Running To Win

Dave McCallister: Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Ancient Corinth was a lot like today's America, saturated with sex. In the book of 1 Corinthians, we find teaching on moral purity. It was a rude awakening to new converts used to moral debauchery. Today, how the Holy Spirit draws the people of God away from sin and toward living a pure life. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is running to win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line.

Pastor Lutzer, there are very few constraints left in our culture, and moral impurity is rampant. To what degree are believers affected by this?

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Dave, I don't want to exaggerate, but I think that today we are facing temptations that not even the people in Corinth faced, especially because of the invention of technology. In answer to your question, of course, impurity has invaded the church. It's something that we have to fight against, and thank God for the blessed Holy Spirit of God. And that's what this message is all about. I'm so thankful for the many of you who support this ministry, and at the end of this message, I sure want you to stay tuned because I'm going to be quoting a poem, a somewhat humorous poem, that will remind us of the need to be deeply committed when it comes to generosity.

So now, let us listen, and then later on, I'll have a word with you and also some information as to how you can connect with us. So how's your walk with God been this past week? Are you developing a relationship with the Holy Spirit? You know, when you read the New Testament, you come across phrases like this, the fellowship of the Spirit, the love of the Spirit. And during this period of time, I want all of us to renew our own confidence in the friendship with the Holy Spirit of God, this holy guest that lives in our hearts.

Or could it be that I'm speaking to someone today, and probably more than one, someone who has grieved the Holy Spirit of God into silence? You and I can do that. This message is going to be very difficult for some people, really for all of us, no matter where we are in our spiritual walk with God. Because I'm going to be speaking about the topic of unholy relationships, particularly unholy sexual relationships, and what it does to the spirit within us, and why it is that the spirit is there to help us so that we might walk in purity.

What an agenda. Thank you so much for joining us as we have this message. I want you to be attentive, and even though we have prayed a number of times already, could we bow our head one more time and invite the help of the Holy Spirit? Would you do that, please? Father, I pray that you by your Holy Spirit might break down any resistance that people might have to what your word says. I pray today, Lord, that the Holy Spirit might do in our lives whatever he desires to do, to enter every closet, every relationship, and that you might grant us grace for forgiveness, for restoration, for hope, and for transformation.

But we need your spirit to do that because all these are miracles. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. When Paul wrote the book of 1 Corinthians, and you may turn to it if you would, please, 1 Corinthians chapter 6, when he wrote to the church in Corinth, he was writing to a church that was in the middle of a culture that was sex saturated. To Corinthianize was well known to speak about debauchery of every kind. Name it, and the Corinthians had it. They had homosexuality, they had sexual orgies, they had adultery, they had prostitution, hundreds of prostitutes.

And of course, they also had child molestation, which always goes with a very immoral culture that has lost its way. Now, when the the church was planted there, you can understand that the people who came and received the Lord in the midst of all of that, they were still struggling with these issues. And many of these kinds of people came into the church, and that was fine, but they needed some instruction from the apostle Paul and from the Holy Spirit. And what the Corinthians did is what we do in our own minds. They justified it all.

Did they know by their consciences that what they were doing was wrong? Yes, of course, but they always told themselves it was right. Just like some who are listening to this message who know that they are in a relationship that is wrong, but it is so carefully justified. And just when you think you have it totally justified in your mind, oop, there it is again. So you have to go over it again and remind yourself on why it's right. The Corinthians did this too. And so they were ready for any change. That is to say, for any instruction because in their minds this all was the way it was supposed to be.

So the apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians chapter 6 is answering some of their arguments and then giving overwhelmingly important arguments as to why these things ought not to be. For example, and I'm on page 955 if you're looking at a Bible that is there in the seat in front of you. 1 Corinthians 6 verse 12, all things are lawful for me, they said. I'm free. Paul said, yeah, okay, I understand you're free. You can do whatever you like. But Paul says, not all things are helpful. He says, all things are lawful for me. That's perfectly fine, but I will not be enslaved by anything.

The minute you say, oh, I am free to be on drugs, I am free to live however I want, I am free to have illicit sexuality. Yeah, that's right, but pretty soon you won't be free because you will be enslaved. Paul's words for addiction, that's where it leads. So then they also had another argument. They said, you know, the stomach is for food. We get hungry, therefore we eat. We have sexual desires, therefore we ought to have sex. And Paul says, well, quite not so fast. He says verse 13, the food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy one and the other, both of them.

The body though is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. Paul says, look, it is true that this body is going to be immortal. Food is going to be destroyed. Your stomach, your desires, your appetites will be no more, but your body is forever, and your body is not for immorality. It is for the Lord. In fact, he says that the Lord is going to raise up the body. And that's why immorality is certainly not something that you should engage in. All right, all that by way of intro.

Now, we get to the meat of what the apostle Paul has to say, and he basically gives three reasons why sexual immorality should not be found in our lives, unholy alliances, unholy relationships. Now, you know, in fact, in Corinthians, they were struggling with this chapter 5. Paul says, you have things going on in the church that not even the pagans approve of, that a man should have a sexual relationship with his father's wife. Paul says, now, that's so bad, and that's happening in the church. And Paul and it gives them instruction regarding discipline. But here now he's talking more personally about what happens when a Christian has an unholy sexual relationship.

Three reasons. First, he says this, do you not know? And then verse 15, do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make the members of a prostitute? Paul says never, never. How can that be? Now, do you remember back to the sermon that I preached a couple of times ago on the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Some of you perhaps weren't here that Sunday. It was one when we had a little difficulty getting to church. But you ought to listen to it. What the baptism of the Holy Spirit does is when we receive Christ the Savior, we get put into Christ so that we become members of Christ's body, of his flesh and of his bones.

We become a part of him. Metaphysically and spiritually, we become one with Christ. Now, think of the argument. Paul is saying, here's a Christian who's having a relationship with a prostitute. He says, you know what? Jesus Christ is greatly grieved for obvious reasons. Jesus is in that unholy bed too. He's there too. You're a member of Christ. Your body is a member of Christ. And now you're in an unholy relationship. Jesus has to put up with this. He's there too. And then the apostle Paul goes on to explain even more. It's not just the grief of Jesus, but also he talks about the joining of two in that relationship.

I've sometimes said that the next verse here in 1 Corinthians gives more information and more understanding regarding sexuality than thick textbooks that you can read in our schools or in our libraries. I stand astounded at the wisdom and the understanding of the Bible that can be found nowhere else and how accurate it is. Notice what Paul says. He's going on now with the same argument, and I'm in verse 16. Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is written, the two will become one flesh.

Takes my breath away. What the apostle Paul is saying is this, even in a relationship in which there's no love, there is simply mutual exploitation, which is what prostitution is. Even in a relationship like that that is casual with somebody you don't care about, you mutually exploit each other. Paul says, bang, there it is. Genesis chapter 2 verse 24, as God says, I make you one flesh. Say, Paul, are you serious? Now, for us to understand that, we have to go back to the book of Genesis, don't we? God created man, and then he created woman from the man.

You know the story. God took femininity and separated it from masculinity. And then he implanted in the hearts of the woman and the man desires that are strong, relentless, and compelling to come back together in the relationship. Maybe we could call it the urge to merge. And God implanted that within the human heart. And so what God said, sexuality was birthed in holiness. God says, I want to represent to people the relationship between the Trinity where you have diversity, but you also have unity of oneness. And I'm going to use man and woman to do it.

And so God says they're in the garden of Eden with all of the purity that one could imagine and all of the holiness, the beauty of the sexual relationship to bring about metaphysical oneness like unto the oneness in the Trinity. Same word is used, used in the Bible in the book of Deuteronomy for the oneness of God. Now, sin messed all that up, terribly messed it up. But but Paul says, even so sin messed it up. When you have an intimate relationship with someone, even in the most casual basis, God unites you, and you become one flesh with one another.

Metaphysically and spiritually, the image of the other person is stamped onto your soul, not just in a loving, caring marriage relationship, but even in what we call those casual sexual relationships. And Paul says, you become one. What he's saying is is that sexuality creates a soul tie, a soul tie. And you become tied to the other person in a way that only God can create the tie. You see, oh, this explains so much. And you know, in a couple of months, I hope to preach a series of messages on guarding your heart in a culture that is awash with technology.

And I'll speak about this more. But have you ever wondered why it is that people are on Facebook today and they're trying to find their their soulmates that they had in high school or they had in college? They're they're trying desperately because their own marriage isn't very happy, and they don't know why. And so they think to themselves, if I just find this other person, oftentimes it is the first person with whom they had a relationship along the line, and they don't understand why there's this longing to recreate it and all of the fantasies about how wonderful it was, even though if they had married that person, they probably would have been divorced as well.

But all that, to say that they do it because of the bonding, the soul tie that takes place. This soul tie is so powerful that it can actually affect your sexual orientation. That's another story for another time. But do you understand now why if somebody's promiscuous, why it is so difficult for them to commit to one relationship? You know, because they're tied to this person. They've been bonded. They've been bonded to that person. They've been bonded to that person. They've been bonded to that person. And now suddenly they're supposed to be bonded to one person forever.

And of course, it's possible through the forgiveness and the grace of Christ. And I do believe that there is something like spiritual virginity, spiritual virginity. And I'll talk about that in just a few moments. But if you think like a boy might say to his girlfriend, we'll just do it once, it'll be our secret. If you think that that 's the end of it, you are entirely wrong. It may cause you to begin to find the real relationship. And you go from one relationship to another to another because now that you're defiled, what difference does it make and you're still longing for the one relationship that God wanted you to have, but now you can't have because it has all been messed up because of the bonding of the sexual experience.

But we're going to give you hope. If you think that this message is just a message of condemnation, you're wrong. I want you to see the issues that we're up against, and then I want you to see God's grace and God's restoration. That's where we're headed. Well, Paul says, first of all, you're joined to Christ. Are you going to take Jesus and have him become a part of your immorality as a Christian? Never. May it never be. Don't put Jesus through that. You love him, don't you? There's a second reason that Paul gives, and that relates directly to the Holy Spirit.

It is the Holy Spirit who baptizes us into Christ, but notice that the Spirit indwells us. He says, and now I'm in verse 19, or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit within you? And you're not your own. You've been bought with a price. The Holy Spirit of God is within you. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Wow. God's always wanted to dwell with his people. In the Old Testament, God dwelt with his people in the Shekhinah glory, and there was the tabernacle, and then there was the temple, and the whole sacrificial system of the Old Testament was set up for the purpose of God being able to dwell with his people without being contaminated.

That was the big problem is how does God dwell with the sinful people when God is eminently pure and holy? And so it was set up to try to indicate that. And of course, it did bring that about because people in the Old Testament did have fellowship with God, etc. But in the New Testament, of course, we see it now more clearly that Jesus has come. And God says that rather than having a temple in Jerusalem, I now indwell all those who belong to me. And that's why the title of this series of messages is when the Spirit has his way and then recapturing the wonder of God within us.

In Greek, there are two words for temple. One is the general temple area, the whole complex, and that word happens to be when Jesus went into the temple, you know, and went up the stairs into the temple, that's the larger temple complex. But then there's another word. The other word is which refers to the inner shrine. Now, we're talking about the Holy of Holies. And the apostle Paul is saying that if you're a believer in Jesus, you should know that your body is now the the very temple of the Holy Spirit. Your body is where God dwells.

Imagine that. You're going to work tomorrow and you're going to be on the L. God is within you. And when you're on the L, aren't you glad that he's within you? You're driving down the expressway. You're even gladder that God is within you. God dwells in you. I can't get over this. I'm just thinking now, I hadn't thought of this earlier, but the passage in 2 Corinthians chapter 6 where it says, as God has said, I will dwell with them, and they shall be my people and I shall be their God. Don't you love it, the fact that God is with his people and even indwells his people?

So Paul says, you're living an impure life. You're sitting there watching pornography, and Jesus has to watch it with you because he's a part of it, right? I mean, he's there. The spirit is within you. Don't you see that you have to live a different kind of life because the Holy Spirit of God lives within you and James says, and who of us cannot identify with this? I certainly identify with this. He says the flesh lusts against the Spirit. The flesh wars against the Spirit. The Spirit wars against the flesh. And therefore you can't do what you want to do, can you?

Or can I? No, we can't. And and the conflict is there because the spirit directs us towards purity, and the flesh directs us towards impurity. And we have all found the battle within us to be strong and unrelenting. It is there for us. But think of it. The Holy Spirit of God dwelling within us, we are his temple. Obviously, we should live differently, shouldn't we? My friend, I believe that the message that you have listened to is one of the most important for today's society. The fact that we as believers are indwelt with the Holy Spirit of God and we should live pure lives.

Was about 50 years ago I memorized a somewhat humorous poem, and I want to see if I can still quote it. A big silver dollar and a little brown cent rolling along together they went. Rolling along the smooth sidewalk when the dollar remarked for the dollar can talk, you poor little cent, you cheap little mite. I'm bigger than you and more than twice as bright. And written on me in letters bold is the motto drawn from the pious creed, in God we trust, which all can read. I know, said the cent, I'm a cheap little mite, and I'm not good or big nor bright.

But, said the cent, with a meek little sigh, you don't go to church as often as I. Well, of course, as you know, that little poem was written long before the days of technology because today we give electronically. But the principle still stands. Oftentimes when it comes to giving, we forget the fact that God loves a cheerful giver. And so we are not generous. God may be laying this ministry upon your heart, and I know that there are many fine ministries that you can support, but consider this ministry. And here's what you can do to receive some info.

Go to or pick up the phone and call us at 1 888 218 9337. Very quickly, I want to mention we are in our matching gift campaign. That means every gift that you give will be doubled. So right now, go to that's or call us at 1 888 218 9337.

Dave McCallister: You can write to us at running to win 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60614. God sees every motivation. This means fleeing any situation that might tempt us to defile our bodies, the temples of the Holy Spirit. Next time on running to win, we'll hear more teaching from Paul to the church at Corinth. Running to win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McCallister. Running to win is sponsored by the Moody Church.