1 Corinthians 6 (Part 2)

Open that Bible please to 1 Corinthians chapter 6. The last time we were in Corinthians, we dealt with the first half of this chapter, and we dealt with that whole issue about lawsuits in the body of Christ. And Paul had some important things to say about that. He now is going to switch gears a little bit. I'm going to read verses 12 through the end of the chapter. Please follow along and then we'll go back and unpack these things for you a little bit. Verse 12.

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(ESV) Let's pray. Holy Spirit, we are utterly dependent upon You as we dig into the Word, that You might illuminate our hearts, that You might help us to grow in understanding and insight of the Scripture and Lord, how to apply these things. It's one thing to read them, another thing to understand them, and yet another Lord God, to apply them. We pray that You would help us to do that so that we might grow in the grace of God. We ask it in Jesus precious name, amen. There was apparently a little phrase that the Corinthians liked to say, and it was essentially, all things are lawful for me. And the reason that these Christians made this statement grows out of something that we really truly believe as far as

Christians, we're no longer under the Mosaic law. We're not under the rules and regulations of the law and that sort of thing, and therefore there's a great deal of freedom that we have to live our lives according to the Spirit, according to the leading of the Spirit. Now, obviously there's very, there's clear things in the Word of God that we're told not to do and that sort of thing but there's a lot of gray area, frankly. I mean, the Bible doesn't mention yay or nay to every single thing in life. And so Christians often ask, well, how am I supposed to know? How am I supposed to know how to live my life in those areas where the Bible doesn't specifically say what to do in this area? Well, according to the New Testament, because we have received the Spirit when we came to Christ, made Him Savior and Lord of our lives, we are now to be led by the Spirit. And the Bible says that when we're led by the Spirit, we're not under law because the law was a tutor to bring us to this place of faith in Christ, receiving the Holy Spirit, that we might through the Spirit, listen to His voice, and operate accordingly. Okay, that's called maturity and it takes time. There's a process by which we have to learn to listen to the voice of God and respond to the leading of the Holy Spirit. And it's a challenge sometimes to do that. But here's what is really a challenge. The Spirit, and I want to be careful not to make you think that I'm going weird on you here, but the Spirit may lead you differently than He leads me. And we're talking these gray areas. I'm not saying to you, or I'm not trying to suggest to you that there's no such thing as objective truth. There is. There are very specific, do this, don't do that, understandings that we get from the…, related to morality in the Word of God. But in those areas that are gray, the Lord, as you pray and as you seek the Lord, may lead you differently than He leads me. He may lead me differently than He does you, and that is a challenge because some of us have different weaknesses. Some of us have different strengths. Some of us even have different convictions. So the freedom that I may have, or the freedom that you may have to participate in something, or to indulge in something may be actually taboo for someone else, okay, because it's just not something that they can handle. Here's the point of what Paul is saying in this passage, just because you're free to do something doesn't mean it's a good idea. And he's going to essentially advance 3 principles in the first couple of verses that help you and I to understand why sometimes even when something is lawful, it isn't a good idea. All right. Let's read through these first couple of verses again, beginning of verse 12, and I want to show you these. He says, “All things are lawful for me,” that's the phrase they like to say in Corinth. But he comes back with his response, yeah, “but not all things are helpful.” And then he says, yeah, you're right, “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.” And then in verse 13 he says, and I believe this was another statement that they would say, “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food.” And we'll explain what that means, but Paul's response is, yeah, but God's going to destroy both of them, one day. Alright, those are the 3 principles, but I want to bring them out of these verses, and I want to put them on a little bit of a list here for you on the screen, so you can see what Paul is saying.  Not all things are helpful  Some things will enslave us  Some things are temporal Yes, all things are lawful, but Not all things are helpful. Yes, you're free to do various things, these gray areas but you have to understand that Some things are actually going to enslave you if you're not careful. And then thirdly, yes, that all things are lawful, but Some things are just only about our temporary existence and to focus on them is to get yourself out of whack. We'll talk about that here in just a little bit, but I want to look at these one by one. First of all, verse 12, “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful.” Your Bible may say, “not all things are beneficial.” Your Bible may say, “not all things are profitable.” The idea here isn't how they might profit you or be beneficial to you. The idea behind this first principle is how it affects other people. Okay? So don't think about you for a minute, think about other individuals. You have great freedoms and those freedoms are lawful for you to participate in. However, they may not be beneficial to other people. And what Paul is trying to get us to think about, which is a major theme of his writings, is that you and I cannot live our lives in a vacuum. We cannot live our lives in such a way as to think that it's my life and what I do with my life doesn't affect you. Fact of the matter is, nothing could be further from the truth. That's a very worldly thing to say, by the way. To say, it's my life and what I do doesn't affect you. Sorry, that's not true. In the body of Christ, what we do can and does affect other people, and can affect them very profoundly. And you and I must live our lives in such a way as to consider our brothers and sisters in Christ, and what is good for them, and what is bad for them. And I'm talking about what you post on Facebook and I'm talking about how you do things in public. And I'm talking… There's a lot of things that go on in our lives that we have to consider our brothers and sisters in Christ, how it looks to them, how it appears as far as our Christian witness goes, what we're saying about certain things in the culture. And there are maybe things that you are free to participate in or to partake of as it relates to some of these gray areas, but to do it in such a way as to flaunt it, to do it in front of your own, all of your brothers and sisters who may not be free to participate in that because the Holy Spirit has spoken to them and said, no, that's a taboo for you. You see. For you to do something and to exercise your freedom at the expense of your brother or sister is what Paul is talking about not doing here. Okay. This is hard for us, us Christians, because we like to think of ourselves as living this independent life, we're very privatized. We're very closed in our culture today. I mean, we're not the same people our grandparents used to be as it relates to how they related to their neighbors or their community. We live a much more cloistered, withdrawn, privatized life today. And we like to think even as Christians that we can live our lives in such a way that, well, hey, what I do. And what you do, and I'm not going to judge you. You don't judge me and we're all just going to get along here. Well, that doesn't work in the body of Christ sometimes and we can't just live our lives with a reckless abandon without considering the feelings, the concerns, and the thoughts of others. I am convinced within myself that this is one of the most important principles of God’s Word, and it's also one of the most ignored. But it's hugely important. Paul writes on this topic so much. We dealt with it in the Book of Romans. We will deal with it again in this letter to the Corinthians. Thinking about other people, when we get to 1 Corinthians chapter 13, most of you guys are going to know what that chapter's all about. It's the love chapter. Everybody likes to quote the love chapter. Let's read the love chapter, this is really good. And they like to read, love is patient and kind, and they forget why Paul wrote the dumb thing. You know why he wrote the love chapter? Because they weren't loving each other. Because they were living in such a way as to ignore one another in their daily practical living, so Paul had to say, you guys have lost sight of what it means to love one another in the body of Christ. Here, let me remind you what love really is. That's why the chapter was written. It wasn't just to put on a valentine card or to make a little nice plaque in the entryway of your home. It was to remind you that you cannot live your life apart from how other people feel and respond to you and to your freedoms. That's why Paul said in Romans, you'll remember in our study through Romans, he said, hey, listen if one of my, if the exercise of one of my freedoms is going to cause a problem with my brother, then I just won't exercise that freedom. I will forego the privilege and the right of walking out that freedom. I'm totally free to do it, but I'll withhold myself for his sake or for her sake, right? That's called love. That's sacrificial living which follows in the footsteps of Jesus. Thank God He understood what it meant to sacrifice for the sake of others. Do you remember when Jesus was talking to some of the religious leaders of, let me put this passage on the screen from Matthew 22. Somebody in the crowd just spoke up and said to Him,

We forget that part sometimes. Love the Lord with all your heart, soul and mind. Sure, yeah. Love your neighbor as yourself. Think about your neighbor. Think about your brother. Think about your sister in Christ. Yes. All things are lawful for me, but when exercising my freedom infringes on the life and the needs of my brother and sister in Christ, suddenly my good thing can become a very bad thing. And I have to think about how it's going to impact them. Let's put these principles back up here and let's cover the second one here, which we've highlighted there.  Not all things are helpful  Some things will enslave us  Some things are temporal Yeah, you're free to do all things, but you know what? Some of them will enslave you. That's a biblical term. Paul actually says, “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.” I love how the NASB, the New American Standard Bible (NASB) says, “All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.” And what Paul is saying there is that some things have the very real potential of mastering you if you give in to them and so forth. Now, whereas the first principle dealt with how other people respond to what you do and how you exercise your freedom, this is how the exercise of your freedoms affects you in the long term. And our culture understands this idea that Paul's talking about right here. We don't call it slavery anymore. He called it slavery, which is by the way, a really good name. We call it addiction. Same thing. Basically what Paul is saying is, sure you are free to exercise your freedoms in Christ, but just understand this, what you indulge in might enslave you. It literally, you might become addicted to that thing to the point where you can't get free. I have to blame, well, I blame sinful nature. I am part of the baby boomers generation. The baby boomers are just this bubble of children that were born here in the United States of America right around the end of the second World War, 1947, roughly to 1964, that area right there. For some reason, we just, people in the United States just had babies, just galore, just womba. And it created this bubble in the population, which we call the baby boomers or the baby bubble, which of course today is aged, and gray haired, and weird. But when the baby boomers began to come of age, beginning in like the 1960s, they started living in a way that people had never lived in this country before. They started living for themselves. They started living a self- centered, me centered existence, that they lived through the 60s, the hippie generation. Suddenly, it was all just free sex, free love, free anything with anybody. And then we got into the 70s, thank God, disco's gone and those styles. Sue and I got married in the 70s, that's why you'll never see our wedding photos. We don't let anyone see them. No, no, no, no, no. It's like people shouldn't, that should be against the law to dress like that. But the 70s had its own form of just self-indulgence and living. And then the 1980s, same thing. It just morphed a little bit, but it was oh, just sickly all about me, and finding myself, and I just need to find myself. And we started talking about happiness like it was the purpose of our existence, and make yourself happy, and just be happy, and all this stuff. And it just… So for like 3 decades, we just, the baby boomers lived this way, just this rampant live for myself, live for myself, live for myself. And then we started getting into the 1990s. And guess what? The fallout started hitting hard. And the fallout was a generation of children who came out of the baby boomers who were so indoctrinated by that rampant selfishness that they are completely mastered by what they've, by life. The society has a term for them: disabled. The Bible has a term for them. They're in slavery. They are literally in slavery to their flesh. And they can't get free apart from Jesus Christ setting them free, by the way. But it has just become so rampant in this country that this is just the way we live today. I mean, this is just, this is life for us. Just this total slavery, I guess, I can't think of a better word to describe it. Paul talked about it in our study. You might remember from Romans chapter 6, let me put this one on the screen.

Do you not know (he wrote) that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, (or in other words, to be obedient to them or to that thing) you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of (whether it’s) sin, which leads to death, or (you can give yourself as an) of obedience, (slave to that) which leads to righteousness? Which of course is to give yourself to the Lord. You see this slavery thing can go a good way in a bad way. We rarely go the good way. Most of society goes the bad way, and that is to give yourself or present yourself to someone as slaves. He says, listen whatever it is, whether it's sexual pleasure. You give yourself to that thing to obey it, it will be your master. We know that happens with drugs and alcohol and now we've graduated into some other addictive behaviors related to pornography and all sorts of other things. And we're a mess. We're just a mess. Because as a culture, we've so just indulged as to become slaves. And this is what Paul is saying. Listen, you do have some freedoms as it relates to these gray areas that the Word of God doesn't necessarily cover. But just understand this. You give yourself to something and you will become its slave one way or another. You can either be a slave of righteousness or a slave to your own flesh. I think it's a fairly plain meaning there. Let's put these 3 principles up one more time. And again, we're highlighting now the one we're going through.  Not all things are helpful  Some things will enslave us  Some things are temporal Some things, he says, are temporal, which is a reason why perhaps you don't want to get involved or focus on it. Here's what he says, verse 13. Look in your Bible. He quotes another popular phrase, “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food.” And now that refers to what it's talking about, but it goes beyond that as well. It basically is saying, hey, you have a stomach. What's your stomach for? It's for putting food in it. What's food for to eat, right? You don't just look at it. Well, sometimes you do, but then you eat it. He says, that's what the stomach is made for. That's what there was a saying among the Greeks. This was the thing that the Corinthians like to quote, hey, food for the stomach, stomach for food. What they're saying is there are some things that are just made for each other so just indulge. It's no big deal. They're made for each other. They had the same sort of this whole statement related to sex. It related to all kinds of other indulgences.

But the statement was made to give permission to indulge. Hey, the food for stomach, stomach for food, they're made for each other. You might as well do it. Paul says, yeah, that's true, but understand this, God's going to destroy both. He's not talking about judgment here. He's saying that there will come a time when these things will pass away. Food, the stomach, things like that's not always going to be around. You guys understand that, right? There is coming a time when life as we know it will cease and we will have our new spiritual bodies and we won't hunger and thirst and stuff like that. The whole thing about food stomach, stomach food, and all this idea of these things, these temporal things that seem to be made for one another, they're going to go away, okay? He's saying, sure, you have the freedom to indulge in these things but just understand this, those things which you focus on, that are temporary, that are not part of any kind of eternal value, are going to greatly minimize your life and eternal perspective. What do I mean by that? Well, let me just start by asking a question. When you think about your day, or your week, and the time you spend in your day, how much of your day is spent dealing with preparing for and working toward things that are of only a temporary sort of a scope. You know what I mean? I mean, fixing food, for example. I mean, that's, well, that's really temporary. But we spend a lot of time, how we dress our bodies, how the women do their makeup, how we do our hair, all these things are all about, they're focused on temporary things, things that are going to go away. And what Paul is saying here is that if our lives are based solely on the temporary, solely on the, ever present today, and what I need today, and how I look today. And I would rather look tomorrow like I look today so I think I'm going to spend a little money in plastic surgery to make sure that tomorrow I look like I do today. And it's all fixated on this temporary, short term sort of an understanding of your existence. Do you know Christians that this is not all there is? Do you know that there's more to this life than just this life? Do you not know that there is an eternity that awaits you? Here's the question. How much time are you spending preparing for eternity?

Because you see, you can't compare the temporary existence of today with eternity. You can't compare the two. I mean, one is even less than a dot and the other one goes on into eternity, right? But we're spending all this time, all this effort, all this energy, and money, on things that won't last, that aren't going to last. When you die, they're just like, they're gone. And there's nothing to show for it later on. It's like, well, I lived my life for the ever present, present, sort of a thing. Wow. What a colossal waste of time. Now, I'm not saying that you can't or shouldn't or take care of temporary things. I mean, you got to eat. I get that. We got to build houses and furnish them. And you have to go to work, do your job. We have to buy clothes. I'm not trying to put a guilt trip on you just for going to the mall. Please understand. I'm just saying that when our lives become all about that to the exclusion of any sort of a preparation, or understanding of eternal values, and eternal preparations, and that sort of thing that we've just gotten just wildly and whacked out imbalanced, you see, in this life. And that's one of the reasons why when Paul wrote to the Christians in Colossae, the Colossians, this is what he said to them. He said,

If then you have been raised with Christ, (in other words, if you are a born again, Christian, then here's the deal. I think that you ought to) seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated (which is another way of talking about eternal things, where He is seated) at the right hand of God. (in fact he says) Set your minds on things that are above, (and) not on (those temporal, passing, transient) things that are on earth. And believe me, I understand how challenging this is because there's a lot of things in this life that I really enjoy. There's a lot of things that… I mean, when I'm investing money and time into my motorcycle or my this or that, I know that I'm not going to be riding my motorcycle with the Lord and His presence. I get that. But God has given us some things to enjoy in this life and I don't think we should necessarily feel guilty about it.

However, if that dominates my time and attention, and I don't have any time to think about eternal things because it's all about my motorcycle or whatever the case might be. You see, now I've gotten completely out of balance and I need a spiritual adjustment. All right. Now, in the middle of verse 13 and onward, you noticed I might have, that I stopped with the first part of verse 13. But now as we get into the middle of verse 13 and move on to the end of the chapter, which we'll do quite quickly, Paul is going to address a topic that is not a gray area and it's the topic of sexual immorality. Aren't you glad you came this morning? And it says, and right after he got done saying, the stomach for food and food for stomach, which was a saying that they said, which may have been true in and of itself, now Paul is going to make a contrasting statement. Contrast means opposite, right? If I have black over here, I'm going to put white there as a contrast. So what's the contrasting statement? It's in the latter part of verse 13.

This is really a fascinating statement. Do you know that Paul is actually speaking things that we know today by modern medicine and modern science? Well, I don't think there was any problem with them knowing these things back in Paul's day either, frankly. But what he is literally saying is that, God created your body for Him. To love Him, to serve Him, for Him. Your body was created for Him. In other words, your existence, your physical body, which houses who you are, is meant to be for His pleasure. For His pleasure. Now, what have we done? What have we done? We've taken these bodies and we said, no, I'm not going to live my life for His pleasure, I'm going to live my life for my pleasure. It's all about me. It's all about pleasing myself, and so I'm going to find any physical tantalizing, exciting, titillating, sort of an experience in this life, anything that that grabs hold of the pleasure centers of my life. And I'm going to experience those things because my life is all about me and pleasing me. Even so far as to live our lives in sexual immorality, right? We didn't stop with just a high, an adrenaline high. We're going to take it all the way to sexual immorality, and that's the focus of what Paul's talking about here. But before we talk any more about sexual immorality, I think it's important that we agree on a definition for that term. Sexual immorality is in the Bible, a Greek word that is pronounced, pornea. It's actually where we get our word pornography. But here's the definition that I want to give you.

Sexual immorality is any ACT OR THOUGHT of a sexual nature that is outside of God’s ordained purpose for a man or a woman. Sexual immorality is any ACT OR THOUGHT (which of course Jesus talked about in the Sermon on the Mount) of a sexual nature that is outside of God’s ordained (or revealed) purpose for a man or a woman. Sexual immorality is any act or thought of a sexual nature that is outside of God’s ordained or revealed purpose for a man or a woman. In other words, and I love to say this, God created sex. We forget that sometimes. He created it, and He also, because He created it, defined it, okay? He brings definition to the act, the process, the attitude, the exercise of sex. It's His, right? Anything outside of His definition. If I take the definition of sex, and we know what that definition is, by the way. The definition of sex, or within His definition is, one man, one woman, one marriage. Right? For life. That was His definition. Right? Now, I step outside of that definition. Okay? Now what have I done? I've stepped into the land of sexual immorality. Now, we know that there are specific things about, if lose your spouse to death or if there are specific things that go along in the Word of God that give a freedom for someone to remarry, according to the Word of God. I'm setting those aside right now. I'm just talking about the definition of practiced physical intimacy among humankind and when we step beyond how God has defined it, that then is what the Bible refers to as sexual immorality. Now, what does Paul say about our physical bodies? He says, your bodies weren't made for it. Think of something that is beyond your physical ability. How about like staying underwater without a breathing apparatus for an hour? I can't do it and I doubt you can either. You know why? Our bodies aren't made for it. Okay. You know what else you can't do? You can't go outside of a protected atmospheric pressurized area into outer space without some real serious protection. Why? Your body wasn't made for it. Can't do it. Right. Guess what else? Your body wasn't made for sexual immorality, wasn't created for it. You know what that means? If you try to do those things you're not created for, you'll run into consequences, problems. Oh my! Now the world doesn't like to talk much about it because they like to talk about it, just, hey, let's just have sex with anybody and everybody and it'll be all kinds of fun and it'll be great. And guess what, though? Your body wasn't made for that. And we know actually what happens when people give themselves to multiple partners, physically, sexually, in our culture, we know they end up with sexually transmitted diseases. It happens. It's been happening for a long time. You know why it's happening? Your body wasn't made for sexual immorality and you're using your body for something it wasn't ever intended to be used for, right? So it just doesn't work. You know what's interesting to me is that. If you operate within God's definition of sex, you'll never have any problems as far as STDs anyway. You take a man and a woman who don't engage in premarital sex, right, who come together in marriage, who stay together for the duration of their lives, one with another. They're faithful to one another for that whole time, with that one partner. You know what? They will never experience a sexually transmitted disease. Never. There won't be any possibility of it even happening because they are operating within God's predefined guidelines for the usage of this glorious gift he called intimacy within marriage. When we operate within the borders of God's defined guidelines, we're safe and healthy. It's actually healthy in that sort of a scenario. Now you step out of that defined area, suddenly it becomes unhealthy. Why? Your body wasn't made for it. That's what Paul is saying here when he says, your body wasn't made for sexual immorality. It was made for the Lord. What does he mean by that? It means that when you operate within God's predefined barriers or guidelines for sex, you are operating in such a way as to operate with within the context of pleasing the Lord. It's pleasing to God for a man and a woman to be faithful one to another in marriage. And by giving myself only to my wife, I am giving myself to the Lord. And now my body is for Him because it is operating within the guidelines of his defined parameters for that sort of a thing. Again, you have multiple sexual partners, all bets are off. You increased your risk exponentially and you give into same sex partners. You catapult yourself into a whole other realm of risk that is just like off the boards. Okay. Again, your bodies weren't made for it. Our bodies were created for God. Look again with me at verse 14.

He says, “And God raised the Lord…” He's talking about Jesus here. You could just say, God raised Jesus from the dead and He will also raise us up by His power. Why does Paul interject this statement right here where he's talking about sexual immorality and our bodies belonging to the Lord? Seems out of place. No, actually Paul's making a point that your bodies are so His that He will even raise them up from the dead. They so belong to Him that He will raise them up one day. And if you still need another reason to steer clear of sexual immorality, look at verse 15.

Alright, what Paul is saying here is he's reminding us of something. First of all, he's reminding us that when you come to Christ, you join the body of Christ because you are now filled with the Holy Spirit. You are a temple of the Holy Spirit. You are connected with other members of the body of Christ in a very real physical and spiritual sort of a way. And that when you have Christ living in you, He goes where you go. Paul says, so as a believer who is a temple of the Holy Spirit and connected to Jesus Christ, should I then take that connection that I have with Jesus and connect us to a harlot or to any sort of a sexually immoral thing or person, should I do that? We hear that and we're like, no, I mean, that's horrible. But see, we don't think about that when we're going into a movie that we shouldn't see because it's filled with sexual immorality or when we're entering into, either looking or participating in something that is just flat out wrong from a sexual standpoint. We don't think about the fact that as believers, I'm taking Jesus into this thing with me. He's coming with me, so should I connect Him to this? Should He be connected? Because he's going to be connected if I'm connected. Because He and I are connected. You get it? Every one of you who are in Christ is, boom, connected with Jesus. And where you go, He goes. Very important thing to remember. Paul also reminds us in this passage that when two people come together, two humans come together, they too are connected. And he's reminding us here that the purpose of sexual intercourse within marriage was that the husband and wife might be joined as one flesh. Now that one flesh designation certainly goes beyond just simply the physical aspect, but it's very much a part of it. And when we are one, we ought not join ourselves with others because that is immoral. We often don't think of it that way though. Verse 17, look with me there, please. It says,

So we're not only part of the body of Christ, we're also joined spiritually with Christ. As believers that's a powerful connection. Just don't forget, guys, that where you go, you bring Him along. So what's the summary here? Verse 18.

What's the picture you get in your mind when you hear those words? I think of Joseph. Right? I think of Joseph in the Book of Genesis. Strapping, young, handsome man, ripped, good looking guy and his boss's wife takes an eye, gets an eye for him. And eventually tries to seduce him, get him to come to bed with her. What did Joseph do? He ran! I like that. He didn't sit around talk about it. Let's just discuss this for a while. No, he just, it's like, where's the door? That's what Paul says here.

If you don't know what Paul means by that, just read the last 2 verses of the chapter. He explains what he means.

What is Paul saying here? He says, listen, you are a temple of the Holy Spirit because you're a Christian. When you sin sexually, you sin against your own body because your body is a temple. You're literally defiling the temple. You're desecrating the temple. Not every person is a temple of the Holy Spirit. It's only believers. Only people have put their faith in Christ. But once you have, your body is a very sacred place. The Holy Spirit is now within you. It doesn't mean sex is out the window when you get saved. Heavens. No, with, within the context of marriage, within the defined boundaries of God's revealed will, have at it. But outside of those definitions and those boundaries, understand this, Paul says, you are not your own. You've been bought with a price. You don't belong to yourself. One of the, one of the choruses you hear in the world is, it's my body and I can do with it what I want. Christians can't say that. Christians have to say it's His body and what I do with my body is His pleasure, not mine. Completely different mindset, isn't it? Yeah. None of this selfish or self-centered living where it's my body and I can do what I want. I'm not hurting you. That is so selfish. That's just the way the world lives. As Christians, we can't live that way because it's not the reality of our lives. You have been purchased with the blood of Jesus Christ. He didn't buy you with money. He bought you with His blood and you're His. And that's a glorious thing, by the way. But it's a very sobering thing to understand as it relates to how I live my life and how I choose my pleasures. And so the final statement that Paul gives at the very end of verse 20 is, and this is the conclusion,

I want you to know what it means to glorify God as we close. It means to live for His pleasure. It means to live for His pleasure. Just living your life to please Him in all that you do. So glorify God with your body. Don't live to please yourself. Live to please Him.