Saul To Paul

1_Corinthians_6_9t11_Cross

Sermon Notes: 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 (KJV) Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

I love the Gospel of salvation.
I love the Cross of Christ.
I believe that no one can get to Heaven by their own works.
Our works are like the Tower of Babel, a foolish attempt by man to reach God.

We are not to be self righteous, nor to self justify. The grand theme of Scripture is:

Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us!

The Apostle Paul – a Pharisee converted on the Damascus Road – thought that he was going to Heaven, even as he persecuted Christians. Striding in self righteousness down that Damascus Road it was his intent to destroy more Christians. On that day Jesus knocked him down, saying:

“Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”
When you hurt the Christian you hurt the Christ.
When you hurt the Child of God you hurt the Father.
When you harm His little ones – of whom I am one – you harm Him.

Saul replied: “Who are You, Lord?”

“I am Jesus Whom you are persecuting!”
On that day Self Righteousness lost himself.
On that day a Pharisee saw the fair Christ.
Saul repenting was invaded by God.
On that day Saul became Paul.

The works that Saul was trying to do to be saved, he put to the side for Christ. He wrote in …

Philippians 3:7-11 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; 11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Saul became Paul when he realized that attendance is not enough. Saul lived his life in the rituals of the Law, but Paul lived his life with Christ. Attendance is not enough. Being here is not enough. We are to be in the moment – every moment – of our lives with Christ. When I was in school I usually attended faithfully, but really wasn’t there. I watched the clock. I daydreamed while the teacher taught. I was there, but I wasn’t there. Some weeks we have small crowds at our Church but the power of God is there because we’re not just attending, we are in the moment with Christ. Other Sundays we may have bigger crowds, but it sems to me as if there is less of the power of God present. Why? Because we are just attending. Attendance is not enough. We must be in the moment with Christ. We must be here to worship Him. We must hear His Word, and seek His direction. We must not just be filling in a blank or checking off a bucket-list item, but we are to be God intentional.

God Gives Us Grace – His Free Gift – So We Can Walk With Him

Paul told the Church at Ephesus:

Ephesians 2:8-9 (NKJV) For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.

God loves us, and our best life NOW is to walk in His Presence NOW. This is why He tells us:

Titus 3:4-6 (NKJV) But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, 5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior,

God is KIND. God is LOVE. He calls us to come to Him to be saved. When we come to Him He comes to us. He lives inside us who are Christian.

We are His Garden.
We are His Temple.
We are His House.
We are His Children.

We do not work our way to God, but God worked His Way to us. We receive Him, and live by His Word. As someone once said:

“We do not have a law to obey, but a Christ to follow.”

Galatians 2:21 (NKJV) I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.

Salvation is a free gift from God. When a person is saved God forgives our sin, purges our sin, but God also comes inside us, to be with us.

You cannot be saved and not be changed.
Saul became Paul when he was saved.
When you are born again, you are born again into God’s image.
And though imperfect, God works in you to make you like Him.
To be like Jesus.

Unrighteous People Do Not Go To Heaven

1 Corinthians 6:9 (KJV) Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?

Those who are “unrighteous” shall not go to Heaven.
Those who are “unrighteous” have no inheritance in God’s Kingdom.
Now what is “unrighteous”?

Simply put, to be “unrighteous” or “not right” is to do whatever God says NOT to do, or to NOT DO whatever God says do. To be UNRIGHT is to live your life unpleasing to God. The Bible says:

1 John 5:17 … all UNRIGHTEOUSNESS is SIN

God is light, and IN HIM IS NO DARKNESS AT ALL (1 John 1:5/NIV)

Christ is the Light of God. We are told in 2 Corinthians 4:6/NLT:

For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.

To come to Christ is to know God. When you come to Jesus He covers your sins, and tells you what is sin and what is right. God defines right and unright. God defines good and evil.

I was reading something today on the internet, something astonishing. Did you know that by human standards there are now 63 genders? That is according to man’s definition. The so called sexual revolution has utterly destroyed and confused humanity. What has God said?

Genesis 1:27 (NKJV) So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

God says what is right is that I made TWO genders, male and female. But man, drawing away from God, has redefined us into 63 genders. You can choose to believe man’s definition, but God says that is unrighteous. What God has said is right. To us belongs confusion of face, but Lord, righteousness belongs to You! (Daniel 9:8). Righteousness is of the Lord.

Jeremiah 23:6 (NKJV) … this is His name by which He will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. {Jehovah Tsidkenu}

Psalm 11:7 (NIV) For the LORD is righteous, he loves justice; the upright will see his face.

It s no wonder that people are so confused today. You can never be spiritually balanced until you know know yourself as God created you.

The unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God – but the righteous shall see His face. The unrighteous walk a wandering confused path,

but the righteous walk covered by His shadow.

The righteous have an INHERITANCE. INHERIT is a Family Word. We who have received Christ shall one day INHERIT Heaven, because God is our Father and Christ our Savior.

Do Not Be Deceived Or Tricked

1 Corinthians 6:9 (KJV) Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? BE NOT DECEIVED:

The Apostle warns us against being deceived. Who would deceive us? The Bible tells us that

2 Corinthians 11:14 (NKJV) …. Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.

Revelation 12:9 (NKJV) …. the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world …

The Devil – also called Satan – is the Deceiver. The Devil twists the Scriptures. The Devil tested Jesus in the wilderness (Matthew 4) by twisting Scripture out of context, by taking what GOD had said and remaking it into what HE THE DECEIVER says. The Deceiver leads humanity to reject the Word of God,

John 3:19 (NKJV) … the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

The Deceiver would have us believe a LIE to be the TRUTH,

DARKNESS to be LIGHT,
GOOD to be EVIL,
and EVIL to be GOOD.

The Deceiver wants us to believe that God is withholding the best from us. But that is not true. When God forbids a thing or an action, then it is for our own good. Just as the mother tells the child not to touch the hot stove, God tells us which things and behaviors we should avoid, lest we be hurt by them. The things that God forbids us do are for our own good. The things that God commands we do are for our own good. God is not depriving us, but LOVING us when He sets boundaries.

1 Corinthians 6:9 (KJV) …. Be not deceived: neither FORNICATORS ….

The “fornicator” is the single person who prostitutes themselves, or who sleeps around. The Bible says marriage is honorable for all, and the marriage bed is pure, but God will judge the adulterer and the sexually immoral (Hebrews 13:4/NIV). Sexual sin is to be avoided as dangerous behavior.

1 Corinthians 6:9 (KJV) … nor IDOLATERS …

An “Idolator” is someone who worships a god other than the God of the Bible. This god can be a imaginary god, or money, or even self.

1 Corinthians 6:9 (KJV) … nor ADULTERERS …

The “adulterer” is the person who breaks the covenant of marriage. A married person who has sexual intercourse outside of his or her marriage is an “adulterer”.

1 Corinthians 6:9 (KJV) … nor EFFEMINATE …

Those who are “effeminate” – the Greek μαλακός malakos – were young male prostitutes who hired themselves out to other men for sexual relations. The term used for these young boys was “Catamites”.

1 Corinthians 6:9 (KJV) … nor ABUSERS OF THEMSELVES WITH MANKIND …

An “abuser of themselves with mankind” is the Greek ἀρσενοκοίτης arsenokoitēs which means “one who lies with a male as a female, a sodomite, a homosexual”. In my lifetime I have seen tremendous battles over same sex marriage, where both sides vilify the other. The truth is that the Bible defines marriage as one man and one woman, and considers any other lifestyle to be against God’s design. The Apostle spoke of homosexuality in:

Romans 1:26-27 (NKJV) … God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

And the Apostle told Timothy:

1 Timothy 1:9-10 (NKJV) … the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, 10 for fornicators, for SODOMITES, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine,

You may not agree – and that is your right as an American. However I – in love to you – must speak what the Word has said. I pray you hear my unhating heart, and hear the Word of God and His Spirit. This lifestyle is no better than the other lifestyles listed by the Apostle.

1 Corinthians 6:10 (KJV) Nor THIEVES…

Those who steal (κλέπτης kleptēs) from others shall not inherit the Kingdom of God.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (KJV) … nor COVETOUS …

God forbids “coveting” in the Tenth Commandment. To “covet” (πλεονέκτης pleonektēs) is to want what someone else has, and to act on that want. God says:

Exodus 20:17 (NKJV) You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.

1 Corinthians 6:10 (KJV) … nor DRUNKARDS

Those who are drunken, intoxicated, who drink or drug so as to modify their behavior (μέθυσος methysos) will not inherit God’s Kingdom. The Bible says that if you belong to God:

Ephesians 5:18 (HCSB) don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless actions, but be filled by the Spirit:

1 Corinthians 6:10 (KJV) … nor REVILERS …

A “reviler” (λοίδορος loidoros) is a troublemaker, an abusive person, a person who hunts to make disharmony. The Bible says:

1 Corinthians 7:15 (HCSB) …. God has called you to live in peace …

Colossians 3:15 (CEV) Each one of you {who is born again} is part of the body of Christ, and you were chosen to live together in peace. So let the peace that comes from Christ control your thoughts. And be grateful.

1 Corinthians 6:10 (KJV) … nor EXTORTIONERS, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

An “Extortioner” (ἅρπαξ harpax) is a blackmailer who holds something over your head to rob you of something. So God gives us a list of 10 abnormal and unrighteous behaviors.

Sexual Immorality
False Worship
Cheating On A Spouse
Young Boys Prostituting To Older Men
Sodomy or Homosexuality
Theft Of Property
Coveting & Plotting To Get The Property Of Others
Drunkards or Drug Abusers
Troublemakers and Rioters
Extortioners

Those who engage in these behaviors as if they were normal are told you will not inherit the Kingdom of God. This may make you mad. This may upset you. This may challenge your world view. But this is what God’s Bible clearly states.

But what if you DO these things? How can you “inherit the Kingdom of God”?

Read the next line.

1 Corinthians 6:11 (KJV) And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

I do not hate anyone. I am sure that some believe me hateful for saying this and affirming the Scripture, but there is no judgment in my heart. You can do as you will. As an American, you can do whatever is lawful, and I will not interfere. However God Who loves you tells me to love you enough to tell you what HE HAS SAID.

If you are to go from Saul to Paul God will take care of you.
The way of the Deceiver is to justify the hot stove,
to tell you the Methamphetamine or Ecstacy or Marijuana is actually good for you,
that the bad sexual behavior is just a way of finding yourself.

That’s not true. God tells us not to behave in a certain way because though it may be lawful, it is not necessarily expedient. It may be legal by human standards, but by God’s standards it is dangerous. This is why Paul tells the Corinthians:

And such were some of you.

Every Christian did some or maybe even all of these things. But once we came to Christ, calling on His name,

We were washed.

God washed us of our sin. He cleansed our souls, and gave us a new beginning.

We were sanctified, or set apart from the world.

The way we were, we are no longer. God lives in us. The Holy Spirit abides in the believer.

We are justified, or made right with God.

The Christian, born again of God’s Spirit, is brought into a unity with God. We are His and He is ours. We have received Jesus as our Lord and Savior, and He is now at work in us. So no, we do not judge you. We merely state what God has said. If you belong to Him, you will do as He says. If you belong to Christ, you will not do what He has forbidden.

May God help you to see the distinction.