1 Corinthians 6:7-20 | Episode #986

July 21, 2025

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

1 Corinthians 6:7-20

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope.

Applying God's word to your daily life.

As we finish Faithful Finance, we want to produce our winter Bible study done at Lake Community Church on First Corinthians.

It'll be a fairly long Bible study.

We will break it up into different parts,

and so you will get a really good, really fast study through the book of First Corinthians before we move on to the book of Joshua.

He says now, therefore, verse seven,

it is already an utter failure for you that you go to the law against one another. What he's saying is you've not learned forgiveness, and you've not learned.

You've not learned patience, and you've not learned love. And you are.

You are telling the whole world that you've got this failure between.

Between you and your brother. I'm going to. I'm going to say this.

If you. If you are going to court with someone,

especially someone that you knew and were friends with and had a relationship with prior to whatever happened, and you have to go to court with them, you are saying, you are saying to the whole world that you two are not mature enough believers to work something out.

And I'd say that as a judge,

it's important that people work things out amongst themselves. Why? Because God's worked things out for you.

And you know, to tell you the truth,

when you get to heaven, you're going to realize that having the relationship was more important than having whatever the physical thing was in this world that you're after and want to keep.

Relationships are more important than anything because the most important thing in the world is people.

Pastor, what do you mean?

Well, what did the Lord of Glory give his life for?

Well, he gave his life for people.

So your relationships with people are going to be the most important thing that you have in this world.

They're going to be the most important thing that you have.

He's saying, why are you taking other believers to court?

Why do you not rather accept wrong?

Why do you not rather let yourself be cheated?

Notice, look,

you'd be better off just letting them do you wrong.

Let them cheat you.

Go the extra mile.

Give them your left cheek when they strike you on your right cheek.

What he's saying is you're better off doing that than destroying it by going, going and. And fighting something out to the death between you and your neighbor.

If you think about it logically from a scriptural perspective,

he's right.

No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do these things to your brethren. What he's saying is you're not, you're not holier. Now,

if you take somebody to court and, and you're not forgiving toward them,

you. You have things that need to be forgiven. Also.

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

What does that mean?

Well,

righteousness comes by faith.

So anybody who does not walk in faith is not going to inherit the kingdom of God. That's the question Jesus was asked. What must I do to inherit the kingdom of God?

Well, the thing you must do to inherit the kingdom of God, Jesus said, is to believe on the one he sent. Meaning to place your faith on the one he sent.

If you're unrighteous, you're not walking in faithfulness. If you. You're not walking in faith. And he says, if you're not walking in faith, you're not going to inherit the kingdom of God.

Not on this earth,

not in this life. And you're going to not get the blessings God had set aside for you for the life to come.

Do not be deceived.

Now notice he says, don't be deceived. And he's going to go through some sexual sin here.

He says, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous,

nor drunkards, nor revelers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. What he's saying is, is if you're going to continue to live in that, you're not going to inherit the kingdom of God.

You're not going to get God's best.

You're not.

There's no way to.

The way I get the treasure of heaven is by walking in faith. Faith in who? Jesus Christ. Walking hidden in his law. What is his law? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

Love your neighbor as yourself and love each other as I've loved you.

When I walk in faithfulness to God in those areas of my life, or what I do, I reap a great reward.

Now listen, you can't walk in sin and walk in the lust of the flesh. And he goes through it. Fornications, sin outside of marriage.

Let me say this. Jesus said, you've heard it said, thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say unto you, any man who looks at a woman with lust on his heart has already committed adultery.

We know that. That's the lust of the flesh.

Idolaters, people who place other things in front of God. Remember, we worship. We worship.

We Worship something every human being does. They either worship the God who created everything,

or they worship something that God did create.

Something in the world that they worship themselves.

And when you worship yourself or you worship something in this world, you're not worshiping God, he says, nor adulterers, those who are having sexual relations outside of marriage, nor homosexuals, and we know what that is.

Nor sodomites,

and that deals with certain sexualities. Nor thieves,

nor covetous,

nor drunkards,

nor revelers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. What he's saying is you can't walk in sin and walk in faith at the same time.

You can't do it. You can't.

Is it easy to walk by faith? No, it's not. It's not.

But just because it's hard to walk by faith doesn't mean that I need to walk in darkness.

I need to choose to try to walk in the light. Walk in the light as he is in the light.

Verse 11. 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 Christ by the Spirit of God, the Spirit of our God. What he's saying is you've been. You've been made clean.

You've been washed in the blood of the lamb.

You're, you're. You're. You're in the sanctification process. You were justified,

okay, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and spirit of our God. You. You've got all the. All the good things that come from God. You've got them.

And, and you ought to glorify in those things.

Now, verse 12, he moves on. And, and he says, all things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable.

What he's saying is we're not under the law anymore. We're not going back to the law. We're not under the law. And he says. He says all things are lawful for me,

but not all things are the best.

He's. He's explaining. We're, we're not talking about. Listen, you. Can you continue. If you continue in your unfaithful sin,

you're not going to get God's best.

But you can. You can. You can.

There's not. We're not under the law anymore.

He says all things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful.

All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any meaning. I'm not going to be brought under the power of this world or anything.

In the world.

Food for the stomach and stomach for food,

but God will destroy both it and them. What he's saying is when you feed your flesh,

when you feed your flesh in any possible way,

you are.

It's for the stomach, and the stomach's for you. And, and he's. He's. He's actually talking about the dietary laws of the, of the Old Testament. He's getting into that a little bit.

He's getting into digging with the Judaizers. And there's,

there's. This book is. Deals with the Judaizers,

Galatians and Ephesians deal with,

with the Judaizers, those who wanted to go back to the Old Testament law.

And he's telling them, you can eat any. You can eat. You can eat anything that God has placed on the earth. You can. You can eat it all.

Now, the body is not for sexual immorality,

but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

What he's saying is stay away from sexual immorality.

Not easy in the world we live in, not easy in the times we lived in. But I'm going to tell you, the Corinthian Church had the same struggle,

maybe even greater struggle than the. Than. Than the times that we live in,

but they had that same struggle. Nothing's changed over 2,000 years. Man's just as wicked as he used to be.

And God both raised us up.

And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up in his power. Meaning God has power.

God has power to give us, you know, give us his best.

He's going to raise us up.

He has the power to. To bring us out of this mess,

whatever mess you're in right now.

And we're all in some kind of mess.

Do not, do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?

You know, at,

at the prayer right after the singing and right before the first altar call, I always talk about.

Because it's our time of giving,

giving our ties and offerings, but it's also a time of giving our whole lives. On the altar, you tithe. And often just to represent where your treasure is there your art will be also.

It's really a physical representation of you giving your life. And I always, at some point in time during that prayer talk about we being living sacrifices.

We're living stones being given to God.

We're living sacrifices made for Him.

And so we're all members of Christ. Our bodies are members of Christ.

Uh, we. We give our lives to Christ as a living sacrifice in glorification of His Living sacrifice, which was his own life on the cross. We. We given him. We give him that sacrifice.

He says shall. The middle of verse 15. Shall I then take the member of Christ and make them members of a harlot?

Certainly not.

Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is.

Is in one body with her,

for the two, he says, shall become one flesh. What he's saying is if you miss your flesh with the flesh, if you mix your flesh with this world. And that's talking about sexual idolatry here.

Sexual. I mean, sexual sin. Okay, harlotry, he's talking about that, but he's talking about all kinds of other stuff, all kinds of indulging in the flesh. Okay? When you. When you indulge your.

Your body in the flesh with anyone else, anything else, you are making your flesh one with that thing. And you are. You're weighing yourself down with that sin. You're weighing yourself down with that struggle.

And man,

in the last 12, 13 years,

especially as being an attorney, it's been a struggle,

you know, dealing with people who really are a slave to their flesh and a slave to sin. And I've seen it myself. And it's entice. It entices you. You know, you get enticed toward it.

And if you go, well, what are you talking about, Pastor? Well,

you know, you deal with a lot of people who deal with people, regularly deal with people who are really, really struggling. And what are. What are they? You know, one of the main problems that lawyers have is.

Is. Is substance abuse.

And in all actuality,

and, And.

And they take their lives. They commit suicide.

Suicide. And substance abuse is a major problem for attorneys. Why?

Well, because they live. They. They. They struggle with everybody else's problems,

and then they got their own problems. So it's magnified. It's. It's multiplied. It says it becomes exponential in their life, and they just think they can't handle it. They can't handle it.

I mean, how many doctors and how many nurses have. Have some substance abuse because they've been in the hospital and they just start taking some of the medication they're given to their patients because they just can't take it?

How many people in law enforcement. How many people do you know in law enforcement who deal with death and destruction and pain and anger and bitterness all day long between people, and they struggle with it?

Why? Because when you're in the world and you're around that world and you're. You're. You're. Your flesh comes into contact with that flesh. Even if you don't indulge it. Even if you don't indulge it, it's a.

It's a struggle. We walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

We do.

And,

and then when you actually indulge it in any way, you give into it at all,

it even becomes worse. And you're. You become one flesh with that whatever you're indulging in. And.

And then there's a mess.

Now the, the sexual relations between two people does cause your flesh to come together and it's a. It's got a. It's got a very worldly,

painful reality for you.

What does he say? Flee sexual immorality.

Flee youthful lust. It says in, in elsewhere in the New Testament. He says.

He says, run away from it. That's the only way to get away from that. When you're talking about the lust of the flesh.

He says, you got to flee it. You got to get away from. Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.

Meaning you're. You're sinning against your own flesh,

he says. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you?

That's what I pray about at the altar time.

Do you not know that your body's a temple of the Holy Spirit?

Your. Your. Your body is where all the sacrifices going on, where all the good stuff is happening for you, bought at a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit,

which are God's as you go. Today I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you. That he'll make his face to shine upon you and, and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.