And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. -1 Corinthians 6:11
The passage above is Paul's finishing touch on his statement that "the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God." He lists some of those unrighteous acts; idolatry, adultery, sexual immorality, homosexuality, drunkenness, and thievery. It's a list as long as your arm of those acts that our human nature tells us are against common decency. That law is written on our hearts…including the hearts of unbelievers. Although many today would deny that, it remains a biblical fact, and our society’s frantic attempts to justify its actions prove the point. It’s not just perverts and thugs hiding out in back alleys anymore who go for this kind of stuff; we show it on almost every sitcom in America and laugh our heads off. It's the new normal. And don't kid yourselves, our children see it and understand. Tolerance is king, and when you can't beat ‘em, you join ‘em.
But here's the tragedy: the sitcoms don't show the end results. They don’t show men and women trapped by pornography, destroying their lives and their marriages and denigrating human beings (mostly women) in the process, or the free sex that results in one in four teenagers in America fighting a sexually transmitted disease. The "freedom" that is offered is actually a trap, and although we may convince ourselves that we are the exception to the rule, that we can control the sin, that thinking always proves spiritually fatal in the end.
Our passage we’ll study this coming Sunday is from 2 Peter 2:17-22. In it Peter talks about what the false teachers in his day were offering their followers. A “freedom” that would allow them to indulge in any sensual pleasure they chose, because God isn’t actually all that great, and he really just wants people to have fun and be themselves. Peter concludes: They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. The freedoms that our culture so boldly touts are almost always the type of freedoms that lead to slavery. And just to be sure that we don’t dare actually say that their teaching is a lie, they remind us up front that anyone who disagrees with the prevailing lifestyle is an intolerant bigot, a killjoy who only wants to make others’ lives as miserable as their own. Peter reminds us of the great dangers that lay behind this way of thinking.
As always, it isn’t all bad news. In Paul’s passage above we are reminded that those believers in the ancient city of Corinth were those who had plunged head first into this type of lifestyle, and it wasn’t all about sensuality, there are other traits mentioned that can still get a participant in these activities thrown in jail today. They were not a bunch of do-gooders whom God picked because of their natural holiness and invited them into his kingdom. They were idolaters, criminals, those who reviled authority, and yes, drunkards who practiced every sort of licentiousness. When they heard the good news of the gospel, however, they found a God who loved them in spite of themselves, and they were saved. Only then did the process of becoming ex-criminals, ex-drunkards, ex-idolaters begin.
“Washed” – that’s a great word. It pictures in our minds a cleansing, a removing. Who doesn’t enjoy a nice shower after a day working in the muck? That’s what those of us who have come to know Jesus are – those who have been washed, because we are included in those who need a good washing. We aren’t better, never have been. Line us up with anyone else and we see that we look the same, and there was a time when we acted the same as well. In fact, if we’re honest, sometimes we still do…the process has not yet been completed in us. But, thanks be to God, we’ve been washed. It’s reasonable to thank God for that good news today and every day, to always remember who we once were, and to pray for those who still are.
Grace and peace,
Pastor Jym