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The first experience of sex in the garden of Eden (Genesis 2) was without shame, there were no hang ups. But Adam and Eve fell away from God into rebellion and immediately were ashamed. One of the many results of our rebellion is a sense of shame and embarrassment associated with nakedness and sexuality. We now no longer use sex to worship God but now we can worship sex itself.

God’s model for us is to enjoy sex within a covenant relationship, a lifelong marriage commitment made before God of the body and soul to one another.

In sex we are looking for pleasure
We are designed to look for and find our pleasure in God. God intends pleasure for us and ultimately only He can give it to us. We look for it elsewhere but it can only give limited returns.

Sex is a magnificent gift from God but in itself it makes a terrible God.

In sex we are looking for love and security
We crave physical intimacy because we are looking for love, support, security, protection etc. Again God intended that this need was ultimately fulfilled in Him and Him alone.

A lifestyle pattern can develop of desiring physical intimacy and this, or the person who gives it, can become our saviour.  This can lead to a blinding dependence on people which can lead to abuse.

Defilement and the answer
The reason we are left feeling defiled is really the same reason we feel guilt. We feel guilt because of guilt. We feel defiled because we are defiled.

In the end something has to objectively be done to set us free and the fullest true answer is what Jesus alone can do. Through real repentance, which is rediscovering the person we should have been worshipping in the first place, we can be free. The route to freedom is finding our joy in Jesus.

Through the cross we can receive forgiveness and also cleansing from our sin. Part of the work of the cross is the removal of shame from us. It’s taken away. In our place Jesus has became the scapegoat, he became shame for us.

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Sexual freedom is supposed to bring liberty but instead it enslaves and controls people. We think that somehow our physical bodies are disconnected from the spiritual. We think that what we do with our bodies doesn’t affect us but it does. Jesus was a physical man after the resurrection and is now still a physical man.

The sexual act creates a union, we become one flesh. It is created to take place in a marriage relationship. Marriage itself is a foretaste of something greater, it points to our union with Christ, we are his bride. Also, sex points to something better, something greater. God created sex to point to the joy we’ll experience in eternity with him. Knowing God is profound union, sex is a picture of that.

Our application
We should flee from sexual immorality and deal ruthlessly with temptation

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Healthy Discipline

The purity of the church needs to be maintained. It must, therefore, be characterised by an atmosphere of ongoing submission to the will of God. Sin, once clearly identified in the community and in individuals, must be acknowledged and brought to repentance. When it is simply tolerated and perpetrators are allowed to carry on as if nothing mattered the purity of God’s people is compromised and threatened.
 
The more it is unquestioned the more dangerous this is – both for the church (which is affected by the bad yeast – v.6) and for the individuals themselves (who need the redemptive effect of discipline. It is meant to act as a safeguard – provoking people to a reality check and a sense of the serious condition. The goal is not to punish people but bring them to their senses and, thereby, draw them back into fellowship based upon true repentance).
 
We can be tempted to simply let things carry on unchecked and even congratulate ourselves on our ‘tolerance’ but in reality we are bringing danger on the people of God. The reality is that all of us practice some kind of ‘intolerance’ in certain contexts.
 
Discipline means that those who are not living a repentant life are not treated as if they are. This is NOT the way to treat non-believers. It is not our business to discipline non-Christians who know no better. We are not to be taken out of the world – not at all! So we must maintain our friendships with the lost and retain a totally non-judgemental attitude to them. But those who make out that they are believers but live an unrepentant lifestyle should know our position very clearly and not feel comfortable around us.
 
This is in line with the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 18. The goal is redemptive and it’s supposed to work.

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His Righteousness
Through his sacrificial death on the cross he provided righteousness that does not belong to us. We are now declared righteous and the perfect life that Jesus lived is now exchanged for our sinful one.

Communion with Him
We have not been made righteous to feel better about ourselves. It’s for communion with God, it’s so we can know God and have fellowship with Him. We have been rescued for communion.

Victory Over Darkness
Colossians 2: 15 Rulers and authorities have been disarmed (this is talking about satanic power). Although we can be led to believe that satan doesn’t exist and he’s just a comic book character, he does. His greatest trick is to convince us he does not.

At the cross Jesus destroyed Satans kingdom. Jesus has won the decisive battle over all darkness.

Healing
By his wounds we are healed. At the cross we find healing.

Grace for suffering
God gives us grace in the midst of our suffering. With Christ we will still suffer, we are not removed from the world, but God gives us grace to be able to endure and even be blessed in our suffering.

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In 2 Kings 7, Elisha promised that circumstances in the besieged city would be transformed by the next day. What seemed impossible became possible when four lepers who were already exiled outside the city realised that they had nothing to lose. They were already as good as dead. Why not throw yourself on the enemy’s mercy? Why not risk everything?

Having reached the enemy camp they were amazed to discover that the enemy had gone. Defeat was turned to victory. Not only was the enemy rendered ineffective, spoil was there for the taking. Silver, gold, food, clothing - they marvelled at it, ate it, drank it, tried on the clothes, gathered it, hid it and entered another tent to do it all over again! They had a total blast and it was all free and theirs for the taking.

Spoil is a strange word to the 21st century urbanite. Isaiah 9 promises that the coming kingdom of the new born baby will be like light breaking into the darkness. It will make men rejoice as they do when gathering a harvest or when they divide the spoil (Isaiah 9:2-3).

What on earth is ‘spoil’?
Modern city-dwellers don’t know much about ‘harvest’ and are not very familiar with ‘spoil’. ‘Spoil’ was what you gathered when you defeated an enemy army. Jehoshaphat’s army took three days to gather theirs (2 Chronicles 20:25). In Isaiah 53:12 we are told that God’s triumphant Servant will share the spoils of his victory with his people. Ephesians 4 tells us that he led captivity captive and gave gifts to men.

He’s a powerful conqueror and he freely shares the spoils of his victory so that Peter, who so recently swore and cursed and said that he never knew Jesus, was invited to take the spoils of Christ victory. This hopeless failure got to preach on the Day of Pentecost! A few days later he announced to the cripple at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple, ‘Such as I have, I give to you. Get up and walk!’

‘Such as I have.’ Where did you get that Peter? ‘Oh, that was one of the spoils of Jesus’ victory that I took.’ Jesus won a great victory. The spoils are breathtaking and you don’t have to be very special to pick them up. Anyone can come, like the lepers did, and put on fresh clothing, pick up phenomenal spoils and go in the strength of that victory.

We enjoyed looking at this story on Sunday at CCK. Maybe you would like to download and listen to it and enter into something of the freedom of God’s grace and the wonders of His free gifts to His people celebrating the defeat of your enemy.

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Throughout the autumn at CCK we’ve been showing videos each week of various CCK members sharing stories of how the gospel has changed their lives.

These videos have served as excellent demonstrations of the tangible evidence that Jesus changes our lives, heals our broken situations, lifts us out of our addictions, carries us through times of difficulty or illness and offers us complete transformation. There are so many examples of God’s faithfulness and care in the stories shown in these videos, and they point out that the gospel is impacting people from all walks of life; whether you are an ex-rapping drug dealer or a woman provoked by the miracle of  her newborn child.

They are excellent tools for evangelism and would make great viewing for those who would find these testimonies helpful or provocative. These videos are like seeds that can be very easily sown. That’s why we have put them all together in one place! It’s really simple to forward this page on and share these stories to those who may need to hear them.

Here they are on the CCK website; CCK STORIES

And here they are on CCK’s YouTube channel; CCK STORIES

Exclusive; here’s a video unique to the web; CCK elder Matt Davis tells his story; MATT’S STORY

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Transition is a popular theme at the moment as certain people reach a certain stage of maturity! So it was fascinating on Sunday to speak on the theme of Elijah’s preparation and release of Elisha as the one who would take on his mantle.

I have been occasionally speaking at CCK on the life of Elijah over a two-year period, and began on Sunday by pointing out that, though individual life stories can be fascinating, in reality they are not the whole story. Though one life or ministry comes to its conclusion, God’s story, the one that really matters, continues.

As a nation, Israel gave high priority to passing on its heritage to the next generation. Honouring your parents and being wise sons who obey parental counsel was hugely significant. Their world view was shaped by the rehearsing of their history and anticipating their future inheritance.

So Elijah’s disciple needed to be equipped for a ministry that would be wholly consistent with what went before while also developing new dimensions.

Elijah responded to God’s command and initiated what proved to be a loving, open-handed and respectful relationship. Elisha was wholehearted in his response, ‘burning his bridges’, saying goodbye to his past and throwing himself unreservedly into his God-appointed training programme, which proved magnificently fruitful as he ultimately entered into his own particular God-given role, similar yet different, discipled but not cloned.

Jesus told his disciples, ‘go and make disciples’. The apostles obeyed by starting churches, not for mere ‘church-goers’ but where individuals could be ‘apprenticed’ by others who lovingly accept them because Christ has, yet also take responsibility in ‘one-anothering’, mutual discipling, encouraging, admonishing, restoring and equipping.

Maturity and fruitfulness are the goals of a discipling relationship. We need to emulate Elijah’s and Elisha’s great example by embracing life-imparting friendships in local church life that develop us into our full potential in God.

Elisha’s final request, namely a passionate appeal for a double portion of the Spirit that was resting on Elijah, is a great reminder to us that we will never fulfil our Master’s ambitions for us without the same promised outpouring of the Spirit on our lives.

How can we continue the work that our Master started without the power that He enjoyed? Praise God that the promise of the Holy Spirit is for us and for as many as the Lord calls to be his disciples (Acts 2:39).

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Throughout the Autumn at CCK
we’ve been working through a preaching series from 1
Corinthians entitled - Alternative City.

This series by Joel Virgo began in September and will continue into the new year as Joel continues to explore the letter of Paul to the Church in Corinth. Relating Paul’s instruction to the Corinthians with our own 21st century experience of life in a city such as Brighton, the series has touched on issues like ‘alternative attitudes’ and ‘alternative fathers’. A brief summary of each week so far, as well as links to the audio and video content is listed here…

Read more…

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Admonition, Not Shame

In this letter to the Corinthians Paul sometimes speaks harshly but he is not trying to make them feel ashamed or bad. He wants to admonition them as beloved children. He speaks firmly and corrects them but only in love. This should be our attitude also, we need robust care for one another.

The church is not to be a lecture hall, admonishment is not solely the preachers job. We have a collective responsibility for each other and we all need to preach at, encourage, admonish one another.
We can’t change on our own and we can’t change by just listening to sermons. We, all of us, need small groups, zones, discipleship. We need community to grow.

The thought of opening our lives to other people can be difficult, particularly if we’ve had previous bad experiences when doing this, so we should always look to restore people gently. As a church we need to grow in this.

Power, Not Talk

Paul is utterly confident in the power of God. There is lots of ‘talk’ that we hear and can even engage in ourselves but the test should be how much power comes out of it? If there is no power there the talk is worthless. We should be on guard against foolish talk. The power is in the Gospel not in the talk and Jesus is the only one with genuine power not just talk.

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Security and Boasting

We can base our value, our worth on things totally inappropriate. But no one should boast in man. Boasting leads to and is caused by insecurity.

Stress seems to be caused by our need to prove our own greatness and we can often evaluate ourselves against others. Any peace we get from this is utterly false. Jesus confronts anxiety in Matthew 11. In this passage Jesus delibertely links freedom from stress to humility. This was the difference between us and Jesus, He really was confident in the God who works it out right in the end 1 Corinithians 3.21 ‘Let no one boast in men. For all things are yours’  This is why we shouldn’t boast - all things are yours.

Security and Faith

Boasting (in ourselves and our own achievements) is the opposite of faith. Boasting in God is faith. God runs everything deliberatley for your good.

All things are yours 1 Corinithians 3.22, including the world, life & death. He has given us everything we need for life. Life can be hard but it’s not supposed to be an enemy but we are to see it as God’s gift. We need faith to keep believing this - If you know Jesus you have all you need for life. Even death is ours, if you belong to Christ death is now defeated and we now have nothing to fear in death, it’s ours. To die is now gain.

To enjoy life we’ll need our character shaping, this will help us enjoy God forever. Can be painful and difficult but God is at work in you. You can’t enjoy God unless you are shaped to enjoy God. We can spoil our appetite on small momentary, passing pleasures but we need to have an eternal perspective. The more you are like Jesus the more you will enjoy heaven.

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