“You have heard it said, but I say to you…”  Jesus began many statements of Truth in this manner to a world of people who had lost their way.  Many were confused by the pompous, arrogant elite religious leaders who had allowed all things of the world to be included in their lives of faith.  These leaders’ faith was found to be shallow at best because they no longer had a relationship with God.  They wanted power over people in a Roman world of oppression.  They “played to the Romans” and oppressed their own brothers and sisters in God’s family!

These leaders used God as a stepping stone to higher positions in the community. In a sense, the sought to be God and we know how that attitude is dealt with by God!  Satan was thrown out of heaven because of his goal to be God!  This same attitude led these arrogant leaders to assume being “in charge” of the behaviors of God’s people, setting themselves up as judge and jury.  God’s Law was meant to protect people from each other in a peace filled environment so that God’s love could be reciprocated. Love God, Love each other.  Jesus said all other laws of God pertained to and were built upon love for God and for each other!

But the religious elite didn’t agree and had the audacity to create many addendums to the law with one purpose in mind—to control God’s people with heavy burdens with fines and punishments in order to line their pockets.  After all, doesn’t money bring power and position? 

Jesus demonstrated to the world God’s Kingdom thinking that turned the world upside down and inside out! Jesus came to seek and to save the lost, to heal and forgive, and to help people understand the compassion, love, mercy, and grace of God who seeks an intimate growing relationship with His people once more.  Jesus is Truth who demonstrated authentic faith by living the real Way God intended for His people to live.

Paul, who has turned from the sins of being one of those religious elites, to being a believer and follower of Jesus has been sent by Him to clarify again the ways of God that produces in us what money cannot buy—redemption and forgiveness of sins by Jesus’ work on the cross—the pure grace of God.  God paid the high price for our souls by giving us Jesus, His Son, who sacrificed His life for ours.

Who are we to turn down the gift of Life eternal?  Who turns down a forever, unchanging love of God?  Who wants to be free from the world while living in the world?  And who are we to abuse our bodies given to God, His temple, in which He resides?

Yes, Paul has hit a nerve with Truth.

1 Corinthians 6, The Message

^1-4 And how dare you take each other to court! When you think you have been wronged, does it make any sense to go before a court that knows nothing of God’s ways instead of a family of Christians? The day is coming when the world is going to stand before a jury made up of followers of Jesus. If someday you are going to rule on the world’s fate, wouldn’t it be a good idea to practice on some of these smaller cases? Why, we’re even going to judge angels! So why not these everyday affairs? As these disagreements and wrongs surface, why would you ever entrust them to the judgment of people you don’t trust in any other way?

^5-6 I say this as bluntly as I can to wake you up to the stupidity of what you’re doing. Is it possible that there isn’t one levelheaded person among you who can make fair decisions when disagreements and disputes come up? I don’t believe it. And here you are taking each other to court before people who don’t even believe in God! How can they render justice if they don’t believe in the God of justice?

^7-8 These court cases are a black eye on your community. Wouldn’t it be far better to just take it, to let yourselves be wronged and forget it? All you’re doing is providing fuel for more wrong, more injustice, bringing more hurt to the people of your own spiritual family.

^9-11 Don’t you realize that this is not the way to live? Unjust people who don’t care about God will not be joining in his kingdom. Those who use and abuse each other, use and abuse sex, use and abuse the earth and everything in it, don’t qualify as citizens in God’s kingdom. A number of you know from experience what I’m talking about, for not so long ago you were on that list. Since then, you’ve been cleaned up and given a fresh start by Jesus, our Master, our Messiah, and by our God present in us, the Spirit.

¹² Just because something is technically legal doesn’t mean that it’s spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I’d be a slave to my whims.

¹³ You know the old saying, “First you eat to live, and then you live to eat”? Well, it may be true that the body is only a temporary thing, but that’s no excuse for stuffing your body with food, or indulging it with sex. Since the Master honors you with a body, honor him with your body!

^14-15 God honored the Master’s body by raising it from the grave. He’ll treat yours with the same resurrection power. Until that time, remember that your bodies are created with the same dignity as the Master’s body. You wouldn’t take the Master’s body off to a whorehouse, would you? I should hope not.

^16-20 There’s more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, “The two become one.” Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever—the kind of sex that can never “become one.” There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love, for “becoming one” with another. Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.

Lord,

You don’t just want part of me, you want all of me.  My being is your sacred dwelling place!  My mind, heart, body and soul is your instrument of your love, mercy, and grace for others to see so they may believe, be saved and begin a glorious, intimate relationship of love that money cannot buy and humans have yet to duplicate.  You saved us by your blood spilled in sacrifice for our sins.  You laid down your life for mine.  You are all I need and all I want.  Jesus you are everything to me. God you are Healer, Protector, and Provider.  Holy Spirit, you are encourager, the guide to Truth with directions at each step on my journey here before going there.  Yes, I’m yours.  All of me for all of you.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

In Jesus Name, Amen