Kill Your Sin At The Cross

Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 6. 1 Corinthians chapter 6. I'll be reading, beginning at verse 12, through the end of the chapter.

! Paul's first letter to the church at Corinth, chapter 6, chapter 6, chapter 6, chapter 6, chapter 6. Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial.

Everything is permissible for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. Food for the stomach, and the stomach for food, but God will destroy them both.

The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By his power, God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also.

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute?

Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, the two will become one flesh.

But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit. Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body.

But he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God?

You are not your own. You were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your body. Every minister of the gospel is a hunter.

He hunts sin to kill. Paul in 1 Corinthians 6 is hunting the big game of sexual immorality. And he's tracking it over every hill and every valley and into caves and into woods, every place that it's going to hide.

And he doesn't give it a moment's rest. He chases it out of every dark place, every dark corner. And he throws spear after spear into the beast.

The body is not meant for sexual immorality. Spear number one. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Spear number two. He who sins sexually sins against his own body.

And again and again, he's throwing these spears. And finally, in verses 19 and 20, he grapples hand to hand with the sin and nails it to the cross to die.

You are not your own. You were bought at a price. Paul has no sharper weapon than this.

And if the cross will not kill sin, and if our faith in the cross will not kill sin, then what will? And if your faith in the cross does not kill sin, then what is your faith?

Brothers and sisters, it's no small thing to be holy. Without holiness, no one will see the Lord.

And if your faith in the gospel doesn't bear fruit in holiness, then what is your faith? It's the very faith of the devils. They believe.

They tremble. But it does not make them holy. But living faith, the kind of faith that lives in you, brothers and sisters, is not that kind of faith.

It purifies the heart. John Owen, in his book, Mortification of Sin, said this. Set faith at work on Christ for the killing of your sin.

His blood is the great sovereign remedy for sin-sick souls. Live in this, and you will die a conqueror. Yea, you will, through the good providence of God, live to see your lust dead at your feet.

Faith in Jesus Christ and him crucified has the power to kill sin. And it's especially faith in the cross work of Jesus that kills sin.

So how do you kill sin? How do you put it to death? You drag it to the cross, and you nail it to the cross to die a criminal. And so my work this morning is simply this, to stir up your faith in Jesus Christ for the killing of sin.

My text is verses 19 and 20, the second half of 19 and 20. And it comes to us in three parts. The blessed fact, the plain effect, and the natural conclusion.

Very simple. The blessed fact, the plain effect, and the natural conclusion. So first the blessed fact, the happy fact, the amazing, gracious, glorious fact.

You were bought at a price. You were bought at a price. Paul says, you're not your own. You were bought at a price. He could have said, you're not your own.

God created you. Therefore, honor God with your bodies. That would have been true. That is true. God is our creator. And so the natural conclusion would be that we should honor him with our bodies.

But he doesn't say that. He doesn't bring creation up. He could have said, God takes care of you. All we have is the very breath in our nostrils.

And if he doesn't give the next one, then we die. Every minute we're kept alive by God. He feeds us. He keeps these amazing bodies going. And we should therefore honor God with our bodies.

That makes sense. But he doesn't bring up providence. He doesn't bring up the goodness of God. No, he takes out his most potent weapon, his sharpest weapon. And he says, you were bought.

You were bought. When you were a slave to sin, Jesus bought you. When you were enslaved to Satan, Jesus bought you. And when you were enslaved under the guilt and the condemnation of the law, Jesus bought you.

And so look back, Paul says, look back to that day that Jesus went to the market for you. When he came to the market for you, you were filthy.

You were guilty. You were dead in your sin. You hated him. You hated the very one who was going to free you. You hated him. You loved your wickedness.

You were on this path that leads to destruction. And you were glad to be there. And yet he bought you. But he doesn't just say that you were bought.

He said you were bought. What does it say? At a price. Now, why does he say that? Why does he add that? At a price?

Well, because the price was something special, wasn't it? We're used to. We're very familiar with the idea of paying the price. Paying the price for something.

Now, we've just come off of elections. And President Obama won re-election. But he had to pay a price to be elected. He paid with energy and he paid with money.

He paid emotional energy. He paid sleep. Why did he run himself ragged? Why did he travel and travel and travel? Why didn't he just stay home? Well, because that's the price you pay to run for president in this country.

Some of you have run half marathons. It's far too far for me. But you paid the price, didn't you?

There was a price that had to be paid if you were going to do that. You remember running when you didn't want to. You remember getting off your couch and leaving your house when it wasn't very nice out and running further and further, building up your endurance.

You ran when it was cold and rainy. And you left your couch. You left your comfort. And you went way further than necessary. You ran like someone was chasing you and no one was chasing you.

But that was the price you pay in order to participate and run in a half marathon. Men, you get up and you go to work day after day. Why do you do that?

Why do you get stressed out and you leave your wife and your kids, the safety and the blessing of your house, to go into a world that's so ugly sometimes and you work there?

You stress out and you burn the midnight oil. Why do you do that? Because that's the price you pay to put bread on the table. By man's sweat will he eat.

And so you go out and you sweat. Paul says you were bought at a price. We're very familiar with paying something. So you were bought at a price. What was that price?

Well, it was Jesus' own life. And you're very familiar with that. But Paul wants to bring it up and bring it to the center. And he wants you to think about it again.

When Jesus came to the market, the currency of choice was his blood. That was what was legal tender.

That's what had to be paid. And so think about it, dear brothers and sisters. Come with me to Gethsemane. And it's midnight.

It's in the wee hours of the morning. And Jesus is praying. And Luke says his heart is in anguish. Now there are pains and experiences of the heart that are far worse than physical pains.

And the pain was so intense. And we've been there where our hearts are breaking. And our hearts are melting. And we are terrified as we think about what is coming. And that's what Jesus was going through.

He sees what's coming. And you know that sometimes the anticipation of something can be almost as bad or almost as good. But in this case, almost as bad as the thing itself.

And that's where Jesus is. And he's anticipating this. And he's seeing this. He's going over it. He's going over the cross. He's going over the physical pain. He sees the spiritual pain.

And he sees the shame. He sees what's going to happen to him in a few short hours. And the time is racing by until it's going to be there.

And no one except God himself knows what's going on in his heart. And he starts sweating. And the sweat was like blood dripping onto the ground.

And then you leave Gethsemane and you go to Gabbatha, the pavement. That's where Pilate puts him on trial.

And his people reject him. He came to his own. And his own didn't receive him. Instead, they held out their hands and they screamed, Crucify him! Crucify him!

And Jesus is tied to a stake. And he's whipped and whipped and whipped. The Jews were very careful that you only whip a man 39 times.

And each lash is carefully counted. Not to go over 39. But Jesus isn't in the hands of Jews. He's in the hands of Rome.

And Rome doesn't count. And then to Golgotha. Where his wrists and his feet are nailed to wood. And his heart melted like wax.

Because night came. Night came in the middle of the day. The angel of death came to the cross. And God turned his wrath against him.

Wrath for all your sins. Wrath for all my sins. And all that shame. Shame of our failures. The shame of our secret lusts.

And all that shame of just coming short. Of never really being what we ought to be. And it fell on him. And it was pain within and without.

But pain wasn't enough. Pain wasn't enough. The wages of sin is death. It's not suffering alone. It's death.

The price hasn't been paid yet. And now the price is being paid. You have to unravel a man. Undo him. Cut him.

Body and soul. And in his death, Jesus was cursed. He was cursed for you. And you were bought at a price.

That was the price. That's the most important event in your history. That's the most important event in your biography.

You were bought at a price. And it changed everything. I'm reading right now a biography on Benedict Arnold. And Benedict Arnold was a hero.

He was a hero of the American Revolutionary War. Everyone loved him. General Washington held him in high esteem. But something happened.

In the middle of the Revolutionary War, for political reasons, not for military reasons, but for political reasons, five men were promoted ahead of him. And Arnold was a proud man.

And that was his downfall. And he couldn't take that. And he was so stung that it put him on a path that led to betrayal. After those men were promoted, nothing that could happen, nothing that he did, nothing that anyone did, could change where he was going.

That was the greatest turning point in Arnold's life. Nothing could be the same after that. Now, brothers and sisters, the most important event in your biography happened 2,000 years ago when Jesus bought you at a price.

And everything changed. And everything is different because of that. Now, the cross is the most important event in your history. And it's also going to be the most important event in your future. We don't know what heaven is going to be about and what it's going to be like.

But I know that what we will be talking about for endless ages is what Jesus did on that cross. And that's what angels will be wondering at and exploring and thinking about for endless ages.

And we'll be there and we'll be thinking, he bought me for this heaven? He bought me for this eternal life? You were bought at a price.

Now, if it's the most important event in your past and it's going to be the most important event in your future, what should be the most important thing in your life now? Let that fill you up.

Let that fill you up. And so that out of every pore, you start to bleed the life of Jesus that I was bought by him. That's the blessed fact.

You were bought at a price and it was a steep price. Now, that brings us to the plain effect. The blessed fact, now the plain effect.

If Jesus bought you, then the plain effect, the obvious result, is that you are not your own. You are not your own. You were bought at a price.

Jesus has taken you to himself. He's taken ownership of you. You belong not to yourself, but to him who loved you and bought you.

Now, isn't that wonderful? We're not our own. We've been bought. We've been possessed. You were a ship adrift at sea. So imagine this.

You're the ship. And you're adrift at sea. And you have no crew. And you have no captain. And the storm is blowing all around you. And the waves are crashing over the side. The waves of God's anger and the winds of his judgment were coming.

And you were loose on the waters. And sooner or later, you were going to crash into the rocks of hell and be lost forever. But Jesus came.

And he manned you. He took ownership. And he became the captain. And he took the wheel. And he steered you toward the harbor. And he steered you toward home.

He took ownership of you when you were in a wrecked and ruined state. Or you were a sheep. You're very familiar with this.

You're a sheep lost in the wild. But you have no owner. No one to possess you. And you ran amok. You went into every ditch. You fell into every hole. And you had no shepherd to bring you out.

And sooner or later, you would fall and never rise again. The wolves were circling you. They were ready to attack. But Jesus came. And he claimed you.

And he put you on his shoulders. And he took you home. Jesus found his bride unclean. And he washed her. He paid the dowry.

He paid the price. And made her his own. He redeemed her when she was enslaved. And now he's taken her. He's taken the church.

He's taken you. From street prostitute to princess. He's claimed you. And he's taken you from rags to riches.

Because he bought you. And now he's your master. He's your guardian. He's your Lord. And he's there to love you. And to protect you. And he's promised to give you everything that you could want.

Everything that you could need. Jesus bought you. And so you're his. But it also means that you don't have the right to do whatever you want.

You don't have the right to do whatever you want with yourself. You aren't the captain of your ship anymore. You're not free to do what you want. You aren't the owner of the house. Jesus is.

And that means you can't do whatever you want. Now, when we sin, brothers and sisters, we act like we're sheep without a shepherd. And we run through the ditches that we're not supposed to run through. We act like teenagers who borrow their parents' car and then drive it through a cornfield and drive it into a ditch.

Because we can. But what would your parents say when you came home with their car covered in mud? They would say, who do you think you are?

If you want to do that, go buy your own car and go do that. But don't do it with my car. Jesus has bought us. We can't do whatever we want.

Or we're like people that move into your house and just start rearranging things and changing pictures. So ladies, can you imagine that? You go on vacation with your family and you say, hey, will you come over and house sit for me?

And I say, sure. And you come back two weeks later and I've moved all your furniture around and I've taken all your pictures off the wall and I put up my family pictures and I've rearranged your kitchen and I've done all this stuff.

You would say, what are you doing? This isn't your house. This is my house. Now, brothers and sisters, we belong to Jesus. We belong to Jesus.

And that means we're not our own. Jesus signed the deed of our life with the blood, with his own blood. He signed it with his own blood.

And so our minds are his. Our bodies are his. We don't have the right to drive our minds and our bodies into the ditches of sin, into the cornfields of sin and just do whatever we want.

We don't have the right to listen to whatever we want because these ears have been bought and paid for. And we don't have the right to just look at whatever we want because these eyes have been bought and paid for.

And you don't have the right to use your talents and your gifts for yourself anymore. You have to use them for Jesus because he bought you lock, stock, and barrel. He owns everything about you.

All that you have. He bought all your gifts. He bought up all your talents. He's cornered the market on everything that you are and everything that you have because you're not your own.

You were bought at a price. And so do you have children? Raise them for Jesus. Do you have parents? Honor them for Jesus.

Do you have gifts and talents? Use them for Jesus in the church. Do you have friends? Then love them for Jesus' sake. Whatever you have, whatever you can do, all your life has been bought up.

There's not a single square inch that you can call your own anymore. It's all him. And so what do you do when temptation comes and sin comes?

And what do you do with all those selfish, complaining, self-centered thoughts? Well, you take them to the cross.

You drag them to the cross. You drag that sin, that temptation to the cross. And you make them look at the blood-sealed deed of Jesus that he owns.

And you say, I'm his. I was bought at a price. So what do you do with every worry and concern? What do you do when you're afraid for your family?

Afraid where this nation is going? Afraid for yourself? Afraid for financial reasons? Whatever. You take them all to the cross. Because the cross is this big, this wonderful picture that, you know what?

I'm not mine anymore. I'm his. And if I'm his, then it's his responsibility to take care of me. And Jesus knows how to take care of his own.

He knows how to love them. That's the plain effect. If he bought me, I'm not my own anymore. I belong body and soul, not to myself, but to my faithful Savior.

Now third, the natural conclusion. The natural conclusion is simply this.

Therefore, honor God with your body. Therefore, honor God with your body. So if you are bought and you're not your own, Jesus paid the price for your body.

The deed's been handed to him. The receipt is in Christ's nailed, pierced hands. Then you owe him the honor that can come from your body. And if he has paid such a steep price for you, shouldn't you be as deadly, earnest, adamant, and serious about bodily holiness?

Jesus didn't just die to save your soul. He died to save your body. And he's going to raise it on the last day. And he's going to glorify it and make it like his own glorious body.

Because he's taken ownership. He owns it. He cares about it. He's concerned about it. And so consecrate your body to him. What will that look like?

Sexual purity? Not even a hint of sexual immorality. Has no place in the blood-bought body of a Christian.

What will that look like? It will look like temperance. Temperance is a word we don't use very often, but it's a good word. It means self-control in all things regarding your body.

And your eating. And your drinking. And your work. In your play. In your sleeping. In your exercise. Whether you eat or you drink. Those very small things.

Very fundamental parts of our life. Whether you eat or drink. What are you supposed to do? Do it for God's glory. What will holiness of body look like?

Well, it will look like hard work in industry. Hard work. Working hard. Going to work. Doing what you're called to do. With your strength.

We're called to love God with all of our might. Listen to Charles Spurgeon. A lazy servant. Is a bad Christian.

A working man who is always looking for Saturday night. A man who never spends a drop of sweat except when the master is looking on. Does not glorify God in his body.

The best Christian is the man who's not afraid of hard work when it is due. Who works not as an eye servant or a man pleaser. But in singleness of heart to glorify God.

A good Christian. A blood bought Christian. Should be a hard worker. Hard worker.

So, friends. Our bodies used to work really hard when they were under Satan's control, didn't they? They would work hard. And I would use my talents and my strength and my emotions and all that I am.

I was working really hard when it was about me and my glory. Shouldn't I work all the harder now that Jesus bought me with such a steep price and saved me? Your body was a fine-tuned machine.

It was a racing machine when Satan had papers for it. Should it be like a rusty old jalopy now that Jesus owns it?

Our tongues were very quick to curse and to boast when we were under that owner.

Should they be slow then to pray? Should they be slow to praise God then? Now that Jesus owns them. He owns us.

Now, do you see how reasonable Paul is being in this passage? Just how reasonable. How clear. He's saying, let's look at reality.

I'm confident that when we sin so much of the time, it's like for a minute we go into another world in our mind, a world where Jesus isn't true, where God isn't true, where realities are just all blurry, and we put other things in their place and we believe a lie.

But Paul is being so reasonable. If Jesus bought you, then shouldn't you honor him with your body? If he bought that body, doesn't he own it? Doesn't he have the right for it, to it?

And do you see how irrational sin is? And how foolish it is? It doesn't make any sense. It just doesn't make sense.

When we rebel, we aren't living in reality. So when you look at porn, or you fantasize, or you overeat, or you're lazy, you aren't living in reality.

Because reality is, is that you were bought at a price. Jesus owns you, and you don't have the right to do what you want.

You're living like there is no Jesus, like there is no cross, like you really weren't bought and paid for. You park those things, and you put them in the glove compartment, and you don't think about them when you sin.

And so next time you are tempted, drag those lies, drag that temptation and that sin, and make it stand in the presence of the cross.

Make it stand in the light of Jesus crucified. And make it explain itself. Then, make it talk there. Now tell me, why?

Why should I do that? If Jesus owns me, then there's nothing to say. Why? Drag it to the cross.

Talk to yourself. Am I being real? Or am I just rationalizing my sin away? Just excusing it and making up things. Am I really a person who can do what I want?

Do I really believe that Jesus died for me? Drag it before the cross. Make it explain itself before the cross. And when you do, it dies.

The light exposes the darkness. And when the light comes, the darkness flees away. Its power and its life are destroyed in the presence of Jesus and Him crucified.

So, how do you kill sin? You believe. You believe in what happened on the cross. You drag that sin before the cross.

Now one last question. Do you belong to Jesus? Do you belong to Jesus?

Are you still a ship adrift? Tossed to and fro? How is it with you? Are you just going off and doing your own thing?

Well, I'll tell you, you are that ship. And the waves are crashing. You're caught in a whirlpool. And it's going to bring you down into the depths.

You will be destroyed. You need a Savior. If you're unmanned, you have no captain, and you're in stormy waters, you need someone to come and own you.

You need a Savior. You need Jesus. Because Jesus is the only one that can calm a storm. He's the only one that can walk across the water. He's the only one that can take ownership and change us and make us into different people and take ownership of us and save us and take care of our sin and forgive us.

You need a Savior. You need Jesus. So call out to Him. And He will come. If you call out with Him, with all your heart, He will come and He will own you and take you.

Let's pray. Our Lord, we thank You for the truth of Your Word.

We thank You for the clarity of it and how it's like well-driven nails. And here we are. these simple truths that we forget so easily.

Holy Spirit, come and make these things real to us. Drive those nails into our hearts and make the Word of God to bear fruit through faith in Christ Jesus.

we ask these things. We ask these things so that in all of our hearts, all the people here, that Christ would be exalted in our hearts.

That those struggling with sin would look to Him and find freedom. That they would look to Him and find holiness. That He would change them.

for those who are weary and tired of fighting the battle, refresh them and revive them and make Jesus central again in their hearts. And those of us here who are going strong, I pray that You would encourage them and spur them on still more and more.

make Your truth to come home to the hearts of unbelievers. You know who they are.

You know their story. You know their excuses. You know the idols and the lies that they believe. Come and shine the light of Your truth into their hearts and save them.

And You will have honor. Jesus Christ was lifted up that He might be glorified. So Father, glorify Your Son in our presence. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Please take your grace hymns and turn to number 20. Have Thine Own Way, Lord. We make the song a prayer of consecration to Him.

Number 20 in our grace hymns. may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may may