Now, let's open our Bibles there
to where Brother Mark just read in 1 Corinthians chapter 6. The
title of the message this morning is, We Are Sanctified. We Are Sanctified. And I'm going
to focus in on verses 9 through 11. Let's just read those again.
1 Corinthians 6 verse 9, he says, No you not, that the unrighteous
shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Be not deceived, neither
fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor
abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor
drunkards, nor revelers, nor extortioners shall inherit the
kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you are washed but you are
sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus
and by the Spirit of our God. Now let me just start this way.
You know, these epistles of the scripture, the letters that God
the Holy Spirit inspired men like Paul and John and Peter
to write and others, They were addressed to particular local
assemblies of believers, churches where the gospel is preached. And they were churches that had
problems. All churches here on earth will have problems, difficulties. Talked about it earlier this
morning in Revelation 2 and 3, the seven churches. The church
will be attacked from without by Satan and the world. You know,
being attacked from within by Satan and the flesh, all these
problems. And these problems were different.
Some of them were doctrinal problems. For example, the book of Galatia
addresses a false gospel that had crept into the church by
false preachers. And it had to be dealt with.
It's a serious problem. You can't, and what he's saying
in the book of Galatia is Christ, as to our salvation, As to the
forgiveness of our sins, as to our righteous standing before
God, as to eternal life and glory, Christ can have no rivals. That's exactly what he said.
If righteousness comes by the law, then Christ died in vain.
He came to establish The only way of righteousness for sinners
to stand before a holy God. And if you can make your standing
right with God by your works and your efforts, then he died
in vain. It was a doctrinal problem. There were problems in the church
at Corinth that were doctrinal. He addresses them in the last
part of this letter. Those who were preaching that
the resurrection had already passed. And of course, Paul says
that's heresy. But he starts off in Corinth
addressing a real problem of what we can call scandalous sin. Scandalous sin. Now, somebody
says, well, isn't all sin a scandal? Well, you could put it that way
in certain contexts and definitions. But here's what I mean by scandalous
sin. Now, we're all sinners. There's
no doubt about that. None of us, at our best or at
our worst, have anything to brag about. Before God now, and really
before men, if you think about it. As far as our salvation,
it is totally by the grace of God, which we have never, do
not now, and will never earn or deserve. We could pick out
the best person in our congregation today, and the best we can say
of that person is that he or she is a sinner saved by grace,
who's no closer to righteousness by their works than the worst
of us. And that's so. We're all sinners. There's none of us who can say
that we love God perfectly 100% at all times. There's none of us who can say
that we love our neighbor, and understand our neighbor includes
our worst enemy. None of us can say we love our
neighbor as we love ourselves perfectly, 100%. But here's the
fact of the matter, and here's where we have to make a distinction.
We're all sinners. If we're saved, it's by grace.
We stand righteous before God in Christ alone. But not all
sin brings public scandal upon the gospel and upon our witness.
And that's what I mean by scandalous sin. This church at Corinth,
there were infightings over preachers, over apostles. We follow Paul,
we follow, but you know the problem there. There was a man in the
church that dealt with back in 1 Corinthians chapter five. Look at chapter five and verse
one. He says, it is reported commonly. In other words, this is known.
This is not hidden. This is not in the closet. You
know, you talk about people today coming out of the closet. Well,
this fellow here, they're going to tell me he's out of the closet.
He's in the headlines now. And he says, you know, I mean,
there's not gonna be a headline tomorrow in the Albany Herald
that says, the people of Eager Avenue Grace Church don't love
God perfectly. Is that right? That's not gonna
be in our headlines. We might as well say that about
the whole world. So that's not gonna bring, it's a sin. Now
don't get me wrong, that's sin. And that sin deserves death.
If God ever gave us what we deserve, what would it be? Condemnation.
But it's not gonna bring public scandal. upon this pulpit and
upon this church. But here he says it's reported
commonly that there is fornication, that sexual immorality, that's
what fornication is. Among you, and such fornication
as is not so much as named among the Gentiles. Now what he means
by that is whatever's happening here is something that's not
even right or appropriate to the Gentile world, and here's
the problem with that. When you see what is commonly
right and appropriate to the Gentile world later on here,
you're gonna say, man, this must have been really bad. And here's
what he said, that one should have his father's wife. It was
a man who was committing fornication with his stepmother. They called
that incest. And that's not even acceptable
to these wild Gentiles out here, is what he's saying. And it's
commonly reported. Everybody knows about this. And
you're letting it go. You're tolerating it. You're
not doing anything about it. And I don't know what logic or
rationale they use not to deal with that. I mean, I know how
people today sometimes try to excuse their public humiliation
and scandalous. They'll say things like, well,
God loves me in spite of myself. God says come to me just the
way I am. We sing it just as I am. Well,
we know what that means. Or somebody might say, well,
I'm saved by grace and it doesn't matter what I do or what I don't
do. You know, things like that. I don't know what rationale they
use. But here's the problem, it was public scandal. And then
the passage that Brother Mark read in 1 Corinthians 6, what
was happening there was that whenever two believers, all right,
two believers had a problem, a disagreement over a nothing,
They appealed to courts, human courts, to settle their matters.
And what he's talking about, he's not, now look, people say,
well, that means that a believer can't ever get in a lawsuit with
somebody. That's not what it's saying at all. It's talking about
disputes among believers within the church that should be settled
in the church, between those two. And their disputes were
so public that it brought scandal, public scandal upon the gospel. Look at how those Christians
are acting there. That kind of thing. And what
Paul said there, Mark, you were right, what he's saying there,
look, it's better for you to take the wrong than to bring
public scandal on the gospel and the church. There are times that even believers
have to go to court for other reasons, but it doesn't bring
public scandal on the church is what I'm saying. It'd be better
for you to be defrauded than to bring public scandal on the
church. So that's the problem that we're dealing with here
at the church at Corinth. Now again, let me reiterate,
all sin is sin in the eyes of God. All sin deserves condemnation. And we're all sinners. And if
God were to mark sin, you may, I love that passage, Psalm 130
verse three, Lord, if thou Lord should us mark iniquities, if
you should charge with sin, who among us would stand? Not one
of us. You know the only hope for any
of us? Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. And what does that mean? That
means I have a righteousness before God that cannot be changed,
cannot be contaminated, cannot be taken away. It's Christ's
righteousness. That's my only hope. If I get up tomorrow and
have the best day morally that I've ever had in my mind, in
my heart, and in my actions, I'm still, at the end of that
day, just as much in need of the imputed righteousness of
Christ as if I woke up tomorrow morning and had my worst day.
Now, do you understand that? All right. So saved by grace,
no hope of salvation, but Christ's righteousness imputed. So what
does the apostle do? Well, look at verse nine. He
starts off, verses nine and 10. He says, know you not that the
unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Now, who
are the unrighteous? What does it mean to be unrighteous?
Well, unrighteous, the term, describes a person's standing
with God. How do you stand before God? Unrighteous means unjustified. That's what it means. Unjustified. The term right and righteous
in the Bible is often translated just and justified. Unrighteous means unjustified. You're not right with God. Not
made right with God. Now here's the question before
you read any further is you gotta ask. We've already talked about
it. Well how then is a sinner made right with God? What does
the Bible say from Genesis to Revelation? Whatever it says
here in 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 11, I'm going to tell you something.
It will not change or rival or oppose what the Bible says all
the way through about how a sinner is made right with God. Whatever
it says. Somebody says, well, I'm not
really sure what that says. Well, I know what it doesn't
say. Let me tell you what it doesn't say. It doesn't say if
the unrighteous will stop doing these things that are listed
here, then they'll be made right with God. It doesn't say that. How do you know that? Because
salvation is not by works. It's by grace. Let me ask you
this question. Should the unrighteous, whoever
he's talking about here, should they stop doing these things?
Yes. Are we against these things?
Yes. Do we promote these things and do we advertise these things,
these kinds of sins? Is that what we're into? No.
Should the unrighteous stop it? Yes. But is that gonna make them
righteous before God? No. How do you know that, preacher?
Because that's what's, look at Genesis to Revelation. How's
a sinner made right with God? It's not by covering these sins
with fig leaf aprons, the works and wills of men, it's by the
blood of the Lamb. That's the only way you're gonna
be made righteous before God. What's he saying here? Well,
he says the unrighteous are not gonna inherit the kingdom of
God. Those who are unjustified before God will not inherit.
And that word inherit's a good word. You see, this thing about
the kingdom of God, that's salvation and all of its blessings, all
of its benefits, which are given to God's people through Jesus
Christ, blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus, the unrighteous are not going to inherit those
things. The righteous didn't earn them. Those who are righteous,
you didn't earn them. You didn't deserve them. It's
an inheritance. I mean, somebody else earned it, died, and bequeathed
it to you, gave it to you. And the Bible teaches that all
that took place when we were yet sinners and unworthy in ourselves,
enemies even. You understand that? Romans chapter
five, God's great love, in while we were yet enemies, Christ died
for the ungodly. So this inheritance is not given
to anybody who deserves it or anybody who earned it. but there
are those who are unrighteous. They're unjustified. They're
not gonna inherit it. But he's saying here that such
behavior as characterizes some of the unrighteous here in Corinth
should not be engaged in or characterize those who know Christ. That's
what he's saying. He's saying there's a behavior
characteristic of certain people who are not right with God. You
can't say this behavior is characteristic of all those who are not right
with God. Now listen, understand me now. I know what the doctrine
of total depravity says. It says that we have the potential
of every known sin within us. But there are some who are unrighteous who do their dead level best
to avoid these kinds of things. You understand that, don't you?
What did Paul say about the Jewish unbelievers? He said they have
a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. They're doing their
dead level best to avoid such behavior, trying to establish
a righteousness of their own. They're unrighteous too. One of my favorite things to
see in the scripture is when you Look at the book
of John, chapter three and chapter four. Because in chapter three, the
Lord is addressing a very religious, moral, zealous, sincere man named
Nicodemus. And what does he tell him? You
gotta be born again, Nicodemus. Salvation's by grace for you,
Nicodemus. And then in chapter four, he's
addressing a very notorious, sinful, immoral woman, the woman
at the well. And you know what he tells her?
Salvation's by grace. You see, the Bible teaches us
that here's Nicodemus in his religion, and here's the Samaritan
woman who was notoriously immoral, that Nicodemus was no closer
to earning or deserving salvation than that immoral woman. Nicodemus was no closer to righteousness
than that Samaritan woman. If either one was going to be
saved and be justified before a holy God, how's it gonna happen? By grace through Christ. Washed
in the blood, clothed in his righteousness, that's it. But
Paul is saying here, That such behavior as he lists here, now
look back at verse nine. You know, people say, well, look
at how things have gotten so much worse today than what they
used to be. Let's read this list. Know you not that the unrighteous
shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Be not deceived, neither
fornicators. That's sexual immorality. What
he's talking about is such that would bring public scandal on
the gospel. Open immorality. He says, nor
idolaters. You know, back then in Corinth,
there was a big temple. I can't remember who the goddess
was. In Ephesus, it was the goddess Diana or Artemis in the Greek.
In Corinth, it was another goddess, a Greek goddess or a Roman goddess.
And their way of worship was temple prostitution. And some
of the Corinthian believers, now I'm not here just to shock
you, but some of the Corinthian believers were still engaging
in these temple orgies. And Paul says, stop it. You ought to be ashamed of that.
That's what he's saying. And he doesn't even do it in
a condemning way. He's trying to recover them.
But that's what it's talking about, idolaters. He says nor
adulterers. You know what that is. That's
sexual immorality outside the marriage. What he's talking about. Nor effeminate. Now that word
effeminate's an interesting word. You know what it literally means?
It means those who switch roles. Men switching to female and female
switching to men. You mean that was going on back
then? Yeah. Is it going on today? Why you
can't? Yes. One old Greek writer says it
refers to cross-dressers, things like that. That was prevalent. They say today that if you're
in California, one out of every 10 women you see is not. Now you think about, is that
prevalent in our day? Well, yes, but it was in their
day too, effeminate. And then he says, nor abusers
of themselves with mankind. That's homosexuality, that's
what that is. Don't let anybody ever tell you
that the Bible doesn't condemn homosexuality. And somebody says,
well, they're born that way. Listen, we're all born sinners.
You say, well, they have to fight their tendency. We all have to
fight our sinful tendencies. That's called the warfare of
the flesh and the spirit, folks. And there's only one way of deliverance,
and that's through the Lord Jesus Christ, who has the power to
deliver us. And no, he does not make us perfect
within ourselves. Life in this earth, for a believer,
is a struggle from the get-go. and it'll be that way until we
die and go to be with the Lord. It's a struggle. In one way or
another, whatever problems we're having, it's a struggle. But that's what it's talking
about. He says thieves, petty larcenies, what that refers to,
stealing from each other. Remember he told them in Ephesus,
let him that stole steal no more. In other words, and you know
what he's talking about there, I believe? He's talking about
deadbeats who live off everybody else and who are capable of working
and won't work. And he says, don't steal anymore,
but go earn your living by the sweat of your brow. God gave
you that ability. And then he says, covetous. That's the unlawful desire for
things, nor drunkards, You know what drunkards are, those who
are intemperate. That's how they're known. And
then revelers, what he's talking about there, he's not just talking
about going to a party. Nothing wrong with going to a
party. He's talking about those whose lifestyle, these are just
party people, that's their lifestyle. And they're not serious about
anything. And then he talks about extortioners. That's kind of like blackmail,
that kind of thing. Holding over people things that
you can get gain from them. And he said that kind of behavior
that characterizes the city of Corinth in a lot of ways, he
says they're not gonna inherit the kingdom of God. They're unjustified. That's the behavior that characterizes
people like that in some ways. Inappropriate behavior. And he
tells the Corinthians, he says, you've got to separate yourself
from that. You've gotta separate yourself
from that. These things are not appropriate behavior for a child
of God. They're not appropriate for the righteous. The unrighteous,
the unjustified, there are a lot of them who engage in that. There
are others who are religious. They're both unjustified, but
either way, you've got to separate yourself from that. Now you remember
in Galatia, he told them to separate themselves from those religious
hucksters who were trying to get them to do certain things
by way of ceremony and law to make themselves righteous. He
says, you separate yourself from them. So don't just get the idea
that, well, he's just coming down on immoral people. He does.
But he comes down on false religion too. Think about 2 John verse
9, remember? He says, those who transgress
and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, the teaching of Christ,
they have not God. Those who abide in the doctrine
of Christ have both the Father and the Son. And he said, if
there are any coming to you and bring not this doctrine, have
no fellowship with them. That's what he's saying. Separate
yourself. We cannot condone or ignore this
scandalous sin. That's what he's saying. We're
to be involved in a warfare against sin, not self-righteously now.
When we stand against these sins, we're not to do it in a self-righteous
way as if, I would never do anything like that. I would never do that to me or
none. No, don't do it self-righteously.
Remember in Galatians 6, he says, those who do it self-righteously,
they think too highly of themselves. You just think about it. If God
put us in certain positions, in certain ways, and allowed
us to go our own way, how far would we go? It'd make us sick. We're to be involved in, we're
not to do it in a condemning way to a brother or sister in
Christ. If a brother or sister's overtaken
in a fall, we're not to condemn them, we're to seek their recovery.
We're not to ignore it, we're not to promote it, but we're
to seek their recovery in a way of grace. We're not to be a holier
than thou. But look at verse 11. He says,
and such were some of you. Now what he's gonna show here
is there's a dramatic contrast between the unrighteous and the
righteous, the unjustified and the justified. Those who are
unbelievers who are unregenerate and those who are believers who
are regenerate. And he says this kind of behavior
was characteristic of some of you. You know, I think about Ephesians,
turn over to Ephesians chapter two. Remember what he says there? We all fell in Adam. We're all
born dead in trespasses and sins. When God saved any of us, what
did he save us from? From sin. All sin. And listen to how he
describes the justified here, the ones who are now regenerate.
He says in verse one, and you hath he quickened who were dead
in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past you walked according
to the course of this world. Now whatever course you walked
before you met Christ, before you knew him, before you were
brought to know him, you walked according to that course, whether
it was a religious course or an immoral course or whatever.
He says, according to the prince of the power there, the spirit
that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also
we all had our conversation, our lifestyle, in times past,
in the lust of our flesh, whatever lust that was. Here's a man like
Zacchaeus. His lust was to get all the money
he could get in whatever way he could get it. That was his
lust. And he cheated. He was a publican. He cheated.
to get everything he could no matter how, it didn't matter
who he hurt. Just get me all the money I can get. That was
his lust. Now he had other lusts, I'm not
just saying that's the only thing. But here's a man like Saul of
Tarsus. His lust was to be right with God by his works. That's the course of this world.
He says fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind
and were by nature Children of wrath even as others in other
words by nature as we were born dead and trespass no difference
between us and the unbelieving world Sinner saved by grace,
but go back to first corinthians 6 of that such were some of you
and now listen to what he says Now understand, he's not giving
an order of salvation here, he's just listing the blessings of
salvation for the people of God. And he starts off, he says, you
are washed. You're washed. You're sanctified. You're justified
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our
God. In other words, you have a right
standing with God now. You're one with Christ. You're
married to Christ. You're washed. The tense of that
is this. Whatever he's talking about,
it is a completed and decisive act. He's not talking about baptism,
believers' baptism. Our brother Jerry sure is going
to be baptized today. And you know as well as I do,
Jerry, before you step into that water, You've already been washed,
haven't you? Washed in the blood of Christ.
This water up here is not gonna wash his sins away. If it did,
it'd get on me. But that's not what's happening
up here. This water here is a symbol, it's an emblem. That when he
goes down into the water and comes out, he's identifying with
Christ in whose blood he's already been washed. Wash clean from
all your sins. Isn't that something? And that's
what it's taught. We're washed legally by the blood
of Christ. His death put away my sins. His
death paid my debt to sin. Now the Bible also speaks of
the washing of regeneration by the word. That's the new birth.
And that's when the Holy Spirit, through the preaching of the
gospel, applies that blood to my conscience and removes the
guilt. removes the condemnation. You
know what an evil conscience is in Hebrews 10? It's a guilty
conscience. It's a condemned conscience. But there's no condemnation to
them which are in Christ. He put away my sins. Did you
hear what Jesus said to me? They're all taken away. Your
sins are pardoned. You're free. They're all taken
away. That's it. What can wash away my sins? The
waters of baptism? No, nothing but the blood of
Jesus Christ. What can make me holy? That's
that washing. We've been washed. That's a scriptural
way of talking about how we participated in the death of Christ, and that's
what you're going to identify with in his death, burial, and
resurrection. Saying when he died, he died
for me. When he was buried, he was buried
for me. When he arose, he arose for me. I'm righteous in the
sight of God. And then he says, you're sanctified.
Now, I told you last week, this word sanctified, and I'm picking
out passages of scripture that deal with this word sanctification
specifically. And again, what this is, the
tense of the verb here, is a completed, decisive act. This is not something
that is progressive, in other words. This is a done deal, is
what he's saying. And what he means, you've been
set apart. You Corinthian believers, you've
been set apart. You're having fellowship with
the world in this kind of behavior, but you need to realize what
God has done for you. You've been set apart. You're
separate. And your separateness is not
how long you grow your hair, or what you taste not, touch
not, handle not, but your separateness in Christ. Now act like it. That's
what he's saying. You're saved by grace. You've
been changed, now act like it. You say, well, I'm not yet perfect.
No, you're not. You're perfect in Christ, but
not in yourself. You've been set apart by God
in Jesus Christ through his grace by the Holy Spirit for God's
glory, God's use, and God's purpose. You know what the Bible calls
us if we're in Christ? We're saints. That means sanctified
ones. You see, a saint is not some
sort of super-Christian who's gone beyond the call of God.
A saint is a sinner saved by grace, and then he says you're
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit
of our God. That means you're not guilty. That means you're righteous in
God's sight. based on Christ's righteousness
imputed. You have a right standing before God permanently, unchangeably,
and cannot be defiled because it's by the righteousness of
God freely imputed to you, not by the righteousness of men. Let me ask you this question
in closing. Among all of us here, who needs the grace of God more? Well, I guess you could start
from the back and work your way up here. Who needs the grace
of God more right now? And I'm telling you, there's
not one of us who needs it more than another. We all need it
equally. For our salvation, for our preservation, and to enter
final glory. Who needs the righteousness of
God more? Me or you? I've spent most of
my week studying the Bible. You all probably, many of you
spent most of your week out there laboring with the sweat of your
brow, maybe having to deal with unruly bosses or unruly employees,
and I'm sure you've had your moments, haven't you? Well, I've
even had my moments too, studying the Bible. Now, does that mean
that I'm less in need of the word of God this morning than
you? No, I need it just as much as you. You see, that's it. We're all equally in need of
God's grace, of the blood of Christ, of His righteousness.
And if we're in Him, we're all equally graced by God, washed
in His blood, sanctified and justified in Christ. Does that
make sense? It does if you have ears to hear,
doesn't it? Eyes to see. All right.