This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

This is day two together of our look at 1 Corinthians chapter six and the rest
of this chapter, chapter six, we're going to look at what Paul has to say about
the way that we use these bodies that God has given to us. How do you have
health with your body? How do you live with purity with your body in this world?

The decisions that you make and the attitude that you have towards this body
that God has given you will make you the kind of person who can stick to a diet,
who can continue an exercise program for longer than a month, will help you to
think differently about your body, but also will make you the kind of person who
can choose purity even in an impure world. In these verses, Paul has some of the
most practical and personal and to the point truth for us in all of scripture
about how God wants us to look at these bodies that He's given to us. And I
believe as we go through these next few days together, God's going to do some
refreshing and new things in some of our lives as we look at this.

What do you do about the body that God has given to us? Well the first thing
that Paul tells us to do is don't misuse your body. He begins by saying be
careful not to misuse it in a world where a lot of people misuse their bodies.

And he walks through this with the Corinthians who lived, remember, in Corinth
where a lot of people misused their bodies. There was a lot of sexual immorality
in Corinth. There was a lot of gluttony in Corinth.

So Paul says to not misuse your body, there are some guidelines that you have to
look at. What do we do that causes us to begin to misuse these bodies that God
has given to us while we're on this earth and then look forward to a
resurrection and eternity? There are three things Paul talks about to the
Corinthians and also to us.

What causes us to misuse our body? What causes us to become impure or to not
care about it? Number one, when we ask the wrong questions, we begin to misuse
our body.

And Paul exemplifies that wrong question in verse 12. He says everything is
permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible
for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.

In this verse, Paul is reminding us of what the wrong question is about how I
use this body, what I do with this body that God has given to me. The wrong
question is, is it permissible? Is it legal?

Is there anywhere in the Bible that specifically says I cannot do this? That's
the wrong question. If that's the question I'm asking, I'm treating my body like
a five-year-old treats the world.

If no one says no, then it must be all right. I'll go ahead and do it. Is it
legally permissible to take a drink?

Of course it is, but there are some of you listening. To take a drink is going
to take you down a road of destruction. In fact, maybe it is right now.

So it may be permissible, but Paul says the right question is not, is it
permissible? Is it legally permissible to smoke a cigarette? Of course it is.

Is it legally permissible to eat a double banana chocolate chip split all by
yourself? Two or three of them. You could eat five of them.

If it's legally permissible, yes, if you do everything that's permissible,
you're going to ruin your body. You're going to end up a physical and emotional
wreck. So Paul points here to an entirely different set of questions, because
when we realize it's not just about what's permissible, I think we all know
that, the next place we go is, well, how much permission can I give myself
without really hurting myself?

And Paul goes an entirely different direction. He goes a positive direction
instead of a negative direction. He says, instead of asking what's permissible,
you ask this, what's beneficial?

You ask this, what could be directing my life? He says, mastering my life. Is it
beneficial?

Instead of saying it couldn't hurt, you start to look for what could help in
what you eat and what you do and where you are with this body that God has given
you. Paul says, you ask the question, what's mastering me? What's directing my
life?

And no matter how permissible something is, if it has control over you in some
way, then it's wrong for you. It could be permissible for everybody else that
you know. But if that specific thing that you're doing with your body has
control over you, it begins to control your thoughts and control your actions,
then it's wrong for you.

And that's different for all of us. Legalism comes when I begin to say, what's
wrong for me has to be wrong for you. I'm not talking about legalism here.

I'm talking about what the scripture has to say about how we handle these
bodies, treat these bodies that God has given to us. The body is not meant for
sexual immorality, but it's meant for the Lord, and the Lord for the body, the
scripture says. That's why he's talking here about what's permissible and not
permissible.

So what's permissible is the question for many people, and it's the wrong
question. The place you have to go is, what is it that's beneficial with this
body that God has given to me? And this is where we hit real life.

This is where we hit the reality of how I handle and deal with real life. You
see, when I have to ask, where should I go with this body? What should I do with
this body?

I have friends who would say to me, you know, I can't go to an R-rated movie.
There's something about walking into an R-rated movie that it just takes me down
wrong roads. Wrong roads in my thinking, wrong roads in my reactions.

Maybe it's roads of anger, maybe it's roads of lust, whatever the movie happens
to be. So they've just decided, I'm not going to go to an R-rated movie. Now
I've got other friends who say, well, I can go.

It's OK for me. I don't find that same hurt coming into my life. And I've got
other people who say, I think because I can't go to an R-rated movie that I
should say to everybody that they cannot.

One reaction is legalism. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago. The other
reaction is license.

The idea that I should be able to do whatever I want, whatever is permissible,
that's license. The idea that I should be able to tell everybody to do whatever
I want them to do, that's legalism. And either of those roads is going to end in
disaster.

That's not the question here. You see, the devil would love to get you caught up
in legalism and license because both of them have you thinking about other
people. What are other people thinking about what I'm doing?

And that is not the question about what you do with your body. The question is,
this body that God has given to you, what kinds of foods do you eat? What kinds
of things do you see?

What kind of situations do you put yourself in? What kind of things can you
drink and not drink? Having an honest moment before the Lord where you say, it's
not about my rules, it's not about other people's rules, it's about what's going
to benefit me most.

It's about what's going to cause me most to be able to look to you, Jesus
Christ, as the Lord and Master of my life instead of some thing, some habit. As
I talk about this, it makes most of us feel uncomfortable because we love to
think about other people's habits and what's permissible, not permissible. We
love to tell other people what to do, at least many of us do, but we hate to
think about change in our own lives because somehow it makes us feel like we're
being constricted.

If for you, drinking a cup of coffee in the morning somehow gets you so wired
that later that day you feel that you're just worn out and you're not able to
serve like you want to serve. And if you stop drinking a cup of coffee in the
morning and you realize it got more energy all day long, I'm just taking
something that's permissible for almost everybody, drinking a cup of coffee. If
you realize that doesn't work for me, then you go to what's beneficial.

You go to what's going to best enable me to serve Jesus Christ as my Lord and
Savior. And to stop drinking a cup of coffee will make you at the beginning feel
like you've put a pair of handcuffs on, I can't do what I want to do. And the
way to change that thinking, the way to begin to think in a new way is to
realize it's not about me saying no to the cup of coffee, it's about me saying
yes to what's beneficial.

So every time you feel like there's a pair of handcuffs because you can't go to
that movie because you can't walk into that bar because you can't take that
drink because you can't drink that cup of coffee because you can't watch that
kind of television, can't watch that much television. Every time you feel like
the handcuffs are coming on to your life, you'll look away from that temptation
of Satan to see it as a handcuff. And instead, you look to what's going to be
beneficial.

If I make that choice, what's it going to mean for my ministry to others? What
kind of new energy and time is it going to give? What's it going to mean for my
ministry to my family?

How am I going to live longer because I do this? What's it going to mean for my
connection with God? How could I use that time to better serve him?

The longer I'm a believer and the older I get, the more freedom I feel in saying
no to the things that God wants me to say no to. When I was younger and younger
as a believer, it felt like a great prison many times. It felt like I was
letting go of something that was so important.

But the longer I'm a believer, the more I realize let go of something that could
be beneficial, to let go of something that could cause me to serve him more.
There is the greatest freedom in that imaginable. So you look at the freedom,
you look at the benefit, you look at what God's going to do.

As we come to the end of the study of this verse that's so important in
Scripture, really it's all about searching our own hearts. So I'd like to give
you a moment to do that before Jesus right now. Just look to him and say,
"Jesus, search my heart.

Is there anything in my life right now that may be permissible, but it's not
beneficial? It is not causing me to look to you as Lord and Savior like I want
to. In fact, it's directing my life in ways that I would not want.

Lord, no matter what anybody else thinks about it, bring it to my mind right
now. And then also help me to see the picture of if I'll just let that go to
you, I will have a new freedom in life. Help me to let it go now.

In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Tomorrow Paul is going to continue to talk to us
about what we should do about these bodies that God has given us in this world.