First Corinthians chapter 6,
and I'll begin reading in verse 9. Know 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 revilers,
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. All things are lawful unto me,
but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me,
but I will not be brought under the power of any. Meats for the
belly, and the belly for meats, but God shall destroy both it
and them. Now the body is not for fornication,
but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God hath both
raised up the Lord, and will also raise us up by his own power. Know you not that your bodies
are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members
of Christ and make them the members of Enharlot? God forbid. What? Know you not that he which
is joined to Enharlot is one body? For two, saith he, shall
be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the
Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication. Every sin that
a man doeth is without the body, but he that committeth fornication
sinneth against his own body. What? Know you not that your
body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which
you have of God, and you are not your own? For you are bought
with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your
spirit, which are God's. It's impossible. It's impossible
for a person to read 1 Corinthians, Paul's first letter to the church
at Corinth, and not realize that there were problems in this church. You can't read through 1 Corinthians
and not see that there were many problems in the church at Corinth. However, Paul did not write to
them what he wrote to the churches of Galatia. To the churches of
Galatia, he wrote, I am afraid of you. lest I have bestowed
upon you labor in vain. The problem of the churches in
Galatia was that they were listening to false teachers who were mixing
works with the person and work of Christ. That is, trying to
bring men and women under the Mosaic law. telling people, yes,
you're saved by faith in Christ, but, well, the gospel is Christ
only, Christ only. In him is found our righteousness,
our sanctification, our wisdom, and our redemption. It's all
in Christ. You are complete in him. But I want us this morning to
look at three statements that Paul makes in verses 19 and 20. First of all, you are not your
own. As I said, the churches in Galatia,
the problem had to do with doctrine. The problem for the most part
in the church at Corinth had to do with conduct, with practice. Three statements here. First,
you are not your own. Second, you are bought with a
price. And third, therefore glorify God in your body and in your
soul. First, you are not your own,
verse 19. Now it's always important when
reading the word of God, not only to see who is speaking,
but to whom the word is written. Now this statement, this statement,
you are not your own. Hear it now. Every person here,
you are not your own. This statement is true of everyone. It's true of every person. It's
true of every one of us here in this building this morning. You are not your own. Everyone is someone's. Did you hear what I said? Everyone is someone's. Everyone here this morning, each
of us, are someones. If God is not our master, then
Satan is. If grace does not rule and reign
in our hearts, then sin does. You are not your own. But I want us to see to whom
Paul wrote these words. in the church at Corinth. It's
always important, as I said, to see not only who's writing,
who's speaking, but to whom it is being spoken. Who does he
say, who does he write to and say, you are not your own? Well, we've got to go back to
the first chapter, first chapter of 1 Corinthians to see to whom
he makes this statement. to whom he wrote, You are not
your own. Verse 2, unto the church of God which
is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called
to be saints with all that in every place call upon the name
of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours. I see five things in that verse
which are true of those to whom Paul said, you are not your own. I see five things. First of all,
unto the church of God at Corinth. What is a church? Well, it is
an assembly. It is an assembly of people who
gather together to worship the Lord Jesus Christ. So it is,
first of all, to those who gather together to worship the Lord
Jesus Christ that he writes, you are not your own. The second thing that we see
about these, they were sanctified in Christ Jesus. Now, you know
the word sanctified or sanctification. Sanctify means to set apart. There were instruments in the
tabernacle. For instance, there were bowls
and there were spoons that were sanctified. What do you mean
sanctify? I mean they were set apart. They
were set apart only to be used in the tabernacle. They were
not to be taken to people's houses and just common use. They were
sanctified. The word sanctify means to set
apart. Paul is writing and tells people,
you are not your own who were sanctified, who were set apart
When? Before the foundation of the
world. Before a star ever shined in
the sky, God's people were set apart, sanctified by sovereign
election. By sovereign election, God Because
of his love, his great love, wherewith he hath loved us, he
set apart, sanctified, chose his people. You say, well, does
the Bible teach that? Absolutely, it does. Our Lord
said, you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. In Ephesians
chapter one, Paul wrote, blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath chosen us
in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy. Not because we are holy did he
choose us. Not because we believe did he
choose us. No, we believe because he chose
us. You see, religion always gets
things just the reverse. That's just true of man's religion.
They always turn things upside down. And they would have us
to believe that men are chosen because they believe. But that's
not what the Bible says. To as many as were ordained to
eternal life believed, the scripture says in Acts chapter 13 and verse
48. No, we love him because he first
loved us. So that's the second thing about
these to whom Paul said, you are not your own. They were sanctified
in Christ Jesus, chosen. in Christ. The third thing that
we see in this text, they were called to be saints. Now this
refers to what we call an effectual call, you know, and the five
points, it is that irresistible grace. Our Lord said, no man
can come to me He didn't say, now listen, he didn't say no
man may come to me. He said no man can come to me. Man by nature is dead, spiritually
dead in trespasses and sins. No man can come to me except
the Father which has sent me draw, and that word literally
is drag. Drag him. Now that doesn't mean
that God saves anyone against their will. No, God is such a
great God. He works in us both to will and
to do of his good pleasure. He which hath begun a good work
in you shall perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Called to be saints. You who are called have experienced
the saving grace of God, the new birth, and repent of your
sin and believe in Christ. You are not your own. They called upon the name. The
fourth thing about these, I hope you're still looking at that
verse, and I don't want to miss any of these numbers today. I said there are five things
I see in this verse. It's number four. They called
upon Jesus Christ. They called upon him. Now, when
the scripture called upon the name of Jesus Christ, when the
scriptures speak about calling upon the name or believing in
the name, it's talking about the person, calling upon the
person of Jesus Christ, believing on the person of Jesus Christ. Salvation is not in a set of
doctrine. Salvation is in a person. A man,
the God man, the Lord Jesus Christ, and salvation is a personal,
a personal believing in Him, experience with Him, knowing
Him. He prayed in his prayer, this
is life eternal. They might know thee, talking
to his father, they might know thee and he whom thou hast sent. There's only one way to know
the father and that's through the son. They believed. You are not your
own. And the fifth thing that he tells
us in that verse, Jesus Christ was their Lord, their master,
their master. Let me rehearse that. Number
one, they were part of the visible assembly in Corinth that assembled
to worship the Lord. Number two, they were sanctified
in Christ Jesus. Number three, they were called
to be saints. Number four, they themselves
called upon the name of the Lord. For whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. That's what the scriptures
teach us. And they had Jesus Christ as
their Lord and as their master. Now I want to ask you something.
Is this true of you? Are these five things true of
you this morning? Is Christ, is true of me? I want
to ask myself that. Is this true of me? Is Christ
my Lord? Is Christ your Lord? Everyone is someone's. Everyone
is someone's. Whose are you? You know, Paul was able to say,
speaking that time up on that ship, whose I am. An angel of the Lord stood by
me last night, whose I am and whom I serve. You are not your own. No man, our Lord said, can serve
two masters. In Romans 6, Paul said, to whom
you yield yourself servants to obey, his servants you are, whether
sent unto death or of obedience unto righteousness. You are not
your own. The second statement, you're bought with a price. You're
bought with a price. According to A. H. Strong concordance,
The word which is here translated bought, it comes from another
word which properly means to go to market, to go to market. And the word translated price
is derived from a word meaning valuable, precious. Peter wrote,
you are not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold, but
with the precious blood of Christ. The eternal son of God, who is altogether lovely, who is the light of his father,
he came into this slave market. He went to the market, and the
market he came to was a slave market. And the slaves in this
market were all slaves to sin and to Satan. They had been given to him by
his father, those that he purchases, those that he buys out of this
slave market. We had sold ourselves into slavery. We'd been espoused to him from
before the foundation of the world, as the scripture says,
chosen in him. But we had sold ourselves into
slavery of sin. We had a master, a master who
was a hard master, pictured to us by Pharaoh in the book of
Egypt when he made the Children of Israel commanded them to make
brick without straw. And God's word, God's law commanded
perfection, but gave no power. God will settle with no less
than perfect holiness, absolute obedience. But we're falling. And while the law commands, it
gives no power to obey. We were helpless. We were dead
in trespasses and sin. We were like that fish, that
dead fish that's carried along by the current. How's it going
to come upstream? It can't come upstream. Why?
Because it's dead. No, it must be given life before
it can swim upstream. The Lord Jesus Christ came into
the slave market to purchase his people. As I said, we were
already his. That's the reason the word redemption
is used. You redeem something that is
already yours, really. You've just hocked it. You've
just taken it to the pawn shop and they're holding it for you
until you pay the redemption price. were redeemed, not with
corruptible things such as silver and gold, but with the blood
of Christ, the precious blood of Christ. I want you to think
of something. Put on your thinking hat, your
thinking cap. What a slave What a slave to
sin and Satan. What a captive to the power of
lust. How deeply sunk. How awfully
degraded. How utterly lost and undone must
guilty man be to need a sacrifice like this. Let that sink in. for you to
need such a sacrifice, the blood of the Son of God. How depraved
were we? How guilty are we? That nothing else, nothing else
and nothing less than the blood of God's only begotten Son could
save us, could redeem us. Could my tears forever flow? Could my zeal no lanker know? These for sin cannot atone. Thou must save and thou alone. You know those words. Words of that hymn. How deep in sin were we? How
awful was our sin against God that it took nothing less than
the blood of God's only begotten son to save us, to free us, to
deliver us from the captivity of sin and Satan. You're bought with a price. And the price is the blood of
the God-man. Now, here's the third statement. Therefore, therefore, glorify God in your
body and your soul. This reminds us, first of all,
that Christ not only redeemed, not only purchased our soul,
but also our body. How many bodies? I was preparing
this message, and when I got to this place, I, for some reason,
began to think of all the bodies that are buried here on the earth,
turned back to the earth, buried in the sea. Now, the people who
lived in those bodies, those that are saved, they're with
the Lord. They're with the Lord. But their bodies are here going
back to the dust. We were made from the dust. Our Lord made our bodies from
the dust. You know, he made the dust from
nothing. He made us from the dust. We're next to nothing. I remember Brother Scott Richardson
telling us that one time. We're next to nothing. And that's
true. Our bodies were made of dirt.
And when this soul leaves the body, it's going to begin immediately
to go turn back. How many bodies do you think?
Thousands, even millions, no doubt, are waiting that day when
the Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout and with the voice
of the archangel. and the dead in Christ shall
rise. Now the soul is with the Lord. We don't believe in soul sleep.
No, the soul, Paul said to depart and to be with Christ, which
is far better. Can you imagine that? If God
were to take your life right now, to depart and immediately
be in the presence of God. We don't go through some purgatory.
No, no. Christ suffered for our sins. He suffered the wrath of God
for our sins on the cross. No, he told that man that looked
to him who was crucified that same day, today thou shalt be
with me in paradise. Glorify God, Paul says, therefore,
because you're not your own, because you're bought with a
price, therefore glorify God in your body and your spirit
or soul. Let's look at, first of all, the body. How far do you live? How far
do I live for the glory of God? That's what we're told to do. How far this morning do I live,
do you live for the glory of God? Only so far as our life, our
conduct, Our walk harmonize with the word of God. That's how far
we glorify God with our body. Only as far as our conduct, our
life harmonizes with God's word. We can only glorify God outwardly
by doing his will. And we can only know his will
as regards our obedience by the word of God, the express revelation
which he has given us, the scripture. You know, we have an example
of David who would walk for the glory of God and he said this,
Thy word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Picture
there, of course, is a person walking at night on a ledge of
a mountain and the precipice is just about to fall off. And
as we go through this world, we need God's light just as that
man needed light. So he put his feet in the right
place as he walked along and not fall off. So we need God's
word to be a lamp under our feet and a light under our path. David
prayed, order my steps and your word. Order my steps in your
word, make me to go in the path of your commandments. Oh, he
said, oh, that my ways were directed to keep your statues. That's
the only way we're going to glorify God in our body is as our walk,
our conduct harmonizes with the word of God. Now, as I said,
glorify God, first of all, in our body. Our bodies are made
up of members, aren't they? We've got eyes, we've got ears,
we've got lips, we've got arms, we've got hands and feet. We're
to glorify God in these members. For instance, your eyes. Your
eyes. Eyes is an inlet into the soul,
and many Sins and lust are entered into the soul through the eye. Job said, I have made a covenant
with my eyes. I made a covenant with my eyes,
he said. Well, what did you covenant with
your eyes to do, Job? Not to look upon a woman. You know, as I said, there's
so many sins and temptations that enter through the eyes.
We're to glorify God with our eyes. We're not to look upon
that which is unclean and that which would cause us to have
lust in our hearts. How are we to glorify God with
our eyes? Reading the word of God. Reading
God's word. And I hope that every one of
us here this morning, I trust that we do read his word. Read
it daily. And get you a good devotional.
Get you a good devotional. I'm not talking about you've
got to keep a certain rule, read three chapters a day, or five
chapters a day, or anything like that. But my friends, read the
word of God. Get you a good devotional. And
take time. You say, well, I don't have time.
I have to get up and I have to be on my way to work. Take time,
if you can. Now, you mothers who have young
children, I understand that. That's difficult. But seek time,
if you can, to read the Word. Glorify God with your body, with
your eyes. Read the Word of God. And your
ears. Don't listen to profane and evil
communications. Listen to the Word of God, the
Word of God taught, the Word of God proclaimed, preached. What about our lips? Use our lips to sing God's praises,
to give thanks unto Him, to acknowledge Him in all our ways. What about
our hands and our feet? They're to be used also serving
God. Remember what our Lord, his words
to those in Matthew 25, when he said to these who would enter
in with him into glory, he said, inasmuch as you have done it
unto one of the least of these, my brethren, you have done it
unto me. Well, what had they done? What had they done for Christ's
brethren. Well, the scripture there tells
us they had fed, they had visited, and they had showed hospitality
to Christ's brethren. They'd use their feet, their
hands, to serve others. Someone told me the other day
they were seeing some kind of a therapist or someone like that,
and he told this person, he said, Help others. I said, I could
have told you that. It'd save you $25. You get depressed,
you get down in the dumps, get busy helping others. That's how you're going to feel
better when you start doing for others, helping others, giving,
sharing. Selfishness is sure to promote. hard feelings and despair and
things of that nature. But we're to glorify God not
only in our body, but in our soul. How do we do that? First of all, and I would say
foremost, we believe God. We believe God. We quit all our
doubting, and we just believe God. He cannot lie. He cannot change. He has given
us his word. And yet, how many times are we
guilty of unbelief? Some trouble, some tragedy, or
something comes in our life, our way, and we just are bent
all out of shape. Believe God. We glorify God also
when we don't murmur and complain at his providence. You've got
this promise. If you're one that he bought,
this is a promise to you. All things work together for
good. to them who love God, to them
who are the called according to His purpose. All things. I don't care what it is. You
say, I don't understand it. You don't have to understand
it. You believe it. That's what I said. Believe God. That's how we glorify God. We
believe Him, believe His word. And you may be out there, and
you may be right. You might say, well, preacher,
it's so easy for you to stand up there and say that. But if
you knew the pain, if you knew what I'm going through, and you're
right, I confess, if I was in the pain and suffering like some
of you, I probably would be the one who complained the most.
But it still would not be right. Believe God. Don't murmur and
complain. We glorify God when we do not
allow our minds and our time to be spent on foolish, unprofitable
things. We glorify God when we are as
priests. Did you know every child of God
here is a priest? That's what the Bible teaches. That's what the scripture teaches.
You've been made a priest. Now, you don't have to wear a
black robe and white collar to be a priest. Every child of God
is a priest unto God. What does a priest do? He offers
sacrifices. And what are the sacrifices that
we offer unto God? It's not a blood sacrifice, that
fly in the face. of everything the scripture tells
us about Christ and his one offering for sin. No, but we offer the
sacrifices of praise. That's how we glorify God, giving
thanks, praising him. Well, you might say, preacher,
I didn't come here to get beat up. Well, I hope you don't take it
that way. But God tells me to preach the scripture,
all the scripture, not just part of it. And I pray that the message
will be a help to me and it'll be a help to you also. Amen? Okay.