

in Corinth,

Paul's warning

to the Christian community

today is that

those who persist

in patterns of unrighteousness

will not inherit

God's kingdom.

We are called

to be part

of the kingdom of God

and to orient

our whole lives,

sex,

money,

power,

our words,

under the authority

of Jesus Christ

and for the good

of our neighbors.

So that's the warning.

It's a strong warning,

but it's also followed

by an even stronger

word of encouragement.

Paul says in verse 11,

such were some

of you,

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.

Such were some

of you.

The Corinthian church

was not a social club

dominated by people

with impeccable

moral and religious

upbringings

from nice

middle-class families

and everyone

who didn't fit

that profile

was marginalized.

No.

The Corinthian church

included people

who had complicated

sexual histories.

The church included

people who had

manipulated others

financially

in order to get ahead.

The church included

people who had

turned to alcohol

to drown their sorrows.

The church included

people who had

slandered others

behind their backs.

The church included

people who had been

hurt by people

who had done

all these things

to them.

Paul says,

such were some

of you.

And he says,

God didn't choose

you to be part

of his kingdom

because you were

better suited for it

than everyone else.

God chose you

in his mercy.

And the door is open

for anyone

who wants to come in.

Paul says,

such were some

of you,

but God has intervened

and set your life

on a new course.

In Jesus Christ,

through the Holy Spirit,

you have a new identity

and a new calling.

You were washed,

you were sanctified,

you were justified.

Now, those aren't

three things that happen

one after the other

in sequence,

but three ways

of describing

what it means

to become a Christian,

to be brought

into the kingdom

of God.

First,

we've been washed clean

from sin and shame.

I mean,

think about how you feel

if you don't take a shower

for a few days.

Before my freshman year

in college,

I went on foot

on freshman pre-orientation

camping trip,

hiking on the Appalachian Trail

for four days.

By the end of the trip,

we all stank.

Our clothes had got wet

in the rain,

we were sweaty

and dirty.

Now,

when we were on the trip,

all of us could tolerate

each other

because we were all

in the same boat.

We were all stinky.

And then when we got

back to campus

and met our new roommates

for the first time,

we were immediately

self-conscious,

immediately aware

of how dirty

and stinky we were

compared to everyone else.

But of course,

it's a lot easier

to shower and change

than to cleanse

our conscience

from shame.

Maybe you felt shame

because of past

sexual sin,

whether it's adultery

or pornography.

Perhaps you've been

sexually abused

and you bear the shame

of what someone else

has done to you.

Whatever the source,

shame can make us feel

extremely self-conscious,

maybe even self-hating.

It can make us anxious

and unsettled

around other people

that we perceive

to be clean

relatively

in some way

or other.

We feel dirty.

We don't know

how to deal with it

and so we try to hide.

We don't want anyone

to know about certain

parts of our past

or some of our present

struggles and temptations.

Paul says there is

good news.

There's a way

to move

beyond shame

because God

and Jesus Christ

has come to find us

in our shame,

in our ugliness,

in our dirtiness.

He has come

to embrace us

and to wash us clean

and clothe us

in his beauty

and his love.

Wesley Hill

in that book

Washed and Waiting

writes,

God has cleansed

the stains of sin

from the crevices

of my mind,

heart,

and body.

He has included me

in his family,

the church,

where I can find support,

comfort,

and provocation

toward Christian maturity.

Of course,

that's what baptism

symbolizes.

God washing us clean,

renewing us

through his Holy Spirit,

making us part

of his family

and Paul says,

live as people

who've been washed.

You know,

if you've been washed clean

through Christ

and the Holy Spirit,

you can approach God

with confidence.

You can face your past

with honesty

and transparency

instead of hiding

and defensiveness.

You don't have to go around

extremely self-conscious

feeling like you're

stinky and dirty

because you're not

anymore

before God.

God's washed you clean

from the inside out.

Your past

doesn't define you anymore.

Second,

Paul says,

we've been sanctified.

That word means

set apart

for God's holy purposes.

It was a word

that was used

in the Old Testament

for the priests

and for the instruments

in the temple.

They were sanctified.

That is,

set apart

as fitting vessels

in which God's presence

could dwell

and through which his glory

could be displayed.

Andrew Walls wrote,

not only does God

in Christ

take people

as they are,

he takes them

in order to transform them

into what he wants

them to be.

It's like the great sculptor

Michelangelo

walking through

a stone quarry

and coming upon

a large slab

of marble.

And he says

to the owner

of the quarry,

I want to buy

that piece of marble

because I don't just

see a large slab

of marble

with some jagged edges.

I see the sculpture

that I will one day

make from it.

It will take

a long time.

I will have to

chip away at it

relentlessly,

but one day

it will become

one of my masterpieces.

That is how God

looks at us

through Jesus Christ.

Or it's like

a restoration architect

coming upon

a boarded up house

with peeling paint,

a leaky roof,

and a backyard

full of trash

in the middle

of a bad neighborhood.

And he says

to the real estate agent,

I want to buy

this house.

I'm not buying it

so I can become

a slum lord

and make minimal repairs

and rent it out

at the highest price

I can

and make money.

No,

I'm moving in.

I'm buying the house

so I can move in

and renovate

the whole thing.

I'm going to clean up

the yard

and plant a garden.

I'm going to fix up

the roof

and put in a balcony.

I'm going to

knock down the side wall

and put on an addition.

When the renovation

is finished,

you will hardly recognize

what it once was.

But this will be

my home.

Ephesians 2 says

in Jesus Christ,

we are being built

together

into a dwelling place

for God

by his spirit.

God has claimed us

for his own.

He has bought us.

We have been sanctified.

That is set apart

for his holy purposes

and so that means

our lives will never

be the same.

God,

the master artist,

will gradually chip away

at everything

that does not display

his glory,

at our greed

and our lust

and our anger

and our power

hungriness.

God,

the master architect,

will not allow

the garbage

to remain

in the backyard

because he has come

to dwell in us

by his spirit.

You see,

God doesn't just

wash us clean

and then say,

here's a bunch

of rules to follow,

work really hard.

He comes to dwell

in us.

He's with us

every step

of the way.

When the spirit

came on Jesus,

when he was baptized,

it said the spirit

descended on him

and remained on him

and when the Holy Spirit

came upon the church

on the day of Pentecost,

it descended upon them

and it didn't fly back away

but the Holy Spirit

remained with God's people.

When the Holy Spirit

comes to you,

when you ask Jesus

to fill you

with his spirit,

he comes to dwell

and to remain

and to be with you

every day,

we've been sanctified,

set apart

for God.

Third,

we've been justified.

That is,

given a new status

before God.

The word justified

means to be declared

righteous.

That is to be

on good terms

with God.

We've received pardon

for our past offenses.

We have a place

in his family.

Some time ago,

I was talking

with a guy

who had been

in and out of prison

multiple times.

Even though he hadn't

been convicted

of a crime

in several years,

his life was still

very much constrained

by his past offenses.

His criminal record

made him ineligible

to apply for most jobs,

so he struggled

to find steady work.

Because he struggled

to find work,

he couldn't pay

for an apartment,

so he bounced around

from one place

to another.

He was on probation,

which created

additional demands

and restrictions.

But if he violated

his probation,

he would end up

in jail again,

and he was often

depressed and fearful

and anxious.

When you're on probation,

you're living under

the shadow

of a guilty verdict.

And the burden

is on you

to demonstrate

to the courts

and to society at large

that you're worthy

of obtaining freedom

once again.

Now,

from a human perspective,

the rationale

for probation

is understandable,

though the system

can be flawed.

But when it comes

to our relationship

with God,

Jesus Christ,

through his death

on the cross,

has provided

not probation,

but pardon

for everyone

who repents

and turns to him.

You see,

we don't have to live

under the shadow

of a guilty verdict.

Through Jesus Christ,

we live in the light

of resurrection promise.

Jesus Christ died

for our sins.

He was condemned

for us,

and he was raised

to life

for our justification.

It is his verdict

that matters.

In Jesus Christ,

there is no condemnation.

And so we can live

in that freedom.

We can live

in that joy.

we've been brought

into the kingdom

of God.

The kingdom

of righteousness,

peace,

and joy

in the Holy Spirit.

That is Paul's

encouragement.

May we heed

his warning

and be strengthened

by his encouragement

today.

Let's pray.

Let's pray.

Let's pray.

Let's pray.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus,

Lord Jesus,

we thank you

for your transforming

power.

That is at work

in this world.

That is at work

in us

who trust in you.

Lord,

we pray that we would

live in that new identity

that you have given us.

Lord,

that we would walk

in our identity

as people

who have been washed,

who have been sanctified,

who have been justified

by you.

We pray these things

in your name.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.